Thinkers and Do-ers

My friend Robin once pointed out that I am a thinker. Andy, a boy I was sort of seeing at the time, was a do-er. This is why Andy and me weren't going to work out, according to Robin. I can come up with about a hundred other reasons why we didn't work out but that's a different story not worth the telling. She was on to something though - I am a thinker.

My favorite time to think is right when I wake up. I like to shake off the haze of sleep and lay there for a while just thinking about all sorts of things. Running is another good opportunity to think. On an airplane, while sewing, riding the bus, in yoga class, while hiking, laying flat on my back gazing up at a tree....I can dive deep, deep into a long string of thoughts and weave elaborate, detailed stories. Sometimes it's productive and other times it isn't. Regardless, just being able to go "there" mentally is the biggest, flattest stepping stone there is when it comes to creative problem solving and working on a dream.



I can be a do-er too - I'm multi-faceted like that. Usually this comes in the form of painting the whole house or crafting a name banner. Striking a balance between doing and thinking is healthy. Lately I've had to spend more time doing. Some tasks have lunged into the priority position due to their urgency (taxes, IUI arrangements). Others are just the way it is - Monday while at work I had the nanny on my cell phone in one hand and a transferred phone call from a client in the other. Tuesday found me literally running as I tried to get a fractured hip to the surgeon by 11:00 as one appointment was wrapping up and my next two were waiting for me.

I get itchy if I don't have time to think. August will be the month to work on this a little bit more. I get to take a photography class so expect a lot of that to be posted.


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Grandma Judy is in town. Well, not in our town. She is over in Oakland. I'm telling you, Grandparent land is magical. My daughter is over-the-moon for her Grandmother and Judy sent me a text that read, "I just love Ada!" Mmmmm....me too. Yesterday we took Ada to Fairyland in Oakland. I can imagine that back in the day this nursery-rhyme-themed park was pretty awesome. It's still awesome but in a "vintage" way. Ada didn't care. She thought this place was invented solely for her enjoyment. Grandma Judy and I couldn't find a good reason to correct her.



I'm just going to post the pictures from this little trip: her joy and the love between her and her Grandmother just pours from every image.









The whole day was really fun and super exhausting. Ada was in bed before 8:00 and I followed her, passing out at 8:30.

Ada got a trike from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Steve. By the way, Grandpa Steve is a retired Navy pilot so Ada's obsession with "da-choo" (helicopter) is a dream come true for him. He sent her 4 little helicopters! Now, if she tuns out to be left-handed she will have won his heart for sure! Anyway, the trike is a big hit. We sent the first one back because we couldn't steer it. Wouldn't want her careening into the Lexus's and Mercedes on our street. We can't afford the repairs and I don't know if our car insurance covers trike accidents.


Shortly after Ada practiced her bad-ass bike riding stance, this group of about 600 cyclists came up and over our street. Why? It's San Francisco. There is always someone to champion some cause or another. July was National Ice Cream month but something tells me that wasn't their cause.

The view from my front window. I didn't want to go out there. All these guys were in their fancy cycling gear...resting after riding up the hill we live at the top of. I thought that was kind of ironic and funny. 

We're off to rest, regroup, and re-establish our routine. Happy weekend.

Navigation

I just unwrapped my new mac. Our relationship is still in it's infancy but already I love it. I haven't used a mac since 1996 so this change is a bold leap of faith but I think it is good and right. So I'm navigating my new digs, figuring out how to manage my photos, upload, browse, write...to be totally honest, it's nice to have a tiny place that is just mine. Presumptive though it is I suspect Tim will be happy to reclaim his own computing territory.


Letting go gracefully is something I think I will be navigating for a long time. I have been thinking a lot about my post on that - thinking about how to stay connected with her. Setting that groundwork is something that started when she was born and is ongoing. Hopefully it is as with most things that creation of the thing you want starts with knowing that you want it.

More acutely we are working on navigating sharing. Wow. Sharing is tough. Even for grown-ups. Look at me - happy to share anything in my life with my husband but still about to do backflips over this thin little laptop because I don't have to share! Silly and much less of a big deal than this post might suggest. Still, when it comes to sharing we insist that Ada does it. She is usually really good at this but last week when we were hanging out with Sarah and Sophia sharing came up as a repeated issue. Beyond insisting that she just do it I try to convince her that there is plenty to go around or that she can play with something else. Later, when she's older, we will have to start talking about bigger issues like need vs. want and being nice is important even when you don't want to do it.

Sharing cheese sticks and blueberries. Sometimes it's hard.

The three of them played together quite well and it warmed my heart to know that our little nucleus includes them and their little nucleus includes us.

The three of them just lined up on the sand box wall like that.

I love how their personalities are just out there with no apologies. These two are so much alike and yet different enough. 

Tim and I had a conversation the other night about the things that are emerging for us as things that we think are important for Ada to learn about. There are the obvious things like love, compassion, empathy. Then there are other things like respecting nature and knowing here her food comes from. Regarding nature we are navigating toward a camping trip that's been on my bucket list for the last 2 years. As to where her food comes from we tried last year to grow some food in our backyard. It seemed totally do-able until we finally gave in to the fact that it's too damn foggy to grow anything but lettuce. So I re-mapped our path and signed us up for a vegetable delivery and over the summer we will visit their farm instead. I wanted to try again this year to grow stuff but driving over to the Lucas's last weekend I was reminded of why that idea is just silly. Check out the fog rolling in over the hills:

The picture on the left was taken with my phone on my drive home from work one night. See that group of houses there in the distance at the end of the street? I live on the top of that hill. Can you see how the fog has rolled over the top of it and is rumbling over to the next valley below? Surely, at home I could hardly see across the street. 

An amazing thing about the climate in San Francisco is the foliage it supports. The cypress are sprawling while the eucalyptus are grand and there are flowers everywhere all year round. This also explains why the rest of the country is wearing shorts and flip flops but I just bought a new fleece jacket for Ada off of diapers.com It was the only site selling a warm jacket in the middle of summer. Not bitching, just sayin'...

While we don't have any of these flowering bushes in our yard, our neighbors do and we enjoy their bushes from across the street, which is just as good. Meanwhile, I came in to work on Sunday to find the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. R.I.P. Lucio, who succumbed to chronic renal failure last week at the age of 22. He was a sweet gray long-haired feline and his owner is a delight of a lady. I have learned to find my way through a supportive, tasteful euthanasia - thank goodness someone gave me a road map at a meeting years ago.





One final navigation: we'll be doing an assisted cycle next month and there is much to get in order before then. We've hardly fought the hard fight that some couples have - maybe rather than saying I'm infertile it's more accurate to say that I'm not as fertile as I once was. Even still, I can't believe we're here. It worked out for my friend Ananda and I'm thrilled to congratulate her - after heartache and disappointment, Dip is finally knocked up. I still hope that the jokes we made last fall come to be true - let's both have some twins. Damn, now that would be something to navigate, wouldn't it?

She Won't Always Need Me

The other day at the playground I watched from a bench as Ada climbed and played and offered to share her snacks with the other kids. This glimpse at her fundamental nature is such a gift to see: she is compassionate and beautiful. I love her so enormously for the person she is. I felt so proud that she does these kind things with no prompting on my part. I felt proud of her independence. Then it hit me like a sucker punch: 

she will always be the center of my world but I won't always be the center of hers

Strange and unexpected, but at that moment motherhood was a little bit painful. Intellectually, I know that I can't protect her forever. Things happen to all of us that are central to learning and growing as a human being: the first heartbreak, the first disappointment, dealing with failure...these are real things in her future. One day she will be sad and I won't be able to help. Hugging and rocking and smoothing her hair won't always make it all better. Probably someday I'll annoy her and she'll look to someone else to comfort her. Yes, I knew it all in my mind but my heart hadn't received that message yet. Ouch.

My feelings tell me to clutch her tightly to me to protect her - even when there is nothing to protect her from - but my instincts and experience tell me that this is a fatal move. Having not seen many models of letting go gracefully, I'm not entirely sure how exactly I want this to go. What I do know is that regardless of how I feel I know exactly how I'd like to make her feel about our mother/daughter relationship as it blossoms toward adulthood. I hope that even when she is grown up that I can still make her feel safe. I hope that she will feel comfortable confiding in me - that I won't share her secrets or judge her or reflexively dismiss her opinion or impose my intense worry on her. I hope she can still see me as a resource and the strength in her foundation.

 

Hooking up Shell. Please take a moment to let me know your thoughts on this. I'm just taking it all in as I carve my path.

Two, Five, Eight, Nine

I started this post two weeks ago and was moving along  at a good little clip until the computer gave a death rattle. Serious bummer. I gave this particular lemon harvest a mighty squeeze to produce some extra tasty lemonade: my new laptop is due to arrive soon. I do love a silver lining, especially when it is aluminum wrapped around a 2.7GHz i7 processor.

As expected,  fellowship call beat Tim to within an inch of his life over his call weekend. Poor guy. Not much I can do for him than provide a peaceful place and some food when he can stop by home. It's kind of like a ghost breezes briefly through our house and then is gone again leaving a faint impression that something is different. This will be an interesting year.

Ada and I  kept busy...as busy as you can be when you spend the whole weekend in old yoga pants and a baseball cap. Sadly, since I haven't been writing things down many of the details and stories are now forgotten. I have randomly visited other blogs between appointments at work but haven't been able to comment. It's amazing how much time I suddenly had once I was forced to stop messing around online. For example, I had so much time that I finally tuned that curtain I got for free into a bag.

I really will add ric-rac to anything. the pocket was an un-planned, uncalled for detail. 

Summer Bucket:


I got to cross two things off my summer bucket list. I finally made a version of Taylor's summer peach, corn, and heirloom tomato salad. It isn't exactly the same but it is so good that I think we'll be eating a lot of this.



 I wanted to spend 4th of July somewhere warm. I assumed this meant leaving the city and I was ready to redistribute this point to next year's summer bucket list but I was wrong. It was actually really warm over the weekend. We went to the beach with Kathi, Sarah, and Tom. It wasn't that warm...we still wore jackets. Tom was a crazy person and actually went swimming in the bay!




Fun and Yoga Moves:

We had fun doing some things that might be considered so incredibly boring by some. A sidewalk chalk train track and choo-choo was perfect for running. We drank lemonade and chased the cats. We said "hello" to everyone who passed by. We walked to the playground and found that a bus stop shelter is a good place to play hide-and-seek. The perfect place for bubbles is wherever you are. Ada will practice yoga anywhere.








First Haircut:

We went out to my Dad's one day over the weekend to let Ada splash around in a little pool. She had fun and was swishing her feet through the water as I was rubbing even more sunscreen on her tender baby skin. The next day we went to Sarah's house and swam in her pool too. They were naked babies so no pictures. I don't want to get arrested.



After swimming at my Dad's she got her first haircut. Oh, I had resisted so long! I didn't want her precious baby curls to be cut off but her bangs were out of control and she won't leave a clip of any sort to hold them away from her face. There were tears - all mine! She looks so freaking cute though - I didn't think it was possible for her to get any cuter. In the end, I'm glad that her first haircut was with someone who loves her. Grammy Rob used to cut hair. Some of the pictures were really blurry - she's still lightening quick and sure with the scissors.






Friends:

We hung out with Kathi and Sarah a lot over the holiday weekend. Swimming, playgrounds, and just hanging out. These two together are like a symbiotic thing - one feeds from the other and then the other feeds from the one. On they go like this and it is hysterical to watch.



Ada has also taken to having tea parties. Oh, it is so sweet!! She puts out the napkins and pours tea. She gently stirs in an imaginary spooful of sugar for Elmo and tips in a bit of milk for Dora. Then she helps her little guests to take a drink. My goodness, this child. She is just so gentle and caring.





The other night we were lucky enough to have a visit from Matt and Christina and their son Christian (notice the scarves and jackets? It's back in the low 60's here). I love this family so much. Matt married Tim and I. Christina did my hair for the wedding. They are on the short list to raise our child should we both die in a fiery crash. Ada must have known too. After burying her face in my shoulder for all of 20 seconds - just long enough to make a show - she warmed up to them, crawling into laps for stories and bringing Elmo hands for games. These friends are just incredibly easy to be around.





There were so many other things:
we met Erika and Christy with their kids at the playground and we talked until our kids were dragging us home, Renegade the next weekend, running around the house with her friend Sophia, a date to discuss discipline and boundaries, gossip with the girls on a Wednesday night, coloring her birthday thank you notes, all the planning that comes with an assisted cycle...and then there is her.

We had her 2 year pediatrician visit yesterday. She is perfect, or as the pediatrician syas, "Oh, Monica. She really is just lovely." Ada shared her airplanes (she calls the helicopter a "da-choo") with Dr. Anderson and jumped up and down excitedly when Dr. Anderson called her airplanes "very special". I love our pediatrician. She always makes me feel better. There are a few things that Tim and I have been concerned about - namely, that Ada is far behind in language. She doesn't even have 75 words yet - I wrote them down so that I could have an objective count. Dr. Anderson is not concerned at all. The number of words you read about in child development books - yeah, she just waved her hand and turned her head, giggling and wrinkling her eyes. I guess this comfort level comes to you when you have watched thousands upon thousands of children grow up just fine even when they started out more than 3 standard deviations from normal.



So our normal kids does normal but totally adorable stuff like count all wrong, "Two, Five, Eight, Nine."
She also says things like, "One. Hop. YAY!" and claps for herself.
She feeds the cats by herself - she gets a fork and a can of cat food and brings them to me when it's time. She knows as well as they do! She holds her toes up for me to wash with the slippery soap - the bar soap at Whole Foods? I've been passing it by for years. Why? WHY? I love this stuff! She combs her own hair and undresses herself. She is growing up so fast. It's amazing to watch.

I hope to be back to more regular posting soon. Until then, I am quietly keeping up with others and trying to record what I can by hand so that her history isn't disrupted.

OK Computer

Technology.

I am really not good with computers. What I mean by that is that if I have to go into DOS to figure something out then I am completely sunk. As luck would have it our desktop operating system was corrupt and out laptop had a major failure with the encryption software required to allow Tim to use it for patient data.

Bummer. No blog posts from me - and so much has been going on! - no Ten on 10 today and no reading of other blogs either. I'll return as a good blog friend soon. Promise.

I'm ordering a Mac.

I've Got Options

Totally digging this song right now:


Tim trotted out of the house extra early this morning with his eyes all sorts of twinkling with excitement and hope. God love him. He's about to get the shit kicked out of him this weekend but he still approaches it as if it were his first day of second grade. His fellowship officially begins today. I guess I should have presented him with a commemorative copy of "Oh, The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss?

"What exactly is a fellowship?" you might be asking. I certainly did and then I followed it up with, "and do you really have to do one?" So it goes like this:
undergraduate = 4 years
medical school = 4 years
internship = 1 year
residency = 4 years (varies depending on specialty)
fellowship = 1 year (varies also)

My guy did a PhD in there too so we're at 13+ years of training. Is it starting to make more sense why I am so freaking excited that it's almost over? Here's an analogy: It's like a trans-Atlantic, intercontinental flight. You board the plane your first day of undergrad and you deplane on your last day of fellowship. We've been suspended over an ocean for a long time now covering the miles one-by-one. Can't turn around and head the other way, it's too far into the flight. We just have to ride it out as patiently as we can. On this flight I fell asleep a few times, I've been restless and bored, I've watched movies, played trivia with the person in seat 24B, walked the aisles, told stories, listened to stories, laughed mightily, and got lost in thought watching the beauty outside my tiny window. But now? At last! The pilot just announced our initial descent and the cabin is all a-twitter.

As a fan of crafty things made of paper I did something crazy. I made a calendar. Not just any calendar though. This one starts July 1 (today) and ends next June (end of fellowship). This one is made up of various colored circles sewn together like a giant garland. What I didn't know about this was just how long this thing is - it nearly travels the circumference of our bedroom, which I don't think will be it's final resting place.

The colorful calendar stretches for almost the circumference of our bedroom - and that's with generous swags.
The painting was done by one of Tim's old room mates. Yes, there is a naked lady in it. 

It may end up hanging vertically like the repurposed decorations from Ada's birthday party, which is what inspired the project in the first place. Is it weird that I can't seem to part with these decorations once the party is over? I love everything that they mean - we managed to make it two years without anything ridiculous or horrible happening like a ferret eating her fingers off while she was sleeping. So ... good for us!

The thing that I keep thinking about and what Tim and I are talking about is the expectations we have for the time that this year of over. What if we end up in a new place doing the same things and all of the frustration we think we feel now is be no different? If we don't pay attention we might get caught up in "the geography cure" - the idea that if changing one thing, like moving, will make your life will be magically perfect. But I don't think that's what is happening here. Instead, we hope we will have more control over our lives: our choices, how we spend our money, how we spend our time. Because it's just a miracle to have choices in life.


Little Miss Crazy tights, here, chooses to dance with Dora. Oh goodness, do I ever love her moves! The video is fuzzy, sorry about that but it's enough to get the idea and I think that the grandparents and uncles will appreciate it nevertheless.






After dancing, we took Ada to Philz for some coffee. For us, she had a muffin.






Then Ada and I stopped at the playground before nap time.




It was hot so I took off the crazy tights she had picked that morning - yeah, she picks her own outfits sometimes. It's super fun to see what she puts together.




Later, we did some painting in the kitchen. She painted the paper on the easel, herself, and the floor. She and I took a shower after that - her skin was stained pink and her toenails are green. Thank goodness the pediatrician visit isn't until next week.




We still have 364 days to sit back and enjoy our flight! It's not time to stow my seat back tray in it's upright and locked position and turn off my electronics in preparation for landing just yet.