2005 in review
A year of gifts:
- Noah
- Our home
- Our continued relationships with family of the heart, family, and friends
- Increasingly better health
- The vacation we took in March last year; without that, I think everything would have been harder
Really, despite the occasional valleys, this has been a year of feeling that unseen hand that pushes life at us and offers so much. I feel more grateful than introspective, really.
But some resolutions:
- to stay as present as possible, both just for us, but also to remain tuned into our son’s needs and joys and days, hours, minutes, and seconds
- once again, to finish writing things; we have done much better at this but still have that last hurdle for this book
- to continue to eliminate the drama that I create or can avoid, including staying picky about my friends. This year I let some things go and it was a good move, and staying on that path is a good one
- to be more effusive in love and praise and correspondence and phone calls
Resolutions
I resolve to write and submit more. And now I can tick that box off ’cause I did email my submission in to Obscure Literary Journal prior to the deadline. Whee. I feel like it’s 1992! Doing the obscure journal rounds again!
Although that’s a bit snarky I am sort of pleased with myself.
Now I want to found a literary journal called Obscure Literary Journal and go around calling it the OLJ.
Ha ha ha
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In the year 2006 I resolve to: |
Forgotten texts
I got an email about Waters of the soul - a ‘hey this journal’s deadline is the 31st, might be a match’ blah blah so I am looking it over again and the writing is so uneven. I don’t know if I can polish it up by then; how did I ever think it was ready to go anywhere?
But, I’m giving it a go. Electronic submission is a lovely thing. Short stories are hard though. A lot gets tangled up in the what to say & what not to say; all the noises of the hallway pressing in on that one peephole.
Food, Dominic, and stuff
Dominic cooked a couple of weeks ago. He made scallops mornay with an unfortunate amount of lemon. This is a fairly major event, given that he rarely fronts and up until recently seemed kind of uninterested in daily life.
Unfortunately, he didn’t clean up. If he has to be a mostly-gay-guy can’t he at least be stereotypically neat? We had a huge squabble over it. I realized that I have come to some new level of acceptance because when I walked into the kitchen and found a mess my reaction was not whathappenedohmygodIlosttimewhatdidyousay The End Is Nigh but: why didn’t you clean up the fucking kitchen and why did you have to use three pots?
He mostly laughed at me. Which is - good. Really good.
Food seems to be almost our marker for staying grounded in the present. The best sign that people are enjoying life in the now is that they start to appreciate food in some way. This might mean trying to get around the no-Cheeze-Whiz edict, or it might mean trying to make scallops Mornay. I have pretty much fully bought into what Lyr was/has been/will be getting at with her book, in that food is a basic connection to the body and to nature in some mystic way, and it seems that I’m not atypical of the system in that.
And breast feeding Noah is a lot like that too: a basic love-food-comfort-warm-mnn connection. And soon - at 6 months and not much before, on the advice of our family doctor who’s watched us struggle with various food sensitivities and a few full-blown allergies - we will be introducing Noah to food. And wow, won’t that be something else. It really will.
Ha
Remember that the best way to create harmony among others is to first establish harmony within yourself, SHANDRA. Don’t expect others to take care of you and attend to all of your needs and desires. At the same time, it is not your responsibility to dote on others, either. The boundary lines may get a bit ambiguous at times, but do your best to maintain a healthy separation. People may pull on your heartstrings in order to manipulate you into doing what they want. Don’t fall for this trick.
This is oddly well timed as horoscopes go. I love the harmony within myself thing too.
I think Teresa and I are more delineated this week; certainly I seem to be having the kinds of moments I used to have and I thought I caught myself arguing with myself rather heatedly yesterday, which is never really a good sign. As far as integration goes. Sometimes the arguing itself is quite useful. :)
Magi gifts: New love , old foibles
Yesterday was a hard day. I don’t know if it’s because we largely ignored Christmas last year - we moved all our things into storage on the 23rd - or just because it’s a family time, but both Carl and I were missing Emily a bunch, even as we enjoyed Noah’s wriggly self. On top of that I was having the sort of vaguely usual mourning feeling about our childhood Christmases, which came with a lot of wonder, gifts, and molestation and secrets and icky shit.
I finally went shopping, which is an awful thing to do on Christmas Eve, but picking out some stocking stuffers did make the system kids happy and giggly and well, if dropping $50 can do that, since we had it, hey. Plus we weren’t planning to do stockings this year and reversing that decision was - fun.
One of the things I was muttering to myself, I admit, before we each figured out that the other was experiencing Christmas angst, was that I had no faith that Carl had actually gotten me/us a Christmas present.
Normally I don’t wig out over things like that - in the greater scheme of things, getting something on a particular day is not a huge deal - but we’ve been in a lot of conflict over the work schedule that leaves no room for a real life. So I, I report ashamedly, was really getting myself into a tizzy about it and trying to give Carl hints - we’re out of espresso coffee, maybe you should go get some. I had mentioned a few times that I would really like a laser printer to print manuscript pages with. So I was trying to toss him in the direction of Future Shop or Best Buy or some other American-owned conglomerate.
Really. I was. Because I am a bit of a control freak who also has some trouble admitting to needs. It would have been so much better to say “it truly was fine that last year you got me a gift on Boxing Day but this year it is not and you have 5 shopping hours left to make it okay!”
Oh ye of little faith.
And in fact Carl engineered the trip to the mall so that he did disappear for an hour or so and I sighed with relief and even went so far as to presume that the stroller would fit in the trunk along with the printer box. And I didn’t peek… much… except I did spy a corner of something and it did not look like a printer. But that was ok. There was a gift there.
So this morning he brought it in and it was…
A serigraph of New Love by Daphne Odjig, out of a series of 100. (The colours are much more intense than the scan.) It was a print we didn’t buy when we were pregnant with Emily and tile and linoleum had to be bought. Before the train derailed, in a sense.
It’s matted and framed, so it wasn’t a last minute guilt purchase, either.
It’s beautiful. And perfect for me, for Lyr, for where we are in our life. I cried out of joy and gratitude and shame for the way, when things are hard, I lose faith so easily sometimes.
I am so blessed in so many ways.
4 months
Well my boy, your 4-month, that is 1/3 of a year, birthday was also the winter solstice.
And you slept a whopping 8 hours. Your mum, however, woke up about 8 times to make sure your heart was all right, after dreams about your sister. You breathe so calmly and shallowly when you’re deep asleep. And then there are the times you moan and grunt and snore. Who knew that baby sleep was so… noisy? But I’m used to it now. Before you arrived I was sure that at 6 months we would move you into your own room and be glad for it. Now I’m wondering how to make that transition ever, because having you right there is just the best. Another point for attachment parenting.
Your skills have grown by leaps and bounds this month. You’re getting really good with your hands and pressing things up to your mouth. You can roll over, although after practicing for much of a day you seem to have decided it’s not really for you yet. You hold your head up well and you ’stand’ when someone supports your torso. But what you are most working on is your voice - shrieks, shouts, and giggles. I would swear that you sing, especially to the Hallelujah chorus, which you love even more than Day-O.
You’ve started looking frowsy at the Underworld soundtrack. I personally congratulate you on your early rejection of goth music, but I don’t think everyone is read to give up yet.
You have a quirky sense of humour and laugh at crumpled paper, ripping paper, your new rattle, the piece of your swing that moves, and whistling. You also love to have things fly at your face and then stop before they hit. I don’t know what this means for sports involving balls, but if I had to hazard a guess I think soccer might be your game. Of course that would make me a soccer mum.
Your personality is amazing. You’re at that bubbly Gerber baby age and you seem to spend most of your waking hours smiling, although some of that impression is my bias. When you start to get tired or fussy you make a very gradual transition and give lots of time for me to intervene. You are an extremely happy, easy going baby, and it makes me feel like a dolt when it’s hard anyway, but mostly grateful. There is so much opportunity for joy each day with you. I’m leery of the narcissistic potential of the way you light up whenever I appear, but you know - I light up when you appear, so I think we have a reciprocal thing going here. It’s very much about us still, these long days where we are each other’s world. Oh your dad’s a huge part too, and after that your grandparents and chosen family. You are loved by many and you smile and wriggle back. But for the every day bits, it’s you and me, bud.
I took you to see Santa yesterday. I was going to forgo the Santa’s knee shot: it has so many bad connotations for me. But then a stack of Christmas cards arrived for us in the mail and I started to think about you looking back in albums and wondering about your first Christmas and I thought we ought to at least have one Christmas-looking picture. And then, serendipitously, I heard from JF about a Santa who has a loveseat because he doesn’t believe in kids having to sit on his knee and so I took you out to that particular Santa and he was in fact just that lovely and thoughtful, along with his elves: he must be a very close cousin to the actual Santa.
It made me sad though: he was at the mall where your dad and I posted some mail in December of 2003 when I was carrying your sister and we had stood right at that Santa village and planned out bringing your sister the next year. I’d forgotten that until we got there. And you see, that never happened. I would have cried, but you were there filling my arms and that helped enough to get through it. But now I’m crying thinking about it.
In your typical fashion you smiled all the way there and back but on Santa’s knee you looked rather stunned, because you could not figure out what all the big nutcracker-like decorations were. I think that picture is even better because you know, it is crazy, what we get you kids to do for fear of empty spaces in albums.
It’s a good, cozy world we have going. Most days. Then we have the odd day where we don’t find the rhythm and then it’s choppy and odd; you nurse, you don’t nurse, you fuss but I never find the exact right thing. But even that is becoming familiar.
Although we do need to talk about naps: you seem to have decided you don’t need them, or at least only cat naps, and this means that starting from about noon onwards you get progressively crankier. But right now you’re on minute 12 of a nap and I have hopes you might make it past minute 20 this time.
You definitely are developing tastes in your own way. You don’t like to lie back in people’s arms: it’s sit up, or else be over the shoulder. And facing out where possible please. You like to walk around new places in someone’s arms. You like your car seat if you’re not strapped in. You like to be in your bouncy chair and on the floor and in the playpen and in the crib, and held in between. If you’re held too long though you’ll actually reach down at the bouncy chair and fuss for it.
And you get bored pretty quick these days. I am learning about objects all over again: last week you and Lyria discovered her blue silk scarf is an amazing thing that shimmers and falls softly over your face and feels smooth and nice. This morning your lion rattle danced the Sugarplum fairy dance to the music on the radio.
Everything in the house seems new like that: the rim of a plate, the handle of a spoon, the brightness of a red Christmas card envelope. This new playfulness is another gift from you to us, and in return we have found ways to keep your day full of new shiny smooth hard soft bright dark big small objects. Childproofing is on the horizon, but right now it’s all about bringing things to you to sample.
You also have started to like books. To chew on at least, but you will sit through a short board book and looks solemnly at something - sometimes my finger, sometimes the colours. You love the Boyntons most so far, but this may be because I like them most too. You also like pictures of people’s faces. I tried showing you a picture of a gorilla face though and you didn’t smile at it. So I guess you know your species. I was tempted to see where a picture of Paul Martin, the person who wants to be re-elected Prime Minister but is screwing up and will probably deliver our country to the Conservatives, would fit into the spectrum, but I didn’t have one handy. (Oops, the politics snuck into your letter!)
You hate baths and so far we have not found a way to change that: the room’s warm and cosy, your bath has a nice soft towel in it, the water’s a good temperature - and you hate it all. I took them over from your dad so his one half hour with you (lately that’s a good day, but it will change soon) won’t be all unhappy. So now we have them in the later morning, and their removal from the bedtime routine doesn’t seem to bother you one bit.
After only a third of a year I cannot imagine life without you even for a day. Leaving you for even an hour seems the hardest thing. This amazes me sometimes and horrifies me at others but deep down I think it is just the way things are right now. I am so glad for you. Happy 4th month my Noah-Birdy-Bee-Benjamin.
Think again, ms. cardiologist
Noah’s cardiologist’s office called today. I really hate that phrase, “Noah’s cardiologist.” But he has a fairly loud heart murmur, so he has a cardiologist and we’re off on Jan 6 to make sure it’s just a murmur. I have one too, so I’m not too flipped out. Although after all the bad news on Emily (and the way East General, in particular, kept breaking it to us), it’s hard not to get a little freaky. Last night I was up about three times making sure he was breathing.
Anyways, the office called to give us the list of instructions before we go, which included “if your baby is breast fed, please bring a bottle of expressed milk or [get this] sugar water [!!!!!! I think not! Only if he were desperately dehydrated!]” So I asked why and the assistant said it’s too keep the baby as calm and happy as possible during the tests.
Ahahaha. Good luck with that, us. I will try to get him on a bottle anyway - we’re working on it - but um, yeah. No. But he’s generally a pretty happy guy so hopefully it’ll go okay.
Protector parenting
These are never as good as the entries in my head. It’s kind of like novel writing that way. But, here goes.
I tend to adjust to things in layers. I think this is human, but it may be more so as a multiple.
So first (not that it’s quite that linear, but anyways) I/we adjusted to the physical reality of having a baby, and my/our main concerns were not dropping Noah, breastfeeding, etc. You know, the kinds of things that all parents learn. It was tiring as I imagine it is for most people, but it may have been just a tad more (or less, depending on how you look at it) because we kind of took it in shifts so each one of us who are involved could get at ease with the basics.
Then I/we adjusted as a group. Or to frame it another way, we got our mum selves together.
So we kind of developed multiple-focused competence at the basics - in other words, I hold Noah like this, Magdalynn holds Noah like that; I’m good at tummy time, Lyria’s good at bedtime, but how could we make it fairly seamless and consistent and make sure everything was covered? This is something which you non-multiples may find hard to grasp, but it’s sort of like a team gelling; learning when to keep the ball and when to pass it, etc. This is always ongoing ’cause, of course, Noah’s needs change. But it still was a process of finding each other’s grooves.
(Families and parenting couples do this too, at least healthy ones. Carl and I are working on it, hence the occasional whiny poor-me post about his job, which is interfering with the development of his parenting grooves.)
Now I’m adjusting to parenting as my deeper self.
See, I can go through life half-assed, way more half-assed than a lot of people. And the scary thing is most people can’t tell the difference, because as both a multiple and as survivors of abuse we’ve developed the capacity to pass; to look and feel normal and competent and relatively together regardless of the emotional and spiritual realities underneath. And here language breaks down, because we all wear our social masks and it may sound like I’m talking about that.
But this is more and all I can really do is give examples. In 1994 we married Carl, an act that has been a real blessing in a zillion ways. But to me at that time, that act had the emotional importance of picking up the drycleaning: it was on my to-do list. It wasn’t about me; it was something I had to do… just like all my life things had mostly felt unreal like that, and I hadn’t yet understood that it wasn’t normal.
Or - in 1998 I ‘died’ and I came back in 2000, and very few people had noticed the difference. Now that felt wildly abnormal, not remembering over a year of my life. But life had gone on, “I” had earned paycheques and cleaned the kitchen and exchanged x-mas gifts and everything.
So, when I say I could go through life half-assed I mean that I could make space for other people in the system to be parents; I could remember to pick Noah up at school; I could be there for the school plays… but never really invest me, Shandra, in it. I could wait to be myself - and I don’t mean “wait to party” or “wait to swear” or any other number of things that should wait, but I mean literally wait to be myself - until after Noah’s bedtime.
I personally believe that of everyone, kids do in fact notice the difference (although of much more importance is that their needs are met by anyone), so it would be a loss for everyone. But probably especially for me.
And here’s the thing.
As a person of the type “protector” - sort of like some people are laid-back or hyper or whatever - I tend to resist fiercely any need to change who and what I am. Because ultimately my “job” or role or whatever in the system has been to preserve as much of us as possible against all kinds of pressure and evil doings (I do mean literal evil) on the outside of us. And quite often that’s gotten confused with resisting any ties at all.
But with a child, it’s a tie forever. I mean I know people do walk away but I have no idea how nor do I want to get any idea how.
In the face of hugeness - a lifetime of letting this child into my heart - I occasionally find myself flailing about trying to figure out how to reconcile the different aspects of me. With Emily it was both devastatingly hard, to find more pain and sorrow and loss and aloneness, and horrifyingly easy, because what was needed was my personal capacity to both grieve and to keep going. Not to get past it - you don’t - but just keep going.
And with Noah it’s reversed. It’s hugely easy to love him and want to be here with him. But it is also hard to stick with that and allow myself to soften up a bit and be willing to be “Noah’s mum” - boringly obsessed with poo - and not flail around and find something to fight about, or a crusade.
(Of course as I write that it strikes me that it’s a very feminist problem. And it is: we’ve chosen to be stay at home mum for at least this year and I think that’s right and all that, but I still suffer feminist angst. But no, this is deeper-feeling to me. This isn’t about what I should do; it’s about being upset at myself for caring about breastmilk and quiet nap times and those things.)
But I do care. ‘Cause I am a parent. And it is lifelong and that’s just - it. It’s a done deal. My fierce self-protective side screams: augh! But it’s done. Finished. It has occured.
He’s not outside of what I protect now, but he’s inside.
(Now the challenge becomes not becoming that mum - you know the one. The one that fights everyone “for” her child, when that’s really not what’s helpful. Although sometimes it is. But - anyway, yeah, a post for around when Noah starts playschool. :))
And I think I’ll do it over and have Lohr’s astral babies, because, why not. :)