More Activity but then again, more Sleep than Expected

We've been sleeping more than could be hoped for. Beatrix is a wonderful dozer and a brilliant night baby.

This is fortunate, for there has been much activity. I took off with the three girls to help my parents pack up their house for their new adventure in Seattle. I have never seen the like before--so many people at their house as they wrapped and packed, and parties and big dinners and fun, fun, fun, and so much sorting and errands and craziness. At one point there were five children in the house; my father, maneuvering a piece of furniture through a doorway over a crawling baby, wryly muttered, "The moving brochure advises you to hire a babysitter while you pack." But what fun would that be?

The girls and I mellowed to Iron and Wine as we drove through glorious early spring back to PA--as I drove, with the three girls lined up in the back of the car, I suddenly realized, by Jove, I have three children. What a strange and good thing.

Back to town, a whirl of unpacking, and now we have a family reunion at our house--all my mother's five-sibling family, bar one sibling--and Martin's final exam week next week. It's busy and jolly.

And here's some happy news, too--Beatrix LOVES the outdoors; the porch is ready and gorgeous; so is the back deck; the lawn is partially mown; the perennials are all greening and shooting and promising. All our trees except two show happy growing and blooming signs; the world smells lovely and perfect.

Little Girls (Thank heaven for)

Beatrix is a Dream Baby

It's true, she really is a dream baby. And strong, by Diana--I'm so proud of another strong little woman--picks her head and neck up like a 3-month old and takes everything in like a sage old medicine woman. She's going to make a great gardener and naturalist-baby and dirt-eater and sun-lover.

I've been back in the garden. It's intoxicating when the weeds don't choke my enthusiasm.

Pictures soon, of the gaudy forsythia, and Beatrix, and her sisters, and Martin's dumptruck loads of mulch and sand. Projects abound. He's got three more weeks of school and then we'll all be in the garden, all day, for endless days. The Russian Sage is returning, the tulips bloom, and the deer fence is up. Meals arrive with happy regularity at our doorstep (Cheers to the Mennonites!!!) And gardening is so much easier without a baby inside.

Hair, and how!

Another great picture from Alyson.

Beatrix ... Hurrah!

Thanks to our friend Alyson Case for these lovely photos.

Beatrix is born!

This morning, Sunday, at 7:45, we welcomed Beatrix Fern to the world. Mom and daughter are healthy, tired, and happy--they're both sleeping soundly now, Bea on Kim's bosom.

She weighed just shy of eight pounds at birth (7lbs, 14oz) and measured 20 inches from end to end. She's got a little smushed nose (which seems to be unsmushing itself), a round face, alert blue eyes, and a full head of dark brown hair.

But don't count on a brunette; I think I see blonde roots!

Labor was longer than either Kim or I expected (she outlasted Merry and Elspeth), and delivery was painful but fast. I think she was out in four or five good pushes.

Our thanks to all of you who supported us in this, whether through kind words, prayers, gifts, or a little of everything. We'll post pictures when we're able.

Oh, and for those who don't know: Kim and Bea share a birthday!

Happy Inutero

At the midwife's office yesterday: "Step back a minute. . .If that baby was any lower, she'd fall out!"

I put B in the sun to attempt to encourage her to join the rest of us in the spring. . .though the midwife offered to make her come last night, we've decided to give her a little more space to make up her own mind.

Ah, the slightly bizarre belly pictures. Why do we feel the need to document this common but always flabbergasting state of being? (And why didn't I clean my mirror of Elspeth's many fingerprints before snapping away?)

Immmmm

Hey, naturalist baby: daffodils sprucing, crocus blooms! Grass greening--buds near bursting--why linger so long in hot gloom? Come, join hands with your bright sisters, welcome spring, earthworm and glossy robin!

Instead of Baby, New Trees Arrive

Here's a little glimpse of Easter morning. Please note that nobody is brushed or bathed, but we managed a jolly, early Easter egg hunt in the lovely shafts of morning sunlight.

Martin just came in from the dark, where he was digging up sod and replanting the last of the tea roses. We also now delight in a very promising row of Eastern redbuds and crabapples in our front yard. And I, who decided an unborn baby who gives indication of someday appearing but then decides she's more comfortable where she is would no longer stop me from getting on, finally began my big spring pruning exercises. I think perhaps, due to my laziness last fall, I may have lost a few roses--but only time will tell.

And my mother cooked us the best turkey dinner I think I have ever tasted. And that, folks, is the news from Wazoo.

Kitchen Pictures

Well, these are not really up-to-snuff, as we took them rather late at night and the lighting is just wretched. But it gives you an idea, anyway.

We've since removed the paper lanterns.

Be NICE

Elspeth's favorite activity these days is playing in a shallow, large bin of beans, which she makes into soups and landslides her little people under. In a bid to gain some peanuts for her bean soup this morning (one of endless "cooking" experiments), Elspeth admonished, "Be NICE," which she has clearly heard us say, as well as "No. I said NO."

I should heed her advice, though, when it comes to my end-of-pregnancy obsession, which is ice-crunching. I dread my dentist's appointment post-Beatrix. But I can't seem to help myself--a freezer door opens and I'm suddenly stuffing myself with ice, crunching down the stuff with dispatch, regardless of my crowned and weak teeth. The smell of our car's air-conditioning and freezer burn sends me round the bend with desire. So far I've suffered from aching teeth and sore cheeks from where I've chomped into my numb mouth. Yesterday was heaven--IKEA has the most wonderful, soft, chewy ice. I walked around the store in a daze, eating the perfect little nuggets like popcorn. Oh, and my hair is getting curlier and I swear it's turning white around my temples. Hormones. What wonderful things.

Well, Merry's recouperating from a cold and besides my mother's much lauded arrival and the fact Martin and I actually went out for a DATE yesterday (and not the raiseny kind, a real one), there's nothing terribly interesting to share this morning except that I finally folded some clean baby clothes for Beatrix--and she must have known what I was doing (and that her grandmother has finally arrived), since she rewarded me with a good set of nice contractions that tapered off as the morning progressed. Surely she's close? It's really a bit of a bore, this not knowing the schedule. I do want to get all the hospital over with and just be back home with our family again. I realized that the excitement of the rush to the hospital, the labor process, the charm and dizziness of having a new baby and nurses and nurseries has paled now by the third. Now I want to just pop in, get the process over with, and get on with life.

Wonderful birds have begun to perch on the bare walnut tree outside my window again--a robin, a blue jay, all soft and bosomy and bursting with spring. Sunshine streams in our windows again, and it is not dark anymore when we sit down to supper. Martin has gone absolutely drooly-gaga with spring fever. Every time we see bricks on the side of the road he all but derails the car from the highway. I will have to post his amazing garden plans soon.

PS. Oh, I don't suppose anyone cares to cook a turkey for me? I have to get the thing out of my freezer; I can barely stand the smell of roasting meat; and I'm half afraid I'll suck the bird dry of freezer burn before I even get it in the oven. We could split the fellow. . .

Spring Fever

Martin's spring fever sees new levels of insanity. Outside, the snow is blowing in a regular storm. Outside, I just watched Martin shoveling piles of just-hauled horse manure into the compost piles. Earlier he dug up grass for roses. He sped off in the blue Subaru and I have no idea where he is now. He will smell like a banquet when he finally notices that he is gardening in the middle of a blizzard and comes inside.

Beatrix? She's working it--increasing contractions but no regularity.

Elspeth has taken to addressing my foot as if it is a person. She gives the foot hugs and kisses, brings it things to eat and material to read. I suppose whereas Beatrix remains unresponsive to her advances, at least foot nods or shakes his "head," that is, toes. She instructed Martin to sing her a song about a foot last night, and then a song about Merry traveling in the back seat of a car eating a sock.

And I watched Merry reveling in a bin of raw beans this morning, bathing her face and hands in them as if they were clear cool spring water.

Conclusions? We are all a little off, but at least we're happy about it.

Beatrix? In time for Easter???

Well, the midwife said today that her guess is within the next week.

Not that anyone can really predict it, I guess. On the way home from the doctor's I was so exhausted and tired of Elspeth's feet in my back (kicking my seat the whole way) that I just LOST IT. I spent the ride hunched over my huge uterus, crying down at my feet to the sound track of annoying 1970's music with unbelievably repetitive choruses.

Martin was in a frenzy to get to his night class, for which he was unprepared, I felt overwhelmed by the looming responsibility of getting the girls in bed another night by myself when my ligaments MOAN. . .and then we reached home. Oddly and unexpectedly, the evening mellowed. The girls were content and I weathered a few contractions in relative bliss, eyes closed, head back. . .and from there the night flowed along smoothly, and now here I am, toothbrush in mouth; the house is silent; I feel fine; and an early bedtime stands just within my grasp. Sadly I left my book in the car, and Martin is still out teaching, but there is plenty more to read in the house. There's a flood warning tonight, but our house sits high and the rain feels comforting speckling the windowpanes.

It feels hard to believe that soon another daughter will sleep in our house at night, but the reality of her arrival grows ever more imminent. I will be glad, though I always find the idea of another human joining us absolutely ludicrous and unimaginable until I find the solidness of a body in my arms, and then all is well and it seems ridiculous that our family was ever complete without the new one. I trust the same will be true for this little bird. . .and now there's nothing to do, really (except the long list of things I should, like unearth the baby clothes), but wait.

For Dreaming

Those of you who know my obsession with Sweden, you will be pleased to feast your eyes on this particular gardening site, which doesn't seem quite real:

Tyra's Garden

Does this person spend all her living seconds working her garden? I love her sense of order balanced with a flourish for the viney and romantic. . .hmmm. Better think about replanting my roses.

Oh! Two things to celebrate: 1. Beatrix is now full-term and we are just waiting; 2. The first crocuses are up, deep purple with buttery hearts. If I can get my truly American, only-wishes-to-be-Scandinavian self together, I will actually take a few pictures.