Cognosco

If I were still together with my ex-husband, yesterday would have marked 10 years since we hooked up.

I’m thirty now, which means that I have known him for one-third of my life. That kind of math freaks me out.

I want to go back to that 20 year old girl, and say, don’t do it.

Don’t move in with him.

Don’t distance yourself from your friends for him.

Don’t choose him over your family.

Don’t marry him.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

And then I think that all of that is who made me the person I am today, and I have to be glad. Because all of those lessons really were blessings in disguise.

He wasn’t really abusive, per se. Just negative. Overwhelmingly negative. Black hole suck your soul kind of negative. And never willing to accept blame. And lazy. So lazy. I was going to school full-time and working full-time and the only person trying to keep the house clean. Whereas he spent more time in the five years we were together without a job than with one. I would have been more sympathetic to this if he had taken care of the home stuff. But he didn’t.

There were many reasons to leave, and it was really just complacency that made me stay so long. That, and he had a son, and so of course I wanted to stay for the boy.

And truth be told, in spite of myself, I did love him. It sounds so lame—the oh-so-typical “but I love him”. But it’s true. I did. At least for a little while. And he did introduce me to a lot of great music and a lot of occult stuff that I still dig today. I just couldn’t live with him. He was sucking me dry.

But the tipping point—the point at which I realized I just couldn’t stay any more was when I was late for my period. I had convinced myself that I didn’t want kids because I couldn’t even entertain the thought of trying to have another child, a child of my own, with him. I was terrified that I was pregnant. Because I had a feeling that an abortion conversation would not go well with him because he’d been hinting that he wanted another kid. I was scared enough that I wouldn’t buy a pregnancy test. Which is exactly how women end up several months pregnant without knowing. It really does happen. I don’t know how you could ignore it for nine months, but at least the first few months, I get it.

And then, I started my period. And I cried. That was when I realized that I did want kids, but not with him.

I couldn’t even tell him. I didn’t tell him I was late. I didn’t tell him I was worried. I couldn’t tell him I was disappointed.

This experience planted the seed that grew into me leaving unexpectedly two months later on July 20^th, the eve of our wedding anniversary. I had tried to tell him I wanted a divorce. He wouldn’t listen. So I just left. I left him everything of value—the car, the computer, the furniture, all of the DVDs, CDs, records we had purchased together. I even had to have someone come pick me up because we only had one car. I left while he was at work. This is what I took with me:

• My Ani Difranco CDs
• My journals
• My tarot card deck
• My favorite astrology book
• My book about runes
• A few clothes
• Pot, a pipe, and a lighter
• A piece of driftwood I found on the beach in Northern California that was high in sentimental value
• A batik from Bali (I had several but just took my favorite)
• My Tibetan singing bowl
• Photographs

I told the friend that picked me up that night that I wasn’t sure what to take. He said you take what you notice the most, and played a Dar Williams song for me called Blessings. One of the verses says,

I was fast asleep at three in the morning when I got the payphone call,
And she said, "Did I wake you up," I said, "Hey, no, not at all."
And she said, "I got this suitcase and I don’t know what to pack,"
And I said, "You can take anything you want, just wait and see,
It’s not a release, not a reward, it’s the blessings,
Its the gift of what you notice more,"

And I walked out and I watched her kick the big pile of the night,
And we sat down and we waited for that strange and empty light.
Yeah the blessings…

And it’s true. In that moment before I took a great leap of faith that I could just leave and find a way to be okay, I noticed the things that mattered most to me. And I know exactly what that "strange and empty light" feels like. It is divine. I don’t think I would take an astrology book or rune book now, but at the time, I was clinging to anything that might give me some sense of certainty. And I would still take my tarot deck. Even though I like to believe that I don’t believe in all of that, I would still take my tarot deck.

I came back a few days later for some other stuff I had boxed ahead of time and hid in the closet so I could grab it and go. And to grab my dog. That visit got kind of violent, so I’m glad I’d thought ahead. In the end, I left with nothing more than what could fit in the back of a Volvo station wagon.

I should also mention that I was due to start graduate school a month after I left him. So when I started, I didn’t even really have a place to live or a place for my dog. I first lived with the friend who picked me up, and we hooked up, and it was a rebound nightmare. We are still friends, and maybe even better friends than we were before, because he saw all my crazy come out to play and never judged me for it.

I lived with another friend for about six weeks until he confided that he really wanted to be more. It wasn’t creepy or anything—just awkward. We’re still friends too. In fact, he is the person who was going to act as my "doula" for labor, but whom I never got a chance to call back because I progressed (through the first stage) so quickly. I then moved in with my mother for another three months (disaster!) until I found a dog friendly apartment to move into in January.

Imagine me, moving my Volvo of stuff around, 4 times during my first year of graduate school. It is a miracle I didn’t drop out and didn’t fail any courses. Or end up having a full-blown nervous breakdown.

So, as much as I want to go back to that girl and say DON’T DO IT, the whole experience gave me so much perspective. I understand why really nice girls end up with loser guys. I understand what it’s like to want to stay for the sake of the kids, even if they’re not your own. I understand what it feels like to leave with nothing more than two bags. I understand what it feels like to face the emptiness of uncertainty and just jump. I understand what it takes to just do what you have to. Period. It all made me who I am today, and for that I am thankful.

And the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong,
And the days that opened up until my whole life could belong,
And now I’m getting the answers, when I don’t need them anymore,
I’m finding the pictures, and I finally know what I kept them for,
I remember, I can see them, see them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

 

Oh, Mr. Dude,

You are so much fun to hang out with. Even on your cranky days. I really was not prepared for how much fun having a baby could be, or how much I would grow to enjoy your company.

When you are interested in something, you are completely absorbed. You pat it, grab it, taste it, try to pull up on it, bang it, and throw it. You want to know all about it. You will not be persuaded to forget about something because it’s out of sight. You want to know, know, know, know.

And Go, go, go, go.

You are mobile. Crazy mobile. Seriously, you worked on crawling for over 5 weeks. You were on the verge and rocking and almost there for a month.

And then you just did it and you are ridiculously fast and agile and bop up and down up and down all day. You especially love to pull up on your crib bars and let yourself free fall onto the mattress. You have also managed to find more graceful ways of returning to your bottom when you are not in your crib besides free fall. This makes me happy, because all of that free falling onto your bottom made my tailbone hurt.

About sleep. On the plus side, your naps are reliable. After the two weeks following your surgery when you sleep was completely fucked, you fell into a schedule that has been working for us after painful adjustments on both of our parts. Out of nowhere, you went from sleeping 8:00 p.m. to 8 a.m. to sleeping 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Ahhhh! This was not acceptable. Getting out of bed before six a.m. is NOT an option in this household.

So, that has been a struggle. Because truth be told, I am a monster before 8 a.m. It takes an exorbitant amount of effort on my part not to be a complete and total doucehbag if I get up before that time. So, we have compromised with a 6 a.m. rising time. If you wake before that, I pretty much force you to either stay in bed with me and pretend to sleep or play in your crib. It’s still earlier than I would like, but I have learned to deal with it.

I have changed. I have forced myself to change for you.

And you’ve made it almost easy. Almost. You usually spend the last few hours of the night in my bed, and when you decide you are definitely up for the day, you are a total ham about it. You are so cute, that just thinking about it almost makes me gag on the sweetness. You will crawl over and zerbert random spots on my body. What’s a zerbert, you ask? It’s sort of like an open mouthed kiss, but you blow. You know…it’s what adults can’t resist doing to baby bellies. So I have certainly asked for your zerbert vengeance. When you first wake up, you smile and giggle and look mischievous. And despite my morning crankypants ways, I can’t help but smile in return. You then pull up on me or pull up on your daddy or try to crawl over me or try to crawl over pillows. You can’t quite crawl over me or the pillows, but we refer to it as “off-road Albie” because you remind us of a 4-wheeler trying to conquer hills. There are mornings when you and your daddy and I will hang out in bed playing for at least a half an hour before anyone becomes vertical. I love those times. Even though they happen before 8 a.m.

You finally take two pretty reliable naps each day. You go down easily and are easy to put back to sleep in the night. Which is good, because you have taken to waking up every 2 hours most of the time. I have tried cosleeping with you to minimize the number of times I get out of bed, but neither one of us sleeps well that way. You really want to be able to roll around a lot and our bed is too fluffy to let that happen. I think I’ve realized that even when you were “sleeping through the night” you were sort of waking every few hours. But you were right next to me in your cosleeper, so I’d pop a binky in your mouth and roll back over and you never really achieved consciousness. But with the crib across the room, it’s a little more challenging. I have finally just started napping at the same time as you again to maintain sanity. This means I am less “productive” on non-Albie things. But it means that I am a nicer mommy.

The weather has also gotten cooler in the mornings. Thank god. You and I have started taking long walks in the morning. Long, to me because I am lazy and I hate walking and there is no rational explanation for it but I just DO NOT CARE FOR IT. I like riding my bike, but you are too little to be a passenger either on the bike or in a trailer pulled by the bike.

So I have started walking because I am tired of being fat. And you are hard to entertain all day and love your stroller. A long walk means an hour or two of you being easily entertained. And I am already thinking ahead to wanting to get knocked up to give you a brother or sister in about a year and a half. So I’m getting started walking now. And I do love the feeling after the walk when I lay down to nurse you down for your morning nap. I usually end up falling asleep with you, and it’s that kind of limbs-akimbo sleep that is sooooo satisfying. The kind of sleep where you don’t even need to “get comfortable”. The kind of sleep that happens when you don’t even try to fall asleep—it just overtakes you. And we both wake up smiling.

I’ve also been doing squats every time I take you to the toilet. We’ve been EC’ing with you and so I spend a lot of time squatting in front of the toilet. We only go through three or four diapers a day now. I’m not really sure what your signs of having to “go” are. I just started approaching it like housetraining a puppy. I take you to the toilet about once an hour and if you have to go, you go. If you don’t, you don’t. And if I hear you fart, I go ahead and take you, because there’s a good chance that there’s a poop to follow. And sometimes, you yell while you poop on the toilet, as if to say, “Out, demon poopie!” Or something like that. That’s what I imagine you are saying. I don’t know what you’re saying, really, but your combative attitude towards the poopie seriously cracks your daddy and I up. The main times we have misses are when we are out of the house or when you are playing alone and I am doing something else and I just forget that an hour has passed.
 
You babble excitedly and animatedly. You waver back and forth between long bouts of complete silence and intense observation to incredibly animated and lengthy narratives. You have a particular “ahhhh!” sound that you make that pretty much means, “hey I want that!” or “hey, did you see that?” You are fascinated with public restrooms, and make a whole range out ahhh-shouting sounds as soon as you enter one. I think you figured out that there’s a weird echo thing that happens and you dig it. You are most prone to stringing together a lot of different syllables when you are annoyed. I try to be empathetic to your mood rather than laughing. I don’t usually succeed.

I have admittedly made use of the television in order to get a shower or make breakfast. This was not possible about a month ago, as you suddenly realized I could walk away and it freaked you out. So I had to shower with you in the crib so I could poke my head out every few seconds and say hello. Although you love water and love coming into the shower, it’s hard to shower you with. You try to stand up in your baby tub, which is totally not safe. And I can’t just put you on the shower floor because you try to pull up on the walls, which is also not safe. Especially because they are tile and they are wet! Lucky for me, this phase passed fairly quickly, and you returned to your independent self. You love the Baby Einstein videos, of course. Those things are formulated to basically function as baby crack. You specifically like the puppets, and talk, yell, or scream at the TV when puppets come on. You also love Bob the Builder, which I admit is kind of a fun show and I may occasionally sit and watch it with you even though I should be using TV time to do other things.

You have mastered the pincer grasp and so you get lots of stuff to self feed. You love wheat bread, the little Gerber puffy things, chicken, and pasta. In fact, the other morning you used this pincer grasp to try to pluck my nipple off of my breast. You looked perplexed, as if to say, “It’s food. I can eat from it. I can pinch it. Why can’t I take it with me?” You still love carrots, and won’t take pureed food from me, but will take it from anyone else. You seem to like leafy greens, and I gave you some roasted garlic last night and you smiled in response. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

Your favorite music is pretty much anything with a dominant piano line. Have I told you lately how much I love you? Please tell me your love of piano will continue so that when you have lessons later in life, you’ll think it was your idea.

I still don’t know where your teeth are or when they will arrive, but you have a drool rash that indicates they are coming some day. I love your toothless smile and will be sort of sad to see it go.

Things I have learned:

• Be careful what you wish for. You may get the nap schedule you’d hoped for, in exchange for being up every two hours at night.
• Babies are fun.
• Babies are funny.
• Babies really are just as cuddly as puppies. In fact, they are even more cuddly than puppies. Even though they don’t have fur.
• If you love to teach, there is no greater joy than having a child.
• If you love psychology, there is no thing more fascinating than a baby.
• If you are me, a person who loves both, you probably should have started breeding much earlier, had you been able to pull your head out of your ass and find a decent man.
• Downshifting into survival mode is sometimes necessary even after the newborn phase has passed.
• This too shall pass. But today, I hope it passes slowly. I want to cherish every moment.

All my love, Mama

Tomorrow will mark one year since my brother-in-law shot himself, taking his own life.

 Frank Albert Patterson was the first born son of eleven children. He was my husband’s one and only older brother. My mother-in-law’s only first born child. She has many other children, but he is the one who made her into a mother.

My first born son was named after Frank, who was named after both of his grandfathers, Frank and Albert.

His wife witnessed the act after she had tried for several hours to dissuade him. Can you imagine?

He left behind two children who are now nine and seven years old. They started playing football this year. Their father will never witness a game.

He was an air conditioning technician with all sorts of fancy certification that most people don’t have. We fought with our home warranty company and three different air conditioning people all summer in order to get our unit fixed. Every time we had to deal with their incompetence was like a slap in the face to my husband.

In a twisted coincidence, my ex-husband’s best friend also shot himself to death on the same night. He was one of the few friends of my ex who I really liked and felt comfortable with.

I miss them both even though I rarely saw one and hadn’t seen the other in a few years.

That’s the thing about death—even if you don’t see someone often, just knowing they are alive and out there somewhere is so different than knowing you will never see someone again.

And the thing about suicide–no one ever sees it coming. No one never knows why. Even if there are notes left behind, they never provide real answers.

If some part of them lived on beyond their bodies, I hope they are free of pain now. And anyone who says that suicides go to hell or some other equivalent is an asshole. Because I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that if someone hurts enough to end his own life, that is not someone who deserves punishment. That is someone who deserves compassion.

R.I.P. Frank and Jeff. You are missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner for one at Baby Kay’s (complete with two extra strength drinks)….$37.00

Hotel room in Phoenix during tourist season (MUST HAVE COMFY BED!!!)….$130.00

Being away from Dude long enough to miss him….priceless
 

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Guess where I am right now? I’m at the Phoenix Inn. By myself!

 

Dude has been waking up every 1 to 3 hours every night since his surgery. Prior to his surgery, he would at least have an initial 5 or 6 hour stretch and then wake up every two hours. In the last month and a half, even that stopped. I am exhausted. I am a real weenie when it comes to sleep deprivation.

My husband, in all of his infinite wisdom, and divine benevolence, told me I should go stay somewhere and relax and get some uninterrupted sleep. With only a minor twinge of guilt, I accepted.

I know mothers who cannot bear the thought of being away from their child for 24 hours, or who do not trust their partners enough to leave for 8 hours.

I would have never had children if I didn’t have a partner who can function as a competent "mother". In fact, for a long time, I had convinced myself I didn’t want kids because my ex-husband was a lazy moron. When I realized I really did want kids, I left him. There were other reasons too, but that was a real turning point.

I am not the kind of mother who can’t stand to be away from her baby. I am the kind of mother who needs to preserve her space in order to maintain patience and happiness. I’ve realized that’s okay. Sometimes being a good mother means recognizing your limitations. And it’s kind of nice to miss Dude (already).

And after all, I wouldn’t want all of that frozen milk to go to waste.

Happy zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s to me.

 

 

We recently joined a co-op farm share kind of thing. It’s $21 per week, but would have been $18 if I’d gotten my shit together to sign up earlier. The way it works is you pay for several weeks in advance and then show up at a specified time and get a share of 8 different things and that’s what you get. Which for me is totally exciting, because there is very little in the way of food that I don’t like or can’t find a way to tolerate. So, it’s like Christmas for me every week.

We’ve only done it for two weeks so far, but here’s what we got the first week:

2 ears of corn (and damn they were good)

2 onions

4 sweet potatoes

A bag of green beans

A bag of arugula

1 butternut squash

A large bag of raw pistachios

A bag of about 10 small heirloom eggplants (!!! I didn’t know such a thing existed)

So, had I bought this stuff in a grocery store, it would have probably been around $12. Organic, probably $16. But there’s something really cool about knowing you are supporting a farm that would otherwise not be able to exist. And at the end of the week, we still totally had stuff left. I had never actually bought or cooked with arugula before, and that experience alone was worth the money. I made a pasta sauce of arugula, roasted eggplant, crushed tomatoes, and goat cheese and it was rich and divine.

This week, we got:

2 onions

4 sweet potatoes

1 butternut squash

6 anaheim (I think?) chili peppers

A bag of arugula

A bag of mustard greens

A bag of bok choy

A bag of tatsoi (again, never heard of this before, so this could be interesting)

So, there are a lot of greens this week, and I’m sort of excited about finding different things to do with them. I love to cook, and I especially love the kind of cooking where you assess what you have and try to make the most of it without buying anything else, or only buying the bare minumum required to use as much as possible of what you already possess. So I am totally stoked about the challenge. Ideas are welcome, and I’ll post some of the more interesting things I create…

 

 

 

I’ve decided Dude is never actually going to pop a tooth, but just remain in pain forever.

As such, he loves very very cold things, and I was lamenting the fact that I wanted to give him ice cream, but don’t want to give him dairy yet.

So, I made ice cream from breastmilk, which is a suggestion I found on kellymom, but I thought it would be hard. It so totally wasn’t.

I just took some of the breastmilk in the fridge, put it in one of the many breast milk storage bags lying around in my cupboards, and then stuck that in a tupperware container with ice and salt. I didn’t even bother to add sugar. And I shook it for about 5 minutes.

Dude went nuts for it. I so wish I had tried this during the summer, or when he was really wanting to try solids, but not quite tummy-ready.

Dude loves carrots, so I bought a whole bunch of jars of carrot baby food, but now he hates baby food. He told me he is far too old for pureed food any more. I had to translate from dudespeak to receive that message, but trust me, that is exactly what he said. So, guess what I’m gonna do with those jars? Yup, carrot flavored ice cream. Yum.

 

 

 

Have fallen in love with a new blog, and this post is an example of why:

http://sleepisfortheweak.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/getting-to-sleep-sans-boob/