In the Pan

Bread baked in a pan is the most common form. It slices well, jumps out of a toaster with ease and absorbs local honey and butter's dressing happily.

Luke and I will have been married for seven years this year, together twelve. It surprises me to say we are still learning things about each other. One new tidbit is his love of the true loaf form. I found out the other day. He figures that fresh bread four or five times a week (with a prenatal and postpartum hiatus, now returning) is nothing to complain about and it's only accidentally that I found out.

My stone was dirty with caked-on cornmeal from prior night's pizza, so I grabbed a few Pyrex and let the French Dill rise. I missed the shape it usually takes on, laying on the stone: giant hamburger bun, enormous Pirate's Booty, field stone (all Betty's descriptions). Once cooked, I had a hard time getting it out of the pan and an even harder time cleaning the pan. I missed the knock-on-wood solid top and side sound as much as I missed the foot long slice, toasted on broil. The loaf still tasted good, it just wasn't what I was used to.

Skiing in the cool rain and fog is still fun, just not what we're used to, either. I'm used to east coast's ice and heavy dumps, while Luke remembers Montana's ice blue sky and light, fluffy powder. Here, we own something called a Ski-Gee - a mini squeegee that fits on the thumb and un-slushes your goggles. Here, we ski Mt. Baker and her short lift lines, insane terrain and awesome sights. It isn't always fog-rain-slush, just like it doesn't always rain in The Pacific Northwest. But if you waited for the perfect day, you might not get outside.

You know you're out of shape (or just had a baby or both) when the act of gearing up in the parking lot is exhausting, not to mention time consuming. Actually zipping up my ski pants was a feat, while dressing two ladies, breastfeeding another, assisting in potty breaks, and caring for truck-bound Tilly, our Great Dane/Lab traveler, was a full time job for Luke and me during the fifty minutes it took to get ready and walk to the slopes. It was sooooo worth it once we heard Lucy's song:

Snow, snow, snow

I love snow

Snow angel, snow angel, snow angel

I love snow, I love snow, I love snow

[repeat for three hours to the tune of The Dead's Shakedown Street]

I didn't know what I was going to do with Olive, how she'd handle the cold and how I'd carry her.

Well, she slept slope side in The Moby and seemed unfazed in the chill. I walked along the run, camera in hand & stopped once and a while to build a tiny snowman with my little resting skiers.

Betty, true to her nature, was slow and steady and a bit methodical about the whole process. She kept saying the words, "So, I make a piece of pizza with my skis and I fall over if I go too fast and I keep my knees bent and my hands out in front like I'm steering a car..." She psyched herself out, almost, just like me. At first, it was between Luke's legs, then with a harness. Many sites sell a ski-wee harness that you steer like a stunt kite or leashed puppy. Luke fashioned one out of climbing rope and it worked OK, but held her back. She had fun, but she wasn't doing it on her own and she knew that she had before. I walked along side of her, letting go of her hand as she took off to Luke, and that produced a lot of happy giggles. But when she just started out the run along side Luke, she had it. Tiny steps to that point and, wow, was she proud.

And much to Lucy's nature, she wanted to do it all by herself. "Do it self!" to be exact. She was having so much fun on the snow her happiness was uncontrollable and infectious.

She giggled until collapse between Luke's legs and declared, "no pizza pie," to our hollered coaching. She skipped that whole learning process and got right down to it.

Olive didn't mind chillin' slopeside, and inside, she seemed to like the lodge and proved herself to be an adaptable little bunny and future skier.

Luke and I swap lodge time now, but I look forward to when we all ski together and study the trail maps on the drives up. It seems like that time will be easy, more managable - more restful. But, that will only mean that these days have gone and these are the ones we're used to. Each one is good, just different. For now, we'll celebrate the present.

And here they are, smiling after a good day on the mountain.

Here, it's a full on commitment to ski. An hour and then some red eye ferry ride, a two and a half hour car road from sea to ski, then a reverse with the milk run late night two and a half hour ferry ride home. Add some extra time for the unpopular traveler who forgot to get off at Orcas Island, making the ferry head back just a mile from our home's port. Aghhhrrrrr. Sure makes us miss the eight mile drive to the mountain when we lived in Red Lodge as season pass holders.

This year I'll have been skiing for twenty five years, Luke a tad shy of that. So, it's no wonder we believe skiing is in their blood. Proudly, we can say this is Betty's fourth year and Lucy's second. Matt, Luke's brother, no doubt wanted to break this record and took a bunny run with Wyatt. Big Sister Maddie was testing out mountain's top while Mama Shannon looked on, smiling approvingly of her new ski rabbit.

Wyatt Luke Furber, 2 months, snow sleep-angel

Ahh, the skiing coastal cousins. The day we're together skiing with Montana cousins Meritt & Piper will be a great one.

Wyatt, 2 months, sleep-skiing

I want our babes to be prepared. Here, I've learned the importance of outside time each day, what ever the weather. When it isn't ideal outside, we prefer rain boots and these lyrics Betty made up one stormy day on Whidbey Island, a place with a lot more rain than here:

Rain, Rain

Come and Stay

Make the Flowers

Grow Today.

Things We Do & Say

I still never could have imagined the things I would do for my girls. Like seek out a donkey for a play date. Every single night, for a nineteen months to be exact, Betty has wished on a star for a donkey. Some girls want a pony and she wants a donkey. She wants one as a pet. And since all our pets have Native American inspired middle names, she'd like the donkey to have an Indian middle name. I want her to be happy but we will not be housing a donkey in town - I 'm quite sure the livestock rules that enable chickens in town don't apply to donkeys. I asked her if a donkey play date would suffice and she said,

"I want a donkey and if I only get it for sixty-three hundred days instead of for my whole life, I guess I'd still be happy."

Four hours will have to work. Hopefully, a farmer will come through. Here's the ad:

Wanted: Donkey for Afternoon. My five year old daughter has been asking for a donkey for a year and a half. It's her evening wish-on-a-star. I live in town and would love to borrow your donkey for the afternoon. She would also like to give your donkey a middle name, if that's possible. Price:? I'll make you bread if I can borrow your donkey.

The things we do, the things we say. I'll let you know if I get any calls from the classified.

Some days I feel like there's so much in this house it's a wonder we can find anything. And when things get lost, my things in particular, I lose myself in the search and become almost OCD about it. I remember at those lost moments that Lucy used to throw everything out of place away, a quality inherited by her Uncle Matt, no doubt, and we are still without a DVD remote (goodbye, subtitles). The other day I told Betty I lost my cell phone, on silent ring of course.

Betty said, "Mom, it isn't lost. It's just invisible to you. It exists, just not somewhere you can see it. It's visible in another place right now. And when you calm down and stop looking, that's when you'll see it."

How Luke. How Zen. How funny.

Maybe I'm trying to make myself feel better about clutter or my lack of Pottery Barn style, but I'm happy our home looks like children live here. We just passed the two year mark and I feel the most settled here, on this island than I have within the other seven towns I've called home. Here, there is no basement. Our children share a room in our tiny Craftsman. And when I say tiny, I chuckle. It was considered average when it was built scores ago and housed families with more children than we have. Yes, accumulated stuff has changed right with square footage but why would I need rooms I don't even visit during the day? So, I'm happy my children's art is placed on the wall beside ours, kid books spill daily on the Oriental rug and wooden play fruit ends up at our kitchen table. When I was teaching, I tried so hard to make the sterile classroom feel like home: lamps, area rugs and plants. Now, home, my house looks like a preschool. Go figure.

Stepping on the scale, I need to make sure I don't disturb a sleeping Ruffie

(Lucy's number one pal).

It's funny what Luke and I saved from our childhood. Some time ago, we cleaned his collection of Legos. With each primary-colored square, it seemed he had a story to tell. As a boy, he played in Montana's creeks and was lucky to live downstream from his neighbor. A boy spoiled, in Luke's opinion, with the newest Lego had to offer. This boy sunk, submerged and shot from a catapult into the mucky waters almost every piece we cleaned. Luke foraged in that stream and built his collection. The windows, trees and archways are, still, his favorite treasures. I'm happy to report our girls adore his collection.

I even remember the birthday I received the orange tabby cat figurine (pictured above). Every year, I won a birthday party at Enfield Roller Way. It was a way to drive up sales at the roller rink's concession stand, I guess. But I really thought I won for years, as did my friends. It was the year Cabbage Patch caused fist fights and Strawberry Shortcake was hot.

It's funny how these things fill our house holding our memories while creating new ones. Sometimes I'm too busy to really listen to their play and I miss out on the dialogue of it while starting a load of laundry or talking to some insurance robot on the telephone. But I'm thankful for the dioramas left behind and the items united around the house.

With a passing down of our memories also comes shared loves. I couldn't say enough about how much I adore Betty's love of language in lyrics, poetry and spoken word. It's magnetic. I write a play, attend rehearsals and home, she is, writing undecipherable script after script and putting on bedtime productions in our living room. Now, she's started poetry readings as a way to communicate the injustice in her world. Ingenious, really, because it gets our attentions so much more than the whining and tears previously did. I wish we could record all of them but, alas, hands are often full and pens and paper often out of reach. And then it occurred to me. Our pockets always have our iPods and on them is that fabulous Notes feature. While nursing Olive yesterday morning I was trying to decipher the screams, tears and cascading thumps down the stairs.

It's definitely wooden, whatever it is, falling, I told myself, I don't need to get up.

Then the strangest thing happened. Lucy said, "I'm putting myself in TIMEOUT!" and their bedroom door slammed shut. Betty entered, huffing, and seconds later Lucy entered whereupon Betty recited, holding a remote as microphone and a discarded bill as prose:

Lucy, Don't Push Me Down the Stairs

Lucy, your lips are as red as a rose,

your hair goldener than a trophy.

Lucy please don't push me

especially down the steps.

I didn't like falling down the stairs in

Coupeville, and I really wouldn't enjoy

being pushed down them.

Lucy, I love you but when you made me

drop my doll bed down the stairs and it

broke, I looked at your lips that are as

red as a rose and started to cry.

Lucy, you can always play with me

but, please Lucy please, don't break my

toys or push me.

There used to be so much drama with tears and tattletales and incoherent screams and finally we can see that slipping away. Maybe it's Betty's age or maybe it's that she really is starting to realize if you want to be heard, you need to step away and put it on paper. That's what I hope, anyway. I'm sure the dramatic screams will return, maybe even tonight, but I hope she doesn't lose her voice in them.

Lovely, Lovely Lobster (lob-stah)

A bit of lobster, of bit of New England and a bit of silly enjoyment for their parent's sake on a long day..

Luke with Betty, February, 2005

It's true. My ladies will grow up to say I made them wear crazy outfits for my enjoyment. And the beauty of having three baby girls is repeating the really good stuff. Here are my triplets, right?!? They were each eleven weeks old:

Betty, February, 2005

Betty with Lucy, June, 2007

Lucy, June, 2007

Olive, January, 2010

Four & Waiting in Victoria, B.C.

Looking Back. A stitching together of all that remains unsaid, unaccounted for and unclaimed as a complete memory from my third pregnancy into a present quilt in time. Here is one of those squares...

Victoria, B.C. September, 2009

"Wfewwwwph," puffs Lucy, "I'm gonna get a big wish on this dandy-lioon."

We closed the book on summer with a trip. With a babe on the way and summer drawing its drawers, we felt like we didn't have the time or money. But, it seems like every time we travel we return with our bellies full, smiles long and bank account in the red. It's how we roll: in the moment. Saving memories, saving sanity. And in the moment of August's end, we decided to leave the country for a last vacation as a family of four.

Luke wanted a sailing trip and I wanted a fancy hotel excursion so we compromised. Our summer island neighbors on Lopez were returning to Portland's hustle soon, so we convinced them to join in our plan. The boys would sail over, get their PBR fishing urges out and meet the mama minivan with four kids and counting in Victoria.

Mary Gage, baby Lois & Ben

Although we can almost see Vancouver Island from our rooftop, the trip took a good seven hours with ferry travel, Customs and check-in. DVDs, MLPs (My Little Ponies, as we call them) and morning-made banana scones kept the kiddos calm. Passports, Birth Certificates & official letters documenting we weren't going to sell our children and, in fact, had our husband's permission gained us access into the country. Somehow Ben, the other ragged sailor, entered with an expired Passport, which was great considering our men didn't have a plan b for not being welcomed ashore.

Regalia, Inner Harbour

Our hotel was wonderful, within walking distance to Victoria's Inner Harbour. September's start marks The Wooden Boat Festival. I had visited this festival before as a new Washington Islander before marriage, North Whidbey Middle School's teaching job and babies with my college pal Amy and had longed to return ever since. The Daddies kept the big kids at the marina and had an on board sleepover, while my pregnant self shared the room with baby Lois and Mary Gage. Late night chats were so needed and refreshing to pregnancy's insomnia. Without anyone to dress, tuck in or take potty, I changed into another address book, pencil freshly sharpened, and knit. I know it sounds crazy, but I would even check into a hotel from time to time down the street if I could just for the stillness of solitude. I love stiff sheets and room service a whole lot more than the afterthought rooms booked past midnight on rides back to Montana - rooms where you dare not walk barefoot or allow a baby to crawl on decade's old carpet.

I love Victoria as much as it adores tea (barely an espresso shop in sight) and really feel like I'm in Europe with old stone architectural details and bright flowers everywhere. I was most fascinated with book stores. I get so used to Oprah's Book Club picks and National Book Award and Newbery's Medal and Indie Excellence packing the front award tables here that I forget other countries have their own faves. Local Children's books featured a different spin on language and illustrators I, of course, hadn't before heard of. Hmm, funky tasting ketchup (tons of sugar added), authentic Indian food and Kindereggs are everywhere. The latter is banned in the states but always a requested item for anyone I know traveling there; I love Kinderegg's odd toys hidden inside the chocolate egg's shell, but I can imagine the lawsuits from choking hazards here. The girls would create an army of the mini plastic treasures, I swear.

kayak's take-out window

Re-Bar and Lady Marmalade were the greatest breakfast joints in town, while fish-n-chips at the docks weren't. Always, always, be wary of the self-described, "Best in Town." It was fun to walk around the docks. While waiting for our ordered grease, we stopped to listen to a guitar player. He sounded great, played classic rock's covers as good as the get but when he turned to the table beside him and whispered, "here goes the serenity," we decided not to tip him. He was referring to us, four adults and four kids settling into a picnic table. Our joyful and quiet eaters showed him. It was the sort of look you get on a plane if you're holding an infant. But, it wasn't all bad down there because I love looking at house boats the way Lucius loves big, local caught fish, too.

"Can I hold it," inquires Lucy, "pleeeeeassseeee."

When my belly felt too big to walk anymore, we sat and watched the street performers. Not having been to a city in a while, I'd forgotten how this can be a livelihood. Eavesdropping, I heard they actually had to sign up for their street spots and have something like a permit. While the girls watched some Irish dude on a unicycle juggle fire, I watched this guy. Not a street performer, but, come on, he should have been.

Maybe it's the blond hair, or maybe it was the matching foul weather gear, but this has happened more than once, more than twice. Japanese tourists following us, taking pictures leaning out of slow moving cars or taking pictures while holding a camera down low, inconspicuously. In each instance, their English has been few and far between their appreciatory laughs, approving head-nods and excitement. The Empress Hotel's Main Garden will always hold this memory:

I asked Luke if they were following us and he thought I was crazy. When they picked up the pace, I flicked his arm in a loving see I told you so moment and could finally have him along for the situation. See, every time the well-meaning Japanese tourist thing had happened before, he wasn't around and I know he chalked up my story as just that - a story. The woman came out of nowhere with a broken, "Girls, come to Auntie" while her family snapped photos. In the in-betweens, she asked if it was alright in a giggling and overcome-with-excitement sort of way. Lucy thought the lady was nuts, rightfully so, and said, "You're not Aunt Rose!" Then, we felt too taken aback to know what to do next, so we posed. They were so ecstatic they took one with our camera, too. And as we walked down the garden path to the harbor, they repeatedly turned around and snapped photos with a camera down low saying, "thank you, thank you." On the main road along the water Luke turned to me and said, "Well, that was strange" just as a car full of more tourists of Japanese descent leaned out the car window and took a crazy amount of pictures. Yeah, that's what we thought.

"Huck-y is driving the ferry," says Lucy. She was only eight months old when he died, but then again, "Dog" was her first word so it's no wonder her Huck-y goes everywhere.

The water taxi trips across the Inner Harbour were amazing. Not only did they dock at our hotel's marina, but they sped around like bumper cars in Pacific's chop. The girls loved our rides; it was a great way to see the boats while resting my huge, continually growing belly.

In the last photo, I see my first babe slipping forward. No longer big-baby-girl or Sweet B as we used to say. Soon, she'll be five. Now, she makes jokes, writes in a journal and is truly a Mama's helper. In that hat she tie dyed at the summer's past Farmer's Market, those glasses also named Elisabeth Rose and that teenager shirt passed down from cousin Meritt, I can see the girl she's becoming and I'm proud to know her.

Summer of the Play

Looking Back. There's so much I have to say from my third pregnancy: funny anecdotes, hard times and memorable adventures. I believe it's difficult to move forward until all that remains unsaid, unaccounted for and unclaimed as a complete memory is stitched together to a present quilt in time. Here is one of those squares...

Wow. September 22, 2009

Shutter to think, blink of an eye and: our first baby is starting to read, our second is riding a bike and speaking toddler sentences, the sailboat is ready to haul itself out of the salty sea, our house kitty has full-blown arthritis, our puppy is a mellow-ish [large] dog, we drive a minivan, and I'm about 34 weeks pregnant. Oh, and I've written a play. A real play. It has a director, a production date and a great performance space.

Sometime in the midst of beach play dates, excessive pregnancy vomiting, camping trips, exhaustion delirium, swing pushes, and kitchen cooking adventures, I've written a fifty-five page poetic narrative play about a lighthouse keeper's wife and her family. And, it's non-fiction. We should name the babe Shakespeare for all it's drama-exposed breath [hey, Shakespeare and I do share a birthday]. Something had to give for a play to become a reality and it was, in this order: gardening & landscaping, blog entries, sewing & knitting, fiction & poetry reading, daily floor cleaning (It's true. I was once an avid mopper.), and digital photography downloading/editing.

We try to soak up the last few rays of summer with beach forts and play-performances-by -Betty at South Beach. Below, she acts out a scene of an uncomfortable woman pregnant with rocks in her belly. Seems like I might be her inspiration.

Really, Betty dramatically says, I just can't do it anymore - this big, big tummy is heavy and all these beach rocks will call me Mama and I don't know if I can do it.

Summer rolls to a close and we build beach forts and look for whales that most likely have gone on to warmer waters.

You should see my cave, Mama, Lucy says, crawl in on your belly like this. Can I live here? Can this be my home? Can we come back tomorrow? I love the beach.

Yesterday was the last day of summer. I wish we could have said we spent it sailing & sweating from the still scorching sun. But, the boat sat idle at the marina while the girls rode bikes for a better part of the morning - tummy full on freshly baked egg-free carrot, walnut, wheat germ, and yogurt muffins and peanut butter and banana smoothies. At mid-afternoon, a nap held the household captive for close to three hours while a humid breeze had the curtains waving. Then Betty started dance season, clad in a white leotard and eager for jazz/tap. Lucy and I picnicked under the apple tree with her cowgirl-on-a-tin-horse lunch box. She calls the lunch box her "E-I-E-I-O" and it comforts her to carry food with her throughout the day because if you know Lucy, you know she's a champion hours-long eater. Since Betty packs one for preschool each day, Lucy figured she needed one too. Good thing I never parted with my vintage lunch box collection.

After dance, we picked apples from the tree. I was feeling huge and exceptionally tired, as always, and the girls began jumping up and down saying how great it would be if we could make a pie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah Mama we could roll out dough -- Betty

roll it roll it Lucy roll it roll it! -- Lucy

and peel apples and make one banana pie yeah -- Betty

nana nana nana -- Lucy

[for Betty's fructose allergy] and stir in sugar and look in the hot window and watch it cook and then we could eat it -- Betty

yeah yeah yeah.. -- Lucy

I wanted a nap, some E! news and someone else to make dinner. Luke was working super-late on a power outage.

Clean laundry was chanting: put us away, please, we're folded and ready.

We decided on an easy dinner: local nitrate-free bacon sandwiches, oven roasted on parchment paper and sprinkled with maple sugar, with grilled sharp cheddar on semolina bread with a side of steamed organic peas. I put on slippers and a nightgown and grabbed my favorite home cookin' cookbook, Margorie Mosser's Good Maine Food with notes by Kenneth Roberts.

Hot Water Pastry

1/2 cup boiling water 3 cups flour

1 cup butter, unsalted 2/3 tsp baking powder

2 1/4 tsp salt

Pour boiling water over room temperature butter in a stainless bowl. Beat with a fork until it is a smooth liquid. For best results, I like to half submerge the bowl in a sink of very hot water. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into the liquid. Stir together and chill on parchment paper. Roll out. Since the air here is salty and humid, I like to roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper.

Luckily, the girls are exceptional crust rollers.

Apple Pie

Line a pie dish with pastry. Pare, core and slice tart, juicy apples. I like to dip them in a bath of cold water sprinkled with lemon juice and salt to keep them from being brown. In this process we learned how good of an apple peeler Betty is. Place them in the bottom of the dish on their sides and close together. Add 3/4 raw organic sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and dots of butter. Wet edges of bottom crust's rim, put on upper crust, pressing the two together with a fork, using a crisscross pattern. Before placing the top pastry, we used a favorite cookie cutter shape, just for fun. Bake at 450 for ten minutes, then reduce heat to 350 for forty minutes, or until done. Bake on bottom rack for best results.

Betty's Banana Creation

As we all know, Betty can't eat fruit, so apple pie digestion is out. She cut three ripe bananas, placed them in a metal bowl and added [of her own suggestion] 1/4 cup wheat germ, dots of butter, sprinkles of cinnamon and, much to Betty' s dissatisfaction, not a cup of mustard like the recipe she wrote asked for. We rolled out the left over pastry and made a pocket with the banana filling, of course first using a cookie cutter to decorate.

Yum!

Island Domain

Born by the sea, all of my babies were.

Betty & Lucy were born on Whidbey Island, and Olive on Fidelgo Island. Water was an essential aspect of all of their births: birth tub, birthing pool and warm shower on a yoga ball. I grew up by the sea, sailed since six weeks old - even lived on a wooden sailboat throughout the Bahamas for a time.

I believe there is sea salt in my veins, making sand below flip flop feet feel particularly fine. My girls share this conviction, although they also have a part of Montana's high mountain glacial snow inside, reflecting off their blonde, blonde hair. Soon, I'll be able to say with assurance all of my babies were sailing before six months, outfitted in a bright yellow infant lifejacket and skiing before the age of two. I'll say it here, with photos, of course.

I had a baby by the sea

not one

not two

but three

by the sea.

And in celebration of the latter, I bought the domain name -

www.babybythesea.net

Since it takes time to pack up and move my old files in cyberspace, blogger will redirect readers from my old address [ babiesbythesea.blogspot.com].

Hello, it's me, Mama of three.

inhale.

If I don't write it, I might forget this life, right?

And, for now, just words, then pictures. One step at a time to get back to regular blogging.

Well, I have been writing, just not about me. It's a play, or, rather theatrical piece, a memory piece about the 1930s Limekiln Lighthouse residents and also it's a thirteen month project that is coming to stage. (I'd place a link below, but I've forgotten how to do that. Man, it's been a long time.)

www.sjctheatre.org

San Juan Community Theatre's Gubelmans' stage is showing my piece, Life at Lighthouse, Light at Limekiln, as part of the 2010 Centennial Islands Playwrights Festival. I am honored to be in the company of such wonderful island playwright talent. It's taken up a lot of my time, as has my other thirteen month project, Olive June Furber. I'll get to her in a bit.

I just wrote the prologue; it was the last part; the missing piece. I've got a dedicated Director, fine actors, vintage costumes, a great stage manager, a buzz-worthy artistic director and a calm sound/tech guy. The play is staged. It's now 51 pages. If I don't make time to think about it, I can't. Between spilled cereal, a dog barking to come in from the steady rain, fairy tale read alouds, diaper's wash, and breastfeeding, breastfeeding, breastfeeding, I get a bit overwhelmed. Slowly, however, I am returning to normalcy and picking up the juggling balls with giggles and patience and, more and more, without a pajama uniform.

Sure, I've fallen asleep on the take out bench at the Thai restaurant, on the tissue paper-clad pediatrician's table waiting for the doctor and at the dinner table, but 2 AM black ink scribbles are returning and that's what matters most. If I don't write, I'm not quite me.

And if I don't start each day with a simple, inhale, told in whisper, I just might forget to do that, too.

I began this journey long before Halloween, 2009, wondering what three children would be like, what it would feel like. At first, it was so much easier. Lucy had already shared me with her big sister, and Betty had already been a big sister. Adjustments were easier. Newborn care was steady and slow and, above all else, calm and certain. The pain of a tail bone, coccyx, broken for a third time in labor, was grounding. I'll write my birth story here, soon. Sure, I used a walker again just as I had in the past after birth, but I knew this time I would heal and I would get strong again. Even knowing that, pain slows you and hides part of your true self, so I went through that, too. But somehow as time unravels and the clock daily skips to 4:40 PM, or as it seems, it's complicated when it comes to fitting all the puzzle pieces together and sometimes I just don't like puzzles. So there's that, too.

I've learned it takes both an island and incredible grandparents to bring a child into the world. Grandmas and Grandpas traveling across the country to work behind the scenes at our home: dishes, toddler bike rides, preschool escorts, dance class delivery, grocery getting, granddaughter lovin' - it happened. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Over three solid weeks of meals happened too. Not just a casserole, no way. Local island folk deliver wild salmon, local greens with neighbor's goat cheese, venison stew, organic shepherd's pie, homemade soup after soup, fresh steamy breads, lunch delivery - you name it. As others often say, we were blessed - truly blessed. My favorite parts of meals delivered were the stories that accompanied the tin foil goodness. "I remember," and "During my birth," made me know I wasn't alone and made me see my future self carrying a basket of loaves, months down the road, for friends, postpartum. Those meal delivery stories had me reeling in the moments, appreciating all parts, for it soon would be my past, too, too soon, perhaps.

I know I'm lucky. My girls are healthy, silly and kind-hearted. They've always napped, slept at night and never been colicy. I have my beliefs: safe & natural birth, vaccination delays, bed sharing, non-toxic beds, baby wearing (car seats as car seats, not carriers), and slowness in their first weeks.

I read so many books my first time pregnant I can't even credit where this information came from: a week in the bed, a week on the bed, a week around the bed. Skin snuggling and swaddling and sleeping when you can - sharing this new love with siblings and, above all, Daddy. Our friends and parents made this possible by doing what needed to be done so we could welcome the newness of love's complete grasp into our family. Betty stayed home from school, Luke stayed home from work - Lucy's stories were read at bedside, Betty's crayons mosaiced the quilts. It was like drawing a cloud around our house, welcoming only wishes in. And it worked, and, wow, did it feel great. Olive is a nice baby - a true complete fit into our family.

It's hard to say things are going to happen and will it and wish it and smile as they do. But I miss coming here: my diary, my showcase for far away friends and family, my new-age baby book. I miss it. Like a bad habit, I've forgotten this place, made excuses, lusted after its completeness. I'm no longer a new mom and it's a new year. I can wake up, weary from the night before, and do what needs to be done. Hello, again.

And now for some shameless promotion. I do have friends & family flying in for my play, ferrying to the stage, sailing to the marina for the production. Dates for future set for DVD viewing for those that can't make it. I'm proud. I'm amazed I did it, throughout a pregnancy laced with continual morning sickness and bed rest. I'm thankful to those who helped watch my babes so I could write and research and think and attend rehearsals. Please buy a ticket, find a way to attend not just mine, but the other Centennial works of genius.

In closing, I wrote the Prologue for my character, based on an elderly island resident (who's attending opening night eeeeeeek), but in so many ways it sets my stage for what's to follow. Enjoy the first bit of poetry I've written in a while:

Prologue: I Love & Live in Limekiln’s Afterglow

[as read by Agnes]

Memory speaks to me

whispers in rogue waves

pulls me in directions like Pacific’s current.

Days like fog’s vapor, pass

stories like dew, settle

stories: recede & eddy; stories all tides of memory.

As sailors need their beacon,

families need their memories.

Full, I am - gone, my parents are.

Memory plots a course,

stories set anchor.

Memory

:remain

:carry me atop life’s prevailing seas.

Gone, but not forgotten

:always said.

On each day

:breathe this life & life lived.

Welcome

:to my story.