Christmas Leftovers

Ah... a little somethin' for the folks far away...

Tis the Season...to think too far into the future

I haven't been a fan of Christmas, I admit. It started years ago, longer ago than I can even put my finger on, but I know that it was borne of a mixture of exasperation with the pressures, financial and otherwise, of the stress of trying to get everything done, of trying to please too many people, of the consumerism and the waste and the voracity of our appetite for things in this part of the world. I would buy a few token gifts here and there, and all we would do to celebrate for many years was make a very good special meal on Christmas day, but otherwise, it was pretty much a day like any other.

Then, there came Nahanni.

Suddenly I had one foot back on the Christmas train from which I had leapt so many years ago. I was up at Parkgate and bought a little tree which I dragged home through the forest, trying earnestly not to poke Nahanni's eye out from her perch in the sling. I dug through the wreckage of the urban storage locker and pulled out a dusty box which contained one set of red chili lights, one box of bulbs, the 2 ornaments my mom had sent and a Christmas gift I had bought a friend who has been AWOL so much of the past five odd years that I can't remember what year I bought it in. There I was, doing Christmas.

I wasn't even sure how I felt about it - I continue to be unsure how I feel about it. I can admit that I enjoyed it more than any other in recent memory and I have a whole new understanding and appreciation for the Christmases my mother knocked herself out to give us as children. I sheepishly admit that I couldn't wait for Nahanni to rip open the paper on the few little gifts I bought her. I was resisting the urge to load the tree with presents in an effort to provide her with the one that would light up her eyes. I was resistant to the fact that every toy nowadays seems to be some weak little hunk of plastic made in China, sprayed with god knows what toxic brew of chemicals {the one toy I did buy her is already broken...). I went simple...but I was still excited. I resisted too the urge to dress her in little reindeer outfits, girly Christmas frocks - I found myself in the aisle one day a while back holding a set of antlers and a little Santa outfit and I felt like I'd been mentally kidnapped -"You don't even like Christmas!', I admonished myself. Instead I plucked a leftover Halloween costume (a holiday I do love) off the rack, a red Little Devil costume and decided that was more fitting for our holiday.

I will admit, I loved watching her open her little gifts, her clumsy fascination with the bow and paper (I know, I usually wrap in newspaper but I also discovered a long forgotten roll of wrapping paper in the back of the closet). It was a happy day - and yet there was a sense [as there so often is with me] of melancholy that accompanied it. Ez had the idea that we should begin our own holiday tradition which will evolve over time to include meals and traditions from around the world, community service etc., but he thought the first thing we should do was make stockings to use every Christmas. He has a long cherished memory of his old stocking, a giant sasquatch-like foot with big toes in which one year, when putting his stocking up he pulled out a dinky car that he'd missed the year before and has never stopped thinking of the absolute glee with which he discovered it. He went out and chose fabric for each of us, Nahanni's being a soft and fuzzy leopard print with pink flowers and stars. I sewed it up after breakfast and glued onto the cuff her little rock from the Nahanni River that Royce and Trish sent - a wonderful symbol of her first Christmas, of our first Christmas as a family. And that was when it really hit me. This stocking that I hold in my hand, it is the one that will see her through all the Christmases of her life, of our life with her. And suddenly I was trying to understand what that kind of span of time really is - it was shocking and depressing and exhilarating and daunting all at one, a flurry of flavours of emotion. Sometimes it can be hard to understand that Nahanni won't always be this little baby, that she will grow and become a little girl and then a teenager and then a woman - and yet always, I will remember the weight of her in my arms, her little hands thumping the hollow of my neck as she waits impatiently for the milk to let down, of her pirhana smile, little shards of teeth peeking out, reminding me that she is growing every day. She is at the point now where she doesn't seem to want to be rocked asleep at night anymore, something which gave her dad great joy. Now she likes to have her milk and then she pops her thumb into her mouth and wriggles to be put down to sleep on her own. You wait and wait for them to gain independence and then when they do you mourn the loss. Someday I will take out a battered box of Christmas whatnot and from it I will pull this crazy stocking and hand it to my grown daughter to take with her to her own home and I will wonder where all the time went from here to there. It makes me immeasurably sad to think of it, and yet also, I am filled with pride and hope at the thought of what an amazing tale that stocking will tell of all the years from now till then. Some will be bountiful, many will be lean, and there is no telling what form our family will take. Watching marriages fall around us like cards in the wind we cannot help but feel some of that breeze upon us. We watch as friends and relatives stumble their way through arrangements, custody, who spends Christmas Eve where and we think how lucky we are that for today, at least, we have had a wonderful holiday, we have started traditions of our own. We are building our family, one day at a time and this day marked it memorably.

I have a little leather-bound photo book which has lain empty for years but I have kept for some reason or other. Today I will slip a picture of her golden bowed head into the slot on the cover, slide a few little memories of this season into the vellum slots and I will tuck it away into that stocking. Every year I will add to it so that someday she can look back and, I hope, remember Christmas as a time when we celebrated how much we loved her, how much fun we had, the adventures we led. I hope she will have little pictures in her mind of these times, and remember them fondly so that no matter what form Christmas, with all its garish possibilities might take in the future, she will think fondly of its smells, its warmth and its wonder.

Will she always be this obedient?

SO, ask and ye shall receive...sort of. Nahanni kept up her part of this bargain - I asked for her to sleep and I'm telling you, she did the very next night and has since, sleeping right to 6 am - which is a vast and wondrous improvement. The only problem was that I continued to be up in the night for hours - it was maddening. But, finally, through the fog, I woke up yesterday and realized I'd slept til 5:48, and I can tell you, it was the first time I have ever been elated to be awake at 5:48. It was like being a new person (but for being sick on top of insomniac) and I realized how long it has been since I slept 8 hours at a stretch. Too long, my friends, far too long. Thank god I have such an amazing kid -- just ask her for something and she seems quite able to give it.
That's it for now, nothing scintillating, I admit, just a little update. More after x-mas, which has managed to grab hold of me despite all my ranting about consumerism and my decade long resistance to it on principal. I guess it's true, things do change when you have kids...

To sleep, perchance to dream...

That's all I ask, eight sweet and solid hours straight. To not be roused from my dreams in the midst of any great adventures (the latest of which, I kid you not, involved my old boyfriend {I use the term loosely and with much internal sarcasm} from Paris and a robotic President Ahmadinejad). I don't think it is too great a request. I am really, really tired. And in truth, it isn't really that Nahanni is being unreasonable. She is holding fast to her last middle of the night feeding, although to her credit she nurses and then goes back to sleep, so I think she is genuinely hungry. The problem is actually this pervasive insomnia that is plaguing me. She is in and out in ten or twelve minutes but by then I'm awake and thinking and working on my taxes and writing a letter/script/short story/novel in my head...either that or worrying, depending on the night. It's getting increasingly hard to focus and I find I say the word 'retarded' a great deal in reference to myself. I remain hopeful every night that it will be the one. I ask each of you to keep me in your nighttime thoughts...
Otherwise, Nahanni is on the move. She first began to crawl about 10 days ago and it did not take her long to figure out. It is adorable the way she drags one leg along the floor, almost in pigeon pose and then raises herself up on the other leg in a sort of half down-dog; it's a bit like watching Quasimodo lurch around your living room. She slaps her little dimpled hands on the floor like a staccato calling card so you always know she's coming. Half the time what really gets my attention is when I don't hear her...that's always when I discover her gnawing away on power cords or with her hand inches from the cat food. On the 13th she pulled herself up to standing and we are not surprised, what with her always having had super-strength and all (did I also mention that she is super-smart and super-beautiful?). Her little left incisor is mostly in now and it's so bizarrely cute, this little fang of hers - I make her laugh just to see it. I'll almost be sorry when her other three top teeth finally come in, we'll miss our little snaggletooth girl. She is eating bravely and quite voraciously, with a wonderful palate for an 8-month old baby. She want crazy over garlic-heavy filipino chicken, has been seen gnawing on raw scallions, devoured spicy steak and eats salmon like it is candy, popping into her mouth with a proclaimed 'emmm!' and clapping her hands - another favourite new pasttime. It takes me 45 minutes to feed her as she plucks up individual peas one by one and looks to me to say 'good job!' so that she can proudly clap her little hands. It is particularly amusing to watch her eat avocado, buttery jade squares that I cut up and place ceremoniously before her. She measures them carefully with her two litte pincers, chases the little shards as they escape her before squeezing them into her balled fist where she pops it just enough for it to rise to the little cleft there so she can carefully crane it towards (although not always into) her mouth. Then we start the clapping game and onwards, slowly onwards we go. I know someday I will watch her sullen face at the table, slumped against the affrontery of something we've forced upon her and I will think fondly of these times.
We recently received a wonderful gift from Trish and Royce, who live now in the Yukon and who have both guided trips on some of the amazing rivers up north, including the Nahanni. They sent Nahanni some special rocks from her namesake river, one even made into a necklace which I placed around her neck, explaining that this had come from her river - I felt like an elder placing her amulet about her neck. I took her picture and when I tried to take it off of her she cried. I cannot wait till the day we stand on the banks of that river with her, when we take her into the places we love best and she can see us as we truly are, as we were long before her and who I hope to always be.

The Devil Wears Yoga Pants

Alone at last, alone at last, oh my god, alone at last.

It's quiet. The lights are off, the room is silent but for the clacking of these keys, the baby sleeps, Ez went to bed hours ago, sick -- and I find myself alone, savouring the silence like chocolate on the tongue. Or like red wine, the likes of which I have happily been sipping for the last hour. I have now several declarations. First of all, I want to be gorgeous like Meryl Streep (oh Kate, please, when you see her, tell her she has changed for me how I feel about ageing. Actually, so have you for that matter, but she really did it).

I have of late been lamenting many things -- the passage of time, the shift in my career path, the disjointed nature of my life as a mother...the complete destruction of my home as I once knew it. It has been a confusing and perilous time for me lately, for I know that this is one of those periods in life when one can easily fall into the depths of something dark without realizing it, without ever feeling the feather's breath of it on one's cheek. Simple darkness, mind you, but a dusk nonetheless.

In many respects I am now understanding what I have heard tell about what happens to you once you become a mother; the setting aside of self in response to the devotion you feel for your child. I am so completely ensconced in my life as Nahanni's mother that sometimes I don't even have the opportunity to look up and see where I have knocked off bits of myself. I really see this time as a difficult sort of cleaving away - trying to carve just enough of myself off from her, from my mommy-ness to still feel like I am the same person. I have spent the better part of the last year and a half melding myself to her, embracing her from the inside out, and now it is my new and somewhat arduous task to try to unwind all the tangle of nerves and synapses that bind us so tightly together -- and yet not take it too far. I think I struggle every day with the balance of what is enough for her and for me and frankly, I have no real idea if it's working. She seems happy enough, but at the same time, she has become incredibly demanding of my attentions, like a new boyfriend who cannot comprehend that you had a life before him (at least, I have heard of these types, I never actually had one...but that's another blog altogether). I am finding it tiring and trying even as I love that she needs me so thoroughly. I am struggling though, to maintain a sense of identity, particularly when I haven't been working, when I have no idea what the future holds for me in my career.

It's somewhat funny that for my 'me time' (finally!) tonight I should fall into watching 'The Devil Wears Prada', which I loved despite a complete resistance to it when it came out just by dint of the mention of Prada. I have long had a bitter and suspicious dislike of rich trappings (certainly rooted in my humble beginnings, but also for what the vanity of it represents in such a struggling world) and it was something to see with that kind of mindset. Of course, it recalled for me how much I love pretty things; adore them really, while at the same time flicking the on-switch of all my rational thoughts on the nature of what is important and what is not. How do you know, really? Since I became a mom (okay, maybe even somewhat before) I have definitely noticed that things are not the same for me in the pretty department. I just haven't got the time to devote to drying and primping and making-up and accessorizing (at my own peril with little Miss Grabby Hands)...my house is a wreck, I've done yoga once in a blue moon and I have scarcely written at all. I feel sometimes like I've lost touch completely with everything about myself. What do I want to be? How do I want to live? What the hell do I do now that I am where I am? I really, truly do not know how to know -- I am so bogged down in the now that I can't even process a cogent game plan -- and that scares me. I have seen how fast time has begun to pass (her 8 month birthday today...and another of mine fast approaching) and it frightens me to think that I might look up and have completely lost track of my whole path, my whole plan, my dreams, my focus. I am scared that I will get so wrapped up in being Momma that I will forget how to be everything that I am, that I was, that I was meant to be. Certainly I am better because of Nahanni, but I am also in someways..less...is that fair to say? Less in that I have given up pieces of me for her...perhaps like inches you didn't need anyway. I don't know, I'm not sure yet. I imagine that as she carves herself away from me (which I also lament in its own way) I will begin again to discover who I am, to grab hold of the beltloops of that lovely 1940's hooded black coated girl who traipsed the streets of Paris and really, honestly believed in every impossible dream she had. I also know that when she turns her face to me it will not glow with youth, but with experience, that her face, once porcelain smooth with belie the lines borne of a million smiles,, the best of which have been instigated by my daughter. And, like looking at Meryl in all her silver gorgeousness, I will understand her to be even more beautiful now.

Where does the time go?

I was thinking last night about ice cream--not in the traditional sense, mind you, but metaphorically so. I was thinking of how they make that bizarre mish-mash with the remainder bits of all the different flavours, a riotous mix of colours and textures that really only kids or the very brave are willing to try. I've been feeling a lot like that kind of ice cream lately, all mixed up, no particular flavour, a melange of everything. I've had ideas for writing, but nothing concrete, no solid thread to guide me. I'm sort of all over the map with respect to my life in general right now, somedays I don't know if I'm coming or going.

As usual, I am loving life with Nahanni, she is an amazing and fun little girl. Now that doesn't mean it's always a picnic, but I certainly cannot complain. People keep asking me if I'm sleeping and I guess that writing here certainly has given the impression that her sleep isn't very good, which I think is a bit misleading. It's like with my old journals that I kept regularly throughout university and beyond, how even while living in the 5th arrondisement in beautiful Paris it would seem by my journals that I was constantly miserable--it's not that it's true, it's just that's when I tended to write. Melancholy is often the ink that fills my pen, and is always the easiest thing to talk about. So, when things are going swimmingly, I suppose there is less to write about, but when it hits the fan, those keys start a-clickin'. We've had some up and downs with sleeping, as with any baby (if you say not your baby, I suspect you're lying...or misremembering) and lately I think it's due to a new tooth I can see cutting - her upper left incisor. A bit out of order, but nonetheless, she's coming in. For the most part, I think Nahanni has been a superstar for sleeping and I'm very proud of her - she always puts herself to sleep in the day and as a rule needs very little help at night--usually. Of course, the other night we had a series of exceptions to that peaceful rule, including two nights ago where we had out first cry-it-out. Now, I know I said I'd never do it, and really, I haven't--it was sort of an acquiesced 'we give up' cry-it-out, mixed with a 'we are too busy arguing to go in and get you right now' cry-it-out. Have you tried the latter method? I highly recommend it as it makes the whole screaming-till-they-fall-asleep thing much more bearable. Here are the instructions for this method:

a) put teething baby to sleep
b) have teething baby wake after 1/2 hour
c) have baby work herself into a lather from which no one can return her, regardless of action
d) give up and put her in her crib

** next step crucial**

e) start talking about money
f) argue vociferously over the sound of the crying baby
g) realize after ten minutes that baby has finally given up and gone to sleep

See! Wasn't that so much easier than simply listening to her cry?

Now I'm not saying to use this method all the time, as it will be stressful for all involved, but hey, if you've got to do it, why not try such a successful distraction? If you don't have issues with money (again, either lying or misremembering, I'm sure) then please feel free to substitute rememberances of past affairs or complaints about immediate family, as they should work equally well.

Otherwise, we continue to grow and grow. Nahanni is forever getting too big for things and it makes me sad every time I have to pack away some favourite outfit; like saying goodbye to another piece of my tiny baby. It seems many days I can scarcely remember her when she was just a tiny little thing, no heavier than a a half jug of milk in my arms. Now she's eating solid foods like a champ, and with a very brave palate, I think. I've been making her lots of organic baby foods, casseroles and the like and she will eat them with garlic and onions and herbs in them, which I think sis very good for a new eater. It's so cute to feed her as she proclaims her feelings throughout the meal with many 'Hmm!'s and 'Yumm!'s, delighting in every mouthful of food; hopefully a future epicurean like her parents. It's particularly funny to see her little face when she gets a new mouthful of something that she is unsure. I always tell her what the spoonful is before I put it in (seems only fair) and when it is new or she doesn't like the texture or flavour she raises her eyes to look at me, the most incredulous look on her face as if to say 'You're kidding me, right?'-- it cracks me up. I love to sit her in her bumbo in the kitchen as she gnaws on a large frozen carrot while I cook away making her little meals. We sing and talk and I explain the pieces to her and I hope that in her fondest memories will be moments like these, of our family together in the kitchen, the smell of garlic and onions frying heavy in the air, redolent of meals enjoyed and time savoured.

Too tired to blog

What can I say? I'm pooped. I've got lots of ideas and notions and whatnot rolling around in my head but Nahanni's sleeping has been off the rails lately and so we aren't sleeping much. I think it's her teeth, but who knows? Last night she cried for 3 hours, which is so uncharacteristic of her, I didn't know what to do. I tried everything I could think of and she just screamed. Eventually I turned the lights on, played with her a little while and when I couldn't stay awake any longer I jst put her in her crib - thinking she'd continue to sob, but I guess she was tired too so she just went to sleep...who knows? These kid-people? They're strange little creatures - and they don't come with a manual. So Until she can talk, it's a lot of guesswork. I'm pretty sure this too shall pass - and she'll go back to being perfect :B

A little behind...

Okay, so I don't know what I've been doing but I obviously haven't been writing. I haven't had much to report, perhaps, life has just been swimming along pretty nicely. Nahanni is smart and cute as ever - she began making the sign for 'milk' these last few weeks, it felt wonderful to see her first 'real' communication and reinforced for me that all these little things you do really do get through. Sleep has been a bit here and there, naptimes being very successful times which give me much hope and faith in our method, but nights have been a little all over the place...and with new teeth coming in I guess that's par for the course. Nahanni had her first Halloween and was the cutest ladybug ever - as you can attest. She's now begun rolling over onto her belly a lot in her sleep (which completely freaks me out) but has thankfully also begun rolling back (finally) so I feel somewhat less worried about it. She's a little superstar one way or the other and we love her to bits.
So there you have it, not my most scholarly or journalistic entry, but I do what I can...

Separation Anxiety

I once watched a program on one of those educational channels about a company which is using spider's silk and weaving it together to make bullet-proof vests, among other things. This thin, seemingly delicate and fragile thread, translucent and fine is actually one of the strongest substances on earth. It seems to me that is what a mother's tie to her child is like; even in sleep, when she is at work or at play, whether the child is in the next room or across the country, a thin thread connects her eternally, viscerally and fiercely to her child.
I was reminded of this especially last night. It's no secret that we (and everyone else who has a child of this age, I suspect) have been working on sleep, developing patterns etc., and for us, instilling confidence in the sleep process in general [read: without crying it out]. She'd been doing so wonderfully, often going to sleep on her own and for weeks she was sleeping from 7:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. without a feeding...and then it all fell apart. We really didn't know why, we couldn't figure out what it was. We've been feeding her 'solid' food now for about a month, which she has taken to brilliantly, but it didn't really seem like hunger. If anything it seemed like she was perhaps seeking the comfort of nursing since she was doing less of it due to having real food. But weeks of too much night-waking were really starting to get to me and I was getting exhausted and cranky. I finally decided last night to put her into her own bed at night for the first time. She's been having naps in her room since the beginning, but has never not slept by my side at night - but I was feeling desperate to see if it might help. So, we put her to bed as usual, her ocean waves playing, her gro-bag sleep bag snug around her to keep her warm--and she slept until 6:00 this morning! The only problem? Mommy and Daddy barely slept a wink. I was literally sitting there, staring at the baby monitor, prepared to leap through the walls in case she started mysteriously choking or something. It took forever to fall asleep in the first place, I kept wondering if it was right, if I were rushing her, rushing me. She woke briefly at 2:30 but put herself right back to sleep and I went back too until 4:45 a.m. and when I woke and realized I hadn't heard her I was tempted to panic. I lay awake in the green glow of the monitor's light, thinking crazy thoughts like: "Oh god, maybe she's dead - I should go check on her. No, if she's dead she's already dead and if she's just sleeping you should leave her be and don't screw her up. But what if she suffocated and I didn't hear her? What if she climbed out and fell on her head? What if..." Seriously insane thought process, right? But this was my first night without her by my side since the moment she was born, she has always slept in my arms, or beside me in the co-sleeper and that thread, that invisible spider's web of mother silk that connects me to her would not let me sleep. I finally got up at 5:15 and went in to check on her. At first the panic set in again--oh no, she's not breathing, her arm is limp, oh my god, I knew it--and then she let out a huge sigh, as if to let me know she was just fine. Which, of course, she was. Absolutely fine. I went back to bed but lay awake, thinking of her, of what an amazing and resilient little girl she is. When she peeped at 6:00 a.m. I flew out of bed to rush her into my lonely arms - I missed my little girl! I scooped her up, all warm and groggy and pressed my lips to her silky head, inhaling the scent of her. She gurgled and smiled her enormous smile and hugged me tight. I wrapped her in my spider's silk for another day, already feeling the pull of her independence against it. I spun a tale into her ear of how I would always be there for her, no matter how far, how my mother silk will protect her like kevlar, but will still let her go when she is ready.

These are for you Mom...

You know that saying 'a face only a mother could love'? While obviously not true of my gorgeous little one, it calls to mind that some pieces of this blog will only be interesting to mom, lola, grandma...you know. I think maybe this is one of them--just a little slice of the quotidian things that they miss being so far away. I have been regularly lamenting being so far from family in general, but especially while Nahanni is so young and such a fun age. She does these cute little things and I think how my mom or Ez's mom should be here, they should be seeing this, enjoying this wonderful little girl like we do. Sure friends like her, maybe even love her, but no one loves you like grandma...

A side effect of Motherhood?

Is it possible that a side effect of motherhood is a loss of ambition? I suppose it could be a spurious correlation that has more to do with lack of sleep, but I really am wondering what happened to the vibrant, energetic, ridiculously ambitious woman I used to be? How could it be that I am, for the most part, suddenly content to simply be a mom? I feel like having a baby somehow siphoned off my desire to accomplish something big(ger), like the invisible ambition liquid that used to fuel my engines was washed away with the blood of childbirth.
It certainly is hard to want to pursue wild dreams when I can often scarcely string a decent sentence together, I'm so tired. It certainly isn't helping with any aspirations I have as a writer...and as for on-camera auditioning--forget it, I'm only interested in doing it for money right now, which scares me on many levels. Not to mention the fact that then I'm back on the quest-for-perfection train and I've missed a lot of stops. Now I'm not saying all ambition is completely absent; I've been toying with how I might make and LA pilot season trip viable (and survivable) but at the same time, I wonder if I really want to be away from her as much as I would have to be to be successful in the way that I want. And of course, this brings up a myriad of questions about what to do otherwise, what adventure to embark upon, where to live etc.
I have always clung to the notion of living a life less ordinary like a life raft in a raging sea of potential mediocrity. It seems especially true nowadays that the ultimate sin is to simply live happily and quietly--and I know that it makes it that much harder for me to consider just buying a townhouse (for over half a million dollars, but that's another story) and la-di-da-ing my way through the next twenty years. I want to explore! I want to live! I want to dream big again!
The only question is how? We talk about walking away quite often, and I am the one who is unable to let go and dive into something else. It feels like one of those times in life when you jump off the cliff, flailing against a clear blue sky and hope that the water below doesn't kill you. It feels like the time to embrace something new and exciting (besides having a baby) and yet...I don't really know what it is and I certainly am having trouble discovering it when I barely have the energy to drag my butt to Mother Goose. Ez talks a lot about getting a boat and a bunch of land up North and starting a mothership business and...although it is less ordinary, somehow I can't bring myself to get over excited about living in the middle of nowhere...in Canada. Now if the same scenario were pitched in, say, Costa Rica, I feel like I could jump on board. Why is that? Why, for me, has everything always had to be the most, the furthest, the oddest? Where has it really gotten me? While I suppose it has technically taken me around the world--living in Ireland and Paris, filming in Istanbul, partying in New York, kayaking in the Yukon--hasn't it also broken my heart in so many ways? There is a reason I don't watch scripted television--it reminds me too much of all the 'coulda been a contenda' possibilites, all the ifs and wishes and coulda-shoulda-wouldas. Now it goes without saying that everything I have done has led me to this beautiful and remarkable child, and I know it is my journey, but still...how do you know when to jump once things get more serious? I guess ambition is a double-edged sword...and mine is very sharp on one side and increasingly dull on the other...

Nahanni cracks up -- beautiful

It's the little things, those little moments in life when you discover something that makes your child absolutely convulse with laughter. It was magic, it made me feel good all over.
Ahhhhh,Thanksgiving's gonna be easy this year....

A little Happiness Update

Yay!! Last night Nahanni slept (and therefore so too did mommy) 8 hours straight!!! Eight hours! Ocho horas! Huit heures!! It was like...food for a starving person, I really needed it. I'm not out of debt yet, but I have great hopes. And...I saw that she was tired this morning and lay her in her crib--and she put herself to sleep!
And, to top off the day, when I returned from my audition this afternoon she was sitting in her bumbo on the counter eating organic peas and rice for the first time and when she saw me her face lit up in a fabulous smile and she threw up her arms and exclaimed 'ma-ma!!' OOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhh, I love her!
Quel jour!

Dark days too...

Okay, now the purpose of this endeavour is not to present some utopian view of parenthood, as anyone with kids would see through that noise in about two seconds, so I do want to maintain that I am still in touch with reality, and specifically the difficult reality of being a parent. So yes, I have moments of intense love and adoration for this child and this new role, and I also have commensurately dark days as well - and certainly yesterday was one of those days.
First of all, it seems that we have a few days of good sleeps and then we have a few really ugly ones, and this weekend, while I was alone, we had some of the ugliest. Now I suspect that they were a direct result of a little girl getting her first tooth, as I noticed on Tuesday that sharp white points had begun to poke their way through her little pink gums, so I have been indulgent with respect to that discomfort, especially considering she's been remarkably happy considering. But Friday and Saturday nights she went down well as per usual but was up every hour from 11:00 pm onwards and every effort at leaving her to find her way back to sleep that has been working of late only served to increase her agitation - and mine. By Sunday morning I was a zombie, I couldn't even really manage to play with her, I just set her up on the couch beside me with every toy in the arsenal and tried not to fall unconscious. I was embarassingly impatient with her and I can admit that some insane thoughts passed through my head while she was fussing and screaming and not napping for the entire day. Every time that I put her down and thought I might get a moment to clean up, or better yet, pay off some sleep debt--up she was again, it was almost uncanny, like she knew. Once, I put her down (for the umpteenth time) at around three in the afternoon, asleep in her crib and crawled into bed, desperate for a few minutes of sleep and I swear, the second I fell into sleep she awoke, it was positively maddening. I thought I might go crazy, I was so out of it, so exhausted, so at the end of my tether. It was one of those days when you call your mother and say 'come get this kid before I strangle her'. Now I know it's not very PC to say that you've had thoughts of gouging out your child's eyes (or your own for that matter)[obviously not literally] but I'm trying to illustrate a state of mind - how you can waiver between cloying adoration and incomprehensible frustration within hours. And though you may be tempted to call the PPD police on me, I know every mother has felt like this at some point--if not they're either lying or not really present in their parenting. Naturally I am able to separate the crazy feelings from the sane ones, I obviously would never dream of hurting my child, but it was shocking to me to see how easy it is to become a bad parent, how easily I was short with her yesterday. I feel awful about it, and I really had to concentrate yesterday to keep level about it, to speak calmly to myself and remember that she is a baby and doesn't mean to scratch me in the eyeball with her sharp little fingernails or yank my hair like a pro-wrestler. To remember that she only knows what she wants and needs and hasn't yet learned patience or how to communicate pain or fear. I had to breathe deeply on many occasions and more than once had to put her in her crib and walk away, get some air. It goes to show you what a challenge it is - but thank god the rewards are so grand. To see her smile her wide, wet still toothless smile and babble 'mumma!' over and over again wins me over very easily. That and when she sleeps like last night from 8:00 pm to 4:00 am without waking up, that's very helpful too. Now the only problem is that lately I'm having terrible insomnia too - I couldn't sleep until almost 1:30 am last night, I was feeling even more crazy. I'm wading through it though, we'll make it.
On a lighter note, we spent some time on the Sunshine Coast last week (loved it) and had a wonderful family time with her - she was as good as gold and happy as a clam, even with the tooth coming in.

A Shot of a Clear Blue Sky

There is no doubt that art in its many forms has the power to move us, which is one of the reasons why I so lament the generally odious state of our culture of late. So rarely do I see a film that really stays with me anymore, but when I do see one, it tends to really set me on edge. Tonight was one of those nights. I was reminded of the way I so often felt in LA, sitting alone in an art house movie theatre (usually the Laemmle on Beverly) sobbing quietly - some film always pushing the sore buttons of the loneliness and isolation that weighs heavily on me when I am there. Now that, is another story, and yet still tied with this one, as what I'm really trying to get to is the whole human condition - the sharp, pungent, painful sting that is life. The twists that can shake our lives to their very foundations. It's almost irrelevant what film it was; what I'm really getting at is how vulnerable we are because we love -- something that has never been clearer to me than it has become since I had Nahanni.
Now, to appease curiousity, the film was Babel, about which I knew nothing but watched because of Cate Blanchett whom I will watch in anything. I was so easily pulled into the worlds portrayed there, the vastly differing lives of people in so many cultures, and although not exactly comparable, I couldn't help but draw parallels to what happened to Ez and I the day Nahanni was born, and because he is away this weekend, those same vulnerabilities I succumb so easily to on long stretches in LA washed over me tonight. I'm an easy mark these days - I put Nahanni to bed, exhausted after a long day of just she and I and then I see someone holding a child on TV and I miss her - it's like that. So there they are, in Morocco, she bleeding, dying before his very eyes and the most intimate scene I've seen in a million years - he's holding a bedpan for her and in this moment of intense vulnerability they kiss; they remember how much they are in love - it was heartbreakingly beautiful. So many things are called to mind for me - why it takes such big events to help us remember the most basic emotional things. I really understood that moment because when I returned home after the hemorrhage, weak as a kitten and vulnerable beyond words, Ez held me like that, he carried me to the toilet and performed all the things I could not do for myself. In those moments, open like a wound to the world I was at my most vulnerable and I saw not only how much he loved me, but how much I loved him, how often I have taken his gentle kindness for granted. In the film, I watched this man (played by Brad Pitt, achingly un-retouched, lit to look like a man and not a star) suffer the possibilities of this loss and I felt like I understood them in a way I could not have before all of this. I watched as they loaded her onto the stretcher and I knew the look in her eyes to be true and real because I had it on my own face that day - fear, exhaustion, confusion, more fear. There was a shot of the clear blue sky from her POV as they jostled her toward the ambulance and I instantly was transported to that same blue sky above me as the stretcher jerked its way through the grounds here on the way to the ambulance, how dichotomous it was to be covered in blood and shivering under such a beautiful blue sky. I watched him talk to his children from the phone in the hospital; trying to choke back all the emotions that flooded through him and I thought of Ez having to call everyone on the most momentous day of his life and try to sort through everything he must have felt. I thought of how you would do anything not to upset your children, how their pain must be felt tenfold through you even a continent away and I shivered at the thought that my child could ever suffer, be terrified, lost or injured.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - to have a child is to throw yourself under an emotional bus; everything we do is to protect them from ill and our greatest fears are that we might somehow fail. My friend Tracy always says that her mom would say 'You are only ever as happy as your saddest child' and I understand now how much that must be true. It strikes me what an incredibly intricate and complicated thing love is. The love we have for our children, our spouses, our friends, our parents. How vulnerable we all are to one tiny bullet, real or imagined, literal or figurative.

More on Sleep

SO...
An update on the continuing sleep saga (not really a saga at all actually, just the stuff that comes with a young baby) - two nights ago Nahanni and I really had it out. She went down at 9:30 pm and was up at 12:00 and I fed her, fine, no problem. Up again at 1:30 am - so I knew she wasn't hungry -- and thus began the battle of wills; something which is hard to win with a little person who hasn't learned about choice-vs-necessity, need-vs-want yet and cannot really communicate. I knew she wanted, she felt she needed and so we argued about it for about two and a half hours. I just decided that she had to start to understand that I cannot soothe her five times a night, it has just become too much for me and I've been like a zombie from lack of decent sleep. It was hard, trying to teach her that, but I was at the end of my rope. The first hour wasn't so bad, but then she started to get mad - and this is not a kid who gives up easily. Eventually I just turned on the light (after trying everything else but picking her up and nursing her) put my hand on her belly and let her look at me until she fell asleep. It was a tough go, but she did it - we did it.
Last night she went down at 7:00 pm, woke up at 2:00 am to feed and then slept until 6:00 am - not too shabby, I thought. It seemed like she'd learned already (not that I want to speak too soon or anything) and although there is much to wait and see on, I feel like she's a pretty smart little cookie and I have great faith in her. She's doing wonderfully on her naps, not even waking up the majority of the time and when she does (as she did three times in this nap already) she has been soothing herself to sleep almost instantly.
I know it is too early to claim victory, but I cannot help but feel that contrary to the true 'cry-it-out' method, we have slowly but surely been arming her with the skill to soothe herself, to trust sleep and still trust us. For today, I'm feeling pretty darned good.

It's the little things

Been thinking about milestones and how easily they get away from you. I've never actually written down that on July 4th Nahanni rolled over for the first time. Or that August 4th (her four month birthday) was the first day she sat up alone. September 13th, she did her first little crawl, after our hike in Lynn Canyon. September 19 she had her first taste of rice cereal. I was feeding her tonight, her little teaspoon of cereal and as she was opening her mouth toward it I thought of how quickly it will be that she just...eats. How easily these moments just slip into the depths of the past almost as quickly as they come. I'm trying to hold tight to them, as best I can. I love to get her ready for her bath, her chubby, rolled legs, rotund little belly, her crinkly little bum - the most gorgeous sights I've ever seen. So quickly she'll be big and all those little moments will only be the memories that I make them.
It amazes me how fast she is growing and changing. Already she says 'mum mum mum' with regularity and yesterday she said 'na-na' quite clearly (yes mom, I know you're thrilled with that one!). She's so interesting, how curious she is about everything around her - I love to watch it. Today I participated in a script polish that went from 10 am to 5 pm - I was a little frazzled just trying to wrap my head around how it would go - could she handle so much time away from me? I know she couldn't do it with a nanny, but I felt she had a shot with daddy - and she was a star. It was wonderful too, to come out at lunch time after finishing the first read-thru (with no emergency phone calls) and see my little girl in her daddy's arms, her darling little pink hat with the ears on it, one flopping adorably to the side - and she turned her little head, her increasingly dark brown eyes flashed brightly when she saw me and a huge smile flew onto her face - it made my day. Not seeing her for a few hours made that reunion so sweet - she grabbed me and planted a big wet kiss on my mouth, so hard and passionately that she bit me with her toothless gums. I am irretrievably in love with this child - it is an awesome thing.
No, we're still not sleeping through the night, but...it's coming. Eventually I won't even be able to get her out of bed - that's just how it works.

Scratch that...I'm tired

Ha, I'm just kidding.
Mostly.
I'd really like to sleep. I'm not trying to gloss over it with platitudes and pithy prose, but I am trying to see the silver lining in this all. I was up til 2:30 am and for some reason she woke up at 5:30 am wide awake and ready to play - and I just haven't been able to get back to sleep or even nap. I'm so tired I've started to stutter...
but there are moments like this of such gorgeous simplicity that it gets me through.

A Buddhist Approach

It's late. For me, I'd even hazard to say it's very late. Now, of all times, my body has decided it just can't sleep. It seems crazy to me, but perhaps it's my way of stealing time that is just for myself, a commodity of which I have had very little of late. I attempted to go to bed half hour ago or so, and as I lay in the dark, listening to the night around me, I remembered to say my thank-yous. It's something I've been doing more or less regularly for...well, about twenty years now [crazy that I could have been doing anything for twenty years, but that's another entry, I suppose]. I always say 'Thank you for another day and please give me many more happy, healthy and safe ones'. Sometimes there's more, but at the very least, there's always that - but tonight it seems to have sparked a thought for me. It's not secret that I've been struggling lately, just trying to figure it all out and there have been more than a few times in the last couple of weeks when I have felt at wit's end due to lack of sleep. I feel foggy and overwhelmed somedays, I can read the same thing ten times and still not understand it, I lose my train of thought, I forget simple things - I'm desperately tired. It's been hard; it's well-known that one of the best, most widely used methods of torture is sleep deprivation, and so it's clear that I've been suffering and though I am insanely in love with Nahanni, I've been feeling really desperately in need of solutions to get more sleep, to get some separation from her. Tonight as I lay in the darkened room {Baby Sleep tip #457: keep nighttime rooms dark!} listening for the sound of my daughter's breathing in the cool fall night, I had a flash of insight. Those few simple words, that simplest of gratitudes called to mind for me something I recall from a book by the Dalai Lama, where he talked about living life as though every day were your last. I thought to myself - if I were to have no more days, would I not lament the energy I have spent worrying and fretting these few short months? If I were to die tomorrow, I would instead wish to have relished those seven little minutes I spent with her tonight at 11pm, holding her warm body in my arms as she nursed, her soft little hand sweeping the dark air in search of my face, her clumsy caresses, her mouth yawning in the dim light. I think suddenly those minutes would become among the most precious I've spent in my life.
One of the mommies in the mommy group I started here in this community (Raven Moms, Unite!) finally delivered her long overdue baby this morning, 2:11 am, here at home (inspired in part, she said, by my story and some of the other moms who'd had home births) and I popped in to see them and bring some things Nahanni had outgrown. There she was, holding this brand new little girl in her arms, 8lbs exactly - and I thought of how I was there just yesterday, wasn't I? But it wasn't yesterday; it was nearly six months ago already and so many of those everyday things you think you'll never forget have faded into the patina of the past, their edges softened like stone caressed by the steady hand of water.
So here I am. It's not perfect, but it's not horrible either. It's hard, but not impossible and no matter what - this too shall pass. I'm trying to live it happily, to stay in the moment and still push through. I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed by things that won't ultimately matter, by things that my memory will simply alter for me anyhow. Yes, I'm tired, yes I'm addled. But I am also incredibly lucky. I have a really amazing child for whom I am still the centre of the universe. She is happy, content, curious, funny. She has begun to search out my mouth, grasping my head in her tiny hands and pressing her wide open mouth to mine for the soggiest, most disgustingly wonderful kisses I have ever had. It is in those moments, wiping the slobber from my laughing face that I remember that it is all worth it.
Of course, I'll appreciate it even more when I've had a bit of shut-eye...seven hours, anyone? That's not too much to ask, is it?

Visiting, thinking, wondering...obsessing?

I don't think you can spend time with your family from far away, with four generations of women together, see your grandmother as 'old' for the first time...all of it, without starting to really think about things. It's hard for me to not contemplate my parenting when I spend time with my parents, to think about this generation as well as those behind me which have led to me here.
I'm feeling insane in so many ways - insane from so much time with just Nahanni while Ez finishes up the season on the river, from the visit in which she wouldn't let anyone have her but me, from being home again with a baby that's all out of sorts and has her first cold to boot, from not sleeping enough...which gives me lots of time to brood over my choices about what is leading to the not sleeping, to her making strange, to all of it.
I know it drives Ez crazy when I second guess things, but I can't help but wonder if the choices I've (we've) made are currently biting me in the ass, if somehow I was misled about how crucial it is to form strong attachments with my child. As my mom said recently 'Oh, it's working - she's attached alright!' and it is true - this child lives in a world that clearly revolves around mommy - so much so that I'm starting to suffer and wonder if I should've just stuck her in a crib from day one like so many others do, like everyone seems to be implying I should have done. Then she'd be sleeping through the night, then she wouldn't make strange, then she'd blahblahblah...
I don't even know how much of it is true - I mean she is still only five months old, she's still a very small baby. I look through and the books seem to be saying that most kids are in fact not sleeping through the night at five months, they still need more food in the night, and that sleeping through the night is actually 5 hours straight anyhow. I feel like I just don't know what to think at all and I'm just driving myself nuts.
I keep thinking about the whole 'attachment' thing and really, when I think about it, how could she not be attached even if she had been sleeping in her own room from the start - who else would she be attached to? Would she love me less? Would she even know the difference? My whole intention had always been to instill confidence in her, for her to feel safe and protected and to know that we were always here for her and she had no reason to ever be frightened or feel abandoned. When I toy at all with crying-it-out, the look in her eyes of fear and confusion speaks to my very soul - I can't bear it, and yet - how many of us were put in our cribs to cry? It's hardly like I wake at night in a cold sweat thinking back on it. One girl in my mommy hiking club put it this way - that she envisions it like a bow and arrow - you pull it closer to you so that the arrow flies farther and straighter - but here I am, and I can't leave Nahanni with anyone other than her Dad right now because she makes strange. I tried today to leave her with a sitter for two hours and after one hour I got the call I was almost waiting for. Did I screw up with the best of intentions? Have I ended up creating this or is this just a phase that many kids go through - making strange?
I suppose it's all about weaning - piece by piece. First I instill confidence and then I teach her to move out more on her own. I guess. That's the idea, isn't it? I just don't know right now - I feel so confused, I feel like I'm judging my parenting and, even if it is not true, I feel like others are judging my parenting. I suppose only time will tell - and perhaps then I'll have had enough sleep to articulate it in a fascinating yet light-hearted fashion for your amusement.