The stoop gods continue to be kind

                       
I have mentioned our neighborhood in the past; it's a high-class scavenger's paradise. You want furniture? Great world literature? Toys? Housewares? No problem.


I have been an active participant in this scene since we moved here 2 and a half years ago. I've put things out, rifled through boxes, and come home on more than one occasion screeching "Oliver, look what I found!" I knew (knew!) if I waited long enough I would find a copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My most dramatic find: a Stokke Tripp Trapp chair (hellooooo $300 high chair) that needs a new coat of paint.


Paradise!


Some recent finds:

A giant basket that holds all our shopping bags, umbrellas, flashlights, etc. I do love an organized closet. Especially when you pay nothing to organize it.

Some fun-looking old books. Maybe Nils and I will read these together someday. Maybe I'll just read them on my own.

Stacking rings and stacking boxes (Nils seen wincing mid-topple with the boxes). People leave out some beautiful toys, and with a good cleaning they're like new. He loves stacking things, so the more the merrier.

And finally, his favorite toy. These are gears that spin together when you turn the toy on. He's drawn like a magnet to this thing every time I put it out. Do we have a little engineer on our hands? (Oliver certainly has his fingers crossed.)

A tour of Nils's room

Have I ever shown you Nils's room? No? It's actually pretty cute. It's the smallest room in our apartment, and also the only one we painted. (Correlation?) It's a peaceful little corner - I've always thought so, anyhow. Find Nils while we're putting him down for the night and you might get a different story. We've read many stories in the rocking chair, pulled many toys off the toy shelves.


Excuse me Nils, please let us in. Toots, can you let us in? 


This is his favorite game right now. He closes the door, and waits for you to open it so he can close it again. Very funny.

Yes yes, you are so clever.

There's not too much to the tour, since it's a pretty small space.We've got light gray walls and your typical baby furnishings. If I can, I'd like to direct your attention to the quilt on the rocking chair, window treatment, and crib bumpers. Nils has quite the grandma; she made all these things for him.

One other touch that I love: the grouping of pictures on the wall:

They're illustrations from The Runaway Bunny. I bought a used paperback and ripped out a couple pages; one represents Oliver and the other is me. I'll let you guess which of us is the Alpine mountain climber in a Swiss/Bavarian-style hat.

Simple but sweet, no? Nils has a lot of fun in here (as long as no one is trying to make him sleep). And look! I do believe he's about to start in on his second favorite game - taking his toys and throwing them on the floor. Cleanup? Someone else takes care of that.


To me though, there is another side to this room. Let's look at that last picture one more time:

I'm pretty proud of myself for this. I have always been a secondhand furnisher, and for Nils I did my best to re purpose our own things or find new ones through secondhand channels. His things were inexpensive, and they are both unique and easy on the earth. We have even found some secondhand books and toys (mixed among their new counterparts) - a small feat given the fact that we don't live anywhere near family or friends with older children.

You and yours

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy everything!

We're here in Wisconsin for the week, and our family-togetherness happiness has been tempered with news of the saddest kind from another branch of the family tree. I'm holding my little one tight, thinking about the importance of family and friends, and praying for peace and happiness for all those I know and love.

Peace and happiness to you then, and abundant blessings (Too many! Too many blessings!) to you and those you love in 2012.

Much love,

us.

Sea change

A few weeks back I needed to get a physical photo of Oliver and I, and I needed to get it right away. We don't have tangible paper pictures of ourselves around the house, so I was scrambling. Our China photo album caught my eye - I could take something from there! Okay, so that was six years ago... no matter. We look more or less the same.

I opened the book and was dumbfounded. Who were these people? Good lord... us?

 In the middle of the best hike of my life, letting the euphoria wash over me.

 Oliver. His humor ever understated, his hand on a monkey butt.

Staying in a Buddhist monastery one night - meditating cheekily.

We were so silly! So exuberant. We were children. The album is full of photos like these; goofy smiles, humorous poses, arms-flung-open excitement. It looks like we didn't have a care in the world. And personally, I didn't. I was having the time of my life, and saw no reason that the rest of my life couldn't continue on in a similar fashion. Maybe not with such extensive travel, but you know. Adventure in your own backyard sort of thing. Life was going to be fun and carefree, because I was fun and carefree. End of story.

I only recently realized how much motherhood has changed me. I was so deeply immersed in the day to day that it took a long time to come up for air and get a good view of my surroundings. Wow. It's as though the very molecules that make me have shifted, have formed new structure thingies (hey man, I've never claimed to be a scientist). Everything is different, and not just because I spend my time in different ways now, I have a child to consider, etc. No, things are just different. My perspective on a thousand situations has changed. I breathe differently. I move differently. I talk differently.

Part of it is a settling into myself. At Cool University, where I work two days a week, I often overhear the conversations of my department's graduate student workers. They're lovely, intelligent people having thoughtful discussions... and every time I hear them I think "that's how I used to talk, isn't it." It's hard to put into words; they seem eager to be known and understood, and to reach out at the same time. I feel more settled, somehow. Some youthful hunger is gone and I don't need anyone to know me. I value friendships and conversation just as much as ever, but it's more about connecting with people I enjoy than learning, experiencing, reaching, etc.

The other part of it is a darkening of the world. I'm more anxious than I used to be. I've got something to lose now. And I mean lose. Things feel so much more serious, and I'm constantly aware of how precarious my happy little life is. I used to roll my eyes at certain situations, or natter on about certain world problems... I think they were just abstract concepts to me, because I never gnashed my teeth the way I do now. There's a twinge in my side, and it won't go away as long as both Nils and misfortune have a place in the world.

All this is not to say I'll never do another goofy pose for a vacation photo. Or that excitement is childish. Or that motherhood alone changes you. I just looked at old photos of myself and realized how differently I used to feel. And how much I had yet to experience.

And still do.

Then and now

We don't do a lot of videotaping around these parts, but I like to capture a few minutes on film every once in awhile. I forget things so quickly - was he really that little? Oh my goodness, he moves so much differently now. He was such a primal little thing!

At the risk of boring everyone but Nils's grandparents, here are a couple videos. One was taken when he was about 2 months old, and the other just this past week. Please be forewarned that I have some serious "mommy voice" going on in both these videos.

Underhill

Talk about a lazy day. There was a family nap from 9 to 11:45 (badly needed by all) and a lot of puttering around the apartment. We didn't aim to get much of anything done, or go and do anything of real consequence. We did manage however, to get out for a bit and hit up the Underhill playground.

It's a great place. A bit off our beaten path, and therefore a little exotic. A little-kid paradise in the middle of Prospect Heights. Plenty of space for Nils to stretch his legs:

"Donated" goodies from homes that have outgrown jumperoos, push toys and the like:

And swings! Can you remember the last time you felt the euphoria that Nils seems to be experiencing here?

A quick snack, and time to go home. Too much fun! I think a Thanksgiving-weekend visit may be in order.

Occupied

     
I picked a great week to keep hanging out on Wall Street.

I haven't been going there as part of the Occupy Wall Street protest (though sidenote: I have stopped by Zucotti Park a couple times and was totally impressed with their greywater system). Our regular childcare wasn't available this week so I trudged up to our backup option, which happens to be one block off Wall Street.

I was there Tuesday, the day after the protesters had been evicted from the park. I was there yesterday, when things seemed to be calming down. And then I was there oh-so-briefly this morning, when I could hear the noise of the protests before I even left the subway station. Climbing up the last of the subway steps - which by the way is no small task when you have a 20-pound baby, all his stuff, and all your stuff strapped to your torso - I ran right into the NYPD. All of them, it seemed. They stood around near the subway entrance. They stood behind barricades on the street, helmets on and batons at the ready. They were everywhere and like me, they could hear the protesters coming.

"Excuse me," an officer said as I turned toward my street. "Where are you headed?"

"I'm trying to take him to childcare," I said. "It's just down the street."

"Listen, I don't want to be a pain in the ass, but you should take him and get out of here. They're going to try and break down the gates and then... you should just go."

"Really?" I said, trying to peek around his shoulder to see what was going on.

In the end Nils and I got back on the subway and went home. I'll just work tomorrow.