I have nothing to say
and I am saying it
and that is poetry
as I needed it

--John Cage

happy thanksgiving

exciting news! david's mom gave us our christmas present early...a new camera! it is orange, fancy, and beauuutiful. picture quality around here is about to explode!

i am thankful for pretty much one million things in my life everyday. in-laws i adore, shoshi mary, butter, treehouses, mr hughes that foxy husband of mine, my family, squash, books, green curry, fwiends, rain, and last but NOT least, our new orange camera. lucky duckster, that's me.

today's simple pleasures

1. i put a new drawstring in david's favorite around-the-house pants today and also mended the cuffs, and it was so weirdly satisfying. anytime i patch a blanket or mend the sheets or something, i feel a total ma ingalls-level of virtuousness and practicality. it really is the little things in life.

2. driving around town in our cadillac with speakers in the trunk, bumping biggie in ideal biggie bumping conditions. mr smalls holds special real estate on my soul, my favorite rapper of all time no question dog.

3. washing the cranberries. such vibrant shades of red, my eyes were just gobbling up the pure color the whole time. if sho had been awake i would've showed her for sure. you don't come across color like that every day, no sir ya don't.

4. finally matching up a several-months backlogged supply of socks. sock pairing, it is my utter housewifely downfall. i HATE it and always end up stashing the sock portion of the laundry somewhere "to do at a later time." well, the buck stops here folks. i did em. and now i am excitedly scheming, because david's hanging sock organizer thing is the PERFECT place to hide this fake rubber snake we got for halloween. i have been steadily hiding it around the house ever since, and david claims he hasn't been scared a single time, even when it was in the shower. snake in the socks could take care of that...

half a year

i took this picture six months ago, the night before sho was born. she is so much sweeter, fiercer, dearer and more fearless than i ever imagined possible. happy six months shoshanna, you buttery little biscuit.

ask the audience

1. tomorrow is sho's six month birthday, which means that (according to the world health organization) it is officially kosher to feed your baby solid foods. we've given the little rascally one tastes of the food on our plates, but that's about it. i think tomorrow i should present sho with an official "first meal," complete with hat, speeches, and picture-taking. any ideas on what a new human's first meal on the planet should consist of?

2. i'm trying to make almost all the christmas presents i give this year, which i really hope ends up being more you-couldn't-find-this-awesome-in-a-store and less glitter-on-a-popsicle stick. i have ideas for almost everyone and have even finished some people's presents already. i readily confess that ma ingalls is my total inspiration for this endeavor. anyway, i'm really stuck on handmade men's presents. all i can think of are barbeque aprons, which i think might be one of the many men's gift ideas that only a woman would come up with. does anyone out there have any suggestions?

love, sarah

(i wrote this last month for my writing workshop)

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE LEARNED,
HAVING BEEN A MOTHER FOR FIVE MONTHS TODAY

You used to play a game with a fellow waiter at a restaurant where you worked. “Could you kill someone with a plastic fork?” (His response, after zero seconds of hesitation: “Yep. I’d go through the eye.”) “If you had to, could you chew threw your own arm?” “Could you gut your own horse and sleep inside it during a snowstorm?” You always doubted your own drive for survival would be enough to come out a victor in any of your proposed scenarios, but now you know without a doubt that if anyone was coming after your girl, you could kill ‘em in a second with a spork through the eye.

It turns out that there is a reason sleep deprivation is used as torture. And while usually you get used to such things with time, this feeling actually tends to get worse as the night goes on. It is a grueling exercise in your own needs coming last, 154 nights in a row (so far).

You feel guilty about swaddling her but probably shouldn’t; you don’t feel guilty about drinking a glass of beer while breastfeeding but probably should. You feel guilty about once yelling at her dad while he held her and probably should; you don’t feel guilty about having her sleep with you and probably shouldn’t. You feel a vague, nameless guilt for her reliance on a pacifier, and a similar yet more lighthearted guilt for letting the dogs lick her face. You don’t feel guilty making her wear a fake mustache, though your mother thinks you should. You feel guilt drenched in gratitude for the electronic swing that lulls her to sleep; you feel socially motivated guilt for the disposable diapers she wears. And of course, you feel major feminist guilt for having any of that mother’s guilt bullshit in the first place.

Most men aren’t particularly interested in and/or are terrified by young infants, but every so often a man will come along who reaches out for a baby with the same zeal as every small girl you’ve encountered. (Literal swarms of neighborhood girls descend on you like baby-zombies when you pull in to your parents’ driveway: “Can I hold her? Can I hold her? Please, can I hold the baby?”) This type of man cannot be predicted: what a delightful surprise it is, to discover those men who walk gruffly among us as baby-lovers in disguise.

Olive oil cleans particularly dirty spots on a baby with ease. There are a lot of unfortunate baby clothes out there. A washcloth soaked in breast milk and frozen helps with teething. You don’t need a changing table. Elders tend to hate it when you sleep with your baby. Swaddling works, though executing the swaddle may make you feel a bit sadistic. Keep a spare outfit in the car. Dogs love babies; cats’ feelings toward them are a little more complicated.

things that are hard to photograph

1. the dangling crib mobile i refashioned from the same wood my aunt made for her son thirty years ago, seen above
2. lightning, see also butterflies, hummingbirds
3. david hughes
4. dogs, isn't it weird the way they mostly look like ghost dogs in pictures?
5. the moon
6. let's face it, anything with my camera phone