Make It Work, baby!

The DC area has been hard-hit with snow this Winter. I must admit, I've loved every minute of it. The snow has been absolutely beautiful to watch fall, and it really offers a sense of peace to my busy world (the blizzard we had earlier this week notwithstanding). My favorite part of all the snow? I didn't have to go to work! Staying home with my baby (DH is essential personnel, so he worked all week) has been wonderful. We played together. Took long walks through the snow. Rolled around on the bed and stayed in our PJs all day. Tried new foods and I tried my hand at baking. Danced to music, read books, and rocked ourselves silly. I was supposed to go to work today, but my bus never came. Oh well! So I'm working from home today, but it's not the same. I'm stuck at my computer (clearly working hard - don't judge it's lunch time!), and Adrian is enjoying lunch with his sitter. (One day I'll write a little more about her.) I actually took a shower and go...

My baby is 11 months old today. It's hard to believe that much time has gone by already. He's still not crawling or walking. He's not clapping, saying words, or waving. Sometimes I'm afraid that I've already failed him as a parent. But no. My baby is happy and healthy. He laughs and smiles. Gets frustrated and intrigued. Communicates through facial expression, tone, and posture. Eats like a horse and nurses like a champ. He may be a bit behind all of the milestones, but for now I'm still OK with that. I'm not crying tonight because of my perceived inadequacies as a parent. Instead, I'm remembering where I was 11 months ago. How I felt. There was some joy. There was a lot of love. But it was mostly horror. Pain. Sorrow. Frustration. Helplessness. Failure. "From his mother's womb untimely ripped."  I had a cesarean section. It is really, really hard for me to write about this. Especially in a format that lays bare so many other pe...

Every day I have a roughly half-hour commute to work in the mornings. The afternoons are my chatty Kathy times, but mornings are reserved for reading. Sometimes news, sometimes novels, but today it was poetry. I was fortunate enough to study poetry in college under Pulitzer Prize winning poet Claudia Emerson . Much to my shame, I never took the time to read her award-winning work until now. But I'm so glad I waited. The me of my college years would not have appreciated the depth of feeling with which she writes, especially in the book Late Wife . About her first failed marriage, the time in-between, and her second marriage to a widower, there was a lot that spoke to me. After college, I decided to get married and get a career. A practical one that paid the bills and allowed me to live comfortably. Several of my classmates went on to get their MFAs in creative writing and got to take their skills to the next level, though I don't know if any of them have been (monetarily) su...

T-minus 12 days. Things are stressful at work. My boss is constantly on me about getting certain things done. I wonder if he realizes that he's a big reason I can't get away fast enough. Every ten minutes, he thinks of something else important that I take care of and comes to find out where it is/how it's done/ who here can do it/ etc. I almost (almost) feel sorry for him. But here I am, putzing away on my blog instead of working on the laundry list of "Crap to Finish." I wonder what that says about me?