Can't believe this little guy is turning five years old in a week. I remember just bringing him home and being so scared but so in love.

Rainy Day Obstacle Course

Lately, I have been wishing I could stay home with my son instead of working so I could do more things like this. When I was single, I would work from 5am-11pm and later nearly every day. On the weekends, I would work at least 12 hours grading and lesson planning. Now that I am married and a mother of a two and a half year old, and working full time as a teacher, the problem is that those hours still need to be put in to be a good teacher, but there are not enough hours in the day to be a good wife and a good mother. Jokingly the other day, I said to a friend, "Can we go back to the fifties and be secretaries?" She replied, "If we are going back, why don't we go back to the twenties and just stay home?" I didn't grow up in a household with a stay at home mom, so before I had my son, I never even considered it. Right now there is no way for me to do this, but I wish I at least had a choice. In the modern day, it's a luxury to be a stay at home mom. One that we just can't afford. One thing I'll never say, is that "I'm so glad I didn't spend all that time with Lucas when he was growing up so that I could make money." I have my own rainy day obstacle course to deal with right now, but I know everything will be fine soon.

View from Coconuts in Cozumel

IMG_0082.JPG, originally uploaded by 2Rocks.

Missing Mexico

Lucas watching yo gabba gabba

In An Alternate Universe

After the Giants beat the Braves, my mother was very emotional. She said she cried for fifteen minutes because she wished my brother could see this year's Giants. Today as I drove through the gray weather picking up lunch in San Ramon, I imagined the alternate universe that I often do, the one where my brother never got cancer, and never left this world.

In this alternate universe, we were getting ready to go watch the game at his old house in Concord. He is wearing a Giants hat and hoodie, cuddled up in his old chair next to the window. His two daughters are cuddled up in Lincecum jerseys on his lap and they are watching the pre-game show. He knew baseball inside-out, a passion I see in his daughters as well. Fall was always his favorite season, and what better would it be with the Giants still playing in October.

Instead, my husband and I have watched and listened and covered our eyes and curled up in fetal position, and celebrated in our own living room with our baby upstairs asleep. This year, we watched them play as a team I have never seen before...they played like young boys that were truly chasing dreams and would play if they weren't getting paid.

I always loved baseball for the great metaphor of life that it is. That you can train, and prepare, and invest, and light candles, but life is still so much out of your control, and an impossible number of circumstances lead up to one's destiny. My brother had done everything he could to stack himself up against those circumstances and there was nothing that could have prepared him for his outcome. I know we are not in that alternate universe, but I know my brother is here in spirit, celebrating this outcome for "our boys." Maybe I'll go visit his brick tomorrow at AT&T Park.

Miss you, Brother. Humm Baby.

Adulthood Ain't No Joke

I woke up last night,
this poem pushing its way out of the softness
of my belly.
I was trying to get back to that room
in that city,
that cold bedroom
with wood floors,
and rain on the window
that faced a city street.
Trying to get back to
that too big house
with rented rooms
where my bed was small,
and life was long,
and you were so close,
and I was trying to make rent,
trying to make something
out of myself.
In a sweat,
I reached for you across our too big bed
and held you close
trying to get back there
to that room
trying to get back to
before
when there were moments
to catch one's breath
when there was room for boredom.
Not forever, but for a moment,
I wanted to get back there.

I have been waiting to want to write a poem for a long time. Nothing has really inspired me in the way that would make poems pour out of me in the past. I've also guarded a lot of myself when it came to writing which stems from an emotionally abusive relationship that especially affected my belief in my writing. It's something that needed to be said, and it is what it is. I will work with it, and I'm just grateful that I have something to work with. Last night, in the midst of being completely overwhelmed by my more-demanding-than-ever-new job, the death of my sixteen year old cat, Lucas getting sick and getting better, and losing my wallet and everything in it including lots of things one shouldn't carry, this poem jumped out of me last night. It's an admission, a confession, that sometimes, I miss being young and stupid and not tied to a mortgage, a career and a baby. To be clear, I don't mean that I would trade my life now for my life then and change what I have now, I would just like to go back and enjoy it a little more. I didn't know how easy I had it!

FW: Lucas and his Kawasaki

Bad to the Bone

As per Soluna's request, here is another video of Lucas doing "stunts!"

First Family Torchlight Parade

IMG_1426, originally uploaded by 2Rocks.

Daddy's Smile

IMG_1450, originally uploaded by 2Rocks.

Tri-Valley Best Baby Friends Forever

A Spontaneous Trip into the Water at Sycamore Valley

16 Year Old Kitty Kitty

Mommy: Happy 16th Birthmonth WB! WB: Yeah, whatever. That thing is walking now and ruining my life.

Endings and Beginnings

AP Exam Prompt: 1996. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.

I wrote my essay on Hamlet. Everyone dies at the end of Hamlet. I passed.

Next week I'll be teaching a sample lesson to an AP class that has already taken the test and is probably counting the days until graduation. As I sat in the waiting area of the administration office for my interview today, a stream of seniors lined up to pick up their caps and gowns.

It began to rain, and the saturated asphalt brought me back to the smell of the playground at my elementary school.

At once I felt the urgency and frivolity of a past, present and an uncertain future.

9 Month Post

I guess it's been a helluva while since I last posted. Half the trimester has gone by, and balancing being a mom of an infant and being a full time high school teacher has been a challenge to say the least. What I am about to tell you is not for pity or because I feel like I'm the only one in the world who does this, but to just express my frustrations with the lack of 8 days in a week or more hours in the day.

I get up at 4 am and pray I can get myself ready, get his food and bottles ready, make lunches for my husband and myself, and pump and/or grade before the baby wakes up. When he wakes up, I nurse him, change his diaper and play with him as long as I can before I have to go to work, that is, if he wakes up after I get everything else done. I take a deep breath, say goodbye and see you later, hang around probably longer than I should, and then I get to work. I try to get to work at 7. I have my prep. I teach four periods straight through and then try to rush home at 3 or at least by 4 to spend as much time with him as I can before 6 or 7, which is when we give him a bath and put him to bed by at least 8. Every day that I come home, I've missed something major. Today, he is walking with his walking toy all by himself. He can also place a stacking ring on its stacker. I missed that today.

But I was reading the last few pages of Elie Wiesel's account of the last days of the holocaust, told through the eyes of a teenager with students who are as old as he was when he witnessed it. I was teaching English learners that they can understand and appreciate Shakespeare. I was meeting with a frustrated parent and trying to figure out a plan of action with a homeschool teacher. I was admittedly, drinking more Peet's coffee than I should have been. I was trying to unbury myself from the piles of paper in my room. I don't think the work required for being a good teacher will ever change. I don't think the work required for being a good mom will ever change. I don't know how people balance it, really.

I spoke with a veteran teacher the other day about how she did it. She said that her breaking point was ending up with her sick son in the emergency room after plowing through her millions of obligations at school and getting to her son's sickness when she could get to it. She said she'd never get her priorities that screwed up again. People tell me that when they get older, it seems, right around when the child can start talking, that I'll want a break or that it will feel better to go back to work.

I love my job. I love my baby. I need my job to support my baby. But I definitely miss those long moments of clarity when I knew that all I had to do was be there for him, and I was doing the right thing. Back to doubt. Back to uncertainty.

I am not sure if I have a job in the fall, and should find out in the next two weeks. If I don't, I'm not sure at this point what to do. Right now, I'm just trying to strike a balance. I'll take a note from Lucas and put one foot forward and run when I have to, and slow down when I can.

Baby Must Haves

I convinced myself that Lucas needed the above toy. I sent away for it on Amazon. I paid probably close to $17 for it. Turns out he didn't need it. We referred to this toy affectionately as "Boobie Man." Unfortunately, I lie awake at night now imagining where Boobie Man was chucked out of Lucas' carseat. Is he lying in the grass in Golden Gate Park? Has he become a chew toy for a lovely French Bulldog? Is he sitting in the bottom of the bin at The Cal Academy, and if so, why haven't they called me after I have left them thirteen messages? I am exaggerating. A bit. But still, I am sort of wanting to put a moratorium on toys and baby things. Lucas' toys are occupying a good portion of the living room, and it's not so much that I don't want him sucking on questionably BPA-free plastic, buying into commercialism and consumerism, or babysitting himself with said plastics--I don't want any of those things either--it's just that I know he doesn't need all those things to be a happy baby. He can play with the simplest things or be entertained exploring, listening and interacting.

Having said all this, there are ten baby things that I either find very useful or are just so nice to have I think they are worth mentioning.

1. Boon Squirt Spoons. He can't grab them while I'm trying to feed him, and I can put his frozen homemade foods in there and they thaw while we're out and make feeding him on the go very easy.
2. Baby Carriers. My favorites have been the Moby, then the Balboa adjustable ring sling, and the Ergo.
3. Fisher Price Space Saver High Chair. It does all the things its name says.
4. Kiddopotamus SwaddleMe blankets. OMG. They are incredible at calming him and guess what, he is suddenly sleeping through the night two weeks before I go back to work. Amazing.
5. Pacifier clips. I use these more for his toys while we are eating in restaurants since he is over his two week acceptance of pacifiers.
6. Summer Infant video monitor. We have a two story house and this really gives us some peace of mind, as well as gives us a better idea of fussing versus distress crying.
7. Medela Pump 'N Style. I don't know if there is a more efficient way of pumping, but I find its adjustable speeds and strengths pretty amazing.
8. Bumkins bibs. Super absorbent, and I love the organic cotton.
9. Infant Car Seat with base that attaches to stroller. Helps him sleep through transitions without having to be taken out all the time.
10. Magic Bullet. I make all his baby food with this, but I hear you can just screw Mason jars on blenders for the same, if not better effect

I'd like to add some pictures of the products, but I have to get ready for my last nonwalker playdate I'm hosting tomorrow. In summer, all the babies we've gotten to know will be walking for sure. Oh yeah, I'm going back to work. A post recapping the last seven month in a love letter to Lucas is coming up. Soon, I will be posting about my big life change, and may have to put my blog on lock. My handful of readers, let me know if you want a password.

6 Months

Yesterday was Lucas's 6 month birthday. I can't believe how much and how quickly he has changed. This week he had a nasty cold, the one I had been dreading since I knew I was pregnant. I am a WIMP and clueless when it comes to caring for the sick (mind you I come from a family of two take-charge nurses and one take-charge doctor) . I once fainted in my brother's hospital room, where I woke up to him leaning over the bed and cheering me on as I came to on the floor, my poor sister-in- law holding up my legs with my jeans unzipped and my mom and sister giving me his oxygen mask. I remember trying to give him his medicine once and feeling the beads, no bullets, of sweat forming and dripping down my forehead. I was fired from the job going forward. He could smell my fear.

So my poor sniffling, sneezing, stuffyheaded, coughing, diarrhea having, vomiting, solids protesting, staring off into space little baby boy (I'm sure there are grammar errors there, feel free to correct) brought me back to that moment of realization I had during my labor:

"There's no running away. Focus. Do it."

Yesterday I repeatedly caught vomit in my hands, in my hair, in my clothes and then held him tight, and said, "It's okay," hoping he wouldn't pick up on the little bit of doubt in my voice. He's tremendously better, I must say. And even though it it may sound bad, this little boy was still playing, chuckling and "smizing (Tyra term for "smiling with one's eyes)" like crazy through it all.

Every day he teaches me that I can do more and be better than I think.