I’ve had more monitoring (a couple non-stress tests and an ultrasound to measure amniotic fluid) than hardcore natural birthers would request; my midwives are supportive in waiting till 42 weeks, if things stay as good as they are now. The baby moves, a lot; more than they’d expect of a baby that we estimate to weigh over nine pounds. So there’s no reason, no medical or scientific or objective reason to induce. (Not even to mention whether 42 weeks is really overdue or not).

Why am I doing this, again? Is it because I trust God, my body, the baby? This is a lot harder when it’s me making the decisions. When I’m responsible, when everyone from my husband to my medical providers is happy to do what I want to do. (How do I know what I want to do?)

Also, it felt pretty good when I suggested or agreed or whatever, to be induced with Lucy at 39 weeks last time. It was what I wanted, it was fine. She was out in five hours and two pushes. That epidural worked better than the previous ones because we knew how to get it working on both sides.

Reading all those books and practicing pain management and relaxation — that all felt so empowering a month ago. Now, overdue and second-guessing, waiting, waiting, waiting, this surrender to a timetable I can’t begin to guess at — this doesn’t seem empowering at all.

It makes me wonder what other areas of my life I allow, encourage, accept others to make decisions for me, and do I do that out of fear, or ignorance, or laziness, or apathy?

If she’s born on Wednesday she’ll go to school a year later than if she’s born tomorrow or Tuesday. Does God care what day we’re born? Does He care (do I care?) if my daughters are old or young for school? If she’s born tomorrow, I can decide in five years whether to send her early or late. But wait until Wednesday and it’s not a choice. Do I trade this choice for that choice?

One thing I do believe — it’ll be easier to labor and birth if I’m not induced — even if it means her gaining another pound, so that’s not an issue. Another — even a “mild” induction (breaking my water but not hooking up pitocin unless things weren’t moving along after two hours, which is their limit and seems a really short time) would most likely set off a cascade of interventions that I would have no control over, and perhaps rightly so, having taken that first step of relinquishing autonomy.

Perhaps this is only cosmic justice, meant to be, the only way it could ever have turned out once I decided I wanted to do things a certain way. Oh really? You really want to do it your way? Good luck with that. Are you sure? How sure?

The longer it goes (and I know nine days isn’t the record or anything, but holy crap it seems a long time), the more surreal it seems that we will ever have a baby, a new person in the family. It felt this way before each of the other births, like we couldn’t really believe there was a whole separate person floating around in there, but this time it seems even more so. It’s easier to just accept that I’ll be pregnant forever, because all evidence points that way.

I’ve always been fascinated by why we do what we do. It was part of the motivation for the electricity fast, part of the delight in living in Japan and Cairo and New York City. Part of the simple pleasure in moving furniture, painting walls, changing things. If we change this or that, will we change? Does anything ever change? Will it make a difference in ten years, to me or to the baby, if I choose this or that? Will I feel empowered if I surrender? To what? To who? To myself?

Can you live deliberately if you stop making choices? (Why does everything have to be a choice?)

—

Does it matter how you give birth?

Birth Plans

Suddenly they had to pee. Both of them. Emergency-like. Because they each have bladders the size of 5-gallon buckets, which is nice most of them time, but means that when they have to go, they have to go. The thrift store I was at didn’t have a bathroom, and I hadn’t completed my purchase so I didn’t want to leave the area. Next door was a Spazazz place. I reached for the door, planning to throw myself on the mercy of the two nicely-dressed women sitting at the reception table. One shook her head and mouthed that they were closed, quickly looking back at her important business.

I stood there for a second, outside the locked door, considering. I knocked again, hoping I could convey that I just really, really needed a bathroom. This time both of them shook their heads frantically, avoided eye contact, and made throat-slashing motions with their hands, not interested at all in the terminally-pregnant woman and her two small daughters.

Today I ran more errands, going to Callie’s kindergarten assessment, picking up my reserved copy of Mockingjay, and getting last-minute food and supplies for school. By the last stop, my feet were swollen past all recognition as feet, my toes like exploding Vienna sausages. A guy in his late twenties hesitantly approached me as I loaded stuff in the car. I turned so sourly to him. He said, “You were ahead of me in line, right?”

“I don’t know.” (and don’t care.)

“I think you left a bag, of binders and notebooks or something?”

I sighed, hugely. All I wanted was a nap. Not to have to thank some stranger for going out of his way, not to have to walk ALL THE WAY BACK INSIDE. But I did, and claimed my stuff. Then I noticed that the guy had also walked back inside to get a Redbox movie. By then I realized what a (self-absorbed, entitled, put-upon) complainer I am, and thanked him nicely on my way out.

Of course the ladies yesterday had no obligation to help me out or even commiserate or anything. But neither did the guy today.

He can have no idea what a difference it made in my thinking. At least for today.

Not the first time that she asked me what it is (she doesn’t know about it yet). Not the first time I caught her in front of the mirror, trying to capture just at what angle her eye stops tracking (she hasn’t done that yet). Not the first time she wants to know why she’s different, why a doctor can’t fix it, why Heavenly Father would make her body not perfect (she thinks it is, so far).

Just the first time someone her age – that age when little kids guilelessly, relentlessly point out the fat lady withthe big bum, the girl who jumps and shouts at church, the old man whose legs don’t work — the first time someone her size asks her mom why Lucy’s eyes look funny like that, and the first time I hear a mother shush and whisper that it’s a lazy eye, and some people have eyes like that, not unkindly, both of us hoping Lucy hasn’t heard, or hasn’t understood.   

I say, it’s actually the opposite of a lazy eye (though really I don’t know what the opposite is). It’s that one of her eyes can look to the left, and look straight ahead, but it can’t look to the right.

But I don’t tell Lucy that. She doesn’t know she’s being discussed. She’s not even four yet.

It could be worse, of course it could be much, much worse. But the first time she realizes what it is, what her eye can’t do that most people’s eyes can do, won’t be the time to tell her that. I hope by that first time I’ll know the perfect thing to say, a thing that doesn’t sting her heart like this first time stung mine. 

—-

Lucy has Duane Syndrome.

Yesterday I sent them all off with their father to the county fair, and then I worried. He doesn’t always watch them as closely as I do. I don’t always watch them that closely. I was glad to see them go — told Tom that a few hours to myself was a very good use of one of his precious vacation days. Still, I worried. All those strangers, all those blinking, flashing, catchy carnival noises to distract them.

I walked to the church to make sure Avery had gotten there okay. You know, just in case. She was there, laughing and hopping around and not noticing me.

Sometimes I want to strangle them myself (metaphorically: like, I wish they came with an off button, or a least a volume control). But whenever I think of something bad happening, someone bad happening, I don’t know how we bear it. How do we let the out there? They’re so precious, so innocent, so fragile.

They’re also so, so loud. Maybe that’s how we bear it.

—

BlogHer syndicated my Nine Lessons From an Electricity Fast post. I thought of a tenth lesson, and not just for symmetry’s sake. One thing I expected was that I would talk on the phone a lot, see people in person, be more social in real life, when my virtual world was cut off, but I didn’t. I indulged my hermit-lik tendencies even more. Maybe it was the heat, or the pregnancy, or having the kids around all the time, but I didn’t do any of the relationship building/real-life connectivityness that some say the internet has cost us — except with my immediate family, and since they’re the most important, maybe it did serve its purpose, but as far as women needing friends and all that stuff, I’m glad to be back online (though I haven’t been every active in recent weeks, and that is definitely an are-we-ever-going-to-have-this-baby?-I’m-going-to-be-the-first-women-in-the-history-of-the-world-to-be-dilated-to-3cm-for-a-year thing).

In some ways I’m still doing things conventionally — like having the Group B test at all, but a) I’d like to know if I am positive, and b) at least this time I did a couple homeopathic things to reduce my chance of getting a positive (I took Vitamin C and acidophilus supplements every four waking hours in the two weeks leading up to the test; you can be a lot more aggressive in preventing/treating Group B, but I had both of those on hand, and they’re good to take anyway, especially for, uh, digestive tract health, if you know what I mean). I don’t think I was ever positive before my three other births, but as an example of how much I relinquished responsibility, it’s possible that I was positive but wasn’t told or didn’t give it any thought because I had epidurals with each, and so always had IVs through which the antibiotics could be given without any disruption to my plans.

My appointment was with one of the midwives I hadn’t met yet, which isn’t ideal of course; ideally I’d fly to The Farm this week and give birth in Ina May’s shadow next week, but all things considered I’m happy with this group of midwives and I don’t begrudge them the life-convenience of sharing call, especially since it is their habit to stay with the mother for the entire labor. I reviewed my plans and hopes and fears with this new midwife, and after telling her how quick Lucy’s birth was (6 hours) even with an induction and epidural at 39 weeks, she supported me in staying home as long as possible but encouraged me to be prepared for things to go quickly and to maybe go from hanging out one minute to being ready to hop in the car the next (it’s a 30-minute-plus ride). Of course, anything could happen; I could be in labor for three days two weeks after my due date, but hopefully not.

Either way, it’s probably time to start getting ready. I have a lot on my To-Do List:

1. Write my birth plan (mostly a list of stuff I don’t want done, like an IV (I’ll sign a waiver to forgo the hep-lock the hospital requires in case of emergency; given my low-risk history my midwives are comfortable with this), taking the baby out of my arms (much less to the nursery) before I’ve had an hour to bond and breastfeed, cord clamping before it’s stopped pulsing, continuous electronic fetal monitoring (I’ve agreed to the initial twenty-minute baseline by telemetry which allows movement, then 90-second checks at 30-minute intervals).

I’m still researching the eye ointment and Vitamin K shot business; since Tom and I are life-long monogamists there should be no need for the eye ointment and since I’ll be producing tons of colostrum for a full-term baby the Vitamin K should be unnecessary too. On the other hand, these are relatively minor things (I think) and I don’t know how strongly I feel about them. Things like enemas, shaves, and episiotomies aren’t routine, but maybe I’ll include them just in case. 50% of the women who see my midwives have an epidural, and I plan not to — what I need instead is praise and encouragement, offerings of physical and emotional support, NOT of drugs (I know what’s available and can ask for it if I need to; Tom knows it’s his job, if that happens, to remind me that I want to wait 15 more minutes and see how I feel then, repeatedly, if necessary). Things I do want to have happen are harder to write down. I want things to go how they go; I want to feel comfortable in vocalizing (loudly if I feel like it), moving, bathing, drinking (I probably won’t want to eat if I arrive in active labor/close to transition), squatting, etc).

2. Pack a bag (with my own nightgowns, music on the iPod, a birth ball, juices and light snacks, a note for the door and maybe some cue cards for Tom and Chrysanthemum from Birthing From Within, stuff for the kid, 3 or 4 versions of Pride and Prejudice to watch (you know, the usual); Mockingjay if it’s after August 24th).

3. Wash some onesies and blankets, buy some diapers and a nursing bra or three (any recommendations? I was never very happy with my previous ones, and I’m bigger this time around — 38DD and not looking forward to engorgement).

4. Arrange babysitting, though Avery (9 /12) has expressed a lot of interest in being present. I’d like to have her there, but a lot will depend on the timing (and how I’m coping; I’d love her to see a natural birth, but not if I would scare her).

5. Finish reading the books and watching the dvds Rixa sent me (The Business of Being Born is available for instant play on Netflix,and I think Tom was surprised how interesting it was). Right now I’m practicing the stuff in Birthing From Within; it seems more helpful and realistic than Hypnobirthing, though I’m sure they could be complementary.

6. Finish cleaning and organizing the house. I’m not overdoing things; I nap most days and my blood pressure was a nice 107/67 yesterday. I mostly want things clean and organized because I feel so much calmer when they are. If I’m lost in reading or writing, I can ignore clutter or dirt for weeks. But if I want a soothing, comfortable environment for early labor, I know I’ll want things pretty clean and minimally distracting. This will be just as important in the sleep-deprived newborn months, especially with school starting for Avery and Callie just five days after my due date. Part of my organizing is a chore-training campaign with the girls. They’ve always helped in the kitchen and in caring for their personal space and belongings (though not terribly consistently), but now they’re old enough to do more, and more independently. Mom, if I whined as much as these hooligans do sometimes, all I can say is, I’m being sufficiently punished for that.

7. Get a priesthood blessing from my husband and maybe my father too. I read this call for stories about spirituality in birth, and realized, again and anew, how inadequately I prepared for birth previously. One of the tenderest moments of my life was when I asked for a blessing from Tom in Cairo before my first miscarriage, but I did not even think about asking for a blessing before my three deliveries. I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m not a very spiritual or faithful person, but the alternative, that I viewed childbirth as something that would just happen to me, something that would be “done” by my doctor and therefore not anything I needed help in “doing” is just as incompatible with my vision of who I am.

There are two things I’m worried about as the birth gets closer. I’m worried about the pain, and I’m worried about feeling inhibited in acting instinctively/naturally and asking for/receiving comfort measures for the pain other than a socially-acceptable epidural. Despite the numerous reassurances I’ve received from almost every single woman I’ve spoken to who has some experience (as a laboring women, nurse, or midwife) with the hospital I’ll be at — that it is a natural-birth-friendly institution, I can’t forget the things I’ve heard and read about the  significance of the fundamental decision I’ve made to give birth in a hospital, despite being pretty convinced after extensive reading and research that both the baby and I would be more comfortable and just as safe at home.

Still, that’s the decision I’ve made based on Tom’s and my feelings/perspective/experience, and other circumstances such as what our health insurance covers and our distance from a hospital in case of true emergency, etc. It’s a bit disconcerting (in a cognitive dissonance sort of way) to read (and believe) a book like Birth as An American Rite of Passage and still plan to give birth in a hospital, but no other compromise presents itself to me as more reasonable given all the specific factors of my present life and understanding.

I feel lucky to not be worried about my body’s ability to give birth vaginally. Especially after reading Birthing the Easy Way and talking to my cousin who’s had two c-sections and three homebirths, it’s clear that many natural-childbirthers have more logical reason for concern; I admire their courage. I got lucky three times: despite welcoming any and all interventions, things went as well as possible. So it’s not my body I’m worried about, but my brain’s ability to turn off, surrender, relinquish control not to an institution or authority figure but to my own body’s natural wisdom and design.

Then there was Three Cups of Tea. And, I was in Manhattan the day the Twin Towers fell. I know I said more than once that we should just bomb the whole place “over there” and be done. Luckily I don’t have any sort of influence but unluckily I’m not the only one who thought that reflexively. But reading Three Cups of Tea made me think of the influence I do have over my three (and soon four) daughters, because it’s all about educating girls, and how that is the way to change the world.

Basically, I’m convinced. The book is a fascinating adventure story and history/geography/politics/culture lesson. It also confirms something I’ve long thought: that real heroes, people like Greg Mortenson who are crazy and visionary enough to effect real change in our world are worth studying and following even though they’d be hell to live with (or to be).

I had a professor who said one of the saddest things I’d ever heard, that it was rare for a book to come along that changed how he thought about the world. At the time, almost every book I read did that, and I couldn’t imagine being so jaded. Now I can, which makes Three Cups of Tea so remarkable. It’s obvious, now, that education (especially of future mothers) is the answer, but how obvious is it that one person could actually do so much about education with so little support/money/conventional development savvy?

Usually I shrug off  charitable concerns. When you tithe (10%) of your income, it’s easy (for me) to think I’ve done my part, but this book actually makes me want to do more. Then I thought: too bad I’m about to give birth soon, I know I’ll be preoccupied with a new baby for the forseeable future. Except, I’m a girl, a mother of girls. I can work every day to be a better mother and educator of these people in my own house, raise them so they’re aware of the wider world, grateful for their own opportunities, and eager to help others. We can save money as a family to donate. I can follow Greg Mortenson on Twitter, of all things. And there on the list of suggestions for how to help at the back of the book is number 5: Write a book review for a blog.

So, easy enough: everyone should read Three Cups of Tea.

For half of the fast we used no air-conditioning; it was cool most of June, so this wasn’t a hardship, except the day it was 92 degrees. A week later, Tom’s allergies (probably the cottonwood trees) were so bad he took a sick day and ponied up for prescription Allegra. We shut our windows and installed a high-tech air filter. I’m ashamed to admit just how happy I was to have that excuse for using the a/c. I said at first that we’d set the thermostat at 80, so we’d still be doing something, but that cool air is seductive (especially in the third trimester of pregnancy). Soon I had it set on 78, then 76, and finally 74. I can now say that I would rather do without internet than air-conditioning. (Obviously) I am weak, but physical discomfort is utterly disruptive to any sort of thought process.

Our fast was initially prompted by a high electricity bill that led us to lower our thermostat in winter to 60 degrees and cancel our TV. It was astonishing how easily and quickly we adapted to those two changes — and how much I liked it (especially how the kids act when there’s no TV; though Tom and I continued to spend too much time online and watching hulu). We wanted more of that. I also especially wanted to re-set our expectations and habits to a more “natural” standard, waking with the sun, sleeping with the sun, paying attention to each other and the world around us, instead of all the wonderful things available electronically. Summer time was perfect for this, with school out and everyone eager to be outside anyway, and with the solstice (longest day of the year) falling right in the middle.

Here are some of the things I learned (see 1. Old-fashioned sorrows are (maybe) easier to bear in old-fashioned settings.):

2. Kids (and husbands) are impressionable; make rules wisely (and sparingly). A few days into the fast, Callie (5 1/2) walked up the bare basement stairs towards the kitchen for a glass of water. Near the top she stumbled and hurt herself. Her cries pierced the darkness and Tom told her to turn on the light. She wailed that she couldn’t because we were doing our electricity fast. I said she could make an exception because  she was hurt (and I was too lazy to get out of bed). She insisted that no, she could not.

A few weeks later Tom was home alone for one night while I slept over at my moms with the girls (Grandma has a swimming pool, and a dog). He told me later that, in addition to missing us, he had the strongest feeling of guilt over even thinking of turning the lights on. Even though it was my fast, and it was a completely subjective thing, not a sin or an objectively “wrong” thing to do, the imposition of guilt was a real thing.

3. Exceptions are a slippery slope. A couple Sundays ago as we walked to church, Callie shouted, “Mommy, you’re wearing flip-flops.” I don’t let the girls wear flipflops to church; it’s one of my very few clothing rules. Lucy’s (3 1/2) sparkle jeans under her dress get a pass because she is a little obsessed with layering, even in summer. Callie and Avery (9) are sometimes ball-gown fancy, sometimes playground pinafore casual. But there are no flipflops. Except, I told Callie, when you’re eight months pregnant. When you are eight months pregnant, I told her, you can wear flipflops to church too. Callie thought about that for several moments then proclaimed, “Mommy has a lot of exceptions.”

4. Maybe you’re a night owl, or maybe you’ve just never gotten a good night’s sleep. Tom has never woken up on his own (without an alarm or serious nagging) before 9 am in our twelve years of marriage. He’s always been a stay-up-until-this-one-last-bug-is-worked-out kind of guy. During our electricity fast, he still used his laptop to do freelance projects, but there was no TV on hulu, and I was asleep by 10:30 every night (except the few nights I stayed up to finish a book).  So even though he often was  up later than the rest of us, within a week, he started waking up around 6:30 every morning. The habit (what he thought was his natural rhythm) of his entire adult life was broken in a matter of days. And? Now that we’ve been catching up on Friday Night Lights? It’s 9 am less than a week later, and he’s sound asleep.

5. There’s more light outside even if you think your house has good windows. The sun goes down around 9 pm before and after the summer solstice in Mountain Daylight Time. Twilight lasts another half an hour. Before it got really hot, I resented nightfall. It meant I couldn’t see to read anymore. I was quickly resigned to not being able to finsh the dishes or hang the laundry if I waited too long, though some nights I did both by candlelight if I was in the mood. Other times I could shrug and say, I’ll do it tomorrow. Now it’s time to do something else.

Most nights I go walking with Chrysanthemum at the beginning of twilight. It’s simply gorgeous. The silhouette of the mountains, the perfume of the relieved grasses and trees sighing into the dark, the silvery fountains of the powerful sprinklers on the golf course. If we’re not walking, I usually end up angling my book towards our south-facing windows for the last smudge of light, or join Avery outside on the porch swing, because it is always surprisingly lighter outside.

6. Kids will take all the time you give them. I thought I’d have tons of free time once my computer was off. I knew I wasted time online. I knew it was bizarre (unhealthy, robotic, unnatural) how I’d head straight for the computer upon waking or returning home, during breakfast and lunch, hypnotizing myself out of hearing anything said around me until I’d gotten a hit from the internet. I was a little worried that I’d be bored. I read several books, books I might not have picked up or stuck through if I’d had easier entertainment options available, but I tried not to become lost in them as a substitute for the internet, but to instead really experiment with being more present (if you can forgive the phrase).

I trained my kids early to be self-entertaining (actually, I just selectively-neglected them into it). They play together or alone, they had already adjusted to no TV, and they coped with no movies and no computer games easily. How they ever had time for TV before is a mystery. They are busy from waking to sleeping playing, playing, playing. But I found myself suggesting card games (Uno, Skipbo), and reading more books to Callie and Lucy. Avery has her Saxon math to complain about, and Callie is more confident reading, looking to me for confirmation of a word less and less often. Lucy wants to read her books to us at naptime, and she is adorable. We all agree she is adorable, and when she smothers the baby in my tummy with kisses, I’m even more impatient for August.

But I need, and deserve, time of my own. I love to wake up before everyone else and read or write, or water the garden or even weed when it’s still deliciously cool. My kids won’t be harmed if they know there are times I can’t help them right now or even play with them all afternoon, but it was nice to not hear, not once in six weeks, dimly, outside my bubble, “Mommy’s on her computer.” It’s about balance, of course (all these buzzwords; sorry), and about not doing anything simply because it’s habit (unless you’re sure it’s a great habit), but because it’s something you’ve conciously, recently, decided to do.

7. It’s really frustrating to write longhand. It’s freeing to write where no one will ever see it, to record the day without thought of elegant structure or narrative meaning. But after awhile, it’s a little unrewarding to write only for yourself. Perhaps I have lost all my readers (it appears so from the dearth of comments on my last posts), and I don’t plan to do any of the things you’ll learn to do at blogging conferences to attract readers (besides try to write better), but somehow the act of making something public is enough, in itself, to lend significance. Perhaps if the fast had gone on longer, I would’ve learned the opposite.

8. It’s just as easy to lose your temper with the lights off. I’ve written a lot about my anger problem. For the first little bit of the fast, the novelty was enough to temper my impatience. That, and I read the fabulous book Soft-Spoken Parenting: 50 Ways Not to Lose Your Temper With Your Kids. A few days after finishing it, I realized I need to read it again, and again. The point is — no change of scenery or circumstance lets us escape ourselves, our habits and vices. I noticed when the kids spent an afternoon watching movies this week (I was the first one down with a nasty stomach virus) that they then fought for two hours afterwards. Of course an occasional movie isn’t bad, but something happens in their brains when they’re plugged in like that for long periods of time.

I had hoped that the same sort of purging of aggression would happen with me when I unplugged. But somehow little things still bugged me (though I reacted a lot better to interruption). It helped when I was fully rested (almost impossible at this point in pregnancy, no matter how much I sleep, but something I have to work on as we head into the newborn months), and when I took the time to write in my journal, to record the good things that happen.

9. Sometimes it’s easier to see in the dark. When you know it’s going to get dark soon, or hot soon or cold soon, you think about how you really want to spend your waking hours, your “good” hours, your daylight hours. I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by flickering candlelight and had some inkling of what it would mean to be rationed 1 candle per family per week. I know the majority (?) of the world’s population lives daily without electricity (or even worse, plumbing). An electricity fast is a first-world luxury, a probably unthinkably arrogant gimmick if you’ve ever experienced the real lack. I haven’t talked to Tom or the kids about this, but we need to donate our savings from this fast to Heifer International or something, in order to make it good for something real.

Summer is more than half over. Our electricity fast is definitely over, but I plan to do a month-long TV/movie/computer fast at the beginning of every summer. It’s so easy to go back to turning on lights, to putting off important things because you know you can extend the day as long as you like. It makes me wonder what else we could give up (could I give up the kinds of foods I like to eat?), how much we could do without, how our lives would be different if we thought in terms of What don’t I need? instead of How can I get that one thing I want? (I should confess here, maybe, that I love the fancy Belgian waffle maker Tom got me for my birthday in June and that I now want a breadmaker, oh, and a new vacuum.)

This reminded me a little of our first month in Egypt, when Avery was 18 months old. The power went out the first night we were there (and many subsequent nights). Avery and I were cooling off in the tub at an odd jet-lag-induced hour. We were pretty insulated from real life there, in our nice ex-pat neighborhood. But it was still jarring and exotic and reflection-causing. I’m not saying I want to impose bizarre lifestyle restrictions on myself and my family in order to be different or just to switch up our otherwise-mundane lives, but neither do I want to keep doing what we’ve always done if there’s a good reason to experiment deliberately.

He was not my cat. I made it a point not to feed him so that he would love the girls and Tom for feeding him. I only let him sleep on my pillow at the very beginning, because I felt sorry for taking him from his mother (and I had just miscarried. What can I say?) When he came to me for affection, I petted him briefly; I never cuddled. The last time I saw him, Friday afternoon before Father’s Day, I teased him about lazing in the sun on the rug in the basement, but I had things in my hands, so I didn’t bend down to stroke him him as he stretched. I didn’t even write about him on this blog, though Tom said often that he was the best birthday present I’d ever given him, and the girls’ happiness at finally having a cat made me feel mean for denying them so long.

The boys in the class eagerly told me that they had seen my cat, dead on the side of the road, just the day before, on a corner Tom had passed in his searching several times. I had to leave the room — to cry in the bathroom and to barge into the men’s meeting to confirm with one of the dads.

I cried incessantly, uncontrollably that day; by evening I had to gulp great glasses of water to replace all the fluid my baby probably needed to swim in. I blamed my pregnancy hormones, I told myself it was stupid and I shouldn’t upset the kids with my irrational grief. Still, I cried.

It got dark around 9:30 pm, and we sat around the kitchen table eating the specially-planned rhubarb crumble I’d finally thrown together. We had one lit candle; we couldn’t really see each other’s faces. With one candle in the center of the table, we gathered close, even though we still couldn’t really see. My daughters believe in heaven, and Jesus; I told them (and myself; they were easily convinced) that we have to remember that Skippy is happy now, we’re just sad because we miss him, but he is happy.

Then I told them about my young Aunt Jodi, who died when I was 11, of kidney failure. Jodi let us all sleep on her twin waterbed and had hundreds of nail polish colors to choose from. She had a goat, three horses, Ceasar the noble golden retriever, several cats, and probably other animals I don’t remember; she was studying to be a vet though she’d been sick for years. When she died my sister and I inherited Bonnie Jean Monster. We took pretty good care of her, though not her kittens, which is another story and a big part of my reluctance to have (or love) a pet again.

Avery was quick: “So now Jodi is taking care of Skippy for us in heaven?”

We trooped upstairs, all five of us, set the candle on the edge of the sink while we brushed our teeth and then trooped back downstairs, two flights of stairs this time to the unfinished basement, where Tom and I settled into our bed and the girls snuggled in the nest of blankets they’d arranged a few feet away on the floor at the beginning of our fast.

For once there were no cries of “she hit me” or “she took my pillow.” There were “I love you, goodnight”s and a few “I miss Skippy”s. Then it was completely dark, and completely quiet. I fall asleep quickly these days. But that night I spent several minutes, alone with my family, wondering why something so common hurt so much.

I have printed off recipes and information for swimming lessons; I’ll probably go on Tom’s freelance laptop once a week for ten minutes to check our finances, since I don’t feel comfortable leaving them completely unwatched. I bought some candles and a drying rack and . . . oops, today we bought an electric pump to blow up the kiddie swimming pool because just looking at the handpump exhausted me. Guess I’ll be standing in the return line tomorrow. Funny how I can talk this up to the kids every day for a week and totally space that an electric air pump would take — duh — electricity.

I’m excited for this, though today I realized the only music I’ll hear between now and July 10th is whatever I catch on the radio in the car, and the hymns at church. It’s probably better that I don’t really know what to expect: perhaps it’ll be totally sublime with daily epiphanies; perhaps it’ll be intolerable. I plan to write something every day, but the question I want to answer  is one that I’ve wanted to adopt as a focal point for months now, but somehow have never found the time. (And it doesn’t have to do with living a “green” lifestyle.)

It comes from Elder Eyring: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?”

If you need me, please email Tom at tomjohnson1492 @ gmail dot com.

Then, on the first full day of parenting the children, he took them camping. They got to the campground 15 minutes from our house in the early afternoon. They climbed willow trees, rode bikes, roasted marshmallows over an open fire that only claimed one wayward sock, ate Little Ceasar’s pizza, and were sound asleep by 7 pm.

I asked what he had planned for breakfast and he said they’d be home early.

This morning before I left, Tom and I were, uh, indisposed. Actually, he was amorous, and I was acquiescent despite my growing whale-like proportions for the aforementioned reasons (helping around the house really is sexy). Susan and Spot were playing legos in their room and Sally would be home from school at any moment. (It was her last day so she had an important hour-and-a-half of education before summer officially began).

Suddenly our locked door started rattling. Sally was home, and asking if Daddy was still asleep. (I had told her she would probably be home before he even woke up, and that I’d probably be gone by then). I said, “Yes he’s still asleep, go play with your sisters.”

She persisted. I insisted he was still asleep and she should go play with her sisters.

Finally she gave up and we were able to concentrate. Afterward, I asked her if she didn’t remember that talk we had a few months ago, about how if mommy and daddy’s door is locked, you don’t want to come in anyway. And she said,

“Well I knew you weren’t doing that.”

And how did she know that?

“Because you already have one.”

“One what”?

“A baby in your tummy.”

—–

When I could speak again, I told her that we still love each other and that married people sometimes do that for no other reason.

I like Walmart, and I shop there regularly (it helps that we have a brand-new store, with un-sullen workers, so far). I know it’s the nadir of taste, style, social conscience, and seven other sins, but I am unashamed. And I really think that unless you’ve lived for a couple years in a third-world country where you have to go to five different stores for what you could get at Walmart, and it still isn’t what you really want, you don’t get to judge me. (Places like France are different. There, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. There, I would walk five miles uphill both ways for a shop that only sells pastries, because they’re worth it.)

Penance (not really; actually a pleasure, but pretend):

I like Sassy Scoops, a review website of local Utah places. Their mission is a great one, and their reviews of all different kinds of businesses, from restaurants to carpet cleaning to yoga studios, are informative, visually appealing, and usually pretty funny, too. Right now they’re spreading the word about buying local first and supporting Utah businesses by offering the chance to win $100 in gift cards to local businesses for posting about Sassy Scoops. I admit, I’d love to win the gift cards (it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they asked me to Guest Sassy with them sometime, either ). But really, I think what they’re doing is great.

Some local businesses that I’ve been impressed with since moving back to Utah include:

Mi Ranchito. I love yummy, cheap Mexican food. Grampa took us to a new age Mexican place in Florida once and the food, while good, was just a little too healthy. You want some grease and salt with your beans, you know? Mi Ranchito is it.

San Gelato Cafe. I took my kids there during a girls night out sponsored by Sassy Scoops and the Casual Blogger Conference (which starts tonight! in Utah!). It was super-yummy and child-approved, and I’m sad we didn’t wait out the market a little longer and buy in Daybreak.

Memory Mixer. There are a lot of digital scrapbooking options out there. Memory mixer, created by Utah ladies, is the best (easiest, non-proprietary, flexible, affordable) that I’ve tried. I’ll be hosting a giveaway of their software after my electricity fast, if you can wait that long.

Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. It was a dark and stormy night. We love it. The end.

There are a bunch more, like the Back Alley Salon (a little bit ghetto, but way unpretentious!) in American Fork and my neighbor down the street who does hair in her basement. I’m in awe of women like Raw Melissa who does the personal chef thing and the doula thing. While businessy-type things often make me skittish, the whole local-person-you-meet-face-to-face-and-partner-with-to-grow-the-economy thing is conversely very appealing. Local businesses (especially house-cleaning-for-post-partum-mommy-outfits)! Contact me! Or not! Either way!

When she is enthusiastic about getting her chores done, she can pied piper those kids into racing to see who can finish first. All this without a single Love and Logic course. Is that just the prerogative of the first child? I remember my mom asking me to set a good example and to get my younger siblings to do things on Saturday mornings. Instead I hid in the bathroom and read (actually, that sounds really familiar, Sally).

But I still have some wisdom to impart, bit by bit as she’s old enough to handle it:

#1 Always check a new box or bag of groceries or household items carefully, so you don’t open the wrong end or ruin the zipper on the easy-reclosable opening. I demonstrate this for her on a regular basis, just for emphasis, because it’s tragic when you open a 2-pound bag of Twizzlers right UNDER the zipper.

#2 Always check your fountain drink before leaving a drive-through or gas station. There’s nothing worse than driving away with a slightly bitter soda that needed the syrup bag replaced. This one I haven’t been able to teach from my own actions; it’s one of those mistakes you only make once in life, so dire are the results. But when she got her Sprite from Costco last week, it was a teachable moment right there in the parking lot.

I do teach her important stuff, like the meaning of sex, or why we don’t drink alcohol (Hint: it’s not in the 10 Commandments, like she was trying to tell Susan), but sometimes, though she inherited a mean voice to rival my own (maybe THAT’s how she got the younger girls to keep out of her room), she seems to intuit how to do important things. (And I can’t tell you how I cringe whenever I hear that voice coming out of her mouth.)

Last night there was only a small section of pie left. Tom had already had some, and Spot hadn’t come downstairs for scripture time, or finished her dinner (which was a friendly peanut butter and jam sandwich, I might add). So I divided the rest between Sally, Susan, and myself. Spot started crying, the broken-heart crying, not the tantrum-crying (which is much easier to ignore). I held her in my lap and rubbed her back with one hand as I shoveled in pie with the other, telling her I was sorry she’d made the choice to not listen to scriptures and not eat her dinner.

Sally went to the cupboard, got a plate out, and cut off the larger half of her piece for Spot.

Maybe that’s why they welcome her like banshees every afternoon, and why Susan will hole up in her room late at night doing the reading lesson I futilely cajoled her about earlier. Even though it bugs me when people say their kids teach them so much, I’d like to have some of that mystique she weaves around them effortlessly, magically, but somehow I don’t think a mother is ever going to be as idol-worthy as a big sister.

spot sings i love to see the temple from shannon johnson on Vimeo.

Since becoming a mother nine and a half years ago, I’ve been a working mom, a living-overseas mom, a going-to-school-and-working-a-bit mom, and a stay-at-home mom. It was funner and more-easily-rewarding to be any of those things than a stay-at-home mom. When I railed against “motherhood” in my not-finer moments, what I really meant was stay-at-home motherhood. I wrote stuff like Do you hate being a mother so much? and confessed my irrational rage at little girls digging into the brownies I was saving. (It’s never about the brownies.)

And then, slowly, things started to change. I noticed it first around the time that I switched from What About Mom? to Seagull Fountain and when Michelle included me in her mommyblogger thesis and analyzed how my posts had become less frustrated. Throughout it all, I believed that being a stay-at-home mom, if we could arrange our lives that way, was important to me, important to the vision I had of the kind of childhood my kids would have, the sort of homelife we would have as a family, taken as a complete whole.

But I didn’t realize how fully I had come to appreciate and enjoy the staying-at-home-ness until I read a Segullah post asking Wasn’t there supposed to be more to it than this? I remember thinking that exact same way, that no matter how fulfilling motherhood was supposed to be, I just wasn’t feeling it. And then — and then my kids started getting older and more interesting, I started writing this blog, we moved into a house where I started gardening and continued experimenting with cooking and baking. (I am not a Martha Steward type, but I like to eat, and when I eat, I like it to taste good.)

I started exploring things that previously seemed whacked beyond the beyond (natural childbirth, composting, seeing how cold we could set our thermostat and still be comfortable, homeschooling). The struggle to be a good mother (in my own eyes) got harder (it’s easy to know and fill all the needs of a newborn), and therefore more interesting.

And two things struck me. First, that what I feel, and what I fill my life with are up to me. It’s a free country. If I hated being a stay-at-home mom that much, I could just go get a job. I may have made some educational or career sacrifices along the way, but I could make up for them, and also — they must have made sense at the time. Meaning, there was a reason I did this, a reason it meant enough to me to choose it. I think of a nun in a convent — does she give up the cloistered life because it is boring and unfulfilling (can you imagine how boring an ascetic life would be without a deep conviction, a rich inner life and unshakeable purpose) or is that life the most fulfilling for her because it is her calling?(right then) (at that time in her life).

susan rides her bike from shannon johnson on Vimeo.

I wasn’t very interested. How could I be? I am not any kind of son, let alone a first or second or even twelfth. I’ve held that same distanced, valuable-as-a-historical/religious-record but not of much personal meaning to me in my daily life feeling for almost twenty years. Nothing I learned from a rather more-enlightening professor in college changed my mind about the Old Testament being primarily by men for men.

Then I started going to Sunday School for the first time in years. (I had been busy in other callings during that hour for most of my adult life.) And Tom started a new scripture study program in our home where he reads/skims until he finds a story, and then tells it to us, having Sally read a few important verses here and there. (He asks me if I want to do the preparatory reading some nights; so far I have been almost always passed out on the couch or still cleaning up dinner.)

But I started hearing the stories of the Old Testament. Tom is aware of his role as father to daughters exclusively, so maybe he has been emphasizing the female roles, but it turns out that the Old Testament is really all about women. About their spiritual and physical journey to become mothers. And about their role in nation-building, whether it’s Jael nailing Sisera or the judge and prophetess Deborah, or Delilah who Samson was an idiot to confide in, or the wise woman who saved her city from Joab’s wrath by offering him the head of Sheba (a traitor to King David) thrown over the wall of the city.

And don’t forget Eve (who the Mormon church revere as perhaps the wisest, bravest of them all), and Esther, and Rebekah, who went to the Lord herself about children, who conspired (it seems) with the Lord to bypass Esau for Jacob in the blessing from Isaac.

Some women in the Old Testament are never named, and yet their stories are as archetypal, as symbolic and pointing towards the coming and role of Christ as any of the revered patriarchs’ interactions with their sons. Mary, the mother of Jesus, wasn’t the first woman to know that her Son would be special, different, dedicated to God. What about Sarah, mother of Isaac, and Hannah, mother of Samuel?

What about Moses’s mother, mother of Moses? Actually we know her name, we just never talk about her by name. She was Yocheved — Jochebed in the KJV. Her story, to me, is as captivating, faith-affirming, electrifying as any, and yet we hardly give her a name and do little more than gloss over her story. We spend weeks agonizing in ecstasy over the obedience Abraham showed in his willingness to sacrifice his grown son, and yet mention in passing that, oh yeah, a mother in Israel had to send her infant son down the river. For the good of his people, for the mysterious ways of the Lord.

Perhaps this would all be old news to serious biblical scholars; I was appalled and delighted to realize I could have been calling Moses’s mother by her name all these years. And I wanted to explore her story. I submitted my first attempt to Rixa’s writing contest. You can read it here. I am unsatisfied by it, especially the ending. Someday I will try again. In the meantime, I’ll teach my daughters her name, and her story.

I’ve also started having numb hands at night. Tara had pain with her numb hands (if I remember rightly) and they stayed numb for a long time, so she had to wear braces and get steroid injections in her wrists with her last pregnancy (again, if memory serves). I don’t have any pain and the feeling comes back within minutes, and it’s at least better (and more interesting) than volcanic heartburn, so I’ll take numb hands any day of the week and twice on Mother’s Day.

I have a new goal to not go to bed until the dishes and laundry are caught up. The rest of the chores can be put off to the weekend, but I love waking up to a kitchen empty of dirties; it’s so much easier to start stuffing my face with pancakes that way. Tom thinks my new laundry plan (which includes having each family member take up and put away clean clothes right after scriptures each night and bringing down all dirty clothes after their bath) is inefficient because it involves daily trips with the hamper and daily processing of two batches of laundry instead of a marathon of washing and drying on Saturday followed by a marathon of folding on Sunday night.

I pointed out that at various times in the past few years he has agreed to help out more around the house by doing either the laundry or the dishes. This translates into him getting his hands wet approximately twice a month (usually right after I have an emotional breakdown, which is certainly effective, but also quite exhausting). So I don’t think he should be criticizing any method that involves me doing the work.

And finally (I’m remembering why I don’t usually do random posts like this, since humorous tidbits aren’t my forte), Chrysanthemum went out of town, leaving me with no walking partner. I had such plans. To walk anyway, or to work in the yard, at least, which is good exercise because I need to move some dirt and filling the wheelbarrow halfway leaves me completely out of breath. But shockingly I have  been glued to this chair for the past two days. And even more surprisingly, I feel terrible. Why is it so hard to do what we know we should in order to feel good?

Only, she doesn’t want to. She loves her own school, which is already the fourth elementary school she has attended (because of our moves), and a fine school, as schools goes. A couple weeks ago, as I filled out time requests for next year at the regular school (morning kindergarten for Susan, B Track (an hour later than A Track and more aligned with the kindergarten schedule) for Sally, she begged me to let her stay on A Track, which starts at 8 and gets out at 2:15. It’s a nice schedule since she is so self-sufficient about making her lunch and pouring her cereal if I’m not up in time to make something warm. We both like how early she gets home in the afternoon. But I told her I can’t be coordinating that many different schedules and carpools, especially with the new baby coming.

Then I told her, if she hates being at school so late in the day, we could try a half-day, something allowed in Utah by law, though I’ve never seen anyone do it. Sally doesn’t know anyone who does that, either, so she said it must not really exist. I told her she could homeschool for awhile if she’d like to try that, and she said no one does that either, so she can’t, and besides, how would she ever learn what she needs to know if she doesn’t go to school?

This was the week before the third grade standardized testing, and I tried to counter the propaganda from her teacher by telling her that those tests are measures of how good the teachers are at getting you to memorize certain things that a person far away thinks you should know, and not indicators of how smart you are or what you know or what you’re interested in. (Though they’re both, maybe; I am not against standardized testing, per se, mostly because it was always good to me.)

I even suggested that we see if she could go at the B Track time (when Susan’s kindergarten starts) and then come home at A Track time (which would shave 75 minutes off her school day). And she said, but that’s when we read! I have to go then, otherwise I’ll never get to read.

This from the child who won’t put her book down long enough to eat, except at dinner time, when she’s required to conversate.

I really didn’t know what to say. I thought when we got rid of our TV months ago that we’d have all this extra time (the kids watch approximately one movie a week now, on Friday or Saturday night), but instead, all that time is filled with playing and reading and more playing. There’s no extra time, and I can’t imagine how they ever had time for TV before. (I still have time for TV on hulu, because somehow adult time and kid time are different. Or because I’m in denial/stupid. Whichever.)

But mostly I wanted to tell her that every word coming out of her mouth made me more and more convinced that homeschooling (if only for a few years) would be the best possible thing for her, because here she is, nine years old, and completely brainwashed that if she doesn’t go where she’s “supposed to” and do what she’s told to do at the “right” time by the “right” authority figure in the “right” setting, she won’t be able to learn.

Damn and Hell and five other swear words.

Part of this is semantics. Sally cooks with me and gardens with me and writes stories for her sisters and builds lego towns and roller skates with the neighbor kids and steps in to help Spot change her pants when I’ve lost all patience because the pants she’s wearing are not too big for her and we’re late for the dentist already so JUST GET IN THE CAR.

In April we stayed at my parent’s house for the weekend and Sally spent two days making felt dolls and clothes with fabric, markers, lace, ribbon, and a hot glue gun. When she got tired of dressing dolls for everyone in the family, she got into the real fabric scraps and made pinafores for Susan and Spot and a pieced shirt and skirt outfit for herself. She didn’t tell me until later about the blisters she’d gotten from the hot glue because she didn’t want me to make her stop.

Sewing is a big mystery to me, and the idea of just cutting some fabric and making something without a pattern baffles me at the same time that it tells me there’s hope for Sally. Which is why I’ll stop pressing the merits of the charter school for now, and drop the matter of tracks at the other school for now, and instead make plans to teach her a course of math this summer. Because it’s her least favorite subject and I want to change that, and because I want to show her that our kitchen table is actually a great place to learn.

Tom spent Saturday on my new garden box, and knowing how much he hates yardwork, I responded quite mildly to his complaint Sunday night that I was doing the dishes too loudly for the scripture story he was telling the kids on the other side of the room. Mother’s Day angst is one thing; a strong Martha-complex is another.

Later than night I read about China’s arranged remarriages in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake last year. It’s interesting. Sometimes I think my marriage to Tom was almost arranged. I knew that God wanted me to marry him even before I loved him or really knew him. Twelve years later (on June 13th) I remember the feeling of driving home from a date and not being able to take my eyes off the shiny new ring on my left hand.

Everyone in China — the government, former in-laws, newly-set-up matchmakers — seems certain that quick remarriage is not only an antidote to the grief and rootlessness  of those who lost spouses and children, but also the best way to restabilize society. I wonder if we were faced with such a devastation if we’d think that was the solution.

But the part that haunts me is the characteristics and requirements listings on the matchmakers’ books. On one list, the most desired characteristic is “no burdens” — which is a really common characteristic of these widowers and widows. It means they have no child left alive. It’s fascinating because the very reason these people are grief-stricken is because they’ve been relieved of their burdens, and though it’s a child (not a spouse) that burdens them (remarriage-wise), the government payment for a lost son is $8,800 and only $1,460 for a wife. Because a spouse is easier to replace? Income-wise it doesn’t make sense to recompense so disproportionately for a minor.

Anyway, it made me think about my three (and a half) burdens. Yes, they are. And, no, no amount would ever recompense me for their loss.

Susan: WHAT ABOUT GOD AND JESUS?? You know they are boys, right?

Spot: I hate them.

Susan: (runs to me) Mom, Spot says she hates God and Jesus. (Waits in expectant anticipation of righteous indignation while I type furiously to record the conversation.)

Spot: She doesn’t answer, so I can say that.

Mom: {cackles}