She's So Deep.

Taking pictures of Scarlet is one of the single most grounding actions I can take in life. It calms my racing heart and slows my rapid breaths every time. It's like I was made to do this. What astonishes me always is the expressions I catch in photographs that are so blink and you'll miss it that I rarely see them in person. She's a very happy and mellow child. She's constantly laughing and telling us and herself jokes. She's also constantly chattering happily to her stuffed animals. I think she talks about us to them. I heard her use "cookie" in a sentence to Pink Monkey the other day. She adorably dances when I say, "Dance, dance!" She wolf whistles around the house on command. She never complains. Very full diaper, outside in cold weather turning the rest of us practically frostbitten? Hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Teething? She doesn't complain. She's a very happy soul.

It's in pictures that I see her more serious side develop. These pictures are what shows me another side of the person she's turning into and who she'll someday be. And I like it. A lot.

Thankfulness.

When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was truly a show in our house. A blended family with four family sides and a three story house with an art school in the basement? Yup, we hosted Thanksgiving every year and made the swarming masses come to us. We did it potluck style and somehow rarely were the ones who had to make the turkey. There was a revolving door of transplants and distant relatives and homeless-for-the-holidays friends, and we also had regulars who attended every year. The menu never really changed: a big a** turkey, sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows on top, rusty potatoes, broccoli/cheese casserole, pumpkin bread, cranberry bread, stuffing, pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream and peanut butter/chocolate pie. With food, we always knew what to expect. With family, we didn't. I believe there were years in which all four sides of grandparents came but often not. There were years with fights, some that have never really resolved to this day. There were years one or more of the five of us kids brought dates or acquaintances who had nowhere else to go. With all of the the things that changed and all of the the things that didn't, the event itself was a constant in my childhood. Through 80's legwarmers and 90's grunge flannel shirts to early adulthood and college, this was my Thanksgiving. It was not unusual to have 40-50 guests at our Thanksgiving table.

Every year, I slept too late to see the start of the parade. This is ridiculous to me now because this year I put on the TV to see what time the parade starts, thinking it must be 7:00 or 8:00 am, and I was surprised to see it started at 9:00 am. 9:00 am! That was still two hours after I had gotten up on Thanksgiving morning. My, how things have changed.

Every year, my dad set up appetizers on the giant wrap-around bar we had in our old house. We even had pulsating lights and a giant silver pole in the room...a pole which became the butt of several jokes I will NEVER tell. And I loved to pig out on the variety of appetizers, some of which I only got to eat once a year. Then I had to watch the clock and pace myself to stop an hour to two hours before dinnertime was scheduled. Then we'd eat buffet style and talk about films and school and boy/girlfriends. Then my cousin would turn on the football game after dessert and a few people would pass out in front of it. Eventually after everyone left, we'd think it was very late at night because of the early dinner and we'd be surprised that it was only 8:00 pm. And we'd dip into the leftovers for a second dinner. Every year.

And some years saw extreme sadness, like my great-aunt vomiting into the silver sink behind our beloved giant wrap-around bar because of her chemotherapy. That's real life, not even exempt during holidays.

After my senior year of college, Thanksgiving shifted when my parents sold the childhood house and moved to a farm in Blairstown. The five of us were shifting too, one of us to Vegas, two into steady relationships and places of their own, me to central Jersey then San Francisco then western MA. For a few years things were out of orbit. I considered myself to be one of the most steady faces at a Klein/Jacobson Thanksgiving dinner and even I missed one while out in San Francisco. However, since then a new groove, a slowly steady rhythm has presented itself again. And I couldn't be happier.

When Cassidy and I had our summer relationship over six years ago, a dream of ours was to have Thanksgiving altogether with both of our moms present. That I lived in NJ, he in California, and that I had never met his mom didn't seem like obstacles at the time. We split before that could happen and spent two Thanksgivings apart, me at my cousin's one year and a neighbor's house the following year. When we got back together years later, it was October, and we knew we were going to make our dream come true. And it was fabulous. I love looking at photos of that time - we were so glowy and fabulous looking. The next year I was in San Francisco and couldn't travel, but there have been three consistently wonderful Thanksgivings since then.

My parents hosted in Jersey two years ago and we toasted our dinner with me announcing my pregnancy, a pregnancy so early that the rest of the world wouldn't find out about for six weeks. Last year, we hosted here in Noho and had a four-month-old daughter to be thankful for. This year, Cassidy's mom hosted and we didn't have to travel or host. There are some steady, always there faces: me, Cassidy, my sister Lindsay, my parents, Cassidy's mom Ruth and her husband Ernie, my Uncle Jamie. Then there are the sometimes but always welcome attendees: Cassidy's dad Larry and his wife Peggy, my sister Marisa and her new husband Matt, Cassidy's brother Sam and his girlfriend Jess. It's not what we grew up with but that had to change eventually. Would I go back if I had the chance? I wouldn't.

It's all part of our ever-changing lives. The generational shift is a bit scary as I've written before. However, I'm also deliriously happy to be able to host or help make the Thanksgiving memories that our babies will one day, maybe, blog about.

Balls!

I grabbed your attention with that title, huh?

On Sunday afternoon, a friend had a great idea to get us all to Universal Kids in Northampton. It's open until 6pm and is filled with slides, tunnels, ball pits, play houses, play rooms, a carousel, and much more. It was so nice to sit in the ball pit with friends and babies (toddlers) and just talk about all of the things on our minds. It got dark out and we still sat and watched our children play. It felt like being out on a school night and it felt great.

Scarlet is not so fearless outside of the house. At home, she's the adventurous queen of her domain but outside of the home, she loves to sit on my lap or in my arms. Sunday night, I was proud of her. She was hanging out on the ledge of the ball pit just listening to us talk while she kicked her legs. She very randomly signed "nurse" to my friend who was nursing her son and that was weird because I've never taught her much sign language. Anyway, she liked to crawl or walk around the edge of the pit and she fell in a few times and didn't cry. At one point she was playing with my camera and fell in backwards and head first. And no tears! Eventually she gave in and let go of her fears. She conquered the ball pit! It got hairy for awhile there and was touch and go, but she did it.

First, meet the intimidating enemy: (Please excuse the dreadful fluorescent lighting in these pictures. I can't do a thing about it.)



She preferred to hang out on the ledge where she was joined by a cute friend:



Scarlet thought she could just skirt around the sides and not go in the pit:



But...she fell in! The horror!



It's sink or swim, baby!



She thought she made it out...



Safe! For now, anyway...



Then she fell back in, backwards. It was majestic:



She was no match for the ball pit. It was taking her alive:



Going under:



Then fighting to keep her head above ball level:







"Hey, this is actually kinda...nice. Think I'll fall asleep now." The rest gave her the strength to finally pull herself up and realize that she's tall enough to stand in here. Victory is coming..



"I DID IT! CONQUERED!"



I'll end this with a ghostly picture taken outside a play house she was looking out of. I don't know why it turned out this way:

Adventuring.

Usually we go right. Today, we went left. I'm always amazed at how much adventure still awaits us just minutes from our front door. I think this amazement is what happens when you once lived in the same(ish) place for the first 27 years of your life. You tend to exhaust a lot of possibilities and lose your options in that case. Of course my year and a half in San Francisco is a whole other story. I could have lived there decades and not have explored all of the possibilities within the city and surrounding the city. However, we've now been in western Mass for two years, nearly exactly, and I can say I'm IN LOVE with my community.

So today was a rare free weekend day. I get a little lost on days like today. It was my day to wake up with Scarlet so my day started very early and other than entertaining her, I spent my time blogging, reading, playing computer games (nerd), and eating. I can live a full day before the rest of the world wakes up. I start out very inspired but as the day goes on, I lose my steam. This used to happen to me in San Francisco as well. I'm not agoraphobic but once in awhile, I get symptoms of it in the cold weather. It's so easy to stay home and not spend money. But that's not how I want to live my life.

Somewhere on my twitter feed a local realtor posted a link to open houses today and I decided it would be fun to do with Cassidy and Scarlet. We started out in town and really weren't impressed with the first two houses we found. One was very small and one was very musty-smelling. However in the first one we were recognized by a guy who was in a few of our birthing classes and we got to see how each other's stories played out thus far. His wife was in her 38th week while I was in my 33rd week and they were very impatient to meet their baby when I met them back in May of 2009. They had a girl as well.

The third house we went to was pretty much exactly what I was looking for - something to visualize, to make me believe and hope for a better future. I'm a visual learner and I'm also the fiercest person on earth if I truly want something. I don't take no for an answer. I've written this before but I got wait-listed at my dream college and lost Cassidy to another woman, not to mention that he was 3,000 miles away. Both times I said, "I will have that and both times I eventually did. On the other hand, if I don't really want something, I"m pretty much useless for it. It's bad. It's a tough time right now, career-wise. Not only are times really tough for many people in our country, they're also tough for me. I'm a little lost right now. I feel like I could do so many things but should focus well on one. And I'm pretty much incapable of doing the things that are out there right now. They're just too low, even when I'm near desperate. Sometimes I want to just yell, "Do you hear that? That's the sound of me not caring." It's just...bad.

So back to this gorgeous house in Northampton. It was obviously too much for us but we can dream, can't we? Someday, things will get better. I just hope that someday isn't too far away.

After the third open house, we decided to go west on Route 66 instead of back east to home. We crossed the border into Westhampton and realized we had never been there. The realtor had told us about a place called Outlook Farms which is only minutes from our home and we had so much fun picking out cheese dips, cherry pie, beef, port wine cheddar dip, Tuscan bean salad, and molasses spice cookies. Random but good. They also have an apple orchard, an ice cream shack and a Christmas tree farm. I so love finding something new and local. Driving home, we saw two hot air balloons in the sky and I believe all three of us were in very good spirits.

And now I'm sitting here thinking about real estate and Westhampton.

Sometimes it's just taking a turn you always wondered about, but never made. It can change your life. Really.

On Magic.

Our pediatrician's office has two waiting rooms - a well patient area and a sick patient area. Recently I had the misfortune to be quarantined in the sick patient area with Scarlet since a nasty virus lingered longer than we were comfortable with. Two adorable blonde sisters waited with us, using the time to question me (and Scarlet) about Santa Claus and whether or not I'd ever seen or heard him and whether or not Scarlet has ever seen or heard him. (She hasn't) As I played along and tried to answer as best as I could, I noticed that their mother was smiling along and not shooting me warning or apologetic glances. She probably knew I wouldn't spoil her daughters' belief in Santa Claus, however, it got me thinking how easy it would be for someone to snatch away years of a family's beliefs and stories in an instant. How strong are the foundations of the stories we tell our children about magic and religion? Are our own beliefs clear enough to pass down to our children?

I found out the truth about Santa Claus, funnily enough, in the Hebrew school parking lot where we used to have to wait in a traffic jam until all of the kids were safely out of school and in cars. My mom and I had some time to kill and somehow that subject came up. I must have been doubting my beliefs during that time, and I know my older brother and sister had found out before me and had kept the stories alive for me and our younger two siblings. I think my mom explained it well. "It's not that I'm going to tell you that Santa is not real. I believe there really was a good man who brought gifts and whose legend and spirit live on. I believe very much in the spirit of Christmas. I also believe in Santa Claus...but ...Dad and I fill your stockings." That actually made perfect sense to me and did not break my heart. It seemed to fit right in with my family's scattered but present beliefs.

I was raised primarily Jewish but with a tinge of earth-based spirituality - Wiccan/Pagan, etc. We also celebrated Christian holidays but more for the spirit of giving and the fun of Christmas stockings and Easter egg hunts, and not at all for the religious meaning. I went through Hebrew school, a Bat Mitzvah and even a Torah Confirmation at 15. After that, my family dropped out of the temple. It was expensive and we questioned organized religion to begin with. And then we scattered into our own families, ready to start our own traditions or keep the old ones going. What we had then worked for us but it won't work exactly like it did for my family now. Scarlet is 3/4 Jewish and 1/4 Christian by birth only. Will we be able to find our own solutions/explanations to the questions she will one day ask us about religion and spirituality?

It's a delicate subject in my house, and in many households, but my husband thinks I'm an atheist and I don't think I am. I guess that means I'm right. I think I both thoughtfully and thoughtlessly question the barrage of information and stories that sound conveniently like fairy tales (or horror stories) to me. I'm undecided. I can't tell Scarlet that Santa Claus is fake but that everything she learns in temple or church is real. Many parents can but I don't necessarily feel right about it.

What can I tell her? How can I pass on my murky and confused background? How can I give her something solid when I don't have any of the answers? What I do know is the powerful chill I have felt hearing a congregation sing. The joy of singing Hebrew to 200+ whose faces are lit with filtered sunlight through a stained glass window. What I know is that we'll make our own rock n' roll Passover Seders and eat apples and honey with her on Rosh Hashanah. I know I have prayed before and that my prayers were answered. Maybe someone was listening. I know that I've had a lifetime of truly spiritual and magical moments, each one imploring me to believe, even when I think I can't anymore. And it happens so often that a little voice inside me says each time, "Ok..what about now? You're crazy not to believe after all of this."

What I want to tell her is that there is a magic and light in all of us and it propels us to do great things. Whether the source of that magic and light is religious, earth-based spiritual, or even self-caused doesn't necessarily matter. What matters is that it's there and it's powerful and many of us have seen and felt that light. And many of us have and will go on to do great things.

I still believe...in something. Is that specific enough to tell her? Probably not.

Rusted Roots.

Something unusual happened during my weekend trip to New Jersey - unlike the last several times I visited, I actually wanted to engage in my surroundings and not just hole up at my parent's farm and attend whatever I'm in town to attend, quickly and painlessly. This time, I was intrigued by the idea of visiting my past. I didn't do anything too crazy this time around, but the idea was there. It makes me wonder what I'll do next time.

Sometimes it's too hard to come home again. New Jersey and I have had a love/hate relationship for a few years now. Love or hate - it's still a strong emotion. It's not like Delaware...which I just feel indifferent to. I either crave Jersey or I'm allergic to it. Sometimes literally. Since I've finally found a "home" feeling in Northampton, it's mostly been a Jersey allergy for two years now. It's not something I'm proud of but I just really love the lifestyle I found outside of the Garden State. Add Scarlet to the mix and the fact that she's not always been great on car trips, Jersey has been something I do to get it over with. I don't want it to be that way. However during this new trip, everything was so sweet.

Scarlet slept, sang and danced during the drive down. Once I got there, I fully let go for the first time since July and let my parents and even my parent's very awesome friends watch her for me while I read, showered, ate, etc. It was WONDERFUL. And they have two dogs and one is the size of a moose. And I was ok. Before Friday, I had not let her out of my sight or Cassidy's sight since the accident, at least not for more than 20 minutes. It felt right.

Then I willingly and excitedly went out to meet my sister at a local bar. And not only that, it was this place where everyone hung out back in the day. And I didn't. I was seriously more interested in bowling or watching movie marathons while my peers were out drinking around a bonfire. I had never been to this popular hangout. Never! That's like one of the Saved by the Bell kids never going to The Max, or one of the 90210 kids never going to the Peach Pit after Dark.

To get there, I went through my old town and past my old high school. I think it's been years since I've done that. I noticed all of the new businesses and wondered about a few of the old ones that I couldn't find. I passed a pizzeria I worked in ten years ago and I yearned to walk in and see if anyone I knew was still there. I didn't go in because I wasn't ready to open up my history. I came closer than I have in years, though. I don't know what I was more afraid of - that a bunch of unfamiliar people would look blankly at me and I'd instantly feel old...or that I would see my old co-workers, preserved in time behind that hot pizza stove.

On Saturday, we threw my sister-in-law a rockin' baby shower and I carpooled with my mom. We did a lot of driving together and she and her GPS had to gently remind me of where to turn and where to go. I have an excellent memory and I used to deliver pizza. I once memorized a map of Morris County. I'm just...rusty. It's baby steps back into my past. We passed a road I used to take to my childhood home and I could have turned left to see my old house, but I didn't. Baby steps.

Two years ago, just before I left San Francisco and just before I got pregnant, I was in limbo and I was homeless (in the emotional sense) and I went back to Jersey for two and a half weeks to just drink it in. I was craving it. I wanted to drive to all of my old haunts and see the friends I still keep in touch with. I wanted my old favorite foods and to see my old homes. It was a great, healing trip, but I have never been able to look at Jersey as fondly as I could during that trip just because I fell so in love with New England. I've been building a new life here. And my time is compromised from being a mom and it's not as easy as it used to be just to jump in the car. Now I worry about baby fevers and exhaustion and my job and gas money. So I don't fault Jersey so much for me not wanting to be there. I just don't have the resources to examine it as closely as I want to.

And I'm scared too. It's a state full of old boyfriends and old friends and really great times as well as really hard times. It's messy. Even if I had the time, money and childcare to spend some meaningful time in New Jersey, there are some parts of the past I have locked up tight and I'm just not quite ready to unlock all of it.

It was like I was there..but not really there. Does that make sense? I felt like I was in "A Christmas Carol" and passing through my hometown like a ghost. I was looking through fogged up windows at my old life, but not stepping into the warm buildings. I stayed outside in the cold.

No one saw me but I was there.

Growing Pains.

Somewhere in between middle school and high school, I grew six inches taller and my tangled perm from 6th grade finally settled back into my natural waves. I won't use the term "ugly duckling turns to swan," since then I'd have to believe I ever became a swan and I'm not sure that's happened yet.. However, the response to my new look showed me that other people felt that way.

I imagine the transformation wasn't as sudden as my memory allows, since I seem to remember waking up one morning with silky, glossy hair and towering over the short kids in school - the ones I used to stare eye-level at. Sometimes change feels that way to me, as if I woke up one morning and everything I wanted came to me briskly and responsively. I know it wasn't like that. It was probably long in the making before I was born and was in my genetic plan even during all of those years when I had to kneel in the "shortie" front row for class pictures. I was always destined to be average-to-tall height; I just didn't know it until right before it happened. To go from 5' feet to 5'6" during a short period of time is not without its share of growing pains. I remember the pains in my legs that must have happened for weeks or even months. While I have trouble remembering the length of time of any of this, I remember the pain well.

I stopped physically growing sometime after high school. However the emotional and mental growth spurts continue to happen, and the emotional and mental growing pains are usually there right before the growth happens, whether I notice what they mean or not. I'm experiencing right now my fourth painful growth spurt in the last fifteen years. I had one that I wrote about here. Then I had one before my wedding and a third one before and during our move to western Mass. I think those second two were more obvious. The first one was more murky. Having my sister go to college and starting to think about doing that myself, plus an actual crush on a boy were certainly life changes, but my reaction to them was more anxious than I'm comfortable with. Maybe there's a whole spiritual reasoning behind it, but maybe not. Maybe I was just particularly sensitive and I felt these swirling changes as the end to my childhood. Those small changes weren't an obvious reason to feel anxious and scared, but they happened together and my body was signaling to me that something was amiss.

It's been happening again. I've written about not feeling quite right but unlike the last few times, I now have an emerging toddler with her own set of needs and I really don't have the energy or interest to give her this more anxious and exhausted version of myself. And that's the symptom - I have more anxiety and fear in new situations. That alone is not so strange - what makes it strange is that I am mostly not an anxious and fearful person. At all. So having heart palpitations before going to the dentist may not be weird for the average person but it's weird for me. And that's the kind of stuff happening. Nerves where there aren't usually nerves. And this is exactly what happened to me the last few times I had a particularly painful growth spurt. I suppose life is really a series of growth spurts and sometimes we're better equipped to handle them than other times. What I can't tell is what makes these painful growth spurts so..painful, when life is constantly changing and I usually can keep up with it.

I had assumed that this recent feeling of anxiety was post traumatic stress from a summer of tragedy. Now I think it may also be due to what's present and in the future. Maybe I've only gotten these episodes four times in my life because that's the only number of times I've been caught in the middle of two storm fronts - post-due pain at what has passed, and fear of what is coming! I just got a light bulb over my head, I swear. Nothing like writing to tell you what you're already thinking but didn't quite know yet.

Things are always changing, of course. Right now I'm leaving the baby bubble of parenting an infant. Believe it or not, I feel that the easiest times are behind me. It's like when the doctor told me that pregnancy is so much easier than parenting because they can't yet "talk back" or be picky about what you feed them. And you have read here that I'm terrified of having a kid over a baby. On the other hand, I've recently lost a few family members from my grandparent's generation and I can sense that the current eldest generation is transferring to my parent's generation. And I'm shifting too. The mixture of the past pain and the impending, inevitable future makes my heart pound a little harder than usual. It makes my stomach twist a lot more than usual. When will it end? All I know is that it will - it will disappear as mysteriously as it appeared. I think what I'm starting to figure out is that it's not as mysterious as it initially seems. For everything, there is a reason.

Do these painful "growth spurts" happen to you too? How do they manifest? What do you do to cope during them?

Faces.

I had the privilege to spend the last three days with Scarlet, pretty much nonstop. I did get a few hours off today, thanks to Grandma, but I am very satisfied and saturated with Scarlet love right now. She said a new word today - "doctor." It's the most adorable sound ever.

I have a lot to say right now but I'm not sure I have the guts to say it. It's my least favorite Sunday night of the year - that first "school night" when it gets dark before 5:00 pm is always a gloomer (new made up word) for me. My game is off. Stay tuned and I'll hopefully get the guts to talk about Scarlet's birth, how I met Cassidy, and maybe even some talk about past relationships. But for now, I'm spineless and hunched over my computer and I'm tired and I'm not quite sure what time is really is. For now, I'll give you a visual of what a three day whirlwind with Scarlet looks like:















If people ask me what color her hair is, I pause and say..."Caramel? Light brown? Depends on the lighting. A little red, some blonde, the ends are still dark from birth."

If people ask me what color her eyes are, I pause and say..."Blue/green/gray/amber? Huh? What? Earth colored!"

16 Months Later..

There was no fanfare and certainly no parade. There was no preparation, of the emotional or physical kind, neither for Scarlet nor for myself. What happened? Scarlet weaned completely from breastfeeding on Monday morning. It was certainly a long time coming as she hasn't been into it for two or three months. Before Monday, it only happened every other morning and it was sweet and happy and peaceful, but not necessarily productive. I had made it through extreme pain in the first month, moderate pain for the first four months, two or three horrendous clogged ducts, her biting me once or twice, moderating my diet for her, choking down those prenatal vitamins long after I was sick of them...and more.

My original goal was one year and then I decided I would keep going as long as she was still interested. I decided I'd never stop her but I would gladly be stopped by her. I would have, however, probably stopped her by 18 months or age two but I knew I wouldn't have to. I think I was keeping it going to protect myself. I had heard from many sources that when you stop nursing, you experience both physical and emotional changes, or pain. I didn't want that. I was postponing what I thought to be inevitable pain because I was already in so much emotional pain from a lousy summer.

And now what? Do I mourn what is surely a great loss in my life? I nourished her for the nine months before she was born and for nearly 16 months after she was born. And I kept it going past my goal. And it was annoying and time-consuming and inconvenient at many times. I battled breast pumps and had one die on me and then rented a several thousand dollar one from the hospital and then decided a manual one was enough for me and then my work situation changed three times and I had to keep up with her demands and her growth spurts and her changes. So I guess I'm relieved.

But it was sweet. It was something between just the two of us for so long. It was my built in excuse to get people the heck away from me. "Oh, sorry? She's hungry. (even when she wasn't) Guess I'll go find a private room to go...be alone with her in!" Ah, I miss that. I haven't had a letdown in months. There hasn't been a steady flow in just as long. It's been basically over for awhile but now I know this - it's really over. Unless I have a second (or third) child, this era is done.

I don't feel strongly in either direction right now. I'm slightly relieved that my body will go back to its old self, or as close to it as possible, after two years of pregnancy and nursing. It actually already has. I've lost four pounds since I stopped and it's certainly not from lack of eating. (Local Burger twice and Greggory's Pasty Shop this week) On the other hand, I feel the tiniest pinprick of hidden tears that our peaceful, rocking chair mornings are over. I guess we'll have to find a new sweet activity that belongs to no one else but us.