baby by the sea

Even Keel

2010-02-28T23:35:00.001-08:00

In the wake of this week's tsunami warning, I began searching for middle ground. I need a consistent stretch without the ebb and flow of life's fluctuations. A long, invariable range with enough leverage to see the approaching storms and still sunsets on the horizon.

All I can find is peaks and valleys; it's been a long time since I've had a prairie period.

Although I once had a naval pierced to Jane's Addiction in a far away place in my teenage life, it's taken me thirty three years and counting to realize I've never had a middle.

Two weeks ago, I was at one of those high peaks I'll remember from my elderly rocking chair: my first play opened. One week ago, I was with a 103.7 degree fever, Mono's diagnosis and a week under sea level, under the covers. Peaks and valleys.

Three times in my life I experienced a peak and valley at relatively the same moment. Three natural births produced three lovely ladies and a broken coccyx that required a walker to maneuver the newborn period. But, wow, birth. I read every book and every research study. I became obsessed. I can't handle a paper cut, bee sting or stubbed toe but bring on thirty-six and a half collective hours of pure surge for my babes because I believe it's best. Natural. Newborn bliss with a seriously messed up back? I still can hardly walk a mile. Peaks and valleys.

I got a shiny red guitar for my sixteenth birthday that has many stories to tell. I once played it every day, taught by an amazing Danzig lovin' teacher who, painfully in his opinion, scribed all the notes to Neil Young's anthology and one Dead song, The Wheel. I skipped all the boring beginner stuff and went right at the peak of interest. Years later, it sat, dusty at high elevation, in Montana while I skied and lived and breathed love and poetry. At Betty's birth, I picked up knitting needles and a guitar pick, once again, and learned Old MacDonald, Twinkle. Last year I dabbled in a college course (the instructor later became my play's leading man) until my gigantic belly got in the way. Now I'm back past midnight with a head lamp, sneaking out of the bedroom to master Avett Brother's Ten Thousand Words. If I was an in-the-middle kind of gal, I'd just of practiced an hour a day since I was a teen.

I don't even know how to pop my own hood (realized the other day at battery's death) or change a tire, so I have no business talking about car repair. But when I took car maintenance by the wings and tried to act like a lady who wouldn't be swindled in the big city of Billings, MT I was ferociously attacked by the dealership's parrot named Hundai Accent. It latched onto my long braids, my suede coat cuffs and perched like I was a toppling Amazon nest. They threw me out of the dealership claiming I provoked the cage-free bird and grumbled something about youth and teens. I was nearly twenty three.

At thirty three, the peaks and valleys remain constant. I'm either ridiculously exhausted or entirely rested. Our laundry piled high dirty, or toppling folded and clean awaiting drawer's slumber. I either sew for hours a day for weeks on end or abandon my Bernina buddy for months. I either have enough patience for an afternoon with paper mache, ten library books aloud and toddler/preschool kitchen prep instruction or barely enough to get me through to night's tuck-ins and repeated bedtime refusals. Or, barely enough to tie one more shoe, zip one more coat, wipe one more, well, you know.

I like to listen to my music incredibly loud or really, not at all. What's the point soft, really? I like to know everything about the people I let into my heart; I have a hard time keeping a lot of acquaintances. And I don't think I ever really had a crush. Even when the New Kids on the Block were the "it" boy band, I didn't just have a poster. I saw them in concert nine times. Nine times. Thank goodness I saw way more Phish and Dead shows. What if the New Kids had been my tour experience. So, yeah, never a crush just truly, madly, deeply in love.

All Salinger, all Nabokov. Entire collections of those I love.

And so goes Solo Mono Mama Week while Daddy skis in Taho with pals. All movies, all kid-friendly ITouch Apps or all art and sit-on-the-floor-and-play, play. Each day Luke was gone we created something amazing, and each night Luke was gone I wondered why I couldn't find enough patience to make it to midnight. Each night I snuck into the spare room and locked the door for five minutes, for what felt like an hour.

But this is about the peaks of having the ability to stay home with two crazy pets and three little ladies and pretend I'm not an adult. The love of playing with that much fur and that many kiddos I created. The love, oh, the love.

Around here, we love Flat Stanley and listen to his stories on audio CD on repeat for bedtime's first few hours into deep dreams.

Let's make real-sized Flat Furber Girls said Betty with a mouthful of oatmeal.
OK, let's do it I said instead of sure, maybe later and we left the half eaten bowls like Goldilocks.

We took turns tracing out the bodies with black crayon on paper, and after trials with our one pair of Kinder-Ease scissors (seriously, we'd still be cutting) I took my Fiskars and the girls ripped and stuck what Lucy calls maggic bue tape.

Betty was going to draw pictures of the things she loved, of the things that made up who she is. I thought Lucy and I could flip through some of the collage magazines I've saved and we could have a scissor lesson and she could cut out what she liked, what made her who she is. And the two were going to work together to "make Olive."

Lucy picked up an orange crayon from the shiny new box of 64 and made a mark she immediately wanted to erase. I was just thinking to myself this is going great. I'm on my own this day with these folks and I'm loving it. I wouldn't change it-- and Lucy freaks out. Nearly bangs her head on the floor in frustration and continues that way for forty-five teary minutes. We tell her crayons don't erase, Olive wakes up needs a diaper and needs to feed, get a darker crayon and we'll draw over it, Betty needs help in the bathroom, I say we can flip over the cut-out, I'm going to love this art project and be so glad I did it ten years from now I need to repeat this over again, and finally I take a teary Lucy into the other room and a breakthrough:

What happened with the orange crayon I ask.
Sometimes when I do art I get nervous Lucy whispers.
What do you mean? Nervous? I'm shocked.

Luke thought awhile back maybe she didn't like to draw, but then some days she'll do it for an hour. We never knew what set her off to set her crayons flying through the air, paper torn and tears falling, time after time.

My babes like art I tell Luke. They came out of me; they like art.

Sometimes when I draw it doesn't look like it does when I close my eyes and see it in the dark. And then she starts sobbing. She's still two years old, my old soul.
Then if it looks like it does in my eyeballs, it doesn't look like Betty's. Betty's is so good.

My poor baby. I had no idea she was such a tortured artist; I've been so busy. I was crying, hugging her in the kitchen. I'll make time to do art with you and just you every day. We'll practice.

So we all used the magazine cutouts. Lucy made "round and rounds and around" for eyeballs and "sailboat bottoms" for her smile. It's perfect. I have a kitty in my heart and my tummy is full of alpacas. That's funny. I'm really funny giggles a proud Lucy.

Betty made a real life nose and took the time to draw some bones and a real life heart. They don't look like Valentine's Day hearts, you know. Uncle Skippy told me so. Her heart is under a cut out picture of a doll bed because she loves dollies and is a really good mommy to her babies.

Betty worked alone on Olive. She also wore a hand-me-down Christmas dress she loves because art is special so I want to look special doing it. She only wanted to fill Olive with yellow Ursa Labrador puppies because, Mama, any baby this sweet must be full of love and puppies. Olive has really long eyelashes, like the long green part of a flower, see?

Olive also has waves of breast milk inside. See?
Yes, Betty. Nice job.

And then they napped and I searched the Internet for something I could buy. Everything cost more than the one dollar I felt I had to spend, so I got thinking crafty. But, I had to wait for another day. I needed a nap, too.

:::

Most often, I sew like Jamie Oliver cooks. No real measuring, no pattern. That's how I did it when I rearranged Barbie clothes while sewing at seven. It's how I do it now, still.

It's occurred to me several times a day that Olive's car seat insert needed a makeover.

I didn't like the yucky pilled fleece in the car seat insert someone graciously gave us. I wanted a new one, but they're almost half a hundred dollars (I've been thinking in hundreds lately). I found a fuzzy pink receiving blanket I wasn't using and some scrap fabric from my ebay-loving brother-in-law that was left over from a super hero cape project.

I free-hand traced the pink blankie over the insert and pinned and tucked over the existing fabric.

Sew, sew, sew while carefully removing the pins. The next step was more challenging. I only had scraps of the seventies fish fabric I loved and the bottom insert had so much velcro for the car seat's straps, I felt road blocked. So, I cut random sized scraps and tucked and pinned the bottom segments.

I had to overlap the segments, but that was OK. It would look patchwork-y and would do the job of covering up the yucky old fleece. I roller cut the seatbelt slits, flipped it over and tucked in the extra edge and pinned a smooth seam.

I sewed in stages, like mosaic, with fun pink thread while carefully removing the pins.

Now Olive's got a good ride. I smile putting her in her car seat instead of thinking I should really get a new one with the money I don't have. The project took sixty-five minutes. And while it might not look like it origionally did "in my eyeballs," it's perfect.

Pure Joy

2010-02-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

It's been an entire week since my first play closed and the flowers are still in bloom. Bouquets delivered to door and at curtain's close still unfold to celebrate on piano & table's edge: daisies, roses, snapdragons, lilies.

And outside, blossoms tell me snow will not arrive, no, not this year. Daffodils will open before week's end and our freshly mowed grass has left me sneezing.

I battled a bit of postpartum depression with my previous babes and I'm happy to report I am not a soldier for that fight this time around. Sure, it feels as though I crawled around in the trenches for a few weeks, a month or two ago, but I've added an element to my days that was missing before.

Pure joy. When I see it I say those two words aloud in its recognition. It seems simple, right? All around us, so often unclassified, unacknowledged. It's Olive's eyes, meeting mine with the sideways smile on her dimple-less face. It's listening to Betty and Lucy share a battery candlelit bubble bath while whispering stories to one another. It's so many things, really, that I know what it is NOT and choosing to give name to those moments, however small, are no help to me: sibling squabblery, laundry's dirty pile, dog's incessant bark. I'm choosing to breathe through those moments, tight lipped. They make less of an impression that way. This realization came after Betty said one feuding Monday morning,

"Lucy, Betty Said, "Don't you know you shouldn't repeat all the bad words mommy says?"

Now, don't get the wrong idea. I wasn't a tyrant with tourette's. I was just declaring every situation for what it was with a giant lack of sarcasm. Now, I only choose to declare the moments of Pure Joy. And since the announcement of each one, I realize how abundantly enriched we are.

Being serenaded on my grandmother's piano by a dear and talented friend as our reunited children play: Pure Joy.

Getting on the mossy ground beside little hands and tiny feet to witness an enormous slug's adventure: Pure Joy.

Visiting our friend's farm to meet day old lambs whose umbilical cords were still all pink and hangie. So new, those lambs. Such joy on the faces of babes meeting babes: Pure Joy.

Lucy May Meets a Lamb

Sam Smiles for the Lamb

Call me crazy, but you can even see it on the Mama Sheep, proud in her pen at ocean's side. The sheep's farmer told me she wasn't a good mom. As if I hadn't already known, I knew then I wouldn't make a good farmer. Shhhhh, don't say it so loud I wanted to say. She might hear you I wanted to say. Now, I don't know what makes a good Mama sheep but, there, in the sunlight by her newborn babes she looked fine to me.

Guard Sheep, San Juan Valley Road

I've had my fifteen minutes of fame and it was glorious. I savored each second. Life at Lighthouse, Light at Limekiln was in sold out's full bloom last week. 12 free verse poems, 52 pages: a memory piece in narrative verse about 1930s Limekiln Lighthouse residents: Pure Joy.

The Director brought the words from my pages to the stage with such craft and vision I am left astounded. The talented, talented Actors recreated these lives in history so beautifully I'm in awe. The Photographer who provided the projected stills, the Sound Technician who created the ambiance, The Theatre for paving the way to showcase history through story, and on, and on and on. Awe. Joy. My parents who traveled across the country, my brother-in-law and family who traveled across the county, my best gal pals who traveled from a neighboring island, and the editor/best friend who came from inland: Joy. Telephone calls from those in my heart who couldn't be near; the family I've created here on the island through friendship and acquaintances who came from the community leave me feeling so supported, so loved: Pure Joy.

Teacher Pals, Best Whidbey Buddies

Emily and Me

I've worn many invisible name tags throughout my adult life: tortilla chip & salsa maker, barista, Poet, Teacher, & Mama. And because I felt I had a story to tell, I can now add Playwright to the list.

Limekiln Lighthouse

In the 1930s a girl lived by the sea, beside a lighthouse. She was the youngest of five. Her name is Agnes, and she lives down the street from me now. Betty presented her with flowers opening night and all throughout the performance, I kept leaning forward to see what she thought of the show. Her grandson and date for the evening was rendered speechless. After time, he told me he missed his great grandmother so much; it was as if he had been able to listen to her wisdom again.

All Agnes said to me opening night was that I had made a few mistakes. As it so happens, I switched which brother joined up to fight in WWII first. Chuck went first, then Jack. Sure, just names to me but an absence in her heart remembered. How did I miss that? I apologized. It was hard to turn and accept flowers and handshakes swallowing the mistake. At least I told her story through poetry, through her best of times and through joy. I told it while carrying my final baby girl in a tough pregnancy and while caring for my two year old and four year old. Maybe that allowed for one mistake, overlooked and lingering.

For a long time, I only felt that. Not the applause, the teary patrons congratulating me, the other writers asking processes' specifics. Only that I made a few mistakes. That one line floated me out of the theatre on a wind of uncertainty. Well, Agnes called the next day and heartwarmingly thanked me for telling her family's story and for making her a celebrity. She went on and on. And for that, for people to come to recognize her as the lighthouse keeper's daughter, for that I am grateful. In that telephone call from Agnes what she could hear through my voice, that was Pure Joy. She never said that "mistake" word, only words of love. And what I heard from others in the following nights curtain's close applause, congratulatory remarks by theatre's door or grocery's check-out isle is, also, Pure Joy.

I am also grateful that the audience, night after night, got it. Twelve free-verse poems tell the story in a non-linear way, non-chronologically. Someone dies in the middle, then in the next scene they're dancing a jig. People weren't confused, as I feared. They followed. They really laughed at the funny parts, hung onto my carefully chosen words from scene to scene and, some, were actually moved to tears at curtain's close. It felt good to move people in the way that Agnes' story moved me. Seeing people react pleasantly to my fourteen-month labor of love: Pure Joy.

Betty Beside Agnes Linguist Settles Murray's Childhood Lighthouse Home

When Agnes arrived at the lighthouse, there were only roses in the house's eves, hollyhocks and one Western Red Cedar.

That One Western Red Cedar

Agnes would go down with her Daddy to wind up the light and wave to whales from lighthouse's deck.

My Family at Lighthouse's Door

And so goes the tale, only in narrative verse. It seemed fitting to visit The Light a day after production's close. We skipped stones at the tide pool beach around Dead Man's Bay:

Luke Skipping Rocks, Vancouver Island, British Columbia in the Distance

We talked about how calm & quiet it was with The Olympics 'round the bend and with The Olympic Mountains in front. So calm and quiet, hard to believe our Cincinatti guests would fly back inland at midnight. They soaked up as much of the Pacific Northwest as they could.

Sam and Emily Looking out at Haro Strait

Dead Man's Bay with The Olympic Penninsula in the Distance

Still...

2010-02-21T12:44:00.001-08:00

02.10.10
In five o'clock's flurry of take-out pizza and familiar evening routines, I forgot to check my calendar.

As I stood breast feeding with coat, unzipped, at door's edge while Luke searched for truck's keys, I took in the sights of floor puzzles, half naked babes resisting bath tub's bubbles amidst my parents, Florida Grammy & Grandpop.

I couldn't hand our dreary infant over fast enough. It wasn't that I had a bad day; it was fine. Something just happened at that moment that made me want to run. I noticed the rare opportunity where Luke and I got to go out the door kid-less and I couldn't wait. I wanted to run. As the truck pulled away from our house I joked that we should see if there was a ferry leaving and just get on it and keep going.

Why? Luke asked.
Do we need a reason? Doesn't an adults only road trip sound enjo..
and I stopped mid-word.

I caught the pile of car seats in my peripheral. Futile pretend conversation I told myself as we pulled into the theatre for Dress Rehearsal.

The door was open, the theatre was empty. We sat in the dim lit room, silent for about ten minutes in some sort of half awake half dreamy consciousness.

I peacefully declared: No laundry, no squabbles, no books to read, no baby to feed, no dog to tie out and wait, Luke added, no noise at all. We sat for another five minutes in silence. It seemed like the greatest date in a long time. We were just being, just still while just together. Just us. I loved it.

You know, it's occurring to me that we're here at the wrong time.
I think it starts at 7:30, not 6:00. I said.
So? Luke said.

And just like that, we held hands in the big quiet building.

Some time later, we remembered the Chess Ap on the iTouch. Oh, lovely technology. And, oh, how lovely it was to play in the giant room, so still.

The Father Daughter Dance is just another reason on the long list of reasons I love living here. It's almost a rush to get tickets; it nearly sells out. One is just as likely to see a decked out daddy boogieing with his two year old as one is to see a giddy daughter in her fifties dancing with her elderly father.

And, so, off comes the grease from daddy's fingertips and on go the wing tips. The ladies happily adorned in dresses with matching minis for their dollies couldn't wait to for their date. The Mullis Center, packed, with line out the door. Inside, dates are handed coursages from volunteers and a prom-type photo is taken against a blue foil background. Since Mamas aren't allowed inside, this is the only digital I got, red-eye and all..

We're so dressed up it's like Daddy is our prince.

Betty

After dropping them off, I wanted to spy in the bushes: ties and pigtails jumping to Chumbawamba and other beats. All daddies, all smiles and glee. I drove on with Olive to our mommy date at the seaside resturant. What a great night out for a gals night out. But I couldn't help but laugh. Could you imagine if I had asked Luke to attend some parent 'ball' and take me dancing to top 40 hits?! I barely got him to dance at our wedding to Etta James' At Last. He wore his wedding suit to the dance. Ahhh, what he does for those gals is so, so great.

I've forgotten how much babies get you down low on the ground for long periods of the day. My other ladies are growing up and with that it's just that, up with me on the furniture.

Betty and Lucy love setting up "baby tents" and "baby lands" on the floor. Bordered by infant books, rattling stuffed animals and other baby lovies, Olive lies kicking, drooling and cooling while her big sisters sing songs made up for her.

Tummy time, tummy time - well, it turns into watch me roll over time. I was lucky enough to capture the moment of mastery. Although the pictures aren't spectacular, the gist is here:

Ugh, tummy time is hard work.

Hi, there.

Here I go; let me swing my big noggin around...

What was that?

I really liked that.

Now, some kicks of joy.

Time still rolls on. What used to pass like weeks, now passes like months. Blink. Something new to celebrate. Today, I celebrate a babe, asleep, with arms above her head. Only last week she was still hands together at chest, in utero style. Now, Olive likes to snooze on the sofa, arms outstretched. Since her new rolling trick, we're hesitant to let her do so without a rolling baracade.

Sweet dreams.

In the Pan

2010-02-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-01-25T17:39:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-01-24T13:40:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-21T08:04:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-19T16:10:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-01-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Sasquatch

2009-06-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

On of my favorite pictures of me as a baby was taken during nap time when I'm about two years old. I'm lying in a bunk, maybe on a sailboat or at my grandparent's lake house, with huge headphones on - the kind that are black vinyl and plug into the 8-track or record player. I bet Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues or Fleetwood Mac was blaring, drowning out the adult noise in the background. I believe I've needed loud music in my life since then, and have vowed to start our children out with a love of music.

I'm not sure if it is because we are no longer in our early twenties or that we have kids, but concerts are a lot different these days. And when we told people we were headed to the Gorge for a three day music festival with our babes in tow, two nights of camping in our new tent, most thought we were crazy. Then we had to remind ourselves that our kids are super adaptable because of all the places they go and have been: restaurants, doctor appointments, Washington D.C. Smithsonian museums, weddings, Texas, movie theaters, sail trips, skiing, etc.

Maybe one bonus of not living by family is having highly adaptable children that can and do go everywhere and behave well with you because it is so hard to find people to watch them both at a moment's notice and time and time again.

We bought tickets long before I knew I was pregnant, and the only change I made after the fact was the inclusion of a cot on our packing list. Hey, this Mama doesn't sleep on the ground! We caravanned with Luke's brother Matt and his soon-to-be-baby-mama, Shannon. She's due six weeks after us and the way babies arrive, they might even be born on the same day.

Shannon also has a daughter named Maddie who, as a Freshman in high school, is way more grounded, polite and generally on top of it all than I ever was. So, way to go Shannon. And, we're all pretty excited about this new family inclusion.

Just over 43,000 people came to the sold out show, and maybe 5,000 suckers (including us) shelled out extra money for something called Premier Camping.

With this coveted arm band as entrance only into the site, the premiers received a total of ten yucky porta-potties, a drippy sink for washing hands and four showers with hours-long waits. All this aside, the Gorge looks like a Hollywood backdrop or mini-Grand Canyon with over ninety degree daytime heat and typical high desert forty-five degree nights. A generator-run RV with only speakers as its body provided sound for the after show techno dance party less than 1/8 mile away that lasted until six o'clock a.m. I'm so glad our kids have never been able to sleep through silence. They've always needed the rush of a fan, loud CDs like Winnie The Pooh's soundtrack or much better Gillian Welch or their current favorite The Shins and a night light, or in this case, rave-strobe lights. The thousand or so "woooh hooo" -ers danced like me, only thirteen years ago. And as I laid awake in our tent, watching our ladies snooze on through, I couldn't help but think, yeah, my life has changed a bit but at least Luke and I can still rock out. We set our tent up to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kings of Lean and Mos Def. Their lyrics traveled with the setting sun over to our s'more-crazed feast.

There were so many people at the show that were five years old when Janes Addiction was first playing, loud through Longmeadow speakers and in the back of my friend's green Mustang! Walking around, we felt a bit old, and me, pregnant. We nodded to the two other families we saw and laughed at the horror on some of the faces, "Wow, you're like really pregnant. So when you pee, it is because something inside of you is peeing and you actually pee out its pee." And the teenage astonishment of me turning down their offered smoke had me wondering, where is it o.k. for pregnant ladies to smoke and party?

The Bob Dualie stroller was a lifesaver. It provided shade, a place for the ladies to sit and a way for them to not be flip-flop or dirty bare-feet trampled as we meandered our way through the various stages for music. As our Sherpa it held the night-night blankies and stuffed friends, as well as a change of clothes for nighttime chilly breezes. Thirteen hours of concerting takes a lot of stuff, you know. Parking it on the main stage lawn and reclining their seats gave them a great place to nap and sleep. On my frequent bathroom runs or traverses to the gyro and noodle hut, I could always find my way back. And, silly concerters thanked us for bringing the 'baby carriage' so they could find their friends after their incoming text had arrived: "we're at the main stage, sitting by the baby carriage.." When the token outdoor concert beach ball flew through the crowd people made sure it made its way back to Betty, time and time again.

The Avett Brothers were so incredible I would drive hours and hours to see them play again, and would highly encourage others to do the same. The Airborne Toxic Event was full of fun, but it was the Murder City Devils that had me feeling like an old lady as I plugged my ears. Yeah, I like punk and I like screaming music but not when you can't hear the lyrics and what you can hear is all shock value. ( Inch Nails was a huge shock - I really, really liked them and they sounded amazing, truely.

Folks around us cheered at Betty dancing with her pig, Wilbur, and were thrilled when Lucy joined in with her tiny dog Ruffey for their 9 Inch Nail hour-and-a-half rock out. And just before Janes Addiction took the stage, we placed both gals in their pajamas and tucked them in with their blankies. As soon as the stroller shades went down, they were out. Perry Ferrell sounded better than he had at the Halloween show at Hammerstein Ballroom in '97. Maybe it was the sunset over the gorge or the feeling that it was just us as we sat in front of the stroller, but it rocked. Luke and I loved the show, and couldn't believe the girls slept all the way even to their tent-sleeping-bag transfer nearly four hours later.

As we walked back to our campsite, all you could see were their tiny Converse All-Star feet poking out. And, of course, exiting the main gates people made the "mooo" sound as thousands of thousands of people tried to all fit on a tiny narrow walkway. The high fives of, "rocker kids...nice...starting them young" were funny. I wondered what I would have said a decade and a half ago, at all my concerts it I say some cool-looking parents and their babes? And, I wonder what the girls we say about it, years to come.

Wow, Time Flies

2009-06-12T08:58:00.001-07:00

Ahh, I used to love to blog regularly. And I still would, if only I could clone myself. There's so much that hasn't appeared on this site that I wanted to put here as a record of our life. So is life, I guess. Now like the start of a Blog Neglecters Anonymous meeting:

Hello. It's been four months since my last post.

On Valentine's Day at Mt. Baker, I thought I was nursing a hangover from two PBRs - cold ones toasted the evening of my last poetry reading. The reading was great, but the ill feelings were so bad, I thought I must be allergic to alcohol. Yet as the prior post shows, we all had fun making turns that day, regardless. What's that saying? Oh, a bad day on the mountain is better than no day.

By the first week of March, I was still feeling hung over. My jeans weren't fitting, I took really long naps and ate strange things like bowls of plain yogurt and drank lemon juice. I even ran, to ward off the pounds. The fertility drugs I had taken in our two previous previous pregnancies lead me to believe I must have some terminal illness and, certainly couldn't be pregnant like baby-mama-group buddy Natalia suggested on day.

I'll remember the nine o'clock pink plus sign for the rest of my life; images of three children under five years old flashed before my eyes, myself in curlers (wait, I don't even wear those!), and piles of laundry on the couch hiding nautical charts and ski gear flashed before my eyes in a sweaty panic. But wait, I tried to tell myself. Hadn't I always wanted this? Through dozens of past fertility pills I had dreamed of casually finding out I was pregnant, instead of making it so in a doctor's office. The grass is always greener, I supposed.

Instantly, my body remembered where it had been before. None of my favorite fancy jeans would button, so I was sure I was further along than the 5 1/2 weeks our initial ultrasound showed. My thyroid levels quickly bottomed out, and I threw up, on average, of ten times a day for three solid months. It made me lose all personality, and break down in places like the grocery store when someone would ask how I was doing. Betty's book-on-tape addiction grew to phenomenal heights, and she and Lucy would listen to book after book from the library while I traveled from couch to bathroom. Even the mama-dolly in their doll house was positioned next to its tiny wooden potty.

I lost thirteen pounds. I even traveled to Florida for a wonderful three week vacation with the ladies for a Grandparent Beck visit. The beach and rest was just what our midwife ordered, and the sunshine had us aglow with daily swims, lizard sightings and dolphin views. But, man, did we miss daddy when we traveled back home. I'm sure strangers still talk about the pregnant lady with two small kids who held a gallon Ziplock to her chin at all times through the terminal and on the airplane. Or, hopefully, they talk of the big sister that fed her little sister on the plane, tucked her in to her seat and read her nap stories on our thirteen hour journey home.

I'm 18 1/2 weeks now. No more sickness, just insatiable hunger. My body looks six months pregnant, but hey, I hear a basketball under your t-shirt is the new fashion accessory of the summer. I can feel the avocado-sized human doing back flips at night; butterfly flutters abound. We have a midwife but, sadly, will have to deliver at the mainland's hospital as home birth on the islands is a scarce practice. At least we got to have that magical experience with Lucy May. So, we have a pilot-pal who will fly us to Orcas to pick up our midwife & doula, then to the hospital when the time arrives. Our due date is November 11, but I'm saying Halloween because no baby (unscheduled) arrives on their due date. Plus, I love little goblins...

The sailboat is in the water, the flowers are growing in the island sunshine and our ladies are incredible.

Luke is the universe's best daddy and is quickly becoming a true man of the sea.

He rises with the sun before work and drifts on the swells and goes for what's in season. For a while it was the incredibly delicious spot prawn (oh, man) and now it is the ugly Ling Cod. He also fly fishes for bass in one of the island's lakes. He's building me a sweet garden shed and plans to put that old farmhouse sink we used to have in our rainy kitchen at our old victorian. He finished the rad playhouse for the ladies, and makes his lovely pregnant starving wife hot fudge sundaes, grilled cheese and tomato or anything else the little womb-munchkin craves, whatever the time of day/night. He even plays beauty shop with the girls. Ahhh.

Betty is 4 1/2.

We had a beach picnic the other day to celebrate her half birthday, and just might have to make it a tradition. She ended her school year at Children's House Montessori Preschool in an amazing place, developmentally. Stacks of paper show her pages of invented-spelling lists and letters, family portraits in colored pencil and abstract chicken-bird paintings. She became quite a woodworker, and has glued, screwed and drilled a ferry boat, helicopter and working car. She enjoys the 'volcano work' the best and loves to see the red frothy lava over-spill. She has about fifteen words she can write perfectly, and even more words she can read aloud. But that isn't what impresses us. She peels and cuts carrots, makes toast with butter, helps her little sister get dressed, feeds out pets, brings me ice water, does magic tricks, tells silly jokes and puts on the best interpretive spur-of-the-moment dance shows with her pig, Wilbur. She also spends a lot of time telling Lucy May how to be a big sister, how to fold cloth diapers and how to swaddle her baby dolls.

Lucy is 2 1/4.

We want to make her a t-shirt with a Nike swoosh that says, "I Do It" because it is her mantra, screamed at high decibels. She's proud to be daytime (not sleep time) potty trained kiddo wearing big girl panties - did I mention she wears the same size undies as big sister? What a cute little thick Hungarian Gypsy-bloodied baby. She signs about twenty animals and even more foods and general things like window or driveway, all thanks to her sign language teacher, Betty. She counts to ten, omitting 4-7, sings Itsy Bitsy Spider, does somersaults, swims like a maniac in goggles, draws faces in crayon and can put on her own shoes. She's is such a sweet little lady, who loves her big sister dearly. We think she'll be a vet, with her love of animals, especially chickens. If only Mama hadn't been attackted by that Montana parrot and Betty wasn't allergic to eggs and Daddy loved other farm animals than just steak-producing cows, we might get an urban coup. Oh well.

Love at Sea & Love at Peaks

2009-02-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

Love. And, let me tell you, it was endless this weekend. Oh, the weather and oooh, the ladies and ahhh, the guy I love.

& Wow-la-la Mt. Baker with its epic terrain, aqua glaciers, organic lodge food, and music like vintage Bowie cranking throughout. We also smile at the missing scene of floor-length fur, apres ski.

I love walking out the door with my man and it was made easier with our first teenage babysitter, Kerry. She's fun and competent and just as responsible as I'd want our girls to be at that age. I had a poetry reading at the library and it was so great to look out into the sea of local folks and see Luke listening to my words about our life and our ladies. We enjoyed some cocktails afterwards, just like real adults with other adults. Joyous.

Upon dropping off our dog, Tilly, at the 'dog hotel' we heard a hilarious story about our scared-y dog who's frightened of everything, even puddles. Apparently during her last visit she was annoyed by a sparrow that was seemingly dive-bombing her head. Out of nowhere, she opened her mouth and swallowed it whole, coughing a few feathers up afterwards. So much for bird-dog behavior.

We then packed up our ever shrinking VW for a weekend in Mt. Baker country and made the second ferry of the morning. I'm really starting to love beginning each journey with a ferry boat ride. Even Costco seems like an epic journey instead of a mundane errand and, besides, I've always been one for road trips. I just love how the language of it is now so much a part of our girls' language, "we're going off island," "look at that tanker with all those big metal boxes from China," and "the Lopez ferry dock is really slow, huh Mama?" I suppose it is our version of urban kids who ride the subway into routine.

Betty received skis and boots for her fourth birthday and has been itching to try them out. Since it is her third season, we figured it would be o.k. that the weather was supposed to be partly cloudy with a high of 23 degrees.

I have never been happier that the men in suits got it wrong with a gorgeous blue and hot sunny sky with no breeze at all and snow like fine raw sugar.

Betty pretty much refused to practice her snow plow technique because, "why would I want slow down?" She rocks fast.

We hadn't really thought about having Lucy ski; we'd wanted to start Lucy at the same age Betty was which was 27 months. Lucy, only 23 months, still in a diaper, addicted to her pacifier, and still signing more than she's talking. But, Betty insisted Lucy use her skis. After a potty break in Betty's old pink folding potty, of course.

Lucy skied for almost two hours. She also rocked, slurring the words, "wee, skiing, snowww" from behind her slurppy pacifier each run. We'd frequently check in with her daddy and big sister at the trail's edge whereupon Lucy would take the advantage of me in conversation and lean forward to continue down the hill. The rope-pull things was a trick because she wanted to sit down - maybe she's ready for the lift, eh?

Lucy also really appreciated Uncle Matt (or, Unc Ski-peey - [Uncle Skippy] as she calls him, thanks to Betty) skiing with her, too.

The girls made it five hours slope-side and were thoroughly starving, tired, potty-in-need, sun-soaked, and thirsty when we entered the lodge at 3 PM. Lucy was so sleepy-hungry that Betty had to feed her.

Montana in September

2009-02-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

Eleven reasons why Montana in September rocked:

1. Lucy was as tall as Aunt Rose's sunflowers.

2. Tiller didn't chase cattle or run away, but she did, however, run like a maniac.

3. Naked Piper all day and lovin' it, even when I was freezing.

4. Eavesdropping on Betty and Meritt's conversation while they were chilling on the couch.

5. It was a Filkin cousin parade. Tame one minute, total mayhem the next.

6. ' Tana Grandma & Grandpa's windows got super-clean with enthusiasm.

7. Trampoline O' The Beartooths is almost too much fun.

8. Meritt taught Betty how to properly catch bugs for Rainbow the tiny chick.

9. And, Rainbow is a well cared for chicken.

10. Lucy laughs a lot when she is around all those big girls.

11. Meat always tastes better in Montana. Thanks, everyone, for feeding us so well.

The outdoors In

2009-02-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

This weekend we all wanted to get away, but didn't want to ride the ferry. So, we set up a tent in the living room and played camp out. We used candles and lanterns throughout the house, and played flashlight tag. However, when Lucy was 'it' she stared into the flashlight like a mosquito in August.
Hot dogs always taste better on an open fire and s'mores aren't quite the same broiled, but the girls giggled just the same. We watched a movie on our portable dvd player, then tucked each other in. The sound of our breaths made Luke and I realize we missed co-sleeping with our babes who routinely share a room with one another. All night long, I'd try to roll over, only to be pulled by Lucy's tiny hand. We held hands all night long. Cute, huh? What's even better, is that Luke and Betty did the same. We woke at the early hour of eight, broke down camp and made pancakes. It's fun to mix up the routine every once and a while.
Over pancakes, Betty talked about how our tiny island doesn't have squirrels and skunks. At the last word, our mouths dropped open. Luke and I looked at each other as if to say, "it's gone." And just like that, our four year old no longer called skunks "stunks."
It seems just as you swallow loving idiosyncrasies, they vanishes.
Almost as if to smooth over the loss, Lucy preformed her new trick - hand to her nose, yucky face and a squeal, "st-in-ky!"
I love that we live in a two bedroom home that forces us to have the girls share a room. It has brought about the greatest respectful friendship in them. Betty quietly 'reads' books in bed so as to not wake the little one, and tip-toes out in the morning so Lucy can sleep in. Over the monitor, we hear Betty signing "Twinkle, Twinkle" if Lucy wakes and, the unfortunate, "you are naughty, go to sleep right now or I won't share my necklaces with you."

They log about an hour a day in the book nook together and play baby-mommy and even waitress in their kitchen. Lucy is learning not to pull hair just so she can say sorry to Betty and get a hug, and Betty is learning how to let Lucy help her do puzzles. They are in such a good place right now. All make-believe costumes and silly songs they create leave me happy I spend my days with them. I feel it rushing by.
And then I feel Luke's nasty beard. He's in the town's centennial beard growing contest. Since September, I haven't gotten a proper kiss. His face has turned into a complete Brill-o Pad. Hopefully he wins and it will all be worth it. I miss his smooth cheeks and soul patch. Lucy won't even snuggle in close. Betty, however, says, "Oh Daddy you look handsome." She's in the phase where she thinks it is unfair she can't marry her daddy.

Bubbles

2009-01-12T11:38:00.001-08:00

It's a new year, and caffeine isn't always the answer. When Betty got us out of bed a little too early not too long ago we made the best of it. Sure, sleepless night-terror filled evenings can reek havoc on the psyche. But sudsy bath time giggles can easily overturn a moldy mood. I like to think we have a Glen Plake in the making with our tiny ski superstar, even off the slopes.

Sunshine, Somewhere

2009-01-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

In the dreary drizzle defining the spongy Pacific Northwest I now dream of months earlier when skies were sapphire and so were my five ribbons at the San Juan County Fair. The town turned upside down with balloons, hundreds of walk-on ferry tourists, pie of every color, and down-home music drifting atop the evergreens. Locals began preparing seasons earlier and, skeptical, I wondered just how cool it could be. As an avid parade watcher and festival tycoon I was marking my calendar and making sure we weren't planning any off-island escapades.

I had it: Fair Fever, and so did Lucy and Betty. The Fair hoopla was infectious, and I entered Betty's hat in the Textile Guild, a photo of Betty, a stained t-shirt I revived in Trash to Treasure, and two poems about the fair. Betty chose to enter a drawing of our family with Huck in the sky.

Our best Whidbey Island pals are gone all summer, so we were delighted when their return coincided with opening night. We forwent naps and giggled too much. We went each day in the 90+ degree heat for basket weaving clinics, hot dogs, an opportunity to get lost in the house of mirrors with a sweaty and sketchy carnie and for the coolest livestock on the planet.
I think Luke and Erika were embarrassed and maybe a little envious as I ran to each booth to collect another, then another Blue Ribbon. And, they laughed when Lucy's quilt I entered with the Guild was verbally torn to shreds and minus a ribbon.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

My resolution this New Year is simple: be my own assistant. I will put down the knitting needles and stash the remote in the evening to blog. Seriously, how long has it been? Long enough to win five blue ribbons at the County Fair, travel to Montana, dive head first into a month of Halloween, have a great first Thanksgiving in our new home, have our oldest turn four and our youngest start sleeping in a big girl bed, and realize there are just some things you have to do.

september eleventh

2008-09-11T07:20:00.001-07:00

Jean

June 28, 1977 - September 11, 2001

Today I feel like an adult. Funny, I know. Eight years ago, I was living in Portland with Luke and his brother, Matt. I was getting ready for grad school when they turned on the television at the instant I turned on NPR. Audio and visual collided. I was holding a hair dryer and people were jumping out of the towers. It's the JFK event for our generation. We all know what we were doing when we found out. A second part to all this is when we found out about someone. I was at my kitchen table when I heard about Jean, recently and randomly assigned to Flight 11, the first plane to hit the towers. I can still remember my Birkenstock toes in her backyard, all smiles and Longmeadow summer fun. Corsages pinned to our dresses for a winter formal. She was elegant, super-smart and kind. Maybe I'll tell this story and the spider leg events of this webbed day on Betty or Lucy's couch with white hair when I'm eighty-five. I'll show the stack of Hussein's money a former student's father gave me after he stormed the Palace as a Naval officer. And, of course, I'll talk of a happy fellow, a dear friend's husband, who was killed in Iraq as a Naval Chief, involved in the important and risky job of IED location and disposal. Full circle, all from Flight 11.

Fragments now, I'll hug my girls tight. Thinking of Jean's big-hearted family on this morning...

the rise of bread in my life

2008-08-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's true, my children's favorite food is bread. This morning I wished an army of kitchen gnomes were hard at work on some of my favorite tweaked recipes. And as I slid my feet into my knitted slippers I realized the joy would be lost in the process if what I ate was both created and delivered by gnomes.

A bit less than a decade ago, our great friend Eric gave us a bread machine and we repaid the favor with a bonsai tree. (Is the tree still alive, or did Boots devour it with his huge exotic teeth?) I poured over recipes for bead machines and fevorishly purchased ready made boxes for such contraptions. "Just add water," they'd call out to me in the aisles and, since I had no grad school debt or children to provide for, I'd gladly fork over the five dollars per organic box. Maybe it was the long Montana winters or my childhood luck of having a mother who would cut the crust off my homemade bread slices, but there were countless loaves I'd bake and with a huge searated knife, I would slice off all six crusty sides and devour the steamy squishy inside, but only after I slathered it with butter. Just the right treat after a day on the slopes.

Five zip codes later, that bread machine sat on a counter and smokey-geared its way through its thousandth loaf, until I could finally only use it for kneading assistance. My first kitchen helper was already six months and would sleep in the sling as I rolled the dough out onto our baking stone. She'd recently been diagnosed with a fruit allergy that forbid any store bought bread with citric acid or lemon as a preservative, apple sauce, apple cider vinegar or raisin paste as an additive. Flour really became a staple on our grocery list at this point.

I was so excited when she turned nine months and I tried pure wheat with her; of course my own recipe of twice baked melba with wheat germ and flax. Around this time our roof started leaking when it rained. Maybe it was that exact first moment of drizzle into the hundred and thirteen year old kitchen that my bread machine caught on fire. Living in that old prairie house had me pretty used to disaster. I wasn't bothered by the flames, just the plain fact that something else wasn't working right while Luke was working all the time.

Looking into that moment like shaking some drippy victorian snow globe, I smile. It was the turning point to all hands on bread baking. It is so much easier than all those expensive co-op loaves would have you believe, and you can do it anywhere.

Last week I read the log of my family's 1980s sailing trip to and through the Bahamas. It seemed every other page my mom was talking of scoring 50 pounds of flour and baking another fabulous loaf in the tiny cabin oven beside fresh caught lobster and octopus in rain water. She even added, "who needs butter when you're barefoot in the Bahamas holding a coconut eating fresh bread in a deserted anchorage?" What she didn't add, however, were the bread recipes from Staniel Cay or Eluthra or anywhere else. I now want to document my girls' childhood with recipes as we taste our way in and out of favorites.

Writing this post makes me want to write an article for some foodie magazine on the destruction of bread machines and the introduction to new traditions in your kitchen. For now, I'll start by making our current favorite, with zucchinis and goat cheese from the local Farmer's Market.

In my eyes, Betty will always be seen as the girl who made me make bread. This first picture shows Betty at the same age Lucy is now, sitting on the steps of the home with the leaky roof. We were letting bread rise, enjoying our sunflowers and Olympic Penninsula views.

Today Lucy helped with her first loaf. Well, I guess you can say she helped in a sling held close to my heart as a young babe, but now she gets her hands yeast-sticky and floured.

After a festive Fourth of July Parade and Town picnic, we rushed home for Lucy to nap and catch our loaf after its second rise. Betty is bread painting our giant dough braclet before fireworks.

Betty loves to experiment with shapes, and here are two "painted pickles" with a few slates carved in with a knife before baking.

zucchini goat cheese bread
I first have to give perks to the naked chef for this recipe. cheers, even though you don't seem to be aging well in London where I once longed of cooking with you...
the stash
6-8 cups of organic unbleached white flour
1 cup tepid to semi-hot filtered water
1 ounce yeast
2 tbl unbleached sugar
2 tbl sea salt
6 large zucchini, washed and grated using a cheese grader
7 ounces fresh goat cheese
stage one
pile flour on a clean surface, making a well in the center
pour half of your water in the center, then add yeast
wait until the yeast gets frothy (if it doesn't, you might need to start again with fresh active yeast)
add sugar, salt then stir with a fork
add zucchini and thyme
mix using your hands to scruntch
you won't need more water; lots of water will squeeze out from the zucchini
stage two
slowly and confidently, bring in flour from sides but don't break the sides or water will go everywhere!
continue until it looks like old oatmeal
pat and push in a circular motion until zucchini is evenly mixed
you may find that at high altitudes you need more water
stage three
slap dough until desired consistency, 4-5 minutes or until elbows hurt and your dough looks silky and elasticky
kids love to help at this phase
stage four
flour the top of the dough, place in a metal bowl and cover with plastic wrap
for best results on the rise, place bowl on top of a heating pad set at medium
let rise until double
stage five
knock the air out of it for thirty seconds by puching it; what fun! kids love cooking violence
roll out into a giant rectangle with a rolling pin, floured
smoosh goat cheese over flat surface, sprinkly with thyme and basil (or dill)
roll up like a giant fajita
place on a baking stone
this is the most important rise: the second rise gives the bread air that gets cooked in the bread, making it light and airy
**It you like hard crust, whip up on egg with a teaspoon of water and brush over surface. Betty calls this Bread Painting
let rise
bake, 350-375
place in preheated oven, careful not to slam the door or the bread will fall
you can tell it is cooked by tapping on the bread - does it sound hallow? does it look like the color of pretzels?
enjoy, especially with cream cheese

Re:format

2008-07-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

I lay in bed awake and think about this blog - so far behind in record - how could I possibly post? I remember, then, that I am not and have never been linear. I'm more like a pictographic heartbeat. Above all, I'm a poet. And, my poems have always been windows into my life. Maybe the windows aren't on the same story. [this has been my disclaimer for non-chronological text]

Don't blink, or we might miss everything. One puppy, two girls and three months of fine summer weather have blurred my sense of time.

Tilly seems stalled at 85 pounds of waggin' puppy. She's a solid fetcher, especially if a piece of turkey meat is waiting for her after retrieval. She's hung out in the yard without being tied up for short bursts here and there, and has even settled things with ol' Princess Slinky Chipawa Meow Meow Furber kitty (can you tell Betty named her) to chill in the living room together. Tiller loves our ladies with her whole body and I'm just glad she's family, even after her mishap. We were YouTube-ing giggling babies and laughing hysterically when Betty yelled, "NOOO! Tilly's Pooping!" Just then, I looked at the biggest jaw drop I've ever seen from Luke. Really, he was frozen speechless. I started running again with Tilly five minutes after that occurred. At least she likes to jog; she knows how to get me moving. Tiller is living up to her name and has become quite the sailor dog. We sailed to Bellingham (eight hours) a while back and she was a champ. She just curled up in a ball and slept, and even snuggled with Betty. On the way back, however, it was miserable weather. I'm not sure if it was the Coast Guard mayday calls, frigid totally freezing foggy rain or big seas that got to her; she shivered the whole way home.

Lucy May needs four teeth and she'll have a full set. She'll eat ANYTHING in front of her. Here's a typical morning: gravel from the cactus plant, a discarded cat whisker, pennies, five pieces of homemade butternut squash muffins, seven strawberries, and two banana waffles. When Aunt Rose visited, she was stunned that L-May ate for a solid hour and a half. How, then, is she just in the 20% for weight?

With grace she climbs atop the antique child-sized rocker and scales the sides of my grandmother's upright piano (Luke just adored moving it from back east to each house we've since lived). I've even found her bouncing on the couch's end table with hands stretched to the ceiling. She'll hold Betty's hands and circular boogie to live bluegrass music, but she's never taken more than three consecutive steps. I think someone told her she wouldn't be a sling babe as much once she walks without holding onto furniture.

She is hilarious, loves the game of chase, snuggles with a few stuffed creatures, sticks her bum up high at night, gives the best kisses, and swims like a dolphin. Sailing just knocks her out, and she rarely stays awake for the voyage. Sometimes I wear her, sometimes she's in her deck chair, and more recently she's been able to nap down below in her bunk by herself.

Betty Rose needs an agent and we swear she'd have a career. She can really carry a tune; her lyrics are side-splitting funny. Her punk-based Alphabet Flip-Flop rant needs to be recorded with Garage Band. Her fake tears are really Oscar worthy, but it's her inquisitive nature that keep us moving. "Why is bird poop white/Why do the words 'oval' and 'love' look alike/how does our skin stretch as we grow and why don't we ever need more like pie crust dough?"

She is all about drawing people and has recently checked out a book on drawing dog bodies. Of course she is mastering the German Shepherd before any other breed. She's in Club Mud, a ceramics camp and finds it funny that to 'throw clay' doesn't mean across the room. So far, she's made bookends and a few bowls. Gone are the days of kids making ashtrays (thank goodness). She loves gardening, bringing her toy shopping cart to the market, practicing her bike, catching shrimp with her bright pink shrimping dock net ["why do I have to go to sleep? I want to stay up and go shrimpin" just might be one of the funnier tantrums of late], and, above all, sailing.

Each day feels bendable and starts with a beach day, pool day or errand/library day weather check. I'm glad I'm not teaching summer school or teaching in the fall -- flexibility works well for us, especially in part to global warming. The weather of the past thirty days reminds me of my New England summers with sticky heat and scorching sun. Hot grass covered in a blanket with library books. Flip flop feet forever covered in salty sand. Repeating these memories, only with a frothy mocha in hand this time.

Sailboats, Tulips, Urchins, & Very Wet (little feet)

2008-05-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, blog, for it's been a long time since my last post.

Tipsy-turvy bi-coastal days of influenzas in Florida, on the plane and back again amidst our island's tulips. We tried to catch our breath between Lysol's disinfectant sweet "mountain air" scent [And, oh, remember that dorm room smell - Beth and I actually wrote the company and expressed our love. We thought we'd get a free case and all we got were three coupons.] and a medic-evac via ferry departure. Sweet Betty Rose's hot pink skin, feverish little blonde body at 104.3, broke our worried hearts with IV and catheter's dreariness. Five pounds less and instrument's sticky grey residue on her chest are now all that remain from our mainland hospital stay.

Top Ten Things New in Over Thirty Days:

Our dear dog is seven months and seventy pounds; we're thankful for Great Danes.
Luke's begun construction on the playground. Our big blue scoop slide just came on the ferry the other day. It drops down from the playhouse into a sand pit. The zip line to the Western Red Cedar is just to the right. A funny little thing of the latter: "Let's just get a cheap-o metal playground set from K-Mart," Luke says to me on the beach in Southern Florida, simultaneously crushing my dreams of a power pole-derived play area. "Sure," I sadly say. Then, two days back in Pacific Northwest's mist and Betty and I are pulling out of our driveway and she says, "Hey, whatcha think of my new playground Daddy started building when we were in Florida?" Oops. Aren't I the gal that doesn't miss anything?
I got so close to a dream job I could see myself all dressed up with a mocha, black Uniball pens and essays to grade. The Spring Street School is a local international private school, 6th-12th grade. Cool, not to mention two blocks away. As I imagine twelve students in my class I'm still sad that part-time wasn't the board's bag. Full-time while Lucy isn't even taking shoreline steps on her own? Betty cried when I asked her if I should go. "Who would make me yummy treats in the kitchen every day? Who would take me outside to garden and play catch with our puppy?" She tearly whispered. "Strangers," I answered. I mourned this professional opportunity in the hammock with my Lucy May. And then it became a brief mourn as she learned how to blow the the light white dandelion whiskers across the grass on our 85 degree flip-flop day. That moment stretched into two hours in Luke's grandma's floral fringey hammock from the fifties. Betty slept at that space in time no doubt dreaming of errands and walks and preschool and fresh baked treats in the fall.
The sailboat is in the marina's slip four blocks away. Nice. Tilly even came with us on Mother's Day eve. She slept all night on the port bunk and did great until her usual good morning freak-out licks got the boat rockin' and her tail waggin' wips knocked over muffins and coffees. The black clouds were looming on the horizon and the wind was blowing from an odd direction on Mama Day. The girls had their foul weather gear on, the Main was hitched to the second reef point and Lucy slept the entire sail on me in the sling. We saw lots of shrimp by the dock, sea lions in the harbor and porpoises by Lopez island. Betty said that sailing is her favorite thing to do. After the sail we strolled to an espresso stand to get a mocha (and I told B. that was my favorite thing to do), ducked into the candy shoppe for some fudge (and Luke told B. that was his favorite store), and walked home to eat Lucy's favorite meal: organic plump hot doggies tucked into a buttery croissant with melted Vermont white cheddar with a heaping pile of strawberries on the side. Oops, I forgot to mention the bouquet of pink Gerber Daisies (one of my favorite floral beauties). It seems Mother's Day was full of everyone's favorites.
Our kitty has arthritis. Our cat, full name Princess Slinky Chippewawa Meow-Meow Furber, loves our ladies that help lengthen her name on a regular basis. Her feline morphine (doesn't that sound like a great band name) has gotten her chasing stuffed mice and yarn skeins like a kitten. She still misses Huck and I swear she yells (hisses) at our puppy because she believes Tilly purposely replaced Huck. Tilly is a star, however. At the K-9 Carnival she one third place ribbons for the peanut butter eating contest and best original costume. Betty dressed as a princess and walked around with Tilly, who wore a purple velvet suit with a feather hat. Don't you just love a town where hundreds of people turn out for a dog party - complete with Woof-D-Doo (a cattle dog frisbee group) performing to techno and your name in a raffle for each bag of doggie poo you turn into the trash?
Little Lucy May won't walk. And that's just fine with us. She simply sits, all pudgy and silly, and plays with wooden blocks, lineman figurines & line bucket trucks, felted veggies, and plays the baby-baby grand piano. She also loves to eat pea gravel from the potted cacti. And, man oh man, can she sign! All of a sudden: bread, baby (which is the best with her wiggly shoulder shimmy), Dada, Mama, dog, more, milk, eat, cracker, grapes, help, bedtime, blanket, bear, cat, car, book, music, drink, swing, boat, girl, boy, lion.
We swam in the salt water. And, oh black sand between our toes salt on our sun-soaked bodies, loved it! A May day and 90 degrees in Seattle; crazy. We took a picnic to Eagle Cove on Friday and had the time of our lives. It felt like we were on vacation, sharing the beach with two other families, and how could it be eight miles from our home? Just the day before friends watched a pod of orcas breaching off the beach. We saw lots of kelp and tiny crabs, thought about skim boarding on the powdery sand and dove underwater in the tiny waves. Lucy floated with driftwood and kicked against mussel-covered rocks. Betty danced around seaweed ribbons and swam with the incoming tide. The cove winds around like a headband tossed on its side, great mossy algae rocks stretch up to meet a lush fern surrounded grassy meadow. I believe it is how New Zealand looks. Perfect. Public. The best kept secret of the island I've so far seen.
Betty knows eyebrows, eyelashes, tongues, and teeth. She draws in colored pencil, pastel and twistable crayon, and keeps all her supplies in a carrier I sewed her out of a vintage apron. Toting her black sketch book to restaurants and on back seat island drives, she draws the greatest people. Huge heads with hair like porcupines. Lots of feet for Daddy and me because we're "so busy running around getting all our important stuff done." No ears yet, but out-y bellybuttons like little L. May. At the local library she found a book on how to draw dogs and she's most tuned into "shep-labby-lab" dogs. It's so lovely to see her, tongue out and eyebrows raised drawing a dog with what looks like fifteen paws.
Lucy May turned one and we met the Easter bunny, all in the same week. Then I turned thirty-two. (Unfortunately, someone recently asked me if I was thirty-eight. But, an elderly woman on the dock asked if I was a day over twenty and spoke of teenage pregnancy. So...) It seems like I blinked and eye and April was gone. Betty made L. May May a fleece blanket that's all shred-y and knotted around the perimeter (it took forever) and bought her balloons. We took her to the library for story time and she slept for hours that afternoon. Cutting three teeth at once is a lot of work. Our island cousins came by for homemade pizza and cake. Of course Lucy liked the pizza crust the most (she's a little bread bunny). Florida Grammy and Grandpop help sing the big girl song and blow out candles. Since I make every good pal a baby quilt for each birth, I felt guilty that Lucy didn't have one from me as a newborn. I hope she someday feels like hers was worth the wait. A limited-edition-fabric sock monkey birthday number with fancy thread work (all thanks to my new machine that Luke gave me last year with crazy storm season moula) certainly pleased me. A morning at the bakery with new pals, a cream cheese frosted red velvet cake with old pals, tulips, a grownup Vermont mission bed frame, a pedicure, a thoughtful charm and a good bottle of wine made the day magnificent.
Our home has been both fun and full. We've reached the point of meeting folks who swing by. That, to me, is it. I feel like we live here now. My parents, Jon and Mandy, Ben and M.G., Stefan and Rose, Matt and Karine, and, currently, Russell have stayed on the couch, floor or boat in the past thirty plus days. One weekend, we had five children under five under one tiny roof. Oh, how the wine went down once all were tucked in asleep with blankies. It was amazing to have our home so full of children laughing and freaking out, often at the same time. Sticky buttermilk pancake fingers reading books one moment, racing around the yard with a toy wheel barrow the next. I love the people I love around me, and a house incredibly full of babies makes me understand a tiny bit what is happening on the poly-family unit ranch in Texas. No, not really, but I do secretly wish all our best friends could raise our children in the same cul-de-sac.

Tiller Scoocum Furber, Orcas and Shots

2008-03-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

Tilly, five months old and fifty-two pounds. We thought she'd be a medium dog. Our vet, considered quite a dog expert, believes Tilly to hardly be a lab at all. Looking over her bone structure, teeth, fur, tail and head, it appears Tilly is mostly Black Lab & Harlequin Great Dane. Luke hopes she has the ability to be both a bird dog and a sailor dog. Danes were used to hunt wild boar. Sounds to me like the geese out here are in for it. I was convinced she had some Pointer in her and she still may. That's the funny thing about rescued mutt pups. Everyone likes to have a say in her breed. Whatever she is, she loves standing on top of the picnic table, cheese, ear rubs, little girls, tennis balls, and her new crate. Slinky loves Tilly's new house, too.

We took the ferry over to Orcas for Lucy's one year check-up with her new pediatrician. I passed the time by knitting some Easter eggs with yarn scraps.

Although she may not have a great sense of humor (really, how many baby docs are hilarious, sing in a sea shanty band and have your whole philosophy down pat like our old one?) she helped me decide on vaccinations and supported our choice of goat products before dairy. Her office is worth the trip. Lucy is 20 pounds, has seven teeth, is in the 115th% for height and 35th% for weight. So, looks like she's model status already. And, she got some ouchies. Vaccinations are so intense and all the literature surrounding them swirls around me like a food processor full of tacks and band-aids. We sat for so long trying to decide what to get and how we didn't want the nine she required at once. Then I took out Betty's record and did the same. She received three boosters that day and in three months, I'll go back for two. I guess we're on more of a European schedule, feeling like it is all a lot for her little body and some she just isn't at risk for until she's near school age. I 've read so many books on the subject, both for and against, that I think it'll be interesting to see how I feel about it twenty years from now. Betty said her favorite part of the day was holding Lucy's hand while she got the shots, telling her it was o.k. and singing her to happiness. Lucky for her Mama and Dada were there to hold her other hand. My favorite part of the day was at the peak of Mt. Constitution, 2,222 ft, standing in the falling snow looking at all the islands from here to the Canadian mainland.

Whidbey Island Birthday Party

2008-03-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

We traveled off island for a special party. Two years ago (is that possible?) I attended Alex's birth and it proved to be one of my most life changing moments. (Thank you again, Don and Erika, for giving me that opportunity. ) I realized I wanted to be a professional doula and have another baby all in the moment he took his first breath. I hope to share balloons and cake.

I baked cupcakes in ice cream cones and used frosting and sprinkles (jimmies) to make them look like the real deal. I substituted a lot of cake flour in the recipe so the cake wouldn't be dense inside the cone. They were a big hit, especially with Betty who ate four without us knowing. Well, Don and Erika knew, but Luke and I caught her sticky-handed and wild half way through the fourth. It made for a long ferry ride that night.
The kids had a great time playing with one another, and Lucy loved hanging with the big ones. Alex had a hard time deciding between our gals, clearly fascinated with both. Betty seems to be cut from the same wild and vibrant cloth and regularly gives Alex a run for it.
Betty and her best friend enjoyed their time, behind a bedroom door giggling for close to an hour. They look like little girls together, so big, and in Paige's words, "It's because [we're] growing." I wish they could see each

other every day. But I guess that's why they're called childhood friends - they're formed in the first years and will even write notes to one another when they become great grandmothers. Luckily, we only live a ferry ride away.
Lucy enjoyed her first taste of organic, unbleached refined sugar. I think the cream cheese frosting mesmerized her enough to forget about her love of strawberries, goat yogurt and blueberries. And Alex just liked watching someone else in his high chair, blowing out fire and nibbling on goodies.
I love birthday parties that are all about the homemade cake, silly party hats and balloons. Watching children try something that started out only hours earlier in my KitchenAid mixer makes me smile. In another life, I'd like to own a bagel and bread bakery that makes birthday cakes for children. Maybe it would also have a corner that showcases knitted items. And vintage Pez dispensers. And, well, I guess I'd need a pretty large space.
It is funny how crafts evolve. I had seen so many knitted cupcake patterns that I thought I could make the wrapper from a sweater sleeve and knit the top, embellishing it with buttons. I had an old green college sweater I just loved and couldn't part with, even though I hadn't worn it in years. So, I felted it in my washing machine. When I was done, it looked more like a head and a body than anything else. So, project phase two was born. I turned it into a crazy broccoli doll for Lucy. The hair took forever. Since Lucy loves stringy things, just like the yellow and white blankie my Aunt Helen made for me when I was a babe that she's adopted, it was worth it.

Sweet Betty Rose

2008-03-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

I think this is the greatest photo I ever taken.

Sunken Park, 6:00 PM

Who is this girl? She recognizes letters, reads stories from memory, builds words with tiny colored letters, sings hip hop songs and 80s hits like "Maniac" to dance routines, tells me she's thankful I stay home and work with her, claps with amazement when Lucy makes the tiniest gain, hums hymns to house plants, loves dresses herself in zany outfits (primarily pink ones), and...

she is such an unbelievable,

captivating

actress.