Running Out of Breathing Room

So Febuary wanes.


And there are four weeks left until Beatrix sees the world, her father, her sweet sisters.


Her room, if not anything else, is ready--three beds all in a row, Madeline style.


Elspeth, though of course I do not think she understands the full purport of my lack of breathing room these days, seems to understand that there's a Beatrix inside Mommy's uterus--she shares toys, icing, snacks, and books with her new little sister by shoving them close to my belly button.


Merry continues the incredibly helpful oldest child (surely she will not always appreciate this title as I do). And she is still as wildly imaginative as ever, living in her own worlds, concocting bizarre outfits, drawing long books and now--writing narrative to accompany them.


We continue well, loving our children, our community, our home and food, and we're planning a glorious summer garden in the warmth of the sun, this time with three girls (unless the fellow was wrong and Beatrix is indeed a boy). Martin received another lovely piece of news to go along with his generous arts grant: an almost "free" semester next fall in which to write and enjoy his grant. He'll teach only 1 1/2 classes, and per my warning (only just less than half in jest), he promises not to go moody, inward, and brooding--such things are simply not allowed at Wazoo Farm.

Plan your summer trip now, and join us among the struggling fruit trees, the zinnias, the seas of herbs and the not-so-neat rows of vegetables. All Martin asks is that you bring a few bricks with you as a host[ess] gift!

Febuary Grey

This is a cliche, especially in our part of Pennsylvania. A cliche that nevertheless preys on all those who spend a good part of their time indoors. It's not elephant grey or the grey of a lovely old woman who has lived long. . .it's the grey of my grandfather's overwashed socks that drifts across the sky in watery oatmeal patterns. It's the grey that makes me want to order Crunchie Bars from England and brightly painted miniature play food from Germany. It's the grey that makes me want to wear dowdy old sweaters and slippers.

There are good things, I suppose, to grey: hot tea, nothing much to do except enjoy being with the children, a slight push toward cleaning, painting, making large pots of soup and crusty loaves of bread. If I were alone it would be a perfect grey for a whole day of writing or reading. As it is, Merry is pairing socks, Elspeth is padding around in tiger pants with a runny nose, and I am putting of using the restroom for as long as possible (I do not want to sit on the cold seat). We are getting an England fix with "Wind in the Willows" on the TV and the Wiggle's Monkey dance. I am contemplating cleaning and Merry looks spry in a summer-sky blue dress. . . .

Blah on Febuary.

Week Draws to Close, Parents Recollect Sanity

By Jove! The week is over!

Highlights include Elspeth eating soap; the snow melting; Martin working long hours and singing Woodie Guthrie; Merry making leaps and bounds in her reading. Yes, folks, it's been a great, busy whirlwind of a week and now it's over.

Whooopie kiyay!

It is grey late mid-Febuary but it is a warm evening in the Cockroft's orange kitchen, where the floor is dirty and the bread machine groaning out pizza dough.

I hope you have great cause and a good crowd with whom to celebrate this happy Friday.

Snow, Sleet, and a Bright Warm Kitchen

Today I unearthed myself from piles of laundry just in time to find three hopeful neighborhood children at the door. "Can we go sledding on the hill?" the chosen one asked, an older girl with red cheeks and nose.

I crushed their hopes by explaining that when the grass pokes through the snow, sleds create ruts in our soil. They could feel free to come back after a couple more inches fell. This morning on the way to pick up Merry from school at our friend Nancy's house, sleety, icy slush kicked off the windshield with every wipe of the blades, so the sad sledders are out of luck.

Though it may be gloomy and drab outside, my kitchen positively explodes with color: bright, traffic-cone orange and the yellow of a mellow afternoon. Sound insane? During the process you may have assumed correctly, but the final result (minus one final coat on one wall) pleases me immensely. Our kitchen positively glows, especially in the evenings. I ripped down most of my kitchen cabinets and now the whole room has taken on a different flavor--Tuscany, perhaps? I expect it's all too wild for Tuscany, though I have enjoyed immersing myself in Frances Mayes (the book is a good escape read--the movie so atrocious that I hide the cover of the book, which features a silly photo of Diane Lane, from strangers) and her endless house projects and rows of lavendar, olive trees, and roses.

Many thanks to my mother in particular, who tackled the kitchen with unparralled gusto; to my father who makes me incredibly nervous with loaded paintbrushes; to Martin who somewhat grumpily but still moved the antique winerack (among other things) to its new home in the kitchen.

I shall post pictures at some point, but I am waiting for completion.

A last note to those of you who know my family well: my father and mother just excepted a new post with World Concern in Washington State, and while we will miss the proximity to us (previously four hours), we wish them all love and best wishes in their new adventure in the rainforest land of good coffee, much water, and luscious gardens. As a side note, it turns out that my parents, in 35 years of marriage, have lived in at least 23 or 24 houses together. As Martin says, every family has an overarching narrative by which they identify themselves: our's must be gardening, or hobbit-holing; their's is adventure; what's your's?

PS. To my shame, the spell-check seems out of commission today--I feel as though the above post must be utterly riddled with mistakes, so be generous and overlook them, eh?

"My Naughty Little Sister"

Tonight at dinner, over a pot of turkey and rice, Merry looked up with great expectation. "Can I tell Daddy about our day?" she asked with excitement. I felt all too ready to acquiesce. Of course she told Daddy about the epic part of the day, this morning when

I decided, through my dread, to carve up a turkey that finished baking at midnight last night. The well-browned, well-endowed fowl nestled in its mass of gulutunous juices. I covered my bases, cleaning off counters and sink and positioning Elspeth in her chair, equipping her with a long length of butcher paper and crayons. I retreived the electric knive from the shadowy dusty corners of an unused cabinet and set to.

I had not set to very long, however, before Elspeth got wind of my distracted, grease-covered state and completed her transformation into Grendel--no, actually, Grendel's mother. NO MERCY. She immediately scribbled on a newly painted wall and began tearing around the house. I rinsed my hands and disciplined her, and cleaned the wall, and then returned to the exasperating electrical cord and trembling turkey fat. Elspeth once again pounced.

She pushed a chair to the counter, helped herself to cake, unloaded a kitchen cabinet, ran laps around the house with chokables in her mouth, colored on the same wall again, stole more crayons. By this time I was scooping masses of indistiguishable gook, along with the turkey carcass, into a pot for stewing. The kitchen resembled a war zone, and I was the defeated, dirty, grumpy general.

Let me wrap up this entry with the following picture: Martin leaves for the night, for a meeting and reading. Merry quietly brushes Elspeth's teeth, reads her books, and I enter a darkened room from a much-needed break to find Merry rocking Elspeth on her lap, singing The Water Is Wide.

Yes, this last scene really happened. Bless the Merry-girl, and her naughty little sister, too.

Skipping Church

Yesterday was a busy day, between Martin's conference and a sweet third child at our house and a wild painting experience (orange is the color of choice in our googoo house at the moment--the only major color NOT on our walls from the color wheel is purple), I had the overwhelming, tired sensation that it was time to stay home and have a family day. This was in conjunction with the knowledge that Martin's next week is busy-extra-busy and I will be taking off with my mother to help her sort through her house pre-move.

So we skipped church. After Martin overcame his guilt (left-over from never-miss Sunday attendance as a child--a what-if-Jesus-came-back-right-now feeling I can completely relate to), we had a beautiful day--our friends came over and we, heathen-like, in bad clothes, ate a pile of french toast with syrup, after which everyone (except me) went sledding and then came in for more food. And now Elspeth sleeps, Martin and Merry are out for a few moments together, and I am hunched over my computer briefly before sacking out flat with a book.

I do have a piece of outstanding news to report on my husband's behalf: Martin found out yesterday that he is (based on his work alone) the recipient of a PA arts grant, the total sum of which will go to finance his poetry for the next year. This wonderful news is well-deserved by my brilliant poet-in-residence (if I do say so myself). In a fortuitous turn, the poet himself brought home two bottles of wine, so if you would care to toast his happiness, drop by and we'll pour you a glass.

A Note to South Africa

Hello Out There!

Karaduck, are you reading all the way out in South Africa? How are you? I think about you! Is it warm? Is the work good?

Merry asked me who my special friend was when I was little and I said, "Well, you know her now. . .she was just here. . ."

Funny to think of the long evenings spent at your house, eating wedges of Cadbury and digestive biscuits and pickles. Funny to think of our conversations about boys and teachers. . .funny now that I am telling my six year old about you, whom she knows, but not as I know you.

I miss you!

Misdiagnosed

I think I'd better share with everyone the happy news of my misdiagnosis.

I am still pregnant (they were right on that account, and still right, as the kicking within asserts).

I do not, however, as far as midwife #2 and I can see, have PUPPPs. Only incredibly dry skin. Hallelujah. So everyone may now cease feeling pity for poor me, since I am not poor at all but own lots of Twinings English Breakfast Tea.

I have a sort of frenzied energy still, but in spurts, an energy that led me to reorganize kitchen cabinets and pull off pieces of wallpaper in our "butler's pantry" today. (Thinking it might be nice bright, traffic-cone orange.) Also I've taken to eating two smallish but not modest bowls of ice-cream every night: one dreamsicle orange and vanilla, one Dutch chocolate with peanuts. Martin kindly inquired whether I'd care for two spoons, but I limit myself to one. One spoon, two bowls.

My children are happy and sweet, Beatrix kicks but is not a nuisance, we read newly found Shirley Hughes books from the library all day and did not fall on our icy front steps. Looming recession or no, clementines were on sale and the tea kettle's water is almost free. The creek is frozen white, books fill our house, the mice are absent. I have, at the moment, no complaints at all. I hope you too enjoy all life's small happinesses this evening.

PS. Yes, the Elaine Society (our chapter, the only chapter named thus) has been officially launched. It is tons of fun and only goes to prove there is great strength in numbers (at least of people who like, for the most part, to be positive). One meeting down and a blog launched, we are on our way to tapping into the great energy which so often alludes full-time parents but which we all dream about and in our better moments achieve.

Snowy, Snowy Day

I love the book by Ezra Jack Keats about the little boy on the snowy, snowy day. Seeing his peaked hood and silent grey footprints brings back my childhood. And today is indeed snowy. I finally tackled the debacle that is our back porch today (precoffee, too): left Martin clattering about making eggs for the girls and ventured into the cold to sweep up spilled precomposting coffee grounds. The back porch felt absolutely freezing--indeed the coffee grounds in our compost bowl were frozen solid--but when I stepped out to our balcony (a romantic sounding name for what is a basic, dirty platform), balmy winds greeted me.

What to say? How baffling! Turns out I enjoyed being witness to the three minutes or so of balmy winds as two weather storms collided. And now the creek, the bare arms of the trees, the bright orange splash of our neighbor's playplace, covers quickly with snow.

Yesterday, I finally whipped out my blunt scissors and wire cutters and harvested all the dried herbs in our sunroom. A large basket overflows with roses, lavender, feverfew, thyme: echoes from the hot summer. . .I crumbled huge bunches of genovese and lemon basil into Ziplocks, gently eased crisp spearmint leaves into bags. The scent was so overwhelming it made me almost dizzy and a little nauseous.

I finished the evening of what had turned into an exhausting but lovely day (morning at IKEA with two children!) with a late-night chapter of my current escape book, Under the Tuscan Sun, where the owners of an idyllic villa eat immoral quantities of cheese and build stone walls and find hidden aqueducts. Well, I may have a runny-nosed child and a snowy sky, but I glean what I can: a sudden flight of blackbirds outside my window, the harvesting of basil in January.

Losing My Head

This is something I am becoming quite adept at lately. That is, losing my head: losing all sense of perspective in the face of a pot of beans I don't really want to eat, or my husband's request that I watch two extra children for most of the day while he has cream tea with colleagues at the local teahouse.

This is not a feminine affectation to win pathetic interest from my spouse. To prove it:


PUPPPs are back. I am not referring to sweet little doggies-in-the-window. Today my midwife swiped the heart-beat gook from my uterus and announced, "Looks like you've got the beginnings of PUPPPs there." I looked up and responded: "I think I'll throw myself into a fire," which is precisely what I began mumbling in the middle of the night when I was pregnant with Merry and covered with scabby, red, flushed, itchy bumps. Talk about adding insult to injury. Look, you're a hippo; look, you're a hippo with a highly inflamed rash all over your lower body!

According to Heather Brannon, MD, and according to Merry's midwife: "Thankfully, PUPPP does not usually affect subsequent pregnancies." PUPPPs occurs in 1% of pregnant women. I can not as yet get a book published but I have had PUPPPs twice. My friend Lindsay's sensible friend, upon finding she had been exposed to poison ivy, arrived home, scratched open her skin and sprayed in bleach. This is horrifying but somewhat understandable when you have had a rash like PUPPPs.

So yes, the PUPPPs are official, and so are my bursts of insanity. I sincerely hope Martin has a big umbrella and that my storms don't get any worse.

Today

Attacked: Freezer. Pools of frozen water hiding undefinables. Endless frozen black bananas: never will become bread.

Reward: Two English muffins slathered generously with Christmas Nutella.

Elsepth: Watching Wiggles on repeat.

Merry: At school, learning to read.

Laundry: In progress.

Thinking of starting a club called "The Elaine Society," after my great-aunt Elaine, who, upon the death of her husband and her own encroaching old age, went wild with energy, writing and illustrating books, launching a museum, driving like a maniac and somehow stayed alive.

Purpose of The Elaine Society: To remind we women that we are kick-ass, whether we are shoveling ice from our freezers or writing books, changing diapers or wielding power drills. Or (hugely pregnant) eating Nutella.

Back Home and Totally but Happily Neurotic

It is good to be back home.

Three weeks took us to Houston, Texas, and then to the Hopi Reservation, Flagstaff, and Pheonix, Arizona.

Merry enjoyed the diverse experiences of Texas (dressing up, being an adult at lunches out, the Nutcracker, plays) and Arizona (snow tubing, hiking Cathedral Rock in Sedona, eating enough dirty snow to send her stomach round the bend). Martin and I enjoyed fantastic Tex-Mex and lots of shopping in Texas (not to mention lots of relaxed, good times with his family) and then amazing Asian food and hiking (Martin skied but I am not allowed) in Arizona (and of course my generous and loving family). Elspeth pushed both her cousins but only the cousin in Arizona pushed her back. She weathered the endless airport travel with a monkey on her back that straps to a harness that ends in a leash in my hand.

Best of all, there was lots of family. Classes were over, grades were in, and we were free to enjoy our loved ones.

And it is SO good to be home. After we finally piled out of a friend's car with our endless Christmas luggage, we turned on the heat (it was freezing), the girls went to bed, and I began putting away Christmas decorations. The tree that seemed so lovely before we left for holidays suddenly seemed redundant and tired; I stripped it down and began packing away compulsively. And then in the days that have followed I've attacked closets, hidden shameful places, old medicine cabinets. . .The night before Martin's classes started I threw a fit and then he and I moved furniture and rearranged until almost midnight. Crazy.

I think part of this wild rush is that suddenly Beatrix kicks just around the corner. She's imminent now, and my unpainted kitchen and the excess and the disorganization has sent me into a tizzy. (Being in my sister's super-organized, stream-lined, turns-on-a-dime home only increased this frenzy). Before Christmas I assured myself that there was still the class I was teaching, still vacation, still so much before the third daughter was even near. And now suddenly I'm huge and Beatrix is busy kicking and I am full of frenzied energy to fix broken hooks, buy huge organizing Ziplocks, and clear the shelves for yet another set of clothes. I must bag my dried herbs! I must move Elspeth into a bed! I must teach Merry to read!

The basement looms large, as does the kitchen which they tell me I am not allowed to paint and the furniture I am not allowed to move by myself. The back porch is filling up with huge bags of inexplicable stuff bound for the thrift store or the trash.

Meanwhile I feel flushed with good intentions: early, organized breakfasts, schedules, hot meals, folded laundry, books read, early tea/dinner for the girls, quality time with Martin, disciplined, clean children (i.e., NOT the wild dash through Walmart, shouting in guttural tones at Merry to tackle Elspeth, who was on a beeline to depart the Great Satan, as Martin calls that time-warp of a place--I'd gone there to buy giant Ziplocks and printer cartridges and pegs for our chaotic workshop pegboard, among other miscellany), 0 tolerance for unwanted clutter and old bill stubs.

And I feel pretty happy despite the fact that I may never live up to these grandiose expectations. Yes, I am happy to be among my plants in grey-winter Pennsylvania, close to my friends whom I will see at some point when the dust clears, surrounded by endless tea, good books, my own computer and the drama of my Netflix cue, and the company of my children.

A freshly painted kitchen would just put the icing on my cake. Anyone (who's allowed!) up for spackling?

Beatrix, On Her Way

One, two, three, little wonders (I'm not the third--I mean the one in my uterus).

Merry, Elsepth, Beatrix on her way.

So the girls will have yet one more sister. We're working on a Little Women scenario, it seems.

Poor, poor third child. I keep forgetting I'm pregnant with her until I look in the mirror. Here, I remember, NO PREGNANCY PICTURES! Better take my own.

Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993

Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993
by Jane Kenyon

On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:

"We're descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?"

God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.