Burning Suburbia

Shades of slate and gun metal pursue me

in a way the other women wrapped in their profiles and friends

would understand more than they want to believe.

Our spirits dream while we say,

How much? That’s too much.

I have to have her there by 3.

We need to get away. It is never just us.

In the suburbs I drive over hillock after hillock

again and again,

for bread and milk,

my fingers searching beneath my skirt for something so dirty it is clean,

so corrupt as to be pure.

Church

Church of memoir

of discovery

of chants.

Cloistered in my name are ten lives

I did not live

in favor of a sublime 11^th.

What is better than best?

What can joy can be discarded for ecstasy?

The taste of salt lines my mouth

when I look back.

translated to Xhosa, Afrikaans, and back

Church of Love

I find joy

while I lay cloistered in my ten lives.

Auroras swirl beyond my reach.

They will not live.

There is a reason I am so inordinately fond of 11.

What is better than a lot?

Why have I ignored peace?

It tasted of salt in my mouth.

Power lines guiding me back home.

Church of Love

Separate the gaiety from the joy.

Lonely in my ten lives,

they live,

it is as though they live without me.

How do I dispose of gaiety?

Of me?

Midwest

Fuzzy snowmen smell like turpentine.

Why all this wistful wind,

this heavy quiet,

these creative snowmen dancing in slow motion

to no music?

Not inaudible music,

or even illegible sound,

but nothing at all-

Machines with no factory.

This snow covers a ghost city.

The children scattered and died.

Yes, I am freezing.

Would you like to dance?

Birth and NICU

Angelica spent a week in the NICU when she was born because her oxygen levels would sometimes drop. She would always recover on her own, but they kept her at CHKD for a week anyways, and didn’t help her. We had to fight to get her out of there. Now here she is 3 years later healthy and happy. These are a few pictures from her birth but mostly pictures in the NICU and right after she got out of the NICU.

So happy I made it through my pregnancy and got a beautiful baby girl in the end.

A perfect picture of my newborn baby and I.

Talk to the hand ’cause the face ain’t gonna listen.

Sleeping Beauty. God I still remember the way she smelled of formula. So precious.

Fooling Around at Work, Ring, Happiness

Showing off my snowflake engagement ring. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. I was ring shopping with Craig at Long’s and I immediately said “I want that one.” I wouldn’t even list another ring as a possibility.

Playing dead while working at A.C. Moore, a job I initially liked but came to hate when we got new management.

Causing trouble in the stock room part 2

Dinner with my parents at Olive Garden. I had just moved into the condo with Craig. It was a couple of weeks before the wedding.

Angelica’s Ultrasound Pictures

I wish I had been blogging regularly when I was pregnant with Angelica to have a record of all this in real time, but I just didn’t feel well enough to really keep up with anything. But I want to preserve these memories, so here are her first ultrasound pictures and the pictures from when we found out she was a girl.

Angelica’s profile

Profile

I just want to mention that although these early ultrasounds name Commonwealth Women’s Health, they were actually terrible and I ended up delivering with Dr. Lackore, who was wonderful. I would definitely recommend him.

It makes me sad that I’ll never again get to go for a gender reveal ultrasound, but it is for the best and I’ve made my peace with it. I think.

1st Weekend with Bunny, Sleep

Well this morning I almost made my goal for not sleeping in, but I woke up before my alarm and thought I could go back to sleep until my alarm went off. Then I slept past my alarm. I should have just stayed up. Next time I will. I’m determined that tomorrow will be better.

Weekend one with the bunny has gone well. So far he has not peed outside his litterbox once. He has pooped outside it, but it has stayed at a manageable level. He’s still sweet, cuddly, and calm. Yesterday he took an apple from Angelica and started munching on it. Simply adorable. He also took on a little stuffed alligator and was playing with it. Parsnip hasn’t chewed on any wires yet, thank goodness.

One ear is kind of lopped over and he can’t seem to pick it up very much, so I think he might be a mixed breed with lop. The other ear stands at attention. The result is a bunny who looks like he’s trying to get TV reception.

He watched Real Housewives of New York with me for awhile. Real Housewives is my concession to reality tv. I think it is fun to watch, and great to watch when you’re tired because it doesn’t take a lot of thought. I was really tired yesterday. So tired in fact that I went to bed with baby at 8:30, rather than staying up a little later like I usually do when I’m by myself. But by 8:30 I was ready to pass out.