7 months, likes her bath

7 months

came yesterday. She is eager to start on all kinds of food though still nursing for comfort and some nourishment. Nearly 18 pounds. I've been making slings to carry her out of fleece but nothing is quite working as it should. I had a dream last night that I was pregnant again AND DIDN'T KNOW IT. First time for that -- fairly appalling.

I saw the wife of someone I'm in an organization with. This woman has a 3 year old, is probably still in her 30s and lost her baby last month during the birth process. Cord tightened when baby dropped. Totally freakish, scary and disturbing. I felt incredibly guilty seeing her at library with my son and V. She seemed in a daze and I asked my son to invite her son to read a story with us. Which they did. But I've been haunted by her story since I heard a few weeks ago.

I am sure she and her husband will try to have another child, but all of us who are parents are chilled to the bone even knowing such risks are possible. And last night when I dreamed I was pregnant, and could feel the baby in my sleep I kept saying I wanted an elective C-section to avoid any birth trauma. Which I didn't want, and didn't have with either kids.

This is a sad entry. I am not looking forward to winter and I need to make more money.

49

now that sounds old...Only in terms of experience. I was an "adult" during the first Reagan administration.It seems completely surreal that the ambitious and inconsistent young woman who apprenticed with a fleet of tough newspaper people would grow past all that with a small child.

whose first tooth popped yesterday....

I'll be 49 in a week...

but will keep the title. All I want for my birthday is uninterrupted time in the morning. Or time in the house with no one here. The last time I had that for more than 45 minutes was 3 weeks ago. Though my idea of having a great birthday is taking my son to see the local fossil museum....

need. more. time...

My beloved child has a VERY short leash and a VERY short temper. I think she's also getting more gaseous. We were out campaigning today and a voter held a 9 month old who looked smaller than my 5.5 month old. Go figure. Anyway, my time away from her needs (need to be fed, changed, held, amused, changed position, switching toys, smiled at) is reduced to a sliver. Which is how it should be in her world. But there will be payback when I'm old(er) and (more) eccentric and need to live in the desert for a while.

It's kind of funny that I really do feel the need to do things I never felt I needed to do before. I'd like to live in the desert for a while. The rainforest really beckons and so does any road that goes north to the Arctic Circle. I am drawn to starker landscapes however (I really just want to see all the bugs in the RF and have coffee IN Central America).

I have always been self-employed so that if any of the pieces fall away, or I leave, the show goes on. And it does. I will be 49 in another few weeks and this is the 2nd birthday in my 40s that will probably not find me paralyzed with depression. After my son was born my mind wanted me pregnant but my body wasn't in the swing. Now my body is REALLY in the swing, which I can tell by 28 day cycles and 10 days of EWCM tmisorry! But I still remember having the flu for the umpteenth time while expecting and getting huger and less able to shake this stuff off and not being able to take a deep breath and saying, "it's ok, I don't need to be pregnant again."

This afternoon, I finally got her down for her nap so we could go campaigning later and her going to sleep really is like the symphony with the false endings, there are yips and squacks and of course you go check and there had been silence. So I checked. And there was our cat, Fred, a muttonheaded stripey tom sitting on the bed next to her and she was petting his ears. She looked at me and I mouthed, "you are dreaming I am here" and backed out and she eventually slept.

Fred is a whiney, clumsy, underfoot, foodaholic, wallscraping annoying cat much of his life, but this made me really love Fred.

thanks ted

Talking to a client recently and I realized I really am annoyed that health care doesn't follow you from job to job. We live in a very expensive state and just recently signed onto the state health plan. It won't cover the chiro. but we're keeping the pediatrician and doctor so that's fine by me. As a self-employed family, we were paying something like $1800 a month for health insurance, which would have driven us into debt. Fortunately, we are able to earn a good living and we have savings and we're not carrying a mortgage. There are huge advantages to waiting to be a grownup and then having a family. My heart goes out to younger moms and dads who don't have the advantage of staying home with a child as long as they wish. My DH and I both work out of our house and we are exceedingly blessed to share the childcare. We live very frugally, but very well even if our son is not indulged in his whims for "expensive plastic" as often as he'd like. We have books in every room and every night our son is read to aloud for a half hour. And during the day he's read aloud to as well. So it's hours and hours of that, and playing and making stuff. I make a lot of art out of recycled materials and am selling enough to call it a remunerative hobby. My main occupation is writing and I have a book coming out next year. For which I'll be paid, oh hell, probably in 2012.
But here's the thing. Ted Kennedy totally "got" our situation and he really did fight for everyone who needed an advocate. I met him once -- fleetingly, and shook his hand. He was a very big guy with radiating charisma, surrounded by a scrum of younger aides. I'm sorry he's gone. He may not have been personally eloquent all the time but his heart was always in the right place where the public was concerned.

sunday

w/her big brother's godfather (he's an actor)