That was then, this is now (continued)…

From tiny hands and lots of sleeping,

,

to a bounty of smiles,

(even with an insanely runny nose…thanks to the infinite process of teething)

to big girl feet in the grass,

and still some sleeping (this was the crash post-birthday fete).

That was then, this is now…

After several rough nights with our beloved but stubborn lil’ babe, Mr. Fierce and I were waxing poetic about our pre-baby life. “Remember sleeping in til whenever we wanted? Remember when I could practice all day long? Remember when I could read an entire book in one sitting? Remember when…” And at that point, I’m pretty sure some sort of diaper emergency interrupted our reminiscing. Message received universe, message received.

I’d like to think that since the beginning of human parenting, folks have sat around having this same conversation…”Remember when all I had to do was hunt saber tooth tigers all day? Remember when I could paint cave walls without interruption?” Though the first year of parenthood has considerably impacted our ability to remember, we do have some blurry but recognizable recollections of what life was. And it was good. But what we have now is also good. Complicated. Challenging. Frustrating. But good. So to keep things in perspective, I’m going to take a few posts to try and capture just how much goodness this past year has brought us. See below:-)

Week 1 beyond the uterus.

Almost a year later, flashing that incredible So G smile.

More smiling.

As my father (aka pop-pop) refers to her, “that incredibly malnourished, depressed baby of yours.”

Life Stuff

I have a love/hate relationship with the constant reminders that grownup life is…well…grownup (though who doesn’t I suppose. but if you are one of those people who has a love/love relationship with being grownup, I don’t want to hear about it). I love that I have new experiences, build new relationship–that evolution happens. I have that such evolution involves the maddening details of the two following significant events in the Fierce household:

• moving. We’ve decided to relocate to a bigger house with a bigger yard that actually retains heat. I love what it will be. I do NOT love packing up our lives while both of us work full-time and care for dear S-G. Once upon a time, I could move by throwing all of my belongings into a duffle bag and a couple of boxes. This move involves many many many more boxes. We also have to do things like change of address for a billion different accounts (life insurance, car insurance, health insurance, renters’ insurance, student loans–though I’m tempted to not tell them), empty about a billion pounds of compost out of our bin, break down our raised beds and re-landscape the yard, and still grade papers, teach students, play gigs and change diapers.
• job hunting. I have officially declared that this is my last year teaching at St. Mary’s Academy. So after 4 years (I feel like I’m graduating from high school again, with a similar sense of “what the heck am I going to do next” as I had almost FIFTEEN years ago when I did actually graduate), I’m ready for the next adventure. I love that I will (hopefully) have my own language arts classroom filled with wild and wacky middle schoolers. I do NOT love that this involves job applications, interviews and the ever-uncertain realm of funding for public schools.

So as a very non-detail oriented person, here is how I am attempting to stay sane while negotiating this labyrinth of annoyingly grownup details:

• Nutella. Of course.
• reading Neruda to Sophia (“and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent/a great fragment of of thunder set in motion/the rumble of the planet and the foam,/the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,/the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,/and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.” from “Poet’s Obligation”)
• awesome Lebanese take out food. Lots of it.
• babysitting provided by the extended Pierce clan so we can pack without worrying about what Sophia’s trying to climb on or eat.
• the hilarity of Parks and Recs. Thank god for Amy Poehler.
• listening to The Moth radio. Powerful stories that help me keep my life in perspective.
• And cherishing moments like the one captured in the photos below. I rediscovered my old tape collection and took the opportunity to wax poetic to Sophia about the wonders of a lovingly created mix tape which far and away beats out the pleasure of making a playlist on iTunes. She took the opportunity to ignore said poetic waxings and to create her own visceral experience with these remnants of an analog age.

Better Out Than In

That’s how Josh and I have been referring to SO-G’s existence outside of my womb crossing the 9 month threshold. (While technically she hung around in there for 41 weeks, that doesn’t seem to have the same milestone heft.) I have a couple of dear friends awaiting the arrival of their own wee ones, and while parenthood has certainly impacted my ability to retain information, I definitely still remember the anticipation of those last few weeks–practicing patience (not always very well), trying to be okay with the unknown (and often failing), and folding baby clothes (over and over and over again…damn that nesting instinct) while imagining what it would be like to meet the little being curled up inside my body.

These last 9 months have been: incredible, overwhelming, exhausting, rewarding, empowering, filled with self-doubt, overflowing with love. Every day, I have the gift of watching Sophia explore the world. And every day I try to rise to the challenge of doing everything I can to help her become…well, who knows? I want so much for her to be intrepid, courageous, curious, kind, compassionate, committed, flexible, resilient. And I’d like to think I can already see all of that glimmering within her. So I read her poetry and help her steady herself as she walks (walks!!!) and celebrate her first tooth and nosh on smoked salmon and goat cheese with her and babble and sing and dance and play in the leaves with her. And remind myself every day–when I’m frustrated with the cobwebs in the corner or the papers I haven’t graded or the books I haven’t read–what a bounty of blessings to have her here, in the world, with us.

Baby Fierce Turns 8 Months: On the Outside for Almost as Long as She Was In the Inside

P.S. Click on this link to see So-G’s forward motion

Not so crafty…

I am quite possibly the least crafty person I know. Part of this might be that I live in Portland where everyone is a DIY-er wielding knitting needles and felting sets and welding tools and so I feel even less crafty than I might somewhere else. But there is a reason why I am not a primary school teacher (well, there are many reasons…first and foremost being that while I love little children, I find trying to do something with a classroom full of 30 of them the equivalent of trying to educate extra-hyper gerbils)…I am simply not crafty enough for that kind of demanding audience. So Halloween is really not my holiday. We have a tiny pumpkin that a student gave us:

We have some pretty cute costumes we’ve inherited, but there’s a strong likelihood that Sophia will not end up in any of them since Halloween falls on a Monday, and I just don’t know how much holiday spirit Josh and I will be able to muster. We did do the obligatory pumpkin patch/hayride outing, which works for me since there is nothing crafty about mucking about in the mud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I’m all about surrounding myself with people who make up for my incompetency. Sophia spends two afternoons a week with a lovely woman who used to teach kindergarten, and this is most definitely the piece de resistance of our Halloween celebration…the cutest damn footie ghost I’ve ever seen…

Baby Bonanza

And then there were three… Sophia Grace came into the world on March 11th. 25 hours later, her sweet sweet cousin Mikaila arrived. And two weeks ago, Eloise (aka “the blond princess” according to her proud papa Tynan) joined the tribe of cousins. I didn’t get my first cousin until I was 20, and I grew up envying my friends who had dozens of cousins in town or close by enough  join them for adventures of all sorts. So this serendipity of adorable baby-ness that now dominates the Pierce family totally blows my mind. Here’s some pics from the first “official” photo shoot of our girls in all their glory–from Sophia’s brow furrow to Mikaila’s kinetic energy to Eloise’s newborn floppiness. Love love love abounds…