Spring Fever

My students are not the only ones who've caught spring fever. The past couple of days have been cold and rainy and dreary, and I've been maniacally checking weather updates to find out when the weather is going to warm up again. (Come on, Wednesday!) There are just three more weeks until the end of the semester, and I am beyond excited for the warm weather and the time at home to putter and write and have adventures with my kid.

It's important to take time to smell the flowers. And then try to put them in your mouth.

As Benjamin's first birthday approaches, I keep playing a little game I like to call "What Was I Doing a Year Ago?" It's not really much of a game because the answer is almost always "in bed" or "on the couch" or "wishing I were in bed or on the couch" or some variant of that. A year ago, I was a month from giving birth. I'm not going to mince words: I was miserable. I waddled, not walked, to and fro. I threatened to call the campus police on a cute, bouncy, presumably not-four-weeks-from-having-a-baby student who parked in the last faculty spot in the parking lot closest to my office. (She gave me the finger but moved her car. You're about to enter a world of pain if you mess with a pregnant woman's parking space.) I couldn't sleep at night because I looked more like Tweedle Dee than an actual human female. The only gardening I did last spring was about a week before I had the baby because someone on Facebook told me it would help me go into labor. I was so O-V-E-R being pregnant.,

Once Benjamin was born, I didn't do much, either, except nurse. And nurse. And nurse. I told my friends that my summer job was running a dairy. (If you've ever used or seen a breast pump in use, then you know this is not that much of an exaggeration.) We didn't join our CSA because we knew we wouldn't have the extra money or time to really cook. I didn't take advantage of our insane mint plant to make mojitos and drink them on the patio with my husband. We didn't go to the beach or have any form of a vacation. I didn't write. I didn't cook. I didn't ride my bike once. I barely saw my friends. By spending all of my time caring for the most basic needs of a human being—feeding, sleeping, comforting, cleaning, clothing—my life also became stripped down to the barest of essentials.

In a strange way, it was sort of cathartic to live like this for a few months—to sleep when you're tired, regardless of the time of day; to eat when you're hungry; to live for someone else instead of yourself. Being a parent is so much about relinquishing control, which, for someone such as myself, is not always so easy. Before I had a child, I used to think that becoming a parent meant to HAVE something new and DO new things. But it's much more than that: You actually BECOME something new. Your old self is still in there, but a new self emerges. Learning how to be a parent is a lot about figuring out how to introduce the two and help them get along.

Certainly much of this summer will be spent taking care of Benjamin, as every day is. But now that he's almost 1 and is really curious and interactive and seems to be VERY close to walking, I'm excited to get out and do stuff again, albeit with a small, wobbly person in tow. He is amazed by everything around him, which is another good lesson. I tell the students in my writing classes that to be good writers, they have to view the world much in the way a child does, with curiosity and wonder at every blade of grass and every crack in the sidewalk. They need to ask "why?" just like a kid does. To paraphrase my favorite writer, Susan Orlean, they need to learn how to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. There's nothing more my son enjoys doing than opening boxes and drawers and cabinets to see what's inside. I think that's awesome (once I'm sure he won't be maimed by what he finds inside, of course).

At the lakeFor our first adventure, Benjamin and I went to feed the ducks at the lake in my hometown on Friday afternoon. It was warm and sunny and perfect. B had never been there before. In fact, it was the first time he ever saw a lake or a duck up close. He was mesmerized by the water and the birds and the way the grass felt on his bare feet. I grew up with this lake. It's a remarkably beautiful place—one that repeatedly cropped up in stories and essays I wrote in grad school without my intentionally meaning for it to. It is so familiar, but to experience it with him was like seeing it for the first time. Even old things will become new again with him.

 We've rejoined our CSA, which I'm so excited about, as I've been contemplating becoming a vegetarian again (but that's another story for another post). My husband has been prepping the yard and the garden, and I've been daydreaming about what to plant in the flower beds. I've been going to the gym pretty regularly, and even though I've still got a lot of work to do in that department, I'm happy to report that I think I do look like a woman again, not a character from "Through the Looking Glass."

We moved the two Adirondack chairs to the side yard under the flowering cherry tree and wrapped white lights around its trunk and through the branches. It's a Husband/Wife space—not a Daddy/Mommy space. And you can be damn sure that mint plant is going to see some action this summer, too.

I took this photograph of our new backyard oasis using the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone. So '70s. Love it.

Smitten With … Being Smitten!

Here we are in 2006, on my 30th birthday, pre-marriage, pre-baby. Look how well-rested we look!In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share the story of how my husband and I met. (I do this in spite of the fact that Scott refers to Valentine's Day as a "made-up holiday" and treats it with a level of disdain most people reserve for a trip to the dentist.)

The story of how we met is so-so, as meeting-your-future-spouse stories go. I'll cut to the chase: It was at a bar. What's really good, though, is how we did NOT meet --- but should have.

1. Fairview Street (1976–1986)

He grew up at 289. I grew up at 309. Becky, one of my neighbors and good friends, was four years older and was in the same grade in school as Scott. But we never met.

2. Becky's Birthday Party (1985?)

One year, Becky had a 1950s-themed birthday party. My mom made me a poodle skirt, and I was so excited to hang out with Becky and her older friends. And who else was in attendance, with slicked hair, pegged jeans and a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up? That's right—a preteen James Dean/my future husband. After we got together, we recalled both being at the party, though neither of us remembered the other.

Apparently, some photographic evidence of our being in the same place at the same time existed at one time. Becky's dad was an amateur photographer and documented every party, holiday and neighborhood gathering. But alas, a bunch of his old photographs were ruined when their basement flooded years ago, and Becky's parents suspect the photo of the young bobby-socksers was one of them.

3. High School (1990–1994)

Scott graduated high school in 1991, when I was a freshman, but our school was so tiny that it's sort of remarkable we never met. I knew a lot of his friends and he knew a lot of mine, and we joke that we must have been the only two people in the school who didn't know each other.

4. Post-College Bar Scene (1998–2005)

Yes, we did meet in a bar, but it was a full seven-plus years after I turned 21. That seven-year stretch provided ample opportunity for us to meet, even though I lived in Montana for a bit after college, he lived in Vermont for a while, and then I moved away for three years for grad school. Our small town has just a handful of bars, and there was a time in our lives when both of us socialized quite a bit more than we do know. In fact, I remember seeing him out now and then (I knew who he was) and thinking he seemed interesting, but it was only until the next entry that something actually happened.

5. The Dream (June 2005)

In early June 2005, I had finished grad school and come home, unsure about my next step. In my head, I was all set to go to New York to write, edit, teach ... or something. I saw Scott one night when I was out for cocktails with my girlfriends. That night, I had a very vivid dream about him, in which we were standing in a yard in front of a house next to a large tree, just talking (about what, I don't remember). It was so real that when I woke up, I thought for a moment that it had actually happened. I told my best friend, Sarah, about the dream, and she insisted we needed to meet. Her then-boyfriend/now-husband was a good friend of his, and the two of them planned an elaborate scheme for us to meet.

And we did, a few days later, completely by accident. We were in a bar, sitting amongst a bunch of friends, and we were finally introduced. We started talking. We talked and talked and kept on talking long after everyone else had left. We left each other that night with only a few hours' worth of conversation and a hug between us. There was no exchange of phone numbers, no plans to meet up again. It was as if we just knew we would.

And so we did. We ran into each other at a party a week or so later, where he invited me to a July 4th gathering at his house the next day. I went to the party with Sarah and her then-boyfriend/now-husband. At some point in the evening, at about dusk, Scott and I stood talking in his front yard next to a huge old oak — exactly the way I had dreamed it weeks before.

From then on, it was only ever us again, never just me or just him. I moved into his house at the end of October, just four months after we met. We were engaged the following December and married the November after that, in 2007. In August 2008, I got pregnant. Benjamin was born on May 12, 2009, nine months ago today, and our love story grew to make room for one more.

Sometimes I think about all the years I spent dating the wrong guy (and, of course, thinking he was the right one—or knowing he was the wrong one and not caring). I'd had this image in my brain of the sort of man I'd marry and the sort of life I'd lead. Everything that has happened since has been a complete surprise. I did not expect to marry a guy who'd lived on my same street and gone to my same high school. I did not expect to be living in my hometown again. All of this has been unexpected—and better than I imagined.

And our son? God, I look at him sometimes and cannot believe we have this incredibly fun, funny, smart and sweet little person living with us. Just today he figured out how to wave and crawled farther across the living room than he ever has. He discovered the stairs, the glass door leading to the downstairs through which he could peek at our lazy dog lounging on the floor, and I watched him as he realized the world was much bigger than what he thought. It was incredible. At that moment, this was the thought that popped into my head:

"Oh crap. Now I've got more floor to clean."

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Happy Valentine's Day to all (whether you celebrate it or not)! If anyone else is reading, post how you met your (or a) significant other in the comments section. I'd love to read it!