Freda the Long-Suffering

This photo was taken when Anna was two and sick with a fever. Freda never left her side. Freda also stays with her every night as she settles into sleep. I can't say Freda exactly enjoys this job (I think she especially loathes listening to Leo the Lightening Bug on repeat ad nauseum) but when she looks up at me and groans I reply, "Do you pay rent?"

We found Freda running alonside the highway two years ago. She was wet, cold, and had no collar. I pulled over and opened the back of my car, and she jumped in. None of the neighbors knew her. I posted a sign with my contact info at the local police station, and she is yet to be claimed. I still marvel at the timing of her arrival into our lives, as I had just told a friend, "I'm not ready for a second child just yet, but I could go for a dog."

Last night was rough. I'm due this week, and I am huge and lumbering and loose-jointed and Natalie can't keep her toes or fingers or something off my jelly-bean-sized bladder. I had to get up and go about 328 times. Anna also woke multiple times, first because she was thirsty, then hot, then cold, then scared, then lonely. To complicate matters, each time I returned to bed, I discovered that my husband had rolled into the dead center of the bed. At night he is like a boulder--immovable and impossible.

In the morning, Freda wakes at my first stir. She parks just outside my door. She does not make a sound, but I can see her furry outline beneath the crack. It is as if she is saying, "I know you have a lot on your plate. Whenever you get around to taking me out, that will be just fine."

Belly Grows, Brain Shrinks

A week from Friday I'll be full term--although we don't expect Natalie to come until mid-November, based on the tardiness of her big sister.

I'm getting a little clumsier and a lot more forgetful. I'd like to share of few of my recent bumbles. I'm hoping that after the baby comes at least a portion of my brain function will return, but I find it a little disconcerting to contemplate that my brain function was never all that it could be to begin with. I'm not so sure that the impending sleep deprivation will improve my condition, either.

1) John found a housekey in the freezer. He pulled it out with a bemused expression on his face and said, "This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with you?" Of course I have no memory whatsoever related to keys or freezers.

2) This one is pretty tragic (I cried so hard that my dog was shaking)--two weeks ago I overwrote/deleted an entire chapter of my book. I had to rewrite the entire blasted thing. It is of course, a little easier to write a chapter after you've already processed the material. I just keep telling myself, "At least I didn't delete the whole book."

3) Last weekend (the day after I deleted the chapter) I lost my parking ticket at the farmer's market and was forced to pay the maximum fee to exit the lot. Of course I found the ticket (in my purse) a few days later, long after my need for it had expired.

4) Just yesterday I went shopping and purchased three cartons of milk. When I was unpacking the milk, however, I could only find two cartons. So I asked John (who had carried the groceries in) if he had seen that third missing carton. he got a half-amused, almost guilty expression on his face. "Jenny, you closed the garage door on that carton and the milk is no more." And then he laughed and laughed.

Oh well. That's all I can say these days. Oh well.

Urban Adventures

This photo, by Chicago Photographer Thomas Marlow, was the product of a messy day.

I took Anna downtown hoping to take her to free concerts, which were all supposed to be located in one park, but alas, I couldn't find any of them, and the the said park was GIGANTIC. We had not brought Anna's stroller, either. She had only the stroller for her lucky doll, named, Natalie (respectively).

It was humid. I was waddling and she was whining and when we finally got to the vistors center to ask about the concerts the clerk said, "Oh--those concerts are spread all over the city. And by the way, the summer is almost over. You've basically missed everything."

We truged over to "Silk Road" for a free glass-bead making demonstration. Anna got to hide in a kid-sized mongolian yurt. And I met Thomas Marlow, who is taking portraits of locals to adorn the tiles of a local L station. If you'll sit for him, he'll let you select a portrait and print it for you. So we picked this one, and I love it, although don't I seem a little lumpy? Anna tells me, "You don't look like a lump, you look like a mama!" I'm concerned that the line between the two might be very fine indeed.

The day Thomas took our photo he told me that he has already taken 300. He only has a mere 14,700 left to go. Somehow this made me feel a little bit better about the book I need to complete before Natalie (the breathing one) comes.

Anna and I then ate at a Turkish festival and then spent a lazy hour waiting for the free trolley. I was so tired and, um, lumpy, that I had to sit on the pavement. A kind man even stopped, pulled out his wallet and started to hand us some bills before he realized that I wasn't actually pan handling--just pregnant, and hot, weary from adjusting my expections as they grew and shrank and grew again.

What I'm learning slowly, about the City--and about parenting--is that the only way to enjoy the ride is to let go of preconcieved notions of how things will be (or should be). Only then can I embrace what actually is--which is of course, the only the only thing there is to embrace.

Why Can't You?

So we've entered a new phase of parenthood--I fear this one will last at least through her teenage years. It is the "Why can't you?" "Why didn't you?" and the "Why won't you?" phase. I get asked questions along these lines all day long. As I sit here now, she's just asked me a particularily ticklish duo. The first one was "Why do you always rub yogurt into my arms?" (I have no recollection of EVER doing this and am completely stumped about how to respond). Before I've had a chance to pull together an answer she says, "And why can't you turn me into Wonder Woman?" Again, I'm stumped. So she prods a little. "It's easy," she says. "All I need is a crown."

Hmmm. So that's how it works. Perhaps I should get MYSELF a crown. If I were Wonder Woman I might be able to find myself some answers.