Alexander and I were in the Canadian Rockies enjoying vast amounts of snow. Being a true Midwesterner I am not terribly bothered by skiing with cold snow blowing in my face. Especially if the snow is dry and wonderful.

Alexander, on the other hand is a true California boy (which means he wears shorts even in 40 degree weather) and finds blizzard conditions a little rough. We bought facemasks, under helmet head warmers and glove liners.

I worked this Christmas and was able to share in an incredibly beautiful and wonderful birth. It was simply that the stars seemed to perfectly align. And, it was Christmas morning.

The new parents were a lovely couple I admitted the previous day who didn’t mind a bit that their baby would be born on Christmas Day. Her doctor is one of my very favorite people and the birth was quiet and calm and all of us cried.

It made me recall another birth I was able to share in many years ago when I was working at an out-of-hospital birth center in Florida. It was a long labor and a challenging birth and she delivered at sunrise on Easter morning. I remember walking outside, exhausted, and sitting on the back steps of the house. The sky was a beautiful pink and the air was warm. I was struck by the magic and wonder of being privileged to share in the miracle of birth.

I felt the same gratitude this past Christmas morning. I wish us all a wonderful and peaceful 2012.

Today is Alexander’s 10th birthday. Double digits. Amazing. Unbelievable that a decade has passed. Unbelievable that he grew and birthed out of my body. Unbelievable that he is the spectacular human being that he is.

He was born on December 19, 2000 at 9:40pm, weighing in at 6 lbs. 12 oz and 19 ¼ inches long. He had a full head of dark blondish hair with these amazing little silver tips, as though it were frosted.

He was due on Christmas Eve, and on the 19th I was shopping for Christmas lights in our local drug store. I had, only a minute before, run into someone I hadn’t seen in a really long time. That day, I happened to be wearing a black, billowy maternity dress. A hideous dress actually. I really hated it and had never worn it before. But I felt so big and miserable that it just worked on that day.

For 15 years, I had told the women in my PillowTalk classes that the chance of their water bag breaking in public was really very small. Only about 10% of women actually even have their water bag break before labor starts.

As I was standing in the store aisle, I felt a little pinch, and suddenly, on the floor, was one of the largest puddles of amniotic fluid I had ever seen. Really. I stood there for a second, stunned, and then literally ran out of the store, laughing hysterically and dripping all the way out the door.

I called Ray from the car thinking he would think it was as funny as I did. Being very much not the doctor who had seen hundreds of births and instead, being very much the extremely nervous father, he found  little humor in it at all. There is a sweet photo of him standing outside the car holding my small suitcase with a sock hanging out of it. He could not even pack a suitcase he was so nervous, much less drive a car.

Thank God my wonderful friend, Chelan was there. Her instructions (from me) were to not allow me to go into the hospital until I was in very active labor. I was NOT going to go into my hospital, begging for mercy and not be dilated at all. The good news was that I was in booming labor and 4 cm. dilated, the bad news is that things went steadily downhill from there. But that is a story I have told before. Alexander and I came home from the hospital on Christmas Day.

Today was a very mixed day. So quietly happy and so immensely sad for me. Our family tradition is that the birthday person may do whatever they like on their birthday. So the young prince selected his breakfast, lunch and dinner (pizza) and opened one present this morning and will open the rest after dinner and cake. We sat on the couch this morning and went through all of his baby pictures, the cards we got when he was born and the lottery pool that was done by my colleagues to guess the sex of the baby (we didn’t know) and when he was going to be born. He came much earlier than anyone chose.

Happy Birthday Alexander.

Part 2 will come on Tuesday…

7:20 am: (small boy jumping up on my bed) “Mom. It’s time to get up. Get up !!”

7:21 am: (while trying to keep my eyes closed)

“Alexander, Mom needs a little more sleep this morning. Why don’t you bring a book down?”

“No, I do not think I need Buster to be an extra pillow.”

“If Roxie is eating your Legos just put her outside.”

Finally, I caved… “Ok, yes, you can play Wii”  The child is gone in a flash.

7:45am … while  trying to bury my head under the pillow for just another fifteen minutes…

Roxie, (the very naughty dog) ate through yet another sprinkler hose, which as the water came on, sprayed Lucy (the kitten) who then ran into the bedroom window, walking (with wet feet) across the one part of my face that was not under the pillow.

8:20 am (before coffee)

“No Alexander, the rules are not the same for Mama as they are for you.”

“No, Alexander, Mom does NOT have the same screen-time limits as you do.”

“Yes, I know I told you I would give you $5 dollars last week if I had not cleaned my own room by bedtime. But that was “last week”. I am not going to give you $5 every time my room is messy.”

“Please do not encourage  Lucy (the cat) to sit on top of the bird cage.

“Yes, I know I said that you could play Wii all day if you let me sleep longer, however, that did not literally mean ALL day.”

This is the time of year that my blog historically gets a bit disjointed. Partly because I spend more time in an area of Western Michigan where Wi-Fi is NEVER going to get to my end of the beach. I suspect the North shore of the Alaskan oil field has better Internet connectivity.  The satellite Internet we have at the house is the most ridiculous thing. A storm knocks out power and phone with little trouble. And I learned last week that downloading the NHL Stanley Cup championships for Alexander from iTunes put us over our “fair usage” amount by 500%. The company tried to penalize us by shutting down our virtual access to the outside world for 48 hours. Ugh.

But mostly it is because this is my solid time with Alexander, and quite frankly, myself. Being on the water, reading cheesy beach books in the sun, playing cards with him the Midwestern way (a card laid IS a card played), watching the most amazing thunderstorms come across the lake and moving delightfully slowly with the family and friends that we don’t see nearly enough creates a space that helps both of us maneuver throughout the rest of the year.

This is the 20^th summer that I have spent some combination of June, July or August here without shoes on. And although the circumstances have changed enormously and I did not find this paradise myself, I deeply appreciate what a gift it is to have this space and this time. Although some less evolved souls may pre-suppose this to be a vacation, it isn’t even close. It is a huge piece of Alexander’s childhood and it is the only place I have ever been able to find enough sustained quiet to hear all the important “stuff” that nests in my corners.

As I sit on the plane now, having made this same, very long, trip twice in the last 2 weeks, I am grinning at the number of stories I have shared about the adventures that seem to happen during what should be simple travel.  Whether it be to the wrong airport, the really wrong part of town, flying two 80 pound Labradors, needing to stay “in costume” on the 3 day Gold Rush school field trip due to leaving my suitcase on the side of the driveway, or perhaps last summer’s near arrest when I behaved very badly with the TSA agent who had the nerve to declare Alexander’s Lacrosse stick a potential weapon. Possibly my “worst mommy/best mama bear” moment EVER. Yikes.

This morning did not disappoint. Long travel on Friday, 2 full days of love, celebration and serious festivities over the weekend, very little sleep, all day drive yesterday, 3 time zones, home for 12 hours, a 3am “gift” from Lucy the cat (she missed me)… You get the picture.

Somehow I missed both alarms and woke to the cab driver knocking at the front door. “Oh no! Give me 5 minutes!” A 60-second shower, no coffee, hair comb, contacts or mascara. Once the cab was driving, I realized that my phone was still at the house — had to go back. We watched the airporter drive off so the cabbie chased it down 101 and honked and we stopped at what I am not sure was even an official stop. I scrambled my cash together, got on, hardly able to see out of my glasses, and sat down in the front seat — rather embarrassed by my entrance.

Ah. But it was in the moment of sitting down that the cartoon morning appeared to end. I took in a breath. And another one.  And during the all too brief, 40 minute ride, I was overcome with feeling such comfort and calm. Quiet, in a really lovely way. Frankly, it startled me. And in a personally amusing, schizophrenic, rapid-fire, private moment, I surprised myself. I didn’t shut it down. And surprising myself might just be a really good thing. I find myself hoping so. How about that? All before 7:30 a.m.

I find it all fascinating; especially the part where the Gold Rush was highly overrated and the only people who didn’t either die or go broke were the ones who owned all the shops.

I am tired and sunburned and very much looking forward to not sleeping on the top bunk for another night or hearing the incredibly shrill sound of screeching girls. I do so much better with boys throwing themselves against each other or immovable objects, rather than the decibel that a 10-year-old girl’s voice can hit. I am also much better with the command “No, Peter, gum is NOT a natural, Native American substance — please take it OFF of the bench” rather than ” I am sorry that you forgot your favorite hairbrush, Heather- No, we are NOT going home!”

Now that I have showered off the poison oak and river water, I reflect on my last couple of days — spent with a group of beautiful, outrageous 4th graders — not so different than myself, at that age. They are all kinds of kids. All of them. All their quirks and little habits and brilliant smiles.

And I watched them. And I was Tiger Lily, their Native American guide (in full costume mind you) who bribed them with ” medicine herbs” — AKA Sweet Tarts — to help them be first to the showers, or in their bunks, or cleaning the bunkhouse “where is my sock??? hairbrush?? scrunchee??? — it was RIGHT here!!” And they were amazing.

And on Monday night the kids had a hoe down and a fiddler, a mandolin player and a banjo player who taught them about the instruments and then they had a square dance.

There they were — outdoors in a hay filled little arena these 44 kids were just dancing.  And happy and dancing. Boys and girls and boys and boys and there was nothing that wasn’t pure fun for them. They were laughing and smiling and giggling and running and jumping. And just completely there. Not cool. Not shy. Not embarrassed or self-conscious. Not even a little bit. They were 10-year-old kids who are growing up safely together in a little microcosm of the world. They were me. They were every grown up. Every one of us was right there.

And in the next couple of years and beyond, they will get cooler and more nervous and some will fall in love with others and some will drift away and lose each other. And then maybe find each other again. But they will grow up and maybe become very important, or not, or in their own heads, maybe some of them will never have that pure fun again — I sure hope that’s not true.  But sometimes we forget that being a grown up isn’t really necessarily all that it may have been cracked up to be. I sure think we could all use a lot more fun.

And I stood there and watched from the side — and sobbed unabashedly. At how beautiful they were. And how happy they were. I was simply flooded with feelings of how, even though these kids may have their own hard little private lives, in that moment, they were just smiling and happy.  It was just a flooding. A flooding of ” Wow — I am witnessing one HUGE moment in time, and one that I actually had as a child, myself. ” Innocence in just being purely joyful.

Because my own Alexander and every single one of these goofy, gangly legged, kids, along with myself and every other, far too serious adult, is really just the kid in that little square dance scene. And I don’t EVER want to not be. What I was given by being able to witness this beautiful peace of innocence was really a privilege and an honor.

So here goes – My hospital has, what is known as, a Level 3 Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This means that the smallest babies can be born there. Very often, we go to outlying hospitals to pick up moms who are either too ill to be cared for at the hospital or who are at risk to deliver a preterm baby that is too small to be properly cared for there.

A few days ago I went on a “transport” to pick up a mom at a hospital that is actually very close to my home. The ambulance picked me up in San Francisco at CPMC (California Pacific Medical Center) and we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge back to Marin to pick her up.

I wish this story had something to do with the transport itself but it has absolutely nothing to do with any of that — except that it put me square in the path of a great experience. So, here it is…

We got the mom settled on the stretcher and we were heading out of the unit; the mom, myself, and the EMTs. As we were rolling down the hall, I just happened to look into the waiting room. Suddenly, I screamed. No, actually shrieked is a better word! Completely and unabashedly. Perhaps not my most professional moment.

Because there, hanging on the waiting room wall was a very large photograph of a beautiful baby. My baby. Ten years later, a photograph that was taken of Alexander at 9 months old was hanging on a hospital wall. A hospital he has never set foot in.

Apparently the photographer who took his picture was using it for advertising. The next day I told Alexander that I had a surprise for him. He blushed sheepishly when he saw it. His mother (me) then completely tormented him by asking the people sitting in the waiting room if I could take a photo of him under it. They all loved it.

It was just the sweetest, most random moment. There really aren’t enough of those. This one we’ll both remember forever.

3 a.m the day kindergarten begins... with a "newly repaired" cut off toe!

5 hrs. later for the 1st day of school

This may seem like the wrong time of year to be talking about this, however, it came up recently as I overheard a newly pregnant woman talking with a friend about how she and her husband had planned their pregnancy so that their child would be born before the cut-off date of the kindergarten they were hoping to get into. In 5 years!

I wish this were an isolated incident, but it is not. I have been with numerous women who have wanted to have their labors induced so that they could give birth in time for their child to meet the cut-off! You know that I can’t NOT say something about this.

My Alexander has just turned 10 and is in the 4^th grade. This makes him nearly 6 months older than some of the other kids in his class. This was not an intentional decision. I actually don’t remember what the cut off for entering kindergarten was, I only remember that he was past it. So – it was never an issue of concern for us.

Kindergarten readiness is more important than you may think.  It isn’t only about your child’s age or whether he or she can read or write. It is also about their emotional readiness, their ability to communicate and adapt to new situations.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about why kindergarten readiness is so important and if there are any benefits to delaying when a child begins.

Have something to add ? — please comment below!

Coming Up – Part 2 of 4   Why Is Kindergarten Readiness So Important?

I have shared some of these thoughts before: Alexander sleeping in the dog crate, the day we drove to the wrong airport, the day I behaved badly with the TSA agent who confiscated my 9 year old’s Lacrosse stick, and the promise I made solely to grab 15 more minutes of sleep. As just a few examples.

Today, I am thinking much about myself as a mother. I suspect in the “honorary mother club” I would not likely be a member. I sometimes watch other mothers around me and they are very, well “motherly”.  Seemingly centered, strong and wise. Actually, I try not to do this too much as it merely confuses me.

The one thing about mothering that has stuck most vividly in my head has come from my wonderful and amazing and completely mad friend, Vic. I share this because I know she does not mind — which is much of her beauty. I took out her IUD in my spare bedroom some years ago and she collapsed completely drunk on her great friend and my husband when he was dying. Both quite messy but so very real and honest.

She and I were in some  part of Greece with a “Greek language” pregnancy test when she found out she was pregnant with her first child. We figured out that the stick turning blue was pretty universal. About a week later she had a complete screaming meltdown on the steps of some Greek ruin and I rather notably said “you just cannot do this once you have a baby” – to which she responded “my children are just gonna have to know who their mama is”. And so be it. Today she has two remarkable 6 ft.4 in. wonderful boys who love her fiercely and who know every quirk and flaw that she has. And who respond to them all by saying “it’s just mom”.

And I find that my sweet Alexander has come to relish that his mama is not quite like others. If I have taught him anything it is that to be who you really are is your greatest gift to the world. The  kitchen window broke last night by way of a dog biscuit (not easy to do). And Alexander’s response was “well, it’s gonna be cold in here tomorrow.”

No parenting book is ever going to tell you how to love your children. I no longer believe in or worry about the latest theory on child rearing. What children need – and desire – is quite simply their parents’ time and love. Mistakes will be made – but the honesty, trust and security that comes from a child knowing that they are loved unconditionally – beyond unconditionally – is what gives them their wings to fly.

This, of course, has led me to think about my own Alexander’s birth. His actual birth was crappy. Sorry, but it was. There was no spiritual or profound experience attached to it. There was, actually, real fear for my safety and I was pretty much out of it for the last 4 hours of my labor and the  24 hours after his birth.

I was healthy, ultra fit (much more so than today), and didn’t even look pregnant from the back, and I developed severe preeclampsia in the days before he was born (we didn’t know at the time). And during labor it moved into scary, scary HELLP syndrome. It came as a complete shock and I very rapidly became extremely ill.

Today, Alexander was watching an interview I did in June, and in the middle of it he said, “I have no idea what you are talking about”. Fair enough for a 9 year old. So, we talked a little about his birth. He knows I was very sick and that is why he was born by cesarean. That is the extent of the story he will get on that unless he one day really needs the details. I don’t honestly think they matter to him.

So, a 5-day hospitalization, which involved a serious medical condition, has now been summed up in a couple of sentences. What he will tell someone in his future is that my water bag broke in the Christmas card aisle at our local drugstore and that I ran out of the store before anyone noticed, laughing and leaving a trail of fluid.

And that his dad, who was an anesthesiologist (who had attended hundreds of births) was so nervous that he was completely incapable of packing a bag for the hospital or driving a car. One of my best memories is getting into my friend, Chelan’s car (thank God she was planning to be with us) in booming labor and seeing clothes sticking out of my bag.

His story also includes that when we came home, our two dogs were terrified to come near him for 2 days. They knew he was a very important new addition to our family. And lastly, that our lab, Harley, loved to creep up to him as he laid in his bouncy seat and gently steal his binky (aka pacifier) directly from his mouth, lay down next to him and keep it in his own mouth.

Honestly, these are the parts of his own birth story that should be forefront in his memory. And, most importantly, that his safely entering the world is all that matters. ALL that matters.

People sometimes dwell on what “goes wrong” in an experience. That makes me sad. I smile every time I think of Alexander’s birth. It in no way minimizes the scary parts. I just am really aware that bad things happen in life but that ultimately life is simply vibrant and full of wonder and humor, so long as we let it be.

I want this to be Alexander’s story.

He was due on Christmas Eve, and on the 19^th I was shopping for Christmas lights in our local drug store. I had, only a minute before, run into someone I hadn’t seen in a really long time. That day, I happened to be wearing a black, billowy maternity dress. A hideous dress actually. I really hated it and had never worn it before. But I felt so big and miserable that it just worked on that day.

For 15 years, I had told the women in my PillowTalk classes that the chance of their water bag breaking in public was really very small. Only about 10% of women actually even have their water bag break before labor starts.

As I was standing in the store aisle, I felt a little pinch, and suddenly, on the floor, was one of the largest puddles of amniotic fluid I had ever seen. I stood there for a second, stunned, and then literally ran out of the store, laughing hysterically and dripping all the way out the door.

I called Ray from the car thinking he would think it was as funny as I did. Being very much not the doctor who had seen hundred of births and very much the extremely nervous father, he found  little humor in it at all. It wasn’t long before I was in booming labor but that is a story for another time. Alexander and I came home from the hospital on Christmas Day.

Tonight Alexander is curled up next to me. His tummy hurts and he is very much a little boy. I don’t know how 9 years has passed. In some ways it feels like a long time ago but as I look over at my baby (who now comes up to my chin) I understand what happens to all parents. No matter how old they are, our babies are our babies. Happy Birthday Alexander.

I am sitting on a US Airways flight taking a trip that I have cancelled and rescheduled 3 times in the last 6 days, twice being in the last 8 hours (yes, you can kind of do that with Orbitz). I readily admit that I do carry a true “lack of advance planning” gene when it comes to travel but this has set a new record even for me.

To add to this adventure, this morning I drove halfway to the WRONG airport before realizing it. The only reason I did not end up in San Francisco instead of Oakland was that I had listened to my cell phone messages in the car and there was one from the airlines confirming both the flight AND the airport. Swung the car around and drove 20 miles back towards home to go over the other bridge. Distracted? Yea. Just a little.

This was all received with guarded amusement by our Czech sitter, Tom and with sheer delight by my eight-year-old, Alexander. Tom has witnessed more times than I’d like to admit, what kind of tornado happens when I am late for a plane. He balances that quite nicely by quietly asking what would be helpful for him to do which generally involves physically catching some additional item and stuffing it into my “she who does not travel lightly” suitcase.

Alexander  finds great humor in the fact that his mother is generally less predictable and quite likely less balanced than other mothers he has come to know. Looking up from playing “Pocket God” on my iPhone as I whipped the car around, he interjected with “That would have really been a screw up, Mom. Darn it- you would have had to put $5.00 in the jar cause you know you would have said bad words and cried.” Nice to know he has his mother pegged.

So here I go on this 3 day trip. A trip where I intend to mostly sit in a room alone (perhaps one of 2 rooms) and re-invent myself. Lay it all out on the table, (and I am sure the floor and the bed also), both literally and  figuratively, — the realities of where I am today. Gingerly pull those little buggers apart, really look at them, do the math, figure the odds, research the options. Stop wishing anything were different. Allow myself be scared, do the hard work. Say my prayers and then listen. Really listen. And be very brave. I have been brave before. Then rip apart whatever needs ripping apart, put it back together,  — maybe even put something together for the first time. Maybe I will sleep – maybe not. It is hard to know. I have work to do.

Roxie and Buster with the Evil Duck Toy

So here I am, writing a blog about babies and pregnancy and life and how I interpret and experience these things. And today, I have one hand to type with (very slowly, in case you are wondering) and I have to include some of the real life challenges that come along with an accident in an otherwise extremely packed life.

I don’t mention this often but those of you who have read The Joy of Pregnancy may have noted in the book’s foreword that my husband Ray died of cancer during the time I was writing, coming up on five years ago. He died 12 weeks after being diagnosed with an inoperable malignant tumor. Although some time has passed and Alexander and I have traveled a long hard road, he is now blossoming and I am so hopeful for what lies in the future. Being an only parent however, adds a whole different dimension to working, running a household, raising a young boy AND sustaining an injury.

My best friend has, more than once, commented that my life has the makings of a reality show, or perhaps a cartoon. Working with pregnant and laboring families, getting the word out about the Joy of Pregnancy, writing a blog, speaking, volunteering at Alexander’s school, raising a feisty eight year, and having a house full of creatures (two puppies, 5 birds, a soon to be new kitten) makes for more interesting tales than I could possibly conjure up.

And now, we throw a shoulder injury into the mix. The injury part really does not fit into the schedule. I see a doc tomorrow morning. I’ll keep you posted.