Special delivery

Dear (friend),

Enclosed please find two bags of gently used maternity clothing. Wear them in good health!

Love,

Clueless But Hopeful Mama




PS. I already gave the stained, stretched out, FUGLY, why-oh-why-so-many-horizontal-stripes-and-bows? maternity clothes to Goodwill. And I threw out the maternity underwear (?!) that would have certainly given you nightmares. You're welcome.

PPS. I know that the maternity coat seems silly. I mean, coats are already large enough, right? You'll toootally fit in your regular coat. (Except when you stop fitting it in COMPLETELY because your belly and shoulders and RIBCAGE are bigger than you ever thought possible. Then you'll be so glad that my mother insisted on buying me one over my teenagery, "But Maa---aaaaa" protests.) (Sorry if its pockets smell permanently like crystallized ginger. It was a rough first trimester.)

PPPS. There are very few pairs of pants in these bags. There is a reason and it is this: all maternity pants S U C K. Seriously. The ones that are supposed to go under your belly? FALL DOWN. The ones that are supposed to go over your belly with that unwieldy, stretchy cummerbund-from-hell? FALL DOWN. I pretty much gave up and wore elastic waist work-out pants, shapeless dresses and skirts with big, soft waists. There are a few of the latter in your bags but not many. They will remain in my closet until Operation Lose Muffin Top is more successful and zippers cease to catch stray flesh in their silvery teeth.

PPPPS. The obvious solution to the above problem? Wear a unitard!

PPPPPS. Next up! Nursing hand-me-downs! Nursing bras cut up to your chin to completely encase any and all possible stray boobie-ness! Nursing shirts cut down to your belly button to better reveal said nursing bras! (WHY OH WHY?) Fun times!

PPPPPPS. Don't worry. It's not that bad. (And if it is? It's over in less than a year.) Plus! One day you'll be doing this all day (though you probably won't have the double chin) and passing along these clothes to someone else with a smile and a grateful shove.

Moving tends to make me maudlin

I don't want any more children.

There is a tiny little part of me that will probably always want more babies. Especially sweet, easy, sleep-through-the-night, put-downable babies. Especially my babies.

I shudder at the thought of going through any more pregnancies.

I wouldn't mind feeling a baby flutter and kick me from the inside, just one more time.

CG and I know the limits of our patience, our money, our time and our abilities. Two children is our limit.

I will never know how much more my heart could expand with another child (and another). (And another.)

I will tire of diapers and temper tantrums and stomach flu.

I will never tire of first smiles and first giggles and first kisses. First "ma ma ma ma ma"'s. First discoveries. First time holding my whole hand instead of just my finger. First questions which necessitate careful, vague explanations beginning with "well, when two people love each other very, very much.....".

I don't want to stop time.

I just want to hold it in slices, preserve my favorite moments for a later date. When Zoe is off to college, wanting little more than a credit card and several loads of laundry done when she visits, I would take a smidge of her, age right now, and watch her run and skip across our lawn, right into my waiting arms.


I want to open a jar of Eliza, age right now, when she's 13 or 17, when everything is difficult and she won't talk to me and I'm desperate to bridge the divide. I would just hold her in the crook of my elbow, one last time. Stroke her downy hair, squeeze her thighs, make her smile with heart stopping joy just by smiling at her first.

Before Leaving California #7: One last trip to the Pacific Ocean

It is our last weekend here in California. So, of course, we had to go to the beach and say goodbye.

Because apparently it's been too long since I last forcibly cleaned sand from a certain toddler's ears. (New thought! If she doesn't care, don't bother! It'll come out on its own eventually. Brought to you by Two Children/Lower Standards.)

I like to rock the ring sling even without the baby in it. That's how I roll. Also? I like to face AWAY from the glorious ocean, read the paper and forget to bring any proper shade providing devices for my poor defenseless infant. Clearly I am not meant to be a beach person.

Fortunately, I think at least one of my daughters was meant to be a beach person.

Moving on

I leave this house a week from tomorrow.

When Eliza, Zoe and I leave it, it will look like it does now. Like our home. It will be full of our things and our lives. It will look like we could come home to it at any moment.

I will pack only a suitcase (or two).

While Eliza, Zoe and I spend a month at my parents' lake houses in Vermont, CG will be helping the packers and movers, flying to Virginia to paint rooms and unload furniture and make beds, coming to Vermont for a week of much deserved vacation before we all arrive in Virginia toward the end of August, ready to start our new lives there.

I wonder how long it will be before it really, truly sinks in that I will not ever be coming back to this house. Even when our furniture is set up in our new house in Virginia, I don't know if it'll ever register that there isn't still this house, just as I see it now, stuffed with our things, waiting for us to come home.

The changes have been coming for a long time now. We've known "Virginia", "small town", "new house" were all in our future. We've had months and months to prepare. I've spent countless hours studying pictures of our new house. I've planned color schemes and sewn duvet covers. We've picked out paint colors, ordered some new furniture and mentally repurposed our bookshelves and rugs and lamps.

I still can't wrap my head around it.

This home, our first home, will no longer be ours.

I've been weepy about leaving for weeks. It is too small. We're outgrowing it; we'd need to move anyway I tell myself as the tears roll down my cheeks.

I remember walking into our living room for the first time, its robin's egg blue walls- and ceiling- greeting me like a boisterous HELLO!


I was wearing a robin's egg blue shirt that day. It seemed like destiny (though we did repaint it a slightly lighter, calmer shade of blue).

We brought our first baby into this home when I had our second baby in my belly.

We brought our second



and our third babies home to this house.



It feels like this house contains their babyhoods. In my photos and memories, their important moments are colored by the walls behind them, by the view past their faces to the walls and floors and spaces we have loved and banged our fists against and wept on.

I will miss so much about this house. The lawn we replanted (twice) where Zoe learned to walk (and steal dog toys).

Also, the hallway where Zoe learned that Sweet Dog prefers the blue sippy cup.

I will miss even the things that drive me crazy, like our sole tiny bathroom, where Zoe was potty trained, where I labored with Eliza, where Zoe sings whatever top 40 song we've been dancing to lately while she washes her hands. (Though I don't think Beyonce sings "and then you squeeze them, squeeze them".)



I know that a bigger, in many ways better, house awaits us in Virginia. I just hope it doesn't take too long to feel like home.

I got a million more like these

My baby girl is definitely doing some serious honest-to-goodness, no-way-is-that-just-gas SMILING.

The only reason I'm stopping the non-stop picture taking, goofy-face-making marathon is that she's asleep and I'm trying SO HARD not to wake her up for more CRACK COCAINE smiles.

Falls from grace

In the weeks after Zoe was born, I remember my constant irritation with Sweet Dog who quickly went from beloved first born to a needy, demanding, irritating obstacle.

Now it is Zoe who appears suddenly large and dangerous, all pointy elbows and heavy footsteps. Her voice is loud and screechy at just the wrong times. Her desperate needs come, magically, when I am least available.

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"Zoe's such a GREAT big sister" I say to friends, within Zoe's earshot. The first few weeks I meant this, unequivocally.

Zoe is still so excited about Eliza, with frequent kisses and hugs and songs sung to calm her crying.

She is also suddenly "needing" the Boppy for her dolls and despondent when it's "Eliza's turn" on the Boppy. She wants my lap when I'm nursing, decides she HAS to bounce crazily on the bed when I'm nursing there, must have my assistance at bed time when I'm nursing Eliza (Do you notice a trend? [Luckily, she has decided that she is no longer interested in breastmilk.]).

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"Eliza is such a GOOD baby" is an easy thing to think, to say. She has slept all night for the last two weeks. She hasn't ever required the three hour nightly bouncing/shushing/hair dryer-on-right-next-to-her-ear sessions that Zoe did at the same age.

She will, at some point in the future, not sleep all night.

She also has had a few screaming->coughing->choking->gagging->barfing fits that come out of nowhere and leave us frazzled and confused. Does she have reflux? Did I overfeed her? Is it just gas and she needs more vigorous burping?

(Is she still a "good baby"?)

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I earnestly kept TV at bay for over two years.

Zoe just watched an hour of Sesame Street, then yelled for "more videos MOMMY!".

CG and I earnestly crafted family rules for the table (No talking with your mouth full. Wait your turn to speak. No throwing/spitting food. Clean up your own spills. Use your manners when asking for/refusing food. Ask to be excused before leaving the table. No walking around with food in your mouth or your hand. Once you leave the table, the meal is over. Clear your own plate and cup. OMG ARE WE CRAZY STRICT OR WHAT?) only to be unable to enforce some of them on a regular basis now that we have Eliza and her needs to contend with.

Having two children is either the best thing for Earnest Mothers like myself or the worst thing. I've spent three years reading all the books. I've spent three years explaining and caring and guiding and listening and reflecting and hand holding and setting boundaries and following through and BLAH BLAH BLAH NOW IT IS ALL FOR NAUGHT.

I cannot hover in ways I'm used to. I cannot always help her clean up every toy before she takes out another. I cannot ensure she isn't wasting water/soap/toilet paper when she insists on using the potty by herself. I cannot always intervene in her fraught peer relations during playdates, because I'm changing a diaper/nursing a baby/washing poop off of clothing. I cannot always help her when she asks me politely and calmly for assistance finding a toy. So then she melts down and throws a huge fit at my feet which begs the questions: when I'm finally available to help her, does she get my help? Does she have to calm down and ask nicely AGAIN?

She's clearly acting out due to all the changes in our lives. Her behavior is asking "So much is different.... is THIS different? How about THIS?".

And the answer, sometimes, is "yes".

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I am finishing nursing Eliza in bed, her face squished against my breast. My nipple falls from her mouth and we both take deep, heavy breaths.

I hear Zoe's clomping footsteps in the hall and she bursts into the room. I scramble to hide, to fix, to erase, like a cheating wife in bed with her lover.

I simultaneously resent the abrupt intrusion into my lovely little scene and mentally toss Eliza from the bed to make room for my first baby.

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I've heard that adding a second child to your family is like "dropping a bomb into the middle of your life".

To me, it feels like a house of cards, one that was so carefully built and so preciously tended, is collapsing in slow motion all around me. It is not so much painful and explosive as it is inevitable.

It will, of course, be rebuilt, with just as much loving, thoughtful care, but the cards are still falling all around me. The rebuilding will take time. It will look different than the first time around.

It has only just begun.

Before Leaving California #6: Get our a$$es to the Getty Center

It was a gorgeous day. Zoe was going to school after a day spent slowly killing my will to live. CG met me, Eliza and my in-laws at the Getty, a place that we've been trying to get to for years.

FINALLY, we made the time to bask in its glorious architecture.

Eliza really enjoyed the tour explaining the intricacies of the design. (Okay, fine, she slept through the whole thing.)

The bougainvilleas grow up through rebar trees. Gorgeous.

Eliza tried out our new sling. Mama's jury is still out on the whole "ring sling" design.

We thought about reclining nude with that gorgeous statue but the security guards prevented us. Douches.

We felt pretty darn guilty about not taking Zoe, who would have LOVED the steps, fountains, zig zag paths and tram to the parking garage. So once we picked her up, we went to the farmer's market and let her have a whole sno-cone before dinner. Because a huge dose of sugar seemed like JUST the thing to improve her behavior of late.

Pretty much a win, win, WIN for everyone!

In summary, get thee to the Getty!