Maybe you were craving something deep and thinky today?

Sorry.

I am in search of a really good television show to watch avec Husband.

Ideas?

Please chime in. And I’m not ultra-discriminating. It can be mindless or metaphorical stuff. I don’t like to admit it, but I’m an equal opportunity offender.

_____________________________

So? Recommendations? (Pretty please.)

Husband and I walked through the park to meet friends for dinner. We took our time, zigzagging, looking around. The air was deliciously damp, hinting at rain. We held hands, swinging them between us. And we talked. About little things and big, bartering ideas and hopes and fragments of dreams. It felt like a date. Like I was still getting to know him, this handsome guy, this person.

(And I am, aren’t I?)

We walked past a line of benches. On one, a young man in a hooded sweatshirt sat, singing, and playing the guitar. I don’t remember the words, or the melody, or whether he was any good. But I do remember thinking: He is brave. For sitting there. For playing out. For insisting on being heard.

And we walked on. Exiting the park. Making our way. But I thought about him, that nameless man with his music and his dreams. And it made me smile. Because if we open our eyes, if we let ourselves wander and listen, there are so many messages out there. Important ones.

Like to be brave. Like to make music. Like to insist on being heard.

Thank you, mystery man.

____________________________

Do you feel like you are still getting to know your other half? Are you brave? Are you willing to be heard?

{Oh those exclamation points. This is becoming a bit of a problem…}

Calm down. I’m not pregnant again! That would certainly be happy news, but a bit soon. Little Girl is just six months and the reality is that she’s probably our last child. It is hard for me to even write this. I know that we are infinitely blessed to have a trio of happy and healthy blue-eyed babes at home, but the notion of never being pregnant again is quite tough for me. It is.

So, no. I’m not announcing that I am with child. But I am announcing a pregnancy…

Exactly one year ago today, on September 13, 2010, I shared the news here on ILI that I was pregnant with Little Girl. And today, on September 13, 2011, I am announcing that my Little Sister C is pregnant! And, get this, she is due on Little Girl’s birthday. How fun is that? Fun, I tell you.

So. I am really excited for C and her hubby N and their little dude Baby Bulldog. Those of you who have been reading my words for a while might remember the story of Baby Bulldog’s debut in this big, bad world. If you haven’t read that sweet and silly story, click here. Anyway, it’s absurd how quickly time flies. I remember that day like it was yesterday. And I remember the day I announced my own pregnancy like it was three hours ago. Time is a nutty thing.

So. We are all really excited that the Donnelley fam will continue to grow. And believe it or not, I’m not envious of C and her burgeoning belly (okay, only a bit). Just extremely pumped for them. For all of us.

C will find out whether she is expecting another boy or a girl in just a few weeks. My money’s on girl… We shall see!

Congrats, C and fam. I love you guys and can’t wait to meet your little one in a few months’ time.

_____________________________

Did you honestly think I was pregnant again? Isn’t it awesome that C is due on Little Girl’s birthday? Do you think she will have a boy or a girl?

Little Girl,

Yesterday you turned six months old. A half year. This is impossible, isn’t it? Wasn’t it yesterday that you made your debut in that dimly-lit labor and delivery room? It was a Sunday morning. I realize something now. Sundays have always been tough, soggy days for me, days laced with soulfulness and sadness. But no longer. Since the day you were born, things have shifted. Sundays are good days. Family days. Thank you for this, my girl.

Thank you for so many things. For making me stop. And see. For making me ride the ripples of laughter, treasure the towers of toys, savor the sunny smiles. Thank you for making me surrender to the swell of the good life that is mine, is ours, for compelling me to stand, ever-unprepared but hopeful, as the wonderful waves – of parenthood, of personhood, of existence – buffet me. And make me.

And make you.

You.

A little person at just six months. Yesterday morning, Daddy announced something to your sisters, something grand. Girls! he proclaimed. Your little sister is a half! And for these creatures, the girls you worship, this was, is, big. They are all about fractions. And half? That’s big-time.

The past six months haven’t been a breeze for me, or for any of us really. But they have been beautiful months, months jammed with the stuff of life and love, months riddled with moments magical and mundane, always meaningful. And here we are. One half year into your life, into our final family’s existence, and I am struck with a cacophony of conflicting emotions. Stop growing! Stay little! Evolve! Become big!

Alas. It is not up to me anyway. You will do your thing. You will grow and change and emerge. You will overwhelm us and amaze us. You will keep our hearts soft, our eyes open. But here is a bit about you today: You have a head full of white-blond fuzz. It sticks straight up and out. Mom says it’s exactly like my baby hair. Your eyes are vast and almond-shaped, an electric blue. Your cheeks are impressively chunky. You are now sitting up, facing the world. You are now rolling over. You are now sleeping well, snoring softly. When I get you in the morning your smile is legendary and you do a little wiggle dance.

You are already a social creature. You have a slight preference for Mommy which I love, but you are not stingy with smiles. You have friends. I adore this picture of you and your buddy C. That was a good day, wasn’t it? The two of you on your bellies, ruffles on your rears, chubby legs kicking, celebrating.

And this? This is a picture of you and my mommy Moo Moo. She held you on Labor Day as we were packing up to head home from Grammy and Dad-Dad’s. Though it wasn’t nap-time, you nestled in and your eyes grew heavy. And I watched as you slipped into a sweet slumber. I watched as you snuggled there, wrapped in the arms that once held me tight. Arms that still do.

Honestly? This is hard for me. That you are getting bigger so fast. But this is also wonderful for me. A real treat. Watching you take on the world, a good world, your world. Our world. I love you, little creature. More than you will ever know. To tiny, itty-bitty pieces.

Happy six months, my babe.

Love,

Mommy

___________________________________

If so inclined, take a moment and wish my little girl a happy day. And tell me that I am not alone in simultaneously wanting time to slow and speed. Is six months long or short?

Once upon a time, there was an overgrown girl, a thirty-two-year old woman actually. She was a wife and a mother and a daughter and a sister and a friend and an author and a blogger. And this woman had a conversation with a man, the man she loved, her Husband. Together, they realized how much she had been through, they had been through – good and bad – in the last five years. In the last five years, this woman had gotten pregnant and miscarried, gotten pregnant with her first daughter, given birth to her first daughter, purchased her forever home, watched her Dad grow ill, gotten pregnant with her second daughter, lost her Dad, found a literary agent, welcomed her second daughter, sold her first book, renovated her forever home, started a blog, published her first book, gotten pregnant with her third daughter, moved into her forever home, signed with a new agent, welcomed her third daughter. And in the midst of all these monuments, these milestones, this woman just lived her life, her good and complicated life, facing endless bouts of doubt, dreaming endless dreams, experiencing endless joys.

This woman? She felt two things: phenomenally blessed and exquisitely exhausted.

And so. On a Monday, the first day of August in the year 2011, this woman woke up and decided something. She decided that she would take a month, one little and big month, and stop. Surrender. Let go. Instead of blogging every day and worrying about content and comments, she would breathe. She would lose herself in the blue eyes of little girls and the white pages of big books. She would write and write and write some more, feeding her fiction, bringing to life a quirky creation named Clio. She would roast root vegetables and stir cucumber cocktails. She would cuddle her Husband and tickle her babies. She would take trips to the zoo and the carousel and the museum. She would sit a bit more, and stretch a bit more, and sleep a lot more.

And of course this woman would worry because that was her thing. She would worry that her friends and readers would be disappointed, that they might miss her words. But when she thought about it some more, she knew better. She knew that maybe, just maybe, they would understand, and maybe even respect her for slowing down. Maybe, just maybe, they would revere her for being more real than robot. For admitting that she too had limits. And a desire to soak it all up; the summer sweetness, the sunny smiles, the stuff of the season.

This is what she hoped at least.

_____________________________________

Happy August, all. See you in September!

What have you been through in the past five years? Do you forgive me for pressing pause for an entire month? Do you have any plans to slow down for the rest of the summer?

Two women. Both wear black. They sit across from each other. Separated by a pair of steaming coffee cups and one crumbling muffin.

I just want you to be happy, the younger woman says, and sips.

The older woman chuckles. Smiles. I don’t believe in happy, she says. I believe that on any given day, we are more or less okay. Not happy, but okay.

The younger woman sips some more, contemplates this. Pinches an edge from that muffin they share.

And they sit there, that hazy cloud of silence and steam and semantics dancing between them.

___________________________________________

Do you believe in happy? Do you believe that our more glorious notions of happiness fray as we age? Do you believe that the difference between these women comes down to optimism and pessimism, youth and age, or is the distinction between their outlooks more complicated than that?

When I am pregnant, I tend to have very vivid dreams. In general, I enjoy this. Once, when I was pregnant with Baby, I spent my slumber designing a line of barely-there, skin-toned sandals. I woke up and jotted down the details of said sandals. Who knows? One day, I might just invent and patent the amazing “barefoot sandal” and you’ll all know where I got the inspiration.

But last night? It was awful. I shot up in bed at 4:54am. Unsurprisingly, I had to go to the bathroom. As I walked to the toilet in the dark, I ran my tongue along my teeth one by one to make sure they were all there. That’s right. I had a terrible dream about losing my teeth. A few details: I was on a cruise trip with my family. And my teeth kept popping out in chunks of three or four. It was disgusting. I kept my mouth shut so no one could see. I mumbled my words because I refused to part my lips while talking. I stored my lost clusters of teeth in a vast ziploc also stuffed with green grapes.

When I woke up from this nightmare, my heart was pounding. I debated whether I wanted to go back to sleep at all. It was early, yes, but I was happy to be immersed in reality and a reality where I was intact. But then. I did nod off for another hour-plus. And in that hour-plus, I had another dream. Another dream that rattled me. In this dream, I watched my kids frolic on the shore of some body of water. When I squinted, I saw the silhouette of a gigantic alligator approaching my girls. I screamed. And then I woke up. Again. This time, for good.

I did a little handy Google surfing before writing these words. In the search box, I typed in dreams about… and dreams about losing teeth was the first result to pop up. Apparently, I am not the only one out there losing her pearly whites overnight. Of course, there were several interpretations of what these dreams mean, and interesting ones. A few:

• “Dreaming of teeth falling out may represent insecurity. These dreams often occur at a time of transition between one phase of life and another. When we lost our milk teeth, we also gradually lost our childhood innocence. Loosing your teeth therefore show that today you have similar feelings of uncertainty and self-consciousness as you did in childhood.”
• “Teeth are symbolic of the ability to make decisions, and problems with teeth can be related to indecisiveness. If you are dreaming about losing your teeth, you may have “bitten off more than you can chew” in a particular situation, or relationship. Dreams of losing teeth could mean that you feel you have lost the ability to make decisions, and you may feel that some situation is out of your control, or you are headed in a direction you don’t want to go in.”
• “In waking life, people often cover their mouths when they are missing teeth, usually out of embarrassment. Dreams of losing teeth can mirror the same feelings of embarrassment. They might point to something one has done that one wants to ‘cover up’ for fear of embarrassment if found out. Alternatively, these dreams may indicate that there is something one wants to do but is afraid of doing for fear of the embarrassment of failure. It may be the psyche’s way of saying that there is something one wants to do but fears doing because of the embarrassment if one fails.“

Hmmmmm.

Insecurity? Check. Uncertainty? Yup? Transition time? You bet.

Indecisiveness? Sounds familiar.

Fear of failure? Oui oui.

But wait. It just so happens that in the last two months, I have been to the dentist a total of five times. I have gotten my teeth cleaned, my gums scaled, and I even indulged in a little emergency root canal. So? Could it be that my dream was simply an extension, admittedly grim, of my waking life? A warning perhaps to tend to my health in general and particularly during this time when I am avec child? Could be.

What about those nefarious alligators? Off to Google… Okay, I’m back. And here we go:

Alligators and crocodiles are creatures that are stealthy, animals that keep themselves well hidden until they are ready to strike. Thus, alligators and crocodiles in dreams can signify ‘hidden danger’–a situation that you are aware of on an intuitive level but are not acknowledging in your conscious mind. This can be a simmering situation at work, a untrustworthy person, or sadly, anything that you can’t really see coming but which strikes out of the blue and without mercy…. Alligators may also represent the Jungian archetype known as the ‘Shadow’–that part of ourselves that lurks in the background serving as a holding box for all that we don’t want to see in our selves.

Something sinister waiting to strike? Hidden danger? Lurking shadow of self? Yikes.

I don’t know what to think about all this. Dreams are dreams, right? Right?

I’m just happy to be sitting here, awake, next to my Cheerio-munching girls.

(With all my teeth. In my mouth. With no alligator in sight.)

______________________________

• Care to interpret my terrible two dreams?
• What is a recent dream you’ve had?
• Have you ever had a dream about losing teeth or escaping alligators?
• Do you believe that sometimes our dreams awaken us to aspects of our waking lives we might not otherwise acknowledge?
  
• Have there been moments in your life when your dreams have been particularly vivid?
• Do you think I should pursue my slumber-hatched invention of invisible sandals?
  

Confession: I watch Oprah from time to time. (Maybe once every two weeks?)

Yesterday’s show was all about the question Am I Normal? To be honest, it was a fun show. Oprah polled her studio audience on a number of topics from faking it in bed to lying about one’s weight on a driver’s license to hiding food wrappers in the trash. As a lover of details, particularly about humanity, I was fascinated. With many of the questions though, I wasn’t shocked to see the audience’s answers. (More people than not have faked it between the sheets, lied about their weight, and hidden a junk food wrapper in the trash.)

But one topic surprised me. Apparently, one in four married couples sleep in separate bedrooms. A very brave husband/wife duo in the audience admitted that they have spent eight of their nine married years in separate rooms. When asked why, the wife said that this pattern began when she was pregnant and very uncomfortable and that it just continued. She explained that she gets a much better night of sleep alone and is thus a better person/wife/mother the next day. Her husband chimed in that he likes to sleep in cold temperatures and without covers whereas his wife prefers a steamy room and lots of covers.

Fine.

But is it? Oprah polled the audience on this one too, asking them whether they thought it was “normal” for husband and wife to sleep in separate rooms. 80+% said no, that this sleep separation is not normal. Oprah offered another startling stat. Apparently, by the year 2015, 60% of new homes will be built with two master bedrooms to accommodate this growing marital sleep trend.

Wow.

Oprah asked Dr. Phil to weigh in on this one and Dr. Phil said a few things that I found compelling. He said that he worries about what what a couple is missing by sleeping separately (the cuddling, the intimacy, the closeness). He also made another important point, namely that sleeping next to your spouse every night is something you don’t do with anyone else. That there is a meaningful behavioral exclusivity here the importance of which should not be neglected.

I don’t know. I am biased. Husband and I refused to get a king-sized bed in our new home because I feel like I am too far away from him in a king. So separate rooms? I don’t get it.

But apparently 25% of us do. And maybe more in the future. Interesting, huh?

I think so.

_______________________________________

• Do you believe in “normal”?
• Do you know any married couples who sleep in separate bedrooms?
• Do you think it is possible to be “happily married” and sleep in separate bedrooms?
• Do you see the appeal of having your own bedroom? (You can admit this here! Your spouse is not reading.)
• Do you agree that something important in a relationship is missing when this separate sleep arrangement is in place?
• Do you sleep in a king or queen?
• Did you know that the average person picks or touches her nose more than five times per hour?!
• Do you ever watch Oprah?
  

We move into our new home today! If I have an ounce of energy left by this evening and I can find my camera in the sea of boxes, I will do my best to post some nifty pictures of the new place. If I do not get my photographic act together (very likely), have a wonderful weekend!

It’s Friday again. Hard to believe. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like time is odd this year. Extra speedy. The fact that Thanksgiving looms and I am drinking from a Starbucks holiday cup and listening to Christmas music (love it), is both very wonderful and very strange. It feels like it should still be September. But these things are not up to me. Or you. Sorry.

What is up to me, to us, is doors. Doors? you ask. Yes, I answer. The Happy Headache (a.k.a. the untimely-given-this economic-stuff-gut-reno of our new home) is progressing nicely, our new home is taking shape before our very eyes, and it is time for us to select doors. Many doors. So, we had a very important meeting this week to go over the Door Schedule. I’m still not sure what exactly this means, but in general I’m not a huge fan of schedules (unless they pertain to babies and sleep). Husband and I traveled to Architect’s office and we talked about – you guessed it – doors. Truth be told, we didn’t actually talk about doors themselves for those have already been selected (thanks Architect and Contractor and all those who know more). Rather, we talked about door hardware. Hinges. Roses. Knobs. Decorative finials.

Did I lose you with that last one? Decorative finials? Don’t worry. I was lost at that point too. Maybe I slept through the lecture on decorative finials in college, but I had no idea what these things were. Maybe you are smarter, more acquainted with dainty door flourishes than I am and this is kind of blah for you, but stay tuned, I get fun and philosophical below. (Ah, the suspense.) These finial things are little decorative items (balls, cubes, etc.) that you screw into the top and bottom of hinges to make them, well, fancier. Now, I am usually a big fan of fancy, but these things seemed unnecessary. Maybe I am an odd bird, but I do not enter someone’s home, shed my coat, and run to the nearest door to scrutinize the sophistication of hidden hinges. But, guess what? We ordered finials. Yup. (This is not at all symbolic of our inability to say “no.”)

Anyway, let’s move on. We picked budget-friendly and beautiful crystal knobs, chrome roses (the plates behind the knobs). We were very efficient in making our selections. And then. And then there was a whole lot of talk about privacy. Where do we put locks. On bedroom doors? On bathroom doors? For three seconds, we discussed installing locks on the doors of our girls’ rooms and this prospect horrified me. First, I freaked out about the possibility that my babies could accidentally lock themselves in their rooms. And then, my mind shimmied forward about a decade to a day when they might intentionally lock us out. At this point, I said, No locks on kids’ doors. Period.

Fair enough. At this point, I will stop talking shop. Because, really, how much do you want to know about our future doors? Not much more than this, I imagine. Fine. But as I sat there with Husband, and as I sit here now, I realize doors are not just doors. No. Doors are thresholds between rooms and worlds and times. Doors are passages from here to there and back. We do not just open and close them. We lock them and prop them open. And, sometimes, we slam them shut.

Doors play a big, often overlooked, role in our lives.

There are all those literal doors. Screen doors and French doors and fire doors. Pocket doors and flipper doors and sliding doors. Cab doors and bus doors and subway doors. We hold doors open for friends and strangers and strollers. We hang wreaths and lights.

And there are all those symbolic doors, swinging open and shut. Good educations and unique talents and buffed resumes “open doors.” So many people come and go from law firms and investment banks, these places are often referred to as “revolving doors.” Behind fabled “closed doors,” each of us is a slightly different person than we are at work, or at school, or at cocktail parties. Doors are always closing – on youth, on fertility, on hope. Doors are absolutely everywhere. In every nook and cranny of our lives and minds.

And there might be more doors in our world than we think. More than we can see. My friend Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every wall is a door.” What exactly did he mean by this? I’m not sure, but maybe he meant that walls are walls, and limits are limits often because we see them as such. Maybe he meant that there is always something on the other side of a wall and if we want it enough, if we need it enough, we can walk through. We can get there. I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of these deceptively simple words, but I love them. Every wall is a door.

_____________________________

Thoughts? On decorative finials or my dialectic about doors? What doors in a home should have locks? Do you agree that physical and metaphysical doors are absolutely everywhere? What doors are most prominent in your life? What doors do you feel opening – and closing? What do you think Emerson meant by “Every wall is a door”? Please leave a comment! Your words are doors to my often deeply buried self-confidence