Five Years Later, The Crisis is Over.

My little boy has tears in the knees of his jeans from driving cars off of our lawn and onto our sidewalk. He trikes up the incline to the train tracks with just a push or two from my foot. He speaks in songs, as when Mom's old friend asked him if he had a girlfriend, and he pressed the appropriate song on his Dynavox, from The Beatles: Oh I have got another girl. Letters and presents from kindergarten classmates travel home in his bookbag -- a yellow bandana with a marker design, a puzzle created with scissors and paper, a note that says, simply, "I Love You." He pulls himself onto the couch to relax, laying low and slumped, like a little Al Bundy. He gives hugs and kisses, makes jokes like brushing his teeth with a hairbrush and brushing his hair with a toothbrush. He is fine, healthy, and well. Thank God.

Aunt Fern & The Elephant Ear

But it only serves one.

LOVE

2 ounces sloe gin
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon raspberry juice
1 egg white
3 or 4 ice cubes

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Note: If there is a problem with eggs in your region, do not prepare this recipe.

Serves 1.

Epicurious

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Happy 9 Months.

Somewhere in this whirlwind of a brain your mama’s hiding, standing stunned, hands up in an old peaked attic as a tornado winds up all the pages from today’s memory banks and twists them out the broken window. Busy, busy day. Busy, busy week. A whirlwind, as they say. We’re nearly living out of our poor, overworked Chevy (well, a suitcase and diaper bag and my pump and your pump at least) and we’ve got to get back in her tomorrow and travel north. We’ve put 8,000 miles on that car since January. Can you believe it! All that greening I did when you were in the womb doesn’t even come close to making up for all the environmentally harmful yet personally salvatory (well it’s a word now) things, events, and actions we’ve taken or used up or needed multiple replacements of since you were born.

Love, dear, sweet love. You’re so sleepy. I rocked you to sleep like a newborn tonight because you squealed in pain, crunched up your little face, and cried and cried and squealed. It’s tough – I don’t know if you’re teething, have a belly ache, have post-surgery ache, have intolerance to feedings or the new meds, or what.

It’s so hard to see you in pain. I just want to hold you and curl up with you and wish it all away. So I did, and you fell asleep, with me singing one of my old songs (stand up honey child step from that quicksand you’re deep within arise now honey child and let those dusty lungs breathe straighten up honey child and untwist those winding sheets they’re burlap torn and muddy I’ve got some softer I’ve got some clean it’s all silk Chinese brocade you can feel it wrapped around you so walk tall honey child and know we’re with you alive now honey child you only needed to unwind so revel in each moment it’s all there for you if you just noticeetc) no longer surprised at how that Then song matches up with my Now life.

Ah, baby. You do look healthy, though, everyone comments – fat and pink with lots of smiles, and you giggle out loud now when I pretend to chew your side. Animal sounds are absolutely hilarious, too. Sweet little kiddola, I need to follow you to sleep. I wish you’d show me whatever door you took to find it. And yes, I’m so tired. I haven’t slept a wink. The old adage. Nine months in, nine months out. There should be some kind of magic or chart or woven text that makes meaning from this depth we’re in, this moment in time, exactly 18 months alive you are, half in, half out, not waving and certainly not drowning, but hovering somewhere in between, staring at the papers and dust and debris rioting in the could-be-if-their-mood-shifts threatening winds.

-Late May 2007
Tornado Alley

Caption Contest:

Finn's First Word:

moon.

8 month birthday update.

Today we went to the library for the first time. You were standing stiff-legged (with my help) to play with a toy with a moveable yellow plastic train track circle in its center. To make it spin, you had to pull a blue lever, but it also unleashed this awful grinding motor noise that made your eyes bug and your stomach stiffen and your arms fly outwards. This didn’t deter you from your fascination, however – and as Grandpa Bolin would say (he often says that this is his favorite word) – you were Un De Turd.

Okay, I swear. This is the last day I don’t do your brushing or compression or syringe tastes. This time I promise to do them every day (as long as I’m not completely incapacitated with some mother bug flu beam). You need as much preventative care as you can get, so we don’t have to learn new and intrusive techniques later. I promise from this point on to show more perseverance – you deserve it, and although you may not enjoy it, you’ll benefit from it later. Just wait and see.

Nine days left with your as-it-was-born beautiful soft belly. I wonder how you’ll broadcast your scars. One little girl I heard tell of calls her g-tube scar her moon. Another little boy with a port scar shows it proudly to other kids. I’ll make sure to get you a megaphone when the time comes.

You stared at our shadows today, on the porch in the rocking chair, and on the grass. My shadow waved to you. If it would have been a picture someone would have picked it up and brought it closer to you, but you had to be content looking from my lap.

And stats: 28 ounces fortified. 5 retches. 1 large spit-up. Many smiles. 1 hour PT (straightening to mid-thoracic spine by reaching, rolling from back to side to front, reaching airplane in air supported under chest and hips, trunk control on ball). And 4-10 space cadet sessions (1-5 seconds apiece). 1 2 hour nap. 1 30 minute nap. Fell asleep for the night after holding a basket up to your face to look through the slats at the light (or chew on it, rather) during an outdated video about the Brain as The Enlightened Machine (can’t say I blame you).