New England Kids.

I have a friend who grew up in a small, lovely town in Northern California where the weather is gorgeous year-round and everyone knows everyone's name. I swear it - they all smile and whistle as they pass by on the tree-lined streets.

She once told me that it took her a good long while until she realized that not everyone's childhood is like that, and that not every town in the world is like that. How would she know, really? It was her norm. Also when you're from California, you don't necessarily venture out of state so easily. It's not like my Jersey childhood in which Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut were all a hop, a skip and a jump away, when needed. Even Delaware was shouting distance.

I don't know when it is that we gain awareness that life is different for other children not only in other countries, other states and other towns, but in houses next door.

It's not just the region you live in, and the land, it's what the heck you do on that land.

I love that there are so many things that will be a norm in my kids' childhood. Some of those things are New England things, or even Northeast things. Four distinct and wonderful seasons. Maple sugaring season and shacks. Studded snow tires and pellet stoves. Unrivaled clam chowder and homemade, local ice cream to die for.

And some of those things that will be a norm in my kids' childhood are what they will explore in their own yard.

Last week, New England was very unseasonably warm. I think we broke records. And while I'm under no illusions that summer begins in March and I knew it would inevitably end, it was highly enjoyable while it lasted. It was literally summer here. I think the high was mid 80's for two days. I know spring/summer come to us every year, but never while I had a two and a half-year-old. And never while I had a two and a half-year-old living on a few acres of woods, wetlands and clearing.

I never knew how little I'd have to do to entertain her. That a new slide, a garden and a yard full of frogs, lizards, foxes, squirrels, birds and one random dog one day, is an awfully big adventure when you're two. Heck, it's an awfully big adventure when you're 31.

It all started with the Spring Peepers. We have a bit of a pond in the woods near our house as well as a bit of wetlands down our driveway. You could hear the frogs from both places. It was kinda deafening at times:





We discovered new loves together: throwing rocks in the water. (She liked scaring the frogs. Me, not so much) Just sitting and barely breathing in silence until the frogs realized we were "safe" and started croaking again.




Sometimes she gets a little golden-haired in the warmer months. Definitely not inherited from me.












Shoes on the wrong feet, of course.






Her very favorite Valentine's Day dress, worn less successfully in the frigid month of February, but it will probably be making its appearance more often now.


My childhood was also filled with streams and woods and catching crayfish and salamanders and an occasional turtle in a bucket. We always returned those animals to the wilderness. It gives me intense joy to picture Scarlet and her brother, whatever the heck he will look like, running through our woods and our yard, from stream to pond to stream, finding treasures under rocks and in the water. I have a feeling we're going to need huge galoshes, all four of us.




We enjoyed a day outside with friends and new babies last weekend. Scarlet loved the exersaucer most. People kept saying she must be regressing into her own babyhood but we never actually had anything like this when she was a baby! Maybe we need one now:



There's not much better than watching babies nap in the sun!

























Really, really looking forward to what's in store for us.

Two Years.

So something happened while I was writing away my life, pouring out my energy into my epic, 20 part love story.

What happened is that I "celebrated" my Two Year Blogiversary! Hooray! It took place on March 4th, 2012. I would have acknowledged it but it didn't seem appropriate to write about anything else, when I was two weeks deep into a story that consumed my entire waking and asleep life. Yes. It is worth noting, though! It's still my blog birthday month. Barely.

This is such a strange blogging anniversary/blog birthday. Last year I took the time to talk about how my blog had grown and how I had found a specific voice. How my photography grew, and then grew some more as I got into better lenses and ditched the kit lens. How my previously rusty writing, after years of mis and dis-use started to turn fluid and flowing again. Not always, but sometimes, at least. How my blog watched as the unexpected of life happened to me - deaths, injuries, new babies, and more. I became more clear as a writer. It takes time to build that up.

Not that my writing is always clear. It has its moments, though.

Since my first blogiversary, my second year of blogging has certainly been more exciting in the good ways and not in the "dog bit my daughter" ways. I was syndicated on BlogHer twice:

"How I Feel When Someone Compliments My Writing"

"Every Picture Tells A Story"

It's only fitting that I missed my blogiversary because I was attacking what has long been a dream project to complete. I didn't know I'd write a 20 part miniseries, but heck, I had a lot to say. And now I'm back here with my "normal" blog and I wonder how it will twist and turn again. I'm not sure it can go back exactly the way it was. I've changed a lot in the last month or so, and perhaps my writing has too. All the way through I kept thinking, "How will I ever go back?" And I won't, not the same. I don't want to always be writing intense 20-part stories. That left me sleepless, sometimes depressed, often queasy and thinking about things I was six years past thinking, or so I thought. I'm also really glad I did it, and it's done.

I knew I'd be crazy not to take the chance.

I also got a more serious camera and have been learning to use it well, little by little.

The second year was filled with a little more risk and a little more gain. More of a push. I'm starting my third year inspired for ever more photography, writing and voice gain. A new baby. More writing projects. Clearer photos and clearer writing.

I'm up to the challenge. Happy Belated Birthday, Blog Of Mine!

Separate My Heart.

There's this brilliant quote floating around out there. I first heard it from my friend Tara and I love to pretend it was originally said by her since she's an exquisite writer. However, another brilliant writer named Elizabeth Stone said it:

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

Really.



Early last week, Scarlet and I got into an argument one morning. It was over something stupid, probably - her desire to wear whatever the heck she wants, my desire that she doesn't wear a hooded sweater and corduroys in a predicted 80 degree day. Who can tell what the argument was about? What happened is that we both raised our voices. Not terribly, but a little. She, because she's 2 1/2 and hard-wired to raise her voice and combat my sensible decisions. Me, because...I was stressed about money that morning and I'm so tired trying to chase after her while gestating her brother. I just wanted her to not wear a sweater on a summery day. I got more upset than I should have. I was not playing with a full deck of cards. Getting up on her terms and not mine. Getting up with allergies. Getting up with stress because I stress easily. You might notice.

She must have been feeling the tension too. She burst into loud tears. Then she said something that just..burst my heart into a million pieces. She said, "I..just want you to be happy!!" And, man. Said by someone her age, it's not said the way it's said by a husband, a parent, a friend. This was her way of telling me that my mood change was highly noticed and that it crushed her. She wanted her happy, loving mom back. She was scared, I think. Maybe not of me, but of my mood. "I just want you to be happy. Again." She repeated.

I have replayed that scene in my head a hundred times since it happened, and the tears never fail to come.

I have been feeling very emotional towards her lately. I mean, I always do, but this recent bout seems a bit too harsh and unfiltered. Pure heart-cutting heat. I don't even think it's pregnancy hormones, which people love to tell me it is. You are free to ask my husband but not once in this pregnancy or last, did I (or he) suffer any mood swings or changes. Sure I wasn't a whole lot of fun for those nauseous seven weeks in which he'd find me facedown with my head in a pillow, the toddler running free in wet underwear, while I told him he couldn't under any conditions cook himself any kind of food I could smell...

Those weren't fun times. Other than that, I've said it before. I am a so very un-pregnant pregnant woman. I have a telltale bump in my stomach and that's about it.

Anyway, it was just a week. I think the heat was the trigger. Heat. In March. And my daughter would come home from school with these adorable ponytails. She never used to let me do ponytails but the teachers at daycare somehow found a way. And she looks..incredibly grown up with a ponytail. And she'd have these rosy cheeks all day from being warm and stimulated and playing outside twice a day.

And on Friday morning she woke up at 9:30 am and sat talking quietly in her crib. When I walked in to get her she said, "Oh, hi. I was just thinking about Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and R2D2 and CP3O (how she pronounces it). I want yellow yogurt. But...How are you? I love you so much."

I can't make this stuff up.

And this was the week we found out there was a slot open for her in all three preschools we applied to. I told her that too. I ran to the mailbox like a high school senior waiting for college acceptance letters. A letter from the last of the schools was there. The envelope was small. I was disappointed. Then I realized that this was Nursery School, and not Rutgers University. Small was ok. Sure enough, she got in. I told her and she said, "Great. Can we go to the park now?"

We also went out to lunch after the park. She was adorable in her pigtails, UConn Huskies dress and mismatched rainbow socks/red shoes. Everyone stopped to talk to her and I kept thinking, "Yes, this goddess is mine. Mine. How lucky am I?" Two men stopped to talk to us and she looked down, in incredible shyness. I said, "She's shy." Later she waved from her carseat to a trucker in the lane next to us. He didn't wave back. I honestly don't think he could see her through the tinted windows and maybe he was, you know, watching the road like he should be doing, but she said, "Mama, I think he's shy."

She's so damn independent, I can't take it. On that same day she was going to her grandparents for the whole weekend. She was excited. They were excited. Heck, Cassidy and I were excited too, or so I thought. When it came time to nearly let her go, we were lying together on her bedroom floor and she just kept laughing. I don't even know what was so funny. She just laughed and laughed. I heard her grandmother come into the house and I wasn't ready to let her go. I kept still on the floor while she ran to greet and sail into her grandmother's arms. I got tears in my eyes. Then like a flash, she was gone.

She grows up fast, sure, and I know people just love to say, "Enjoy it. It goes by so fast." Not really. It can be slow and dreamy too. There are times in between the flash of life passing by in which I can hear her laughter while tickling her on her bedroom floor. I can do that 20 times a day. Sometimes I do. I don't consider that as life moving fast. I never have.

Our time as a family of three is fading away. I'm getting more possessive of our weekends together. I'm closing my heart, temporarily, to much more travel or house guests. This is our time with our girl. There is time in a day, an hour, a minute.

I wear a sometimes painful and always raw piece of my heart outside of my body. And pretty soon, I'll wear two.

The End Is Actually The Beginning.

The day I finished my 20 part love story saga last week, it was a beautiful and warm 70 degrees. People smiled on the streets, holding doors open for one another, telling strangers "Hi." I am visibly pregnant by this point so my whole "What A Wonderful World" version of events may be because I'm quite adorable lately. And spring weather never hurts...

I went into Stop & Shop to hear Petty's "Learning To Fly" begin the second I got my cart. I would have been just as happy with the Pink Floyd song of the same name. Every time I post a particularly hard or poignant-to-me blog I go into hiding right after. I won't see your comments or texts or emails until later. I get scared and vulnerable. I get the need to go stretch my arms and legs into the world and to stretch my brain away from dependency on the iPhone. So after about two hours away from the internet, which is all I could handle after finishing a month long writing project and needing to see how it was received, well I was overwhelmed by the love. It's what keeps me going. It also makes me a little crazy as most of you know that when someone compliments my writing, I go temporarily insane and think I'll never produce anything ever again. This time around, I was calmer about it. That story had to end. And it had to end when it did. So after working tirelessly on it, I felt like it was ok to bask in completion satisfaction and let Cassidy cook me a celebratory dinner/dessert that night.

One of the best comments I read was a dear friend who is also a blogger friend saying that the ending was also a beginning. And that's my favorite way to look at the story ever since. It hurt me more than I imagined to get to the endpoint. I felt like for years I had held my story so sacred and close to my heart and that no one could touch it. And if I let it go, what if it lost its magic and durability in the face of the public? What if I had nothing left to hug except memories?

And then I realized. That story was the beginning. It started when I was 24 and I ended it at 31. Do you know how many stories I will live to tell after that one? Hopefully lots! Especially if I have the longevity gene my mom's side of the family seems to have. The story of how we met will spin off many stories that would never have been made possible if it hadn't happened. We may get even better stories, or at least comparable ones. We can take what we learned from that story and pass it on through our lives and our struggles with money, career, travel, marriage, whatever. And of course, our kids will read it and probably want to leave us for California one day and then we'll have no choice but to subtly follow them.

After hearing my friend's awesome "the ending is the beginning" comment, I also learned from a very wise source who has been teaching me anxiety control over the last couple of months that every loss is an opening. Sometimes the trauma of the loss can make that opening murky and nearly impossible to see. Sometimes you can't see it for years. Sometimes never. I have to know to look for it. It is still a theme that has followed me for years. My father died when I was barely out of my toddler stage, if at all, and that sucks and was horrific but it made the way to meet my new family and live the life I lived. It made me become the person that I am. I hope I would have turned out into an ok person either way. I do think we keep our essential beings and hearts and minds, no matter where our lives take us.

Would I have been just fine and dandy without Cassidy and with different or no children? Probably, but I'm sure glad I'll never find out. This life that I'm living does seem like it was written in the stars when I was born.

For years, even decades, I thought that romantic love was the pinnacle of human experience. I thought that once you had it, you'd think, "Well, now what?" Would life get boring and mundane now? What would you search for when you already found your soulmate? And now I'm so glad I wrote this story when I wrote it. It would be different at every point in life, sure, but it takes on a new meaning when written so close to having two children, one girl and one boy. That love story used to be the most powerful weight in my life, and maybe it still is, now that I found out the new power and magic it led to - motherhood.

So I find myself, a week later, being ok with completing the story. I'm inspired to start new ones. The letdown passed after several days and now I'm looking forward to new beginnings - both the ones that grow out of loss, and the ones that grow out of pure love, plain and simply. Whatever the origin, our world is filled with new beginnings.

That's Why They Call It Pregnancy Nightmares..

Early Monday morning, I had what was seemingly an innocent dream.

I was temping at the Breyer Horse Company. My job was small, really. I was there to process student loans. Why they needed student loans processed at a company that designs and makes plastic horses for children, only my dream self will ever know. I was asked to sit in on a design meeting in which a co-worker was asking everyone what they thought of a large drawing of a mellow, hunched over horse, wearing a hat with flowers. Everyone LOVED it. They all raved about the "new" design until I blurted out with, "I have that horse! I bought it for $26 when I was a kid. Now my daughter plays with it at my mom's house!" Every head shot in my direction. Most people looked at me, the temp, with newfound appreciation.

The girl who had submitted the design looked at me suspiciously. She said she had submitted the drawing in person to see if anyone was sharp enough to know it was a horse that already existed and was released in 1989. I knew. I was just a temp.

Then it was time for me to leave for the day and I went to pick up Scarlet who was now enrolled at a daycare attached for Breyer employees. She was wearing pigtails, which was strange, and handed me her lunch box. She always hands me her lunch box in real life when I pick her up from daycare. I looked into her lunch box to see what she had left, and she had left everything. She hadn't eaten her lunch! In real life, I have heard that if a kid can't eat or sleep or pee or crap in school, (she can do all in real life) it means something's wrong and they're not comfortable there yet. My dream self remembered that I had heard this in real life.

Suddenly I started sobbing, painful sobs. I couldn't believe that I had pulled her out of her comfort zone, the school she was used to, and thrown her into this "imposter" plastic horse school. She was heartbroken. I was heartbroken. I walked back to my car going through horse stalls (odd) and libraries filled with employees looking at horse books (also a bit odd), all the while trying to get outside, to let my lungs fill with air. I kept running into my supervisors and co-workers, all trying to hug me and congratulate me and tell me how happy they were to have me working for them...

Processing student loans, of course. Big Man On Campus there. They could all see my brilliance. They could see I was meant for more...

I ignored them all and ran outside where I heaved sobs into the air. I couldn't stop crying. My heart was broken into a million pieces. I had betrayed my daughter! She hadn't eaten her lunch, which by the way, was a giant cube of raw tofu and some weird sandwiches. (Can't blame her there).

Still I had taken her from somewhere she loved dearly. Was processing student loans worth it??

I woke up in real life and it was pre-dawn, but man, those spring birds are LOUD. And boy do I love them. I was sobbing into a pillow. I couldn't catch my breath. I was so out of it I didn't know how I'd explain the random 6:30 am sobbing fits. "I packed her a lunch she didn't eat! Plastic horses factory! It smelled! Temps had to muck the stalls! Student loans!!"

It only made sense after I had sobered up with a good nose blowing and a glass of water and realized, "I am not about to wake up my husband and daughter over a plastic horse dream. I already woke up my poor, defenseless unborn son over it."

It wasn't the plastic horses.

It wasn't the student loans processing.

In all honesty, this dream DID touch upon some pretty deep emotional responses I have to my underachiever ways. The way in real life I would have taken that job. I would have processed student loans even though I was good enough to wipe the floors with the plastic horse designers they had on staff. I mean, really. I'm not a student loan processor.

I'm a writer. I'm a photographer. I'm a mother.

I had broken my kid's heart. I'm pretty sure the sight of uncooked tofu will send me into fits of tears for the rest of the week. Please keep me away from uncooked tofu.

In real life..and let's stay there now..I mentioned in passing that we had sent Scarlet to daycare twice a week after I had mentioned, not in passing, that she desperately seemed to need it. We were right. She LOVES it. She loves her teachers, she loves rules and routines, she loves nap once a day, scheduled lunch in a group of toddlers, snacks twice a day, outdoor play, dollhouses and more. Everything I couldn't provide her anymore, or ever, really. If I could afford to send her four days a week, I definitely would. However, it happens to be Preschool Season. I don't live in Manhattan, but due to space issues and the fact that Northampton, MA is pretty much the most fertile place on earth and I think you can get pregnant here from the ice cream (Herrell's...mmm..) we had to apply to preschools. Daycares run all year. The preschools we applied to run on a school calendar. It's not as expensive as daycare, mostly. It will be kids her age and up. No infant room she loves so much.

She already got into two of the three schools we applied to. The schedule is different. The teachers are different. Definitely worth the love and adjustment I'm sure she'll easily and comfortably, but I'm still a little heartbroken that she'll have to change schools. I realize she'll have to do it several times in life and this is small potatoes compared to what is coming...

Really, really small potatoes. I imagine she'll learn to eat, sleep, pee and crap in her new school within days. No, within minutes. Will her heart break for her old school like I had thought it did in my nightmare? Is it ok to start them in one school and switch them to another? The baby will come in between all of this? Is she going to be ok?

Are we doing the right thing?

Readers, please weigh in if you have ever had to switch your young kids from daycare into preschool at another place. I'm sure most of the world has done this. My heart is clearly breaking over it, though!

Plastic horses and student loans processing job dreams told me so.

A Pictorial Review Of The Last Month.

I've had The Spinners' "Working My Way Back To You" in my head all day today:

"I'll Be Working My Way Back To You, Babe
With A Burning Love Inside
Hey, I'm Working My Way Back To You, Babe"

That's pretty much how I feel about blogging lately. Sunday nights have predominantly been picture-heavy, life-updating posts. This is my first Sunday night "back" from the land of the heavy writing. I love my Sunday night posts. I start formulating them often as early as the first pivotal moment of our weekend hits, no matter what that entails. Then when Scarlet naps on Sunday afternoons, I upload photos and write. It's a little funny having two things in my life that I like to do - photography and writing. At least they're related. The joy and frustration they both give me is insane. That means I care.

Don't all of the best things give you both joy and frustration?

I need to develop both of these skills more. I suppose I always will but I'm feeling a bit of a panic lately as my only chance at free time winds down in these last 2-3 months before baby. I thought I had neglected picture taking, but not really. It can never go away for too long. I've been doing it all along, just waiting for my eventual chance to share. Here's another story: A picture story about what life in the Bowman house has been like for the last month or so.

This story gave me much less writer's cramp!

As winter winded down and the position of the sun leaned slightly towards our favor, we had these funky peace-sign (or Mercedes symbols, as my friend Crystal said) light shadows on our lawn for about a week:





We've enjoyed these strange passing phases of both winter then spring then winter then spring. When we moved here in late October, we enjoyed one night before the freak Halloween snowstorm hit. Then the ground was pretty frozen from that point on, despite a mild winter. We live in the middle of the woods. It's cold and dark early and sometimes snuggling on the couch is the only thing we want to do:





We liked the thought of winter ending. We tried to capture the light, however we could. Whenever we could.




















Scarlet made a lot of strange fashion choices over the last month.




Halfway through the month, we enjoyed a visit from Aunt Lindsay.




We thought it would be fun to go to the park on a day with a delightfully New England weather forecast. Which meant, that 65 and sunny could very well be 50 and overcast. Even the goats wouldn't come out of hibernation for some corn that we wasted 50 cents on.





Scarlet fell ever in love with babies over the last month. We seem to have a lot of them in our lives, so we just made sure to see them more and more. This is Baby Declan. Scarlet loves him so much, she has since named 8 out of 12 baby dolls by his name, as well as her snowman.





Scarlet started daycare twice a week. She loves it tremendously and has never had any adjustment problems. To celebrate her new growing-up life, Nana sent her new cotton underwear. She got confused as to how to wear it..I guess that could happen to anyone.





So many different articles of clothing in this world. How to make sense of it all?? Winter finally came, for a day or two. Then there was a strange random snow squall one random Saturday.



























And then, Daylight Savings hit. I personally think it should be a holiday with its own celebrations, costumes and food traditions.




The ice and snow melted, for good...I think?




Layers of clothing were shed and we ventured, blinking, into the sunlight. Park passes were renewed. The first birds of spring hit the feeder on Scarlet's bedroom window. Spring fever came early and fiercely.





We raised our arms up to the sky, to await what spring and summer will bring us. So many wonderful things.




It's mind-blowing.




For the first time since we have moved to our new house, we can smell the earth and hear the birds. Our yard gets hours of sunlight. The deck has become the new living room. A new baby is due on the cusp of spring and summer. What season will he be??

What changes will come to this blog? Can I go back to the way it was, after using it as a screenplay for over a month? Can I sit and write as much now that the air is beautiful and warm?

I think so. Many changes await us. I cannot wait to see what's coming. She can't either.