November 30, 2006: Eliot's Big Adventure 

Gramma Genie and Granddaddy Ken joined us for the week of Thanksgiving. We ate heaps of hot, fresh food – a welcome change from the bowls of Corn Chex sustaining us for the previous two weeks. Mom cuddled Eliot while I chipped away at heaps of stagnating laundry, mail, and dishes. It was a relief to go on walks with the folks without having to hold the baby or Fenway’s leash. I had forgotten what I felt like under all these creatures clinging to me. I am much lighter than I remembered.

The week would have been a refreshing beginning to next visitor-free chunk of time if it were not for our surprise trip to Colorado. Our little hearts were broken when Toby did not land the Pennsylvania job, but he was still in the running for a position at Camp Shady Brook in the mountains outside of Colorado Springs. Not only did the camp exec still want him to interview, he wanted Toby badly enough to fly him, the baby, and yours truly to the Springs for the two-day interview and camp tour.

An all-expenses-paid trip to Colorado at the beginning of the holiday season? Why the heck not? The Pikes Peak YMCA execs offered to put us up at the Antlers, a fancy-pants hotel in downtown Colorado Springs. They planned dinner at the Phantom Canyon restaurant our first night. The Y would handle the driving, the schedule, and organizing all the meetings with various board members and executives at the Y. All we had to do was show up and be charming.

On the front end, this seemed a manageable task. Eliot was a rock star on the plane, resting and cooing and nursing for the duration of both flights taking us to Denver. He was also a champion pants-wetter. Thank goodness for diaper bags and multiple replacement outfits. And for changing tables in airplane lavatories.

We were all still smiling and mostly wrinkle-free when we landed in Denver around 2:30. But then came the pre-rush rush-hour ride down to the Springs on I-25. Then the missed first meeting, the abbreviated pre-dinner rest-time in the hotel room, the unraveling buttons on the front of my only shirt nice enough for Phantom Canyon, the lost dinner reservations, the final decision to dine in a hotel restaurant serving a party of 30 in the back room, and as a result, unable to get our food out to us in under an hour. . . Shall I go on?

I shall.

Tuesday, 8:00pm: I finally haul my baked sea bass and goat-cheese mashed potatoes up to my room in a Styrofoam box, balancing a howling, squirming Eliot on my hip. On the Christmas-lit streets outside, snow falls. Our room grows colder. “Just turn the dial clockwise to change the temperature,” the bellhop had instructed. I twist. It hisses. A chilly breeze greets me from the wall heater. By the time Maintenance finally decides the heater is not fixable, Eliot is asleep, I am trying to bathe the chill and exhaustion from my bones, and every surface of our room is littered with the detritus of quick changes and frantic eating.

9:00pm: The Antlers hotel staff makes the decision to move us to a new room. “Moving us” involves leaving the room key on the table in the room down the hall. Toby has to re-pack the diapers, onesies, grown-up clothes, toiletries, car seat, baby Bjorn, and winter coats while I jar Eliot awake and then desperately try to get him to sleep again in a new bed.

Wednesday, 3:00am: Eliot is still not asleep.

6:30am: Clock radio jolts us awake, announcing school closings all over the region due to snow.

7:15am: Toby heads out for breakfast interview. I drag myself out of bed while Eliot sobs and I root through my makeup for some Clinique miracle elixir to conceal the bags under my eyes.

8:00am: I manage to rescue the diaper bag and blanket off the bathroom floor in the nick of time. The toilet, for no apparent reason, fills up and spills yellow water all over the tile. The morning maintenance fellow arrives whistling. Actually whistling. While he works. He knocks just in time to catch us breastfeeding next to the frost-covered window. At some point, I manage to make it down to the Antlers Grille for a 10-minute breakfast buffet spree which I bolt over Eliot’s head as he snoozes in the Bjorn.

9:00am: Toby returns and takes the car-seat down. It gets wedged in to the back seat of the camp pick-up truck, and I get wedged in next to it. There I sit and attempt to engage in clever repartee and ask meaningful questions for the next two hours as Toby’s potential new boss maneuvers snow-slick roads up past Woodland Park and into the mountains. My end of the conversation starts to sound like the musings of a 7^th grader who has spent the morning sniffing glue.

11:00am – 12:45pm: At Camp Shady Brook, we plod through ankle-deep snow for over an hour learning about camp. Eventually, I beg off to a warm office with a couch to change Eliot and nurse. Our 1:30 advisory board interview back in the Springs is looking a little dicey. We are somehow supposed to make the 1 ½ hour drive back in 45 minutes while also stopping for lunch. Did I mention it was snowing?

1:30pm: I am crouched on the floor of the Quizno’s Subs bathroom in Woodland Park. Lacking a Koala Bear station or even a countertop, I change Eliot on the grungy linoleum while Toby orders me a sub and a shot of caffeine to wolf down in the truck.

2:30pm: Back in the Springs, Toby takes part in a 90-minute interview collapsed down to 20 minutes, plus a marathon meeting with the fellow from HR which had been postponed due to our late arrival the day before. Jaimin meets me in an office of the YMCA for a 10-minute visit. I nurse Eliot and then change his diaper on the conference table while the bottoms of my corduroys drip dry around my feet.

3:25pm: We are shooting north on slick roads to make it to the Denver airport in time for a 6:15 flight. We check in curbside and race through the airport trying to find gate B-16, which turns out to be the very last gate in the B terminal. We take five escalators, a tram, and four moving walkways. Eliot screams for the entire 30-minute dash through the airport. He needs to eat. We do not have time to stop.

6:15pm: The plane is scheduled to depart on time. Eliot is nursing, we have an extra seat between us to stretch out, and we should be landing at Ontario at 7:00pm. Home by 8:30. Sweet relief.

7:15pm: After circling over the same stretch of the Inland Empire for 20 minutes, the captain announces that the Santa Ana winds have made it impossible to land at Ontario. We swing around and divert to LAX. The collective groan of the AirBus passengers nearly de-pressurizes the cabin.

9:00pm: We are standing at the curb outside of baggage claim in a clump of 9 passengers, jostling the other clumps of 9 passengers, all awaiting the shuttle bus that will carry us back through Los Angeles to Ontario. Eliot is, once again, screaming himself purple. It is time to eat. Do I perch on my suitcase on the edge of parking garage and start nursing, or do I wait some unknown amount of time for the shuttle belonging to our group of 9? I wait. He howls. My heart hurts.

9:30pm: We are racing along Highway 10. Eliot is still gulping frantically, and I am wondering just how many ways a baby can get crushed riding in an airport shuttle bus without a car seat.

11:57pm: We are home and Toby has cranked the heat up and changed the baby. I nearly faint on the way to the bathroom and catch myself on the doorjamb. Toby has to help me into bed. Eliot, having slept for the duration of the car-ride back from Ontario, is wide awake and ready to play. Our own dirty flannel sheets have never felt so perfect. We all sleep. 

Today, about 6:45pm: The Executive Director at Camp Shady Brook offers Toby the position over the phone. Eliot and I play on the bed, singing and reading a colorful book about peace. The baby is smiling and stretching and gazing around the room. Take a good look, kid. Home may be a very different place soon.

November 16, 2006: Six Weeks Old Today 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered your little hot-dog thighs had beefed up to bratwursts. You are growing like a weed. Most of the time, I do not notice the changes from one day to the next. But the fact of your sprouting is unavoidable. You have outgrown all of your newborn clothes, and even some of the 3 month pajamas are pulling tight across your middle. The back of your neck now pooches into a little pillow, and your cheeks look as if you are secreting away acorns for the winter. Keep growing at this rate, and soon you’ll have Yao Ming talking to your bellybutton.

The change that most astounds me is your strength. When you are angry or even just active, the power in your legs is enough to propel you to standing. Sprawled on my chest and kicking, you can jettison yourself up from my belly and into my chin. Yesterday, I loosened my hold and let you go on your own, and it was only moments before you had my jaw in your grip and your face smashed against my cheek. You crawled up there just by the force of your own strong legs.

One of your favorite games is baby pull-ups. Reclining against my knees, you curl your fist around my fingers, contract your elbows and pull yourself forward. A look of such intense concentration etches itself into your face that one would think you are training for the Mr. Universe pageant. You pull forward then ease back, always slowly and with fierce attention. Your keep your head upright and stable the whole way forward and back. Your body is becoming your own domain. Physically, you need less help every day.

Emotionally, though, you are becoming more dependent on us. Now when you wake, you do not cry immediately. Instead, you look around. Sometimes looking occupies a great deal of your activity – gazing at the light streaming in through the blinds or at some fascinating patch of ceiling. But more and more, you are looking for a someone. You look for me. When you catch my eye, you stare. For long stretches of time, your gaze is fixed, open, and completely engaged with mine. I can see the gears in there cranking away, piecing together the puzzle of your world. I hope you like what you see.

November 15, 2006: Wildfire

At some ungodly pre-dawn hour of the morning yesterday, a blaring car horn woke up our little family. Living in the heart of a forest, any vehicle noise at any time of day is disorienting. While my mind struggled to connect the sound to anything logical, I tried to remember if I was visiting friends in Brooklyn and somehow forgotten in the bleariness of sleep. But no, we were right there in our own bed in the pitch black of a power outage. Toby leapt out of bed in his Scooby-Doo boxers to find Jim in his truck at the top of his driveway warning us of a nearby forest fire. 

It is as dry as the entrance to Hades here in our patch of mountains. Dead pines and oaks litter the earth around us like scattered matches. At Harmony Pines, a camp about a half mile down the road, the night’s windstorm had blown over a  power line and ignited a blaze. We had known this moment was inevitable. We bustled out of bed and tried to pack in the dark. 

When you live on top of the San Andreas Fault near a Smokey the Bear fire danger level sign perpetually flipped to “Extreme,” you find the topic of disaster preparedness creeping into conversations. Toby and I had talked a few months back about what we would take if we were ever evacuated. We put a lot of thought into our list – after saving the dog and the baby, we would be sure to grab scrapbooks, framed photos, a few precious pieces of jewelry, the laptop with its cache of saved writings and digital photos. Keepsakes and mementos. “Irreplaceable” being the key descriptor of all items on the list. 

We had a few minutes to pack – the wind was not blowing towards our camp just yet. But I stood at the door with Eliot squalling in his car-seat, I discovered I could not care less about any the things I had planned to take. All I wanted was a change of clothes for the baby, some warm blankets, Fenway’s dog food, and a few snacks to tide us over till morning. The photo albums and scrapbooks were all lying there right within reach. But I simply didn’t give a rat’s ass. I just wanted to get in the car and GO. 

Because our camp is spread out over two sites, we had a safe house in which to hole up two miles down the road. It was unheated and dark, but I piled a few extra blankets on the bed and cuddled up to nurse Eliot. Let the fire burn. What does any of that stuff matter? We even managed to fall back asleep until the sun had made its appearance. 

The firefighters doused the blaze before it did any major damage to any of the camps in our stretch of forest. We were back home by early afternoon. We enjoyed a quiet evening of scrabble by candlelight, and the power returned sometime around midnight last night.  

I’m sure I would have missed my wedding photos and volumes of self-indulgent ramblings in my journals had the house burned. Probably I would have found that I ached for something I had not even thought about taking. Maybe Nelson, our stuffed banana slug. Or the blanket mom crocheted for Eliot. But it is good to know that in the heat of the moment, my priorities were exactly in the order they should be: husband, son, pooch, and self. Let the rest be tinder and smoke.

November 9, 2006: Sniffles 

Eliot is suffering through his first cold. I should say we are suffering through it, because one of the undeniable facts of mothering an infant is that every undertaking is a team effort.

I have experienced hundreds of sore throats in my lifetime, so I am relatively sure I will survive my own. But this is Eliot’s first. Doubtless it is a strange and disorienting thing to feel the body you are only beginning to comprehend as belonging to you suddenly turning and thumbing its nose at you. His cold is keeping pace with mine, his symptoms trotting along one day behind. That means by tomorrow, he should have a roof-rattling cough and a splitting headache. For now, we are enjoying his congestion and a pathetically hoarse voice that creaks like an old barn door during his frequent bouts of sobbing. I have made the discovery that Eliot loves having his nose aspirated about as much as having his diaper changed, which means he will have countless fond memories of a bulb syringe and an exposed rear end to share with his therapist someday.

Eliot’s cold is clearly clouding his judgment, because he has been disappointingly indifferent to the sea-change taking place in American politics. Considering he is the grandson of Byron K. Williams, one would expect him to show a little more enthusiasm about what is happening on Capitol Hill. Our next round of guests are my parents, flying in to spell us over Thanksgiving. Maybe Grandpa Ken will have time to give Eliot a pointer or two about his expected contributions to the great democratic project.

 Aiden gets a feel for the newest member of his tribe

 Mamas and squirts

 Aunt Jaimin practices juggling two at once. No better birth control has yet been discovered.

Moms and babies take an autumn stroll around Jackson Lake

 Eliot enjoys a rare moment of delight during his most recent bath

November 5, 2006: One Month Old Today 

This afternoon, your daddy boards a plane to Pennsylvania for an interview at YMCA Camp Kresge near Wilkes-Barre. The next two days will determine the shape of your world for the next few years. Will your childhood universe consist of rattlesnakes and dusty hikes in the high desert mountains of southern California? Or will you toddle on the green grass hills of the Poconos? Perhaps some third option will emerge we have not yet discovered. I am sending out all my prayers and wishes, for what they are worth, that your dad will interview like a champ and find a good fit in Pennsylvania. We want you to grow up fierce from fending off the attention and torment of your Northampton cousins, Amelia and Charlotte, who live a mere 5 ½ hour drive from Camp Kresge. Grandma Genie and Grandpa Ken live just 4 hours south. And countless friends and family are scattered through New Jersey and New York, also just around the corner. You would grow up at the epicenter of a great circle of love.

I know your imagination is only just beginning to take on form and dimension, but I can vividly picture a road trip across the country with a newborn baby, a U-Haul, and a lunatic dog. I just keep telling myself that the Mormons did it in covered wagons before rest areas and Red Roof Inns. At least I won’t have to cook over an open fire every night. The 21^st century has provided drive-throughs.

I have to remind myself you are not so newborn anymore. You are starting to wake up. Every so often when you begin to stir in the wee hours of the morning, I catch you looking at me from your spot in the bed. Your wide eyes, gazing right into mine. It only lasts a moment, but I know you are beginning to know me.

Yesterday, Toby and I found a brightly colored rattle your Aunt Jaimin gave you, and we shook it in front of you. Your eyes focused, tracking the color and sound it as we moved the rattle in arcs and circles. Your vision stutters still, catching up in bursts.

We speculate that you need for stimulation is driving your recent bouts of inconsolable fussiness. Most of the time these days, when you are awake and not nursing, you are talking and squawking and sobbing. At first, we diagnosed hunger, then diaper rash, then gas pains. We eventually discovered your absolute loathing of the cold, explaining your misery at every diaper change and bath. But regular feedings have become the norm, butt paste cleared up the rash, and removing raw carrots from my diet eased the tummy rumblings. I bought a $10 heater fan for the end of your changing table for warming your tush and sending you into gentle, quiet squirming when you are exposed.

And yet, you still fuss. Even dry, fed, and held, you are dissatisfied. We have to bounce you, sing to you, traipse around the living room in arrhythmic steps to keep you alert and happy. Until you can move of your own volition, reaching for things and kicking at will, it is our job to provide you with this assistance. It is exhausting, but it is also a great pleasure. You make us engage with you. You draw us to you, teach us your nature and give us a window into the person you are. We like what we see.

But these small wonders are only the tiniest fraction of your day. Most of your life is resting, eating, cuddling. Of all your activities, your joy in nursing is unparalleled. You take to it each time with a vigor worthy of the world’s greatest gourmands. And just as you did your first night on earth, you sing when you nurse. Your hums and coos harmonize with mine. We are the troubadours of the repast. Often, your singing carries over into drowsiness and even into your deepest of sleep. When I hear you, floating in those naptime depths and humming to yourself, I know your dreams are a safe and lovely place. I will do everything I can to help them stay that way.

October 31, 2006: Halloween

Those mean old monsters better not try to mess with this baby

Eliot's evil eye sends ghouls packing

The bug is still trying to figure out this bath-time nonsense. . .

. . . but daddy snuggles make perfect sense

October 26, 2006: Three Weeks Today

Boy, do you love to move. When we take you walking in the jog stroller, you fuss and squirm all along the stretch of smooth, paved driveway leading out of camp. But as soon as we hit the unmaintained dirt road at the bottom of the hill, complete with ruts, rocks, and washouts, you are happy as a clam. Your body lets go, and within moments, you are sound asleep. We have begun aiming for the acorns on the paved road just to create more bumps to keep you happy.

Your periods of alertness are growing longer and more fun. You like to gaze around at the lights and colors, but our faces still elude you. The patterns of lamplight on the ceiling or the contrasting colors of Toby’s banjo hanging against the blue living room wall are much more fascinating to you than we are. But your interest in looking never lasts long. You begin to fuss and your forehead crinkles into a picture of great concern. You want to move. 

So I am up again, turning on the music and singing along while I swing you to and fro, up and down, in my arm. I move in circles, swoop into deep knee bends, twist and wiggle while I sing along to the music. And your face is wide with wonder and what I take for pleasure – an openness, a complete sense of surrender. When the sun is out, we walk out onto the deck for the double delight of dappled sun and dancing. You can last for 30 minutes out there in my moving arms.

Grandma Lolly has discovered a trick to keep you satisfied while she cuddles you. She lets you sprawl out, tummy-down, across her lap, and she jiggles her knee wildly up and down so you can bounce. You love it, vibrating on her lap while the shapes and colors of the room shimmy along with you.

Maybe this is the consequence of all that walking and swimming we did together when I was carrying you. For the last five months of your life inside me, we hiked mountains every day and splashed around in the camp pool every chance we got. It is tiring now to be on the go, but I would not have it any other way. You are learning to love the good kind of stimulation – movement, adrenaline – tasting the beginning pleasures of fitness and motion. You keep me on my feet, too. You keep me dancing. What could be better than that?

Grandma Lolly has the magic touch for bathing the bug