visit

There are many many reasons to want to visit a newborn in your family. Consider some of them: you so want to see what he is like -- the movements, gestures, you want to witness them. You want to touch that soft skin, comfort a restless moment. You want to support the family as well -- let them know how much you love them and are there for them in this new configuration. And you really want to have that commemorative photo -- not just of him, but of you and him. Of you and him and the sibs. Of you and him and the extended family. Because all those older photos are now missing someone. The framed picture of all your grandkids? It needs to be updated.

Photos figure big in these first visits. You just can't wait to have that record of him now being part of your life. Forever your grandson (or nephew or brother). Indeed, one of my daughters commented that with her family's first encounter with her newborn child, the photo taking took up most of the time of the visit. 

As you know, photos are big in my life on any day. They're part of my daily storytelling. I am almost never without a camera at my side. I take lots of pictures. The kids are used to it, the grandkids are used to it. Maybe they think I was born with a camera slung over my shoulder. There are benefits, there are costs, but gogs does pull out that little clicking machine an awful lot. When I first saw Sandpiper, I couldn't wait to hold him and take a picture of him. In that order, thank goodness!

So of course, Sandpiper's extended family, too, wants to see him. All the ones living in Chicago are coming up today for their own moment with the little guy. And for those first photos with him.

It is a brilliant day! A stunning May day of sunshine and profound spring colors. A little cool still, but nothing offputting. Splendid to the core!

 

(morning path)

(Getting ready for breakfast, still inside for the warmth of it. The flowers today include a bunch of clipped wild indigo. I love this flower so much and it is now in full bloom all over the farmette flower beds.)

Today is the day Ed drives out with me so that he can meet Sandpiper. (He waited until things settled a bit for the young family.) Now, Ed has zero experience with babies and so it is always very funny to see this tall big guy handle the short wee one. I get the other two kids in on the action.

I am happy to see that at this point, there are no big hiccups. Everything is moving along well. And everyone is excited and ready for the descent of the family.

But first, before their arrival, Ed and I return to our farmette planting projects. The trees are in -- all 67 of them, but of course, the gardens do not stand still. There's stuff to be done! Ed and I work on chipping a new bed with the hope of controlling the weeds a little, though I know that I'll never get a grip on them until the plants mature and crowd out most of the junk that spreads like rapid fire. For now, I do as much pulling as I can (my fingers show great evidence of the constancy of the effort) and then we chip.

Okay, it's time to go back to the young family's home. Cars of family members arrive. Aunt, uncle, cousin. Other grandparents. Here are just some of those photos I talked about:

(my daughter, her nephew)

(Because the kids are not immunized and some adults are at risk even when immunized, we stay outside. Mostly with masks.)

 

 

Of course, it's all very spirited! And there's plenty of great pizza and fresh Wisconsin asparagus and veggies and fruits and beers and who know what else.

This is what you wait for in those darker moments -- a time when we can all exhale, together, and admire the new guy, and play and eat and play some more

(I love FaceTime, but this is so much better!)

 The next two days will have plenty of visiting moments. Small conversations, exchanged stories stuck in when one child or the another is not catching our attention.

(daughters, sisters, moms)

Evening. Look up, admire the almost full moon, take a moment to feel the joy of being alive, of belonging, of having that picture of yourself with a loved one, or with two, or three.

(and now there are four!)

With love...

couches have their place in life

Where would we be without miserably cold and wet weather? Would bills get paid? Would coffee get reordered? Checkbooks get balanced? Would discussions take place about what may have happened if this or that? Would we make sure all emails were answered? Would we get creative about breakfast -- hey, how about eating it in the play room for a change?

It is the worst of bad weather May days and I am not terribly sorry. Sure, there are the weeds, the chipping needs. And Ed is itching to take down a huge tree that is threatening to crash down on the barn. But I need an excuse to stay indoors and the cold and wet walk to the barn this morning...

... convinces me that this day has given me just such an excuse.

Eventually I head out to visit Sandpiper. He's still a sleepy little guy. On the one hand, that's good: it makes for an easier transition from a family of four to a family of five. No one is complaining about the noise and interruptions that a baby usually brings into a household. 

On the other hand, we can't merely strive to make our lives easier, smoother. 

 

 

Raising a child isn't (only!) about keeping things quiet, but rather it's about confronting challenges together, as a family. So, we do a little more shaking and bouncing to get the guy to wake up a little. Here's a squinty tentative stare:

I pick up Snowdrop from school then and again we head straight home to her youngest sib. 

 

 

She has already told Sparrow -- you know that Sandpiper is eventually going to follow you and want to do everything you do and insist on playing with you and your toys all the time? She speaks from experience. Sparrow can't imagine that just yet. He listens and looks at Sandpiper and weighs his future. He has to wonder -- could his sister be right? Could this small baby rise to the level of being a real pest? Nah...

I come home once again with a smile of appreciation about how beautiful life is always, but especially right now, where so much of the anxiety of this past year has receded for me and the good feelings just keep on flowing.

I must pay my dues though. It can't just be a couch day. By evening, the rain has stopped and I try to talk myself into that familiar northern European platitude about how there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad dressing for it. On goes an extra jacket. I weed the most horribly weedy new flower bed, then go in to cook up a big pot of veggie soup.

rainy sleepy cold

Anyone who has to spend time outside today is likely to feel grumpy about it. I know I did when Ed and I went out later in the day to put six sticks and a sapling into the ground at the edge of the tomato field. These were the remaining trees we had purchased. Paltry little things not more than a pencil in length and with very underdeveloped root systems. I doubt they'll thrive anywhere, but we decided to plant them close together, to be used as replacements (should they in fact come to life) for trees we are sure to lose in our new forest. Ed dug, I planted, and I didn't even try not to complain about how cold it was. At 45F (7C), I thought I was entitled to my grievances. 

That was at around the noon hour. Earlier, I did my usual morning chore walk, and I paused to look at some of the flowers, and I even smiled a little, but that's because  it wasn't raining yet and the coldness of the morning hadn't yet sunk in. My bones were still warmed by May's sunnier days.

 

But of course, breakfast had to be in the kitchen. I even considered lighting a candle to dispel the grayness creeping in from outside.

Right after breakfast I went to the young family's house to hang out with Sandpiper. Snowdrop is at school, so it's just the two boys at home...

Sandpiper is two days old, but he is big for his age and so he fills out nicely his baby clothes. But, he is a newborn and his method of coping with the demands of the world right now is to sleep.

Which he does. Abundantly.

And I have another chance to pop in on the little guy: I'm the one picking up Snowdrop at school (she runs to the car, both with new brother excitement and to avoid the rain and the cold)...

I drive her straight home, where of course, she reconnects with her little brother.

Snowdrop, at six, sees only the added love in this enlarged family. She has been through a baby addition. She gets the changes that come with it. Sparrow -- well, he's got that unsettled feeling of having a disturbance in the house, where suddenly, the people he is closest to in the entire world are focusing their attention on a smaller version of himself, only not himself at all. It's almost as if there is a pout in his words.

Still, it's been a smooth few days for the young family. I drive home, stopping to pick up my second CSA box of veggies...

 

 

... and breathe a big sigh of relief. Rain, cold, whatever. I stretch out on the couch, Ed covers me with a quilt and I fall asleep.

A nap never felt so good!

Evening already? A FaceTime call! Hi Primrose!

Is it raining in Chicago? Is it cold? Are you sleepy? What a day, huh? Sort of like November in May. But with many happy twists along the way.

waiting

It's amazing how much time in life you spend on waiting. Perhaps the best skill you can pick up is one that allows you to wait productively, or at least enjoyably. Some would say it's all in the journey after all.

Once again it is a day of waiting: Sandpiper, born yesterday, is ready to come home, maybe. Not sure yet.  And so we wait to hear when the family's discharge time will come. Today? Tomorrow? We do not know.

But really, I'm not thinking about any of this just at the moment. It's early in the morning and I'm thinking how I really would do anything for my kids, including stay in their house and watch the little ones, even if sleeping there upstairs means that I will have their three cats join me in bed. I do not sleep well with animals (though at least these, unlike Dance, do not feel compelled to nibble on my feet), but the cats think me to be an adequate substitute for their usual bedmates and so there they are and there I am. 

The kids wake up early (what a surprise) and join me in the grand bed and from there it's one busy morning. Baths, breakfasts, laundry (what the hell was that goop that spilled out during the last wash, coating everything with sticky, slippery curdles of... something??), feeding their cats and injecting one, the most skittish of them all (of course it would be him) with medicine -- the usual stuff. At least there is no school on Wednesdays and so we are not rushed. 

Very quickly Snowdrop and Sparrow realize that Gaga at the farmhouse -- nice and laid back, with nothing to do but cater to their play needs -- is not the same as Gaga at their house. There, I am busy and they must fend for themselves, leaving them to gaze out the window and ask somewhat wistfully -- when will our babysitter be here? I say -- not for another hour and so they take the reigns on their own time of waiting and settle in to draw.

Great stuff comes out of this time and I even hear a bunch of "I love yous" coming out of little months, making our time together a happy time indeed.

When the sitter does come, I quickly pack up and head for the farmette. It's really a perfect day -- a sunny, crisply warm day, a breezy day of the nicest kind. We will not pay attention (for now) to the fact that we are getting blasted with cold air starting tomorrow. It'll be the coldest late May weather I ever remember having. Nearly frost at night! We will have to cover tomatoes. Wish us and more importantly, farmers across Wisconsin, luck with all our tender shoots! 

But today is perfect and as I drive up to the farmette flower fields, I am deeply appreciative of (and enchanted by!) all that's growing out there now.

(my first sweet day lily!)

(the siberians...)

(and of course -- the peonies)

(hey, don't forget the tubs of annuals!)

It's late, but still, Ed and I sit down to our breakfast on the porch. (The peony is from the farmette gardens. It's rare that I pick flowers for the table -- I love admiring them among their plant friends, growing outside, but when they fall, or are overabundant, I will indeed snip them!)

Waiting never felt so good!

And now it's time to get some work done. Ed did manage to tow in the new used tractor mower and so we mow down one last row -- a very short row -- for the last three trees that may or may not survive their long refrigerated wait, but still, we plant them, enjoying the breezes, the green landscape, the day of May perfection.

In the afternoon, I return to the kids. Happy kids after a day of outdoor play.

(In front of a poster welcoming Sandpiper)

We learn that Sandpiper and parents are indeed coming home today. Well now! All is ready!

We wait.

At 6:30, some 25 hours after being born, he is here.

You can imagine all those photos we all want to take: just him, him and sibs, him and his whole family, him and grandma, him and sibs and grandma. I reconcile myself to doing just a few. There will be time for more. I'm happy to wait.

Sleep well, Sandpiper. Worry not: your family will take good care of you.

With love...

May Sandpiper

It was a morning that called for setting the alarm. Not that I ever need it, but just in case. I have to be at the young family home by 7.

(From Dance: hey, morning cat feeder-person, you're up early!)

(walk to barn: the peonies are coming into their special moment!)

Okay, I'm here! (Or rather there!) I'm to make sure the kids are ready for the day and that Snowdrop has all she needs for school. Yep, all set.

I drive the girl over. On time performance! Sparrow comes along for the ride. Can't leave him home -- no one's there to look after him. As we pull up to the school, she asks -- did you remember my mask?? I did not. I hand her a spare I keep in the car for myself, adjusting the bands a little. It's still big, but it will do until I go back and get her her regular one.

On all the back and forths, Sparrow points to random buildings and tells me -- that's my school over there. The super big one. Because I'm a big boy. Someone is missing going to school!

(he is getting tall...)

Later in the morning, his baby sitter arrives and I drive back to the farmette. Oh, the colors of a late May garden!!

(A very late breakfast with Ed...)

Back to work in the garden: I put in the last of the perennials and I weed. Always the weeding! 

I look around me. Here's a rose that is as faithful as that Yellowstone geyser. I don't really grow roses for many many reasons, but a while back I was tempted. I put in this one bush and it just keeps coming back. It has survived beetle attacks, droughts, high humidity, terrible winters and still, right about now it throws out lovely yellow and apricot flowers. All flowers should be this resilient!

But of course, the emerging stars are these guys!

Garden work done for now. I go to pick up Snowdrop at school. And I dare text my older girl who happens to be in the hospital. Any news??

Nothing to report yet. I drive again to the kids' home, mildly nervous about leaving Ed to his own devices today. He intends to rig up a rented trailer to his ancient truck and drive a hefty distance to pick up a used tractor mower. The weather is iffy, his truck is iffy, him handling a tractor mower and a trailer is iffy. Still, even if I were by his side, I'd be of little help. I reconcile myself to waiting. For updates from all sides.

(kids at play)

("we're ice skating!)

And finally in the early evening the call comes: Sandpiper was born at around 5 p.m., weighing in at 9 pounds. A May child, arriving without fuss, as if already content to be associated with  this most incredible time of the year..

Oh, Sandpiper! We can't come and see you today, there are COVID restrictions. Still, you were born at a safer time, though you sure had us worried early on. But you hung in there, little Wisconsin bird that you are, you held on and now here you're with us, with a crew of family to love you and friends to coo over you. Not today though. Today you get your private moment with mommy and daddy who will love you totally, always and then some.

 

(at home: p.j. time)

 

 

With love...