Home again, home again.  I have to admit, as wonderful as France was and as much as I miss the hazy, no-care existence we had there for a while, I am happy to be back in New York.  In a way, the time in Avignon was so delicious because it was finite and the “real world” – i.e. the world of errands and appointments and checklists – was held momentarily at bay while we just . . . breathed a little slower for a couple months.  But by the end, I just missed home.  Our bed.  Our shower.  Our friends.  Pizza. 

We did a lot of “lasts” in the final week that made me fall in love with Avignon all over again: wandering through the Lambert collection, eating a fantastic meal at L’Epicerie, getting in two more picnics on the Rhone.  During my shower on the final day in our apartment, I was even getting teary eyed, cloyingly sentimental over the plastic bottle of baby shampoo we were leaving behind, oh happy days of yore, I began sorrowfully, not one to miss an opportunity for pathos, whence we bathed our small baby in this very shower, when DK came into the bathroom. 

“I need to tell you something.” 

“What is it?” I asked, a touch annoyed at the interruption of my reverie.  

“I can’t find our passports.”

Cue halting screech to my misty-colored memories.  The baby shampoo bottle?  A piece of white plastic I never wanted to see again.  To say we ransacked the place is putting it mildly.  We called the last places we could remember having the passports weeks before: the hotel, the car rental place.  Nada.  We talked through all the possible scenarios and our memories of that week (aside: wow, is memory a funny, faulty thing.  I must have “remembered” three events with startling clarity that I later realized couldn’t possibly have happened.  Power of suggestion, baby, yoozahs.)  Finally, after several rounds of orbiting the apartment, fruitlessly sticking our hands in every pocket in every bag, suitcase, purse, toiletries kit, jacket, zippered compartment and opening every drawer, patting every surface, eyeballing shelves – we cried Uncle.  I optimistically made a list: (1) call consulate in Marseilles re: new passports; (2) change flight; (3) change hotel reservation. “Ha, ha!” said Fate, “you think it’s going to be that easy?”

Unfortunate Circumstance 1:  Our sad discovery of the missing passports came on a Saturday.  Our flight was supposed to leave at 6:30 am on the coming Monday.  Notably, that particular Monday was also a national holiday in France.  Meaning, the consulate was closed until Tuesday.   

Unfortunate Circumstance 2: In a moment of parsimony back in February, we booked our flights to France on Jet Airways, India’s top airline.  To be fair, the flight from NYC was perfectly fine.  However, trying to accomplish a fairly mundane task like changing our  flight home was nearly impossible.  DK was on the phone for an hour with them and these were snippets of the conversation:

“Yes, I’ll hold."

“No, ma’am, no, you don’t seem to understand me: it is not a choice, we cannot get on the plane on Monday, our passports have been stolen.  No passports.  No.  Passports. [pause] Yes, I’ll hold."

“Wait, how much to change?  Six hundred dollars?” 

“Fine, ok, we don’t really have a choice, so please make the change.  Tell me when you’re ready for my credit card number.  What?  What do you mean you don’t take credit cards over the phone. [pause]  Excuse me?  No, I don’t have a family member in New York who will drive on a Saturday to JFK to go to the Jet Airways counter to pay six hundred dollars on my behalf.  [pause]  That is not a reasonable suggestion.  [pause]  Are you kidding?” 

“You can only accept a fax of an authorization form with my credit card information on it?  Can I email a pdf of the form to you?  Why not?  But the form has an email address on it.  Okay . . . only by fax.  Ma’am, I’m sorry, but do you realize that no one actually uses a fax machine anymore?”

Yes, I’ll hold.” 

And thus we found ourselves walking around Avignon during a holiday weekend looking for a fax machine on which to send DK’s credit card information so we could change our flight.  Of course, the only one we found was in a very sketchy “internet café” with an even sketchier looking dude behind the counter – all that was missing was a flashing red “IDENTITY THEFT HERE” sign above the door.  We looked at each other – “NO NO NO,” I signaled with my eyes.  “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE,” DK told me with his.  In the end, DK took a photo of the signed form with his iphone, emailed it to me, converted the file into a pdf, I emailed it to my law firm’s 24-hour support center who sent it to the LA office’s copy center, where a very nice guy named Raymond faxed it for me and sent me a PDF of the fax receipt.  In other words, oh my fucking god.  

Unfortunate Circumstance 3: Because our flight was so early on Monday morning, we had arranged to stay in a hotel near Marseilles airport Saturday and Sunday night (thinking we could do a little sight-seeing on Sunday).  When I called to change the reservations by two days, the receptionist told me that I would be charged for the original reservation AND for the new reservation.  I explained the situation again.  He explained the charge again.  I explained the situation again in slightly more strident terms.  He weakly explained he needed to get authorization to make that change without a charge, but his manager wasn’t answering her telephone or responding to his emails.  “It’s a holiday weekend,” he explained. 

Anyway, by the time everything got worked out, I wanted nothing more than to get back to the US and kiss its customer-service-oriented ground. 

It is good to be back.  Day one: Ordered pizza.  Day two: Luke’s lobster roll.  Day three: Shake Shack.  Day four: hot dog at a farmer’s market.  God bless America! 
--------------

In other news, DK is in San Francisco giving a lecture this week and I am thus a solo parent for FIVE DAYS.  It’s been ok, considering, but the girly has decided I must be in her sight at all times or the screamy screams of screamy land erupt.  Luckily, she is very cute.    

In no particular order, a few thoughts.

Lesson learned after cooking in France for two months: butter absolutely, positively makes everything better. 

My parents sweetly got me a deep tissue massage in Avignon for my first mother’s day.  Unfortunately, the spa sent the “cheque cadeau” to my address here, but because of the name on the mailbox is the owner’s, not mine, I never received it and needed to have a few conversations on the telephone in bad French to clear up the situation.  I emphasize this because (1) I am not really a lover of the telephone; and (2) hello, it all had to be in French.  Now, I took French from grade 3 through the end of high school but to call my French good would be a lie.  Frankly, to call it barely workable would be generous.  Thank god for Google Translate.  When things turned quickly south during my discussion with the spa (“alors, lundi a 10 heure and vous payez . . .), I was frantically typing in “But it has already been paid for” and “I have your email of May 2nd confirming receipt of the payment!”  Happily, all was sorted and I blew google a little kiss.  Sorry Madame O’Connor – you did your best with me, but I need a little language crutch from time to time. 

Anyway, a massage in France is pretty much like a massage in the US: low light, candles, Enya-esque music playing in the background.  But there are a few differences: no modesty covering, for one.  I had a moment when she explained I should disrobe and get onto my stomach wearing these sad string disposable “panties.” I nodded, like no big deal, like I had no qualms about my post-pregnancy bottom.  But inside, my little puritanical American self wished the lights were maybe turned a little more dim.  Also, they rub your belly.  Like serious, ten minutes intense massage of this most vulnerable of places.  Plus, I’m ticklish.  I thought it would be bad form to laugh so I steeled myself against the giggle bubbling up, but that just made me inadvertently tense my stomach muscles which also seemed wrong, so I’d force myself to unclench, but then I’d be right back to ticklish.  It was not the most relaxing part of the massage.

One week left in Provence.  *heaves big sigh*  It’s bittersweet: I’m really looking forward to being back home with friends and the kitcat (Topo has been living the life of Riley in our absence.  He was less than pleased with the addition of the baby – though my darkest worries of him scratching or biting her were thankfully unrealized, allowing Topo to live another day – and has been doted on by a beautiful young Italian woman who is house-sitting for us.  She whispers sweet nothings to him in Italiano and scratches him behind his ears and, judging by the most recent photo she sent, brushes his coat until it glistens.) (In other words, Topo is going to be seriously ambivalent about his family returning to the fold).  What was I saying?  Right, I miss our friends and apartment and New York, but it makes me a little teary to be leaving France.  We went on our weekly picnic yesterday and at one point, DK leaned over and said, “Now this is vacation.”  Our baby asleep in her pousette, us sitting on blankets eating the spread: sandwiches on a baguette bought that morning, olives, cheese, enormous globes of purple grapes, apple slices, sour gherkins, a baby bottle of white wine for us, a baby bottle of mama’s milk for Eme, a custard tart.  We spent nearly four hours lolling under a tree by the Rhone, intermittingly reading, playing with the baby, daydreaming.  I took a mental snapshot of our sweet girl looking up at the canopy of leaves overhead, legs kicking in excitement when the wind made them dance. 

Anyway, so yes, it will be hard to go. 

What else?  We’ve been dealing with Sleep Issues this week and I am not looking forward to the inevitable horror of getting her back on a schedule in New York.  Sleep is one of those randomly hot-button topics for new parents.  As in, people are OBSESSED.  One of the first presents we got when I was pregnant was on sleep training; it is the first question people ask; it is the subject I email other new moms about.  And we are insanely lucky to have a very good sleeper – which I readily admit has almost nothing to do with us, and everything to do with Eme’s bred-in-the-bone personality. 

Our pediatrician suggested we start sleep training when Eme went in for her almost-two-months appointment. DK was gung-ho.  I was a little pissed off at the suggestion and 100% terrified.  I had mentally prepared myself for sleep training to begin when she was four months – not this little wiggly eight week old baby.  I stalled.  I cajoled.  I came up with a million reasons why we should hold off, that she wasn’t ready, she was too little, she needed me.  DK responded with logic, that we’d try it, that it would be good for her, for us.  That stupid jerk quack doctor, I thought.  So at ten weeks, after our first week in France, we tried it.  And it turns out, the quack was right – she was ready.  She cried the first night for thirty seven minutes (I sobbed in the other room.  I can’t even think about it now without getting upset).  And then slept until 8am.  And then did it again the next night with no interruption.  And the next night.  We did it! I thought triumphantly.  Well . . . sort of.  The backsliding began shortly thereafter.  She’d wake up and at the first little whimper, I’d zip in and give her her pacifier, sometimes reswaddle, stroke her little sweet head until she feel back asleep (usually within five minutes).  Since I wasn’t actually nursing her, I decided it didn’t count and it was almost like her sleeping through the night.  Then after a few weeks of this, she started waking up more than once a night and I was rushing in at 3am, at 6am.  This went on for weeks (But she has a slight cold!  But she has gas!  But she might be too warm!) until even I had to admit we needed to reset.  Guess what, resetting sucks.  Seriously sucks  Because the crying feels like my fault. Because I was making her go though this again because I was too weak, because I couldn’t be consistent.  She cried for an hour and nine minutes, starting at 1:50 am.  DK handed me some earplugs, but I couldn’t do it.  It’s hard to explain – but I felt like if she was unhappy, then I should have to listen to it and concentrate with all my might to send her  love through the door.  I completely realize that is basically a whole bunch of sentimental hooey, but it’s hooey I can’t help but feel.  THANK GOD, after one night, she was back to sleeping from 8 pm to 7:30 am.  But I’m trying to prepare myself for the plane ride confusion and jet leg and reentry back into her big crib and room without blackout shades.  Poor girly.  Poor parents.   

Speaking of night routine, it basically goes like this: at 6pm, she comes into the kitchen with me in her red bouncy chair we dragged from home and we listen to music, I dance around with a lot of razamatazz hands to make her laugh, I explain what I’m doing, why it’s important to sauté onions for a long time, how to know when green beans are ready, I let her smell some crushed rosemary in my hand, or a slice of lemon peel.  She responds by kicking her legs, throwing her arms up in the air, chattering, sucking noisily on her hand (her binkie usually having been discarded on the floor ten times), doing a random spit up when my back is turned, letting loose some very loud toots (which makes her laugh).  She begins to lose her mind around 7 pm and starts rubbing her eyes, whining, hating her chair, wanting to be held and danced around.  Papa feeds her the nighttime bottle I pumped that morning and gives her a last diaper change and gets her into her pajamas.  Then I lay out her swaddle blanket, close the shades and start rocking her to sleep, singing a whole medley of Nancy’s Greatest Hits.  I start with a little Blackbird, followed by Sittin’ on the Dock, then either Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone or Summertime.  From there I hit either Hearts and Bones or go broadway musical with I Could Have Danced All Night or Where is Love from Oliver (shut up, I know the songs I know).  I finish up with My Favorite Things before putting her in her little crib, where I end the sing-a-long with You Are My Sunshine.  But I’m getting bored with some of these songs and realize singing about “leav[ing] these young things alone” won’t fly forever (But Mama, why did she go?)   Any suggestions? Any favorite lullabies?  I can’t do Rock-a-Bye-Baby – too creepy with boughs breaking and cradles falling, but welcome any new material – this mama has hit a singing block.

Think good thoughts for us Monday, aka Traveling Overseas With An Infant, Part Deux.

It is hard to believe we are only here (in Avignon) for another two weeks.  How is that possible?  Of course, I look at the girl who is so much more . . . everything than she was six weeks ago.  Her long strong legs and chunk-a-chunk thighs, her baby chick hair that now needs to be combed after a shower, her head swiveling around to see what’s over there, what’s over the other way, hey, what was that?  Her eyes gazing up at the canopy of rustling leaves during a picnic.  Her grumpy eye-rubbing and mouth grimace when I open up the window shade to let in the light in the morning, followed by an enormous grin when she realizes it’s me and it’s up-time (read: breakfast).  And she’s started flipping from her belly to her back, much to her and my continued amazement.  So, yes, this three and half month old is not the same baby who flew out six weeks ago.  But by any other measure, I am dumbfounded that the time has flown by so quickly. 

Avignon is a gorgeous medieval city (really, a large town, particularly in just the walled old-city section), with narrow, cobblestoned streets and Romanesque churches around every bend.  Unlike Paris or Nimes, it hasn’t really been Haussmann-ized, so there are few wide, grand boulevards for promenading, and only a handful of large public squares (Palais de Papes, Place de Horologe etc.) that can get a little overrun with the day tourists and the ubiquitous accordion players.  Instead, it is a city of meandering, for letting your whim dictate your walk – turning left down a little side alley to look more closely at a painted door, then an immediate right to look at that church, then over there to see a small hidden courtyard.  The Rhone runs immediately outside the city walls, and there is a small island (Ile Piot) between Avignon and the adorable village of Villeneuve with a path along the water that we run along in a four mile loop and picnic with Eme at least once a week.  The market is in an enclosed building, but once inside, is full of treasures with some of the kindest smiles we’ve encountered: from the guy who sells the world’s best olives and roasted nuts, to our favorite grocer and his wife who slipped us two perfect figs and some purple potatoes this week, to the slightly crusty woman at the fish market who melted at the sight of Eme in her sun hat and offered to clean the mess of calamare we had bought (THANK GOD).  Every side street and bend offers a small restaurant, a boulangerie, an antique bookstore. It is a city to get lost in. 

But there are really some total asshats that live in it.  No surprise, Avignon is a real city, not some tourist’s picture perfect Provencal village out of Peter Mayle’s books.  But wow, French tools are some of the biggest peacocks you can imagine.  Without any trace of irony, the guys wear these ridiculous oversized glasses and gold chains and all white Adidas tracksuits with these haircuts . . . oh man, these haircuts.  Think faux cheesy mohawks or the 1988 slow fade.  They all seem to belong to the “Club Prive” that is happily located directly across from our apartment.  For a while, I was convinced Club Prive was a strip club, as only these trying-to-hard young men would knock at the door (mirrored, bien sur) to be quickly ushered in while pounding French rap spilled out.  Few, if any women, ever entered; most of the girlfriends in tragic black getups hung around outside talking on their phones and chain smoking. But we heard them on Saturday nights, around 3 am when the club let out, squealing the high pitched yelps of the very drunk.  And they weren’t the worst, not by a long shot.  The worst is the jerk who lives in the building next door.  For the first few weeks, we heard nothing, but then, suddenly, three weeks into our stay, during lunch out on our balcony, we were confronted with pounding loud music, bad, bad music, music so loud the whole narrow street seemed to pulsate.  Hair band of the 80s bad.  French rap bad.  French DISCO bad. 

So, we moved lunch indoors that day and I contented myself with a few glares at the third floor apartment when we walked by.  But then Friday night hit and the music started up around midnight, a loud party with people literally screaming off the balcony, fistfights breaking out.  I got so upset (Eme having woken up a third time) I called the woman who rented us the apartment and she called the police. They came, we heard arguing and the music abated . . . for an hour.  Then started blaring again.  DK got out of bed, went out to the street and shouted up in French for him to shut up, to turn down the music.  Through the walls, I heard the guy start running down the stairwell to the street.  DK was already back inside our building, but for the next three hours, this maniac roamed up and down, screaming diatribes of obscenities at DK, threatening him, challenging him to come out and fight.  It was terrifying, actually.  It was beyond reason; it went on for hours.  I finally called the police directly again at 4 am and when they came, I tearfully explained in haltering French what was happening, that our little baby was asleep upstairs, that we were frightened.  They went next door to talk to him and things quieted down.  Until the next weekend.  And we called the police again.  And again.  The violence is what shocked me – we’d hear these fights, bodies bashing against the buildings, screaming.  One night, DK went out to the balcony and saw four guys carry out another guy and start kicking him. 

We went away last week into the countryside and it was so blissful.  Up in a hill town called Crillon Le Brave, we settled into one of the nicest hotels I know and tootled around in our rental car from gorgeous vista to gorgeous vista.  We drove up Mont Ventoux, we took Eme for her first swim, we got a babysitter for our seventh wedding anniversary and ate dinner looking out over the valley and drinking lots of delicious wine.

  
I wondered what it would have been like if we’d decided to rent a house out there, perched up in a village and sighed at the “next time” promises.  But now that we’re back in Avignon, writing this on a Saturday night, I’m glad we’re here.  This is real.  This is not sugar-coated living.  This is the good and the bad.  Overall, living in Provence for two months has been pretty magical, but it’s good to remember to scratch the surface of a place, to feel our expectations challenged.  I cooked dinner tonight: stuffed ripe tomatoes with a mixture of shallots, garlic, parmesan, bread crumbs, lemon zest and topped with a slice of the most awesome, stinkiest goat cheese imaginable that browned and bubbled under the broiler.  I sautéed fresh turkey breasts in butter and parsley and ground mustard.  A salad of crisp, spicy arugula and haricot verte with tomato dressing.  Some cheap sparkly Vouvray.  A chocolate cake I baked this afternoon with some coconut glace.  Candles.

Magical, yes, but it’s a Saturday night, and I hear the sounds of the city, of the people who live here.    

When I was about 17 and DK was about 21, we were flirting on the phone during a humid summer day in Kansas City (I was in KC; he was in San Francisco, or maybe DC still, I can’t remember).  I was sitting on my bed, likely listening to the Cocteau Twins, and feeling the usual stomach knot of excitement I felt every time I talked to this wonderful, cute cute cute, boy I’d met the summer before at Choate.  [Gosh, I was so gob-smacked in love with him then.  Sometimes now when I look at Eme, I hope someday when she is too young to fake cynicism, she has a boy read her Tennyson late in the night, or open a letter bursting full of spring flowers he gathered on a walk for her.  Young love, man, nothing like it.].  ANYWAY, we were talking on the phone and daydreaming about The Future Someday when we could be together.  I solemnly promised to support his art habit if he promised to be responsible for balancing the checkbook.  And we started talking about how we’d live, how’d it would be when I could come and visit him, once I was in college.  “Let’s live abroad together,” he said.  “Yes, really, yes, we will.”  “Promise?”  “Promise.” 

So it has always been with us, this idea.  Then I went to college, he went to graduate school.  I went abroad my junior year while he worked in California.  Then San Francisco together before I left for Boston for law school.  Then Dallas.  Then New York.  Then his PhD program and my legal career.  Then a cat.  Then a mortgage.  The older we got, the harder it was to see how it would ever be possible. Maternity leave always beckoned in the future.  Maybe?  Maybe then?  So when I was about four months pregnant, we decided to go for it.  When else could it happen?  I would have 5 months off, DK could come and work on his thesis abroad, the girly was small enough to be portable.  So, after talking to my doctor about whether it was an insane idea or not (he said, “DO IT”), I spent upteen hours searching for the right place.  City or country?  Europe?  South America?  Paris?  Buenos Aires?  We settled on the south of France (pace of life, weather, medical facilities, god forbid, DK’s idyllic memories of visiting his best friend in college at Montpellier) and I made spreadsheets of possible venues, pros/cons of various towns and small cities.  And finally found after lots of email correspondence and hand-wringing, a great looking apartment in the center of Avignon. 

It all seemed incredibly awesome throughout pregnancy and I was only a little nervous by the “REALLY?!” reaction we got from other, more seasoned parents.  One guy I worked for scoffed and told me to make sure we put down money now, before she was born, otherwise we’d never go.  “That’s ridiculous,” I frumped, “that will not make a difference in the world.”  But I sent in the signed contract and down payment of ½ the rent anyway.  And you know what, thank god, because that old curmudgeon co-worker was 100% right.  As soon as Emerson was born, we looked at each other dubiously about this grand plan.  The Rosetta Stone CDs I was sure I’d listen to in all my free time (“I’ll do it while I’m nursing!”) (HA HA HA!) sat gathering dust.  The books on Provence sat unread.  We looked at our tiny needy pea who forswore any and all naps except in our arms and frowned. 

But she got bigger and we got better.  We got her a passport and vaccinations, confirmed the details with the photographer who owned the apartment, and I read a old French grammar book to make sure I could do important things like order food and a glass of wine.  And then we just did it, we left, we got on the plane as scheduled with a eleventy billion bags of crap, for two months in Provence.  And have not regretted it a single second.  The place has high ceilings and a large balcony where we eat lunch everyday.  The kitchen is perfectly serviceable and I have cooked up a storm.  This produce! Holy smokes.  I’ve made calamari and ratatouille and crepes and delicate pink trout.  Salads with endive and arugula and frissee and haricot vert and goat cheese and walnuts.  Roasted chicken and broiled huge shrimp basted with butter and even half a turkey.  We buy a baguette every morning and I mix in a spoonful of cherry preserves into my Greek yogurt and drink a steaming nespresso while I pump in the mornings (after feeding the missy her breakfast).  We’ve befriended a grocer and his wife at Les Halles and he always slips us a “petite cadeau” in our bag: half a watermelon, a handful of cherries, a stem of fragrant tomatoes.  And the wine is cheaper than water! 

I don’t mean to paint this totally idyllic picture (though the FOOD, oh my god).  It is sometimes hard being away from friends and family and DK and I can get annoyed with each other over the stupidest things.  But I am so so happy we did this.  We caught a train to Nimes last week and while we ate overlooking the Maison Carree, Eme snoozing in her pousette, I thought, “I am so lucky, so so lucky in this life.”  When else will I get to run along the Rhone in the mornings or have a glass of wine with DK at noon on a Tuesday under a tree in Villeneuve or dance with my daughter in our little kitchen to “Blackbird” while DK laughs, filming us?  I mean, probably that last one, yes.  But I am so happy to have a slower life right now, a pace that allows for long meandering walks while our baby girl is still so small.  She fills our days, that one, and I could not love her silly goose self more. 

And 17 year old self?  Good call.  On both the boy and the promise. 

[Coming up: It’s not all wine and roses – in which I have to call LA POLICE twice about the asshole idiot who lives next door.]

 
At a rosy ten weeks, our girl Eme is curious and cooing and full of smiles and even (she said very very quietly) sleeping pretty consistently through the night, with one five minute soothe needed from mama around 3 am.  While it takes us twenty years to get out the door in the morning – read early afternoon – our worst fears are slowly dissipating.  You know, the fears that she’ll break at any moment or that our relationship is ruined forever or that we are doing it all wrong.  Please note, by we, I really mean me (DK had his own set of despairing moments, but he tends not to hyperbolize those moments into Definitive Titles of Failure.).

But all that was fine – it was, of all things, the first trip to the pediatrician that did me in.  Because the doctor’s office was only a five minute walk away and we had yet to purchase a stroller, DK plunked our little rag doll into the Baby Bjorn to carry her.  It was a freezing cold day in February so we had the hood over her head and her little face was mushed up against his chest and . . . well, I had a full on panic attack on a Tribeca street corner, tears streaming down my face, hyperventilating and hating DK with every fiber of my being because I was sure, absolutely certain, she was suffocating and he was just walking all chirpy and happily across the street.  (Note: she was 100% fine). Then there was the woman on the subway next to DK who dared cough near my baby.  Cough! On the subway! As if she was the jerk who decided to take a newborn onto the train.  I slipped on big Jackie-O sunglasses (in February.) to hide my tears and walked a few yards away, but started hiccupping until DK came over and held my hand and showed  me Eme’s face.  Her breathing little face. 

Then there was the lesser, vanity-driven episodes.  I loved being pregnant, I loved my baby belly, I felt strong and healthy and felt proud walking through the gym doing my little low-key stairmaster and hand weights, sharing smiles with the female trainers as I took the stairs down to the street level one at a time.  And then I had the baby and suddenly I was just . . . poochy.  My butt suddenly seemed much larger without the enormous baby bump to set it off, and my stomach was no longer a firm balloon, but a deflated sac and my boobs --  my god.  The day my milk came in, I made the mistake of peeking at myself in the mirror on the way to the shower. My painfully engorged breasts made Heidi Montag’s latest surgery look tasteful and restrained.  So, hormone crazed, I cried, snuffling wetly on DK’s neck that I was so . . . so hideous!  That I’d never look normal again, ever, never, ever.    

I wish I could tell myself of two months ago to chill the f*** out, to be easier on myself, to get some perspective – but I’m sure she wouldn’t have listened anymore than she listened to DK or her logical brain telling her exactly that (“Self: You JUST HAD A BABY, relax!”).  But things got better, and better quickly.  Having DK in the apartment with me all day, every day was a luxury (even during the moments we both wanted to kill each other after two straight rainy days in a row because, GOD, can we GET A LITTLE SPACE IN THIS HERE JOINT?) (also: we are both stubborn and bossy and I maybe had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to not being the only parent and maybe DK had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to me being 100% baby obsessed and occasionally looking at him like, “and you are . . .?”).  But when Eme had a little bout of crying two hours straight between 6-8pm every night for about two weeks, I could pass her to him and take a walk.  And I could shower everyday.  And cook dinner.  And go meet a friend for lunch in high heeled boots and lipstick.  Our life contracted, it shifted, but I felt most of the time like we were doing pretty good.  Lots of friends came by and visited, hanging out for hours talking and laughing and drinking wine.  We went out at least once a day, a few times out to dinner at a local favorite restaurant with Eme snoozing on my lap in a nest of coats, and once we got a stroller, I toodled around solo mio through the city while DK worked at home, stopping in cafes and doing little shops and just . . . walking around, enjoying not being at work on a Tuesday afternoon or using my blackberry except to snap quick photos of our girl to send around.   

And our girl.  Oh our girl.  She is something else. 

I'm happy we survied those first few weeks and I hope when we do this again, I'll remember better, be smarter, be gentler with myself and with DK, be less defensive.  I was so afraid of failing her in some inexplicable way, of not doing a good job, I made mountains out of molehills on too many occassions.  Keep her safe, keep her fed, keep her happy -- and keep living your life.  Simple, right?  Maybe more so than I thought. 

And, drumroll, Miss Emerson Arouet Garland H__ is here! (Yes, we went big with the names.  Talk to my husband).  I’ve been meaning to post, meaning to post, but the first six nine weeks of her life have been pretty much devoted to, well, her.  I am a mama now; that fact still blows my mind.  There’s too much to write, to process, to try to weakly articulate, so I’m going legal-style and organizing by topic and posting each separately (including the chapter: We Just Decamped to the South of France, OMG).  First things first:

BIRTH. 

The day before her eviction proceedings commenced:

I had been so sure, so certain that this baby was coming early.  I felt it in my bones.  I went to far as to tell my parents and parents-in-law a delivery date that was perhaps an ooch more optimistic than what my doctor had guessed, a date that DK’s entire family counted on when purchasing tickets from California and Oregon to visit, a date I had informed everyone at work would Be The Day.  You can see where this is going.  In a word, my bones are liars.  Not only did this girl not budge early, but she lingered on and on without any sign of leaving on her actual due date.  My doctor would check my progress at each appointment, shake his head, and say, “well, you’re a tiny bit effaced and maybe just beginning to be dilated – so, well, she can come whenever she wants, but it isn’t likely to be tonight.  Or tomorrow. Or even the day after that.” 

I had secretly looked forward to that moment when I’d gently shake DK awake in bed and whisper knowingly, “It’s happening,” and we’d start all the early labor activities we diligently learned in those endless classes, what with the exercise ball and a bath at the ready.  But all those movie-esque daydreams were basically thrown aside when I sat on the table in the doctor’s office with DK five days past my due date and pleaded with my doctor to please, for the love of god, please induce me already.  After an exceptionally low-key and easy pregnancy, my back had finally began to protest against the bowling ball I was gestating, and damn it, I wanted to get the show on the road already.  He sent us home with instructions to check into the hospital two nights later.  I let out a whoop and kissed DK and told Dr. Leonard he’d made me a very happy woman. 

For those two days, life weirdly went back to normal but with this bizarre clock counting down the remaining time over our heads.  We went out to dinner and ate meatballs and ice cream sandwiches (tick), hung photographs (tock), bought last minute things for the nursery (tick), packed our bags (tock), read (tick), tidied the kitchen (tock).   One the fated Friday night, I made a huge pot of lentil soup, we watched Fringe and looked at each other around 9:15, like, um, so . . . I guess we should go now?  To have a baby?  OMG?  We clutched hands in the elevator, my pillow under one arm and Dakin schlepping the bag, laughed with the doorman that we wouldn’t come back without a baby and went out into the cold, clear February night to hail a cab.  The driver had a little boy, nine years old, best thing he’d ever done.    

At the hospital, after getting checked in and sorted, I lay in bed with a monitor around my belly, an IV in my arm.  The pitocin would start in the morning; they gave me a cervix softener that night.  I felt minor contractions all night long, my eyes fluttering open to watch the monitor numbers arc upwards and back down.  I wasn’t anxious, like I thought I’d be.  Just ready, like the feeling at the beginning of a race, when everyone is milling around their running pace group, popping a stretch or two, listening with half an ear to the forced banter of the MC at the front, waiting, waiting for the crowd to get moving so you can finally pass the start line.  That’s what I felt like. 

On Saturday morning, my doctor came to check on us, broke my water, started me up on the pitocin and we were off.  The contractions started coming, like waves, fast and increasingly intense.  I’d squeeze DK’s hand and breathe through them.  He made jokes I can’t remember now, but I remember laughing between the waves of pain.  A few nurses mentioned the epidural and around noon, I got it put in – and wow.  WOW.  I had been vaguely nervous about the whole injection-into-your-spine thing, but you know, the IV was sort a bigger pain in the ass.  Seriously, it was no big deal - who'd a thought?  And then there was the no pain thing.  Life was good.

But for all the joy of the epidural, it also slllloooowwwed down labor.  Like a lot.  I’d been fast and furious with the contractions and now I was too relaxed.  I took a little nap.  I did some crossword.  The doctor came in to find me deep into The Age of Innocence.  They upped the pitocin.  And then, hey boy, did I begin to feel something again.  I hadn’t increased the epidural amount one whit because I didn’t want to slow things down any more than they already had, so when I went into “transition” mode – well, let’s just say I was really extremely thrilled to see the anesthesiologist again. 

The rest happened so quickly.  Her head dropped down, the doctor checked and quickly went to change into his scrubs, the nurse held one leg and DK the other and I started to push.  And push!  And 27 minutes later, our girl was born and put into my arms.  Our amazing, gorgeous girl.  Emerson.  Eme.  Little Goose. 

Next: Surviving the First Month and We Just Moved to France For Two Months, Are We Insane? (Hint: Nope!)

Happy 2011!  So I took a little sojourn of many (many) months – I’ve been thinking of this space and wanting to write again, so here I am.  Life has continued apace since February 2010 and D and I brought in the newest year feeling extraordinarily lucky for so many things.  Lots of love, good careers, happy apartment, healthy family, nutball cat . . . and (drumroll) I am stupendously, enormously, pregnant.  Huzzah! 

To recap the last year from my pregnancy-centered viewpoint: we had a loss at 9 weeks early last February that knocked the wind out of my sails in a big way that month – and frankly, March wasn’t so great either.  By April, though, we were running out on the Westside highway, going fast, and I looked out over the water in the hard, spring sun and felt good.  Strong.  Healthy. A good, thumping song came on my ipod and I started sprinting, stretching out my legs as far as they’d go, and just running, like you do when you’re a kid, with abandon. 

May came and I was suddenly so slammed with work, I cried in the mornings that my window of ovulation was ruined, ruined! because of the late nights, early mornings, no sleep, bad timing.  I brandished my calendar at D accusingly (very enticing, as you can imagine).  Having mentally crossed out April as a dud baby-wise, we went away to Vieques for our anniversary and swam in the ocean at sunset the night we arrived, shouting out over the waves, “THANK YOU JUDGE ____, THANK YOU [PARTNER WHO DRIVES ME CRAZY], THANK YOU [CLIENT], THANK YOU STUPID BRIEF!” (all of without whom such trips would not be possible).  We drank many rum drinks and read by the pool and ate like kings.  It was one of the best trips we’ve had in a long time.

Ten days later, on June 1^st, during a run back home, I actually said with annoyance to D because I was ready to start charting anew: “It’s totally weird I haven’t gotten my period yet.”  Yes, gentle readers, I was an idiot. Very happily so.  A few weeks later, we got to hear the strong hummingbird heartbeat and see a  wiggling little mass on the sonogram screen and it was a moment of perfect unalloyed joy. 

This all feels a little Hallmark, but things have been smooth as pie.  No vomiting, no strong food aversions, no overwhelming smell issues, no stretch mark, no sciatica issues, no heartburn.  I took some EPIC naps my first trimester, but have been feeling remarkably good as this girlie has grown from a speck to a welter weight five pounder.  That being said, at 36 weeks, I am REALLY READY NOT TO BE PREGNANT ANYMORE.  I can’t believe my stretched-thin belly.  I can't believe how hard it is to put on tights in the morning.  I can’t believe how strong she’s gotten – those kicks and left hooks are not messing around (and is that an actual heel protruding through my skin?)  Mother nature is very wily: while the prospect of labor is a little terrifying and being, gulp, parents even more so, pregnancy is so damn long that the anticipation ultimately outweighs the worries.  I’ve taken to asking the kicking one is she’d do her mama a solid by coming a week or so early.  My doctor yesterday, however, informed me that while things are “softening up,” I’m not dilated at all.  And she is still chilling up high in my uterus (head down, but she has not dropped, leading all sorts of random strangers to inform me knowingly that I am having a boy) (“A girl!” I insistently chirp, but they just smugly shake their head at me) (see also: people are nuts).  Sadly, my doctor told me he doesn’t even need to see me for another two weeks.  Well, shoot. 

I suppose it is for the best – the girlie can pack on some more pounds, develop those lungs – and we can actually prepare for her arrival in meaningful ways, like setting up the crib that is still in an enormous box in our hallway.  The problem is that the now-to-be-nursery has been D’s study and thesis-central for the last few years.  This translates to there being roughly 1000+ heavy art books housed therein.  So last month we finally pulled the trigger on ordering some bookshelves to install around our apartment and made an elaborate plan about how the fiction section will get moved to the bedroom and the reference to the column nook and the longer shelves to replace the shorter shelves and blah blah blah.  But apparently these super-special shelves are only available in Europe (of course they are) and are being shipped via candle-powered canoe and will arrive whenever they arrive.  I exaggerate only a little.  We’ve done what we can in the meantime – moved D’s clothing from the now-nursery/storage closet into my closet (meaning . . . we are now SHARING A CLOSET) and making sure we have the requisite mountain of stuff I have been informed is necessary for the care of a 8 lb lump of baby.  The breast pump arrived yesterday and we both looked very dubiously at those suction attachment thingies. 

It’s the big unknown, parenthood.  D and I have talked a fair amount about big picture philosophies and the importance of keeping our bond as strong as possible and I’m reading this book and that book and getting this piece of advice to weigh against that piece of advice and we’ve been to the classes and watched videos and asked questions.  All of it makes me think that at the end of the day, it’ll be some mix of instinct, the baby’s personality and trial and error of some of the proffered techniques. 

We have thrown caution to the wind in one big way and are committed (agreements signed, money wired) to up and leaving NYC to live in the south of France for two months when she is about two months old.  It’s something we’ve talked about for years and after talking to our doctor and spending hours upon hours to find what we hope is the right place (2-bedroom + office + big terrace in the center of Avignon), we are going for it.  Foolhardy?  Probably.  But I don’t know when we’ll have this type of opportunity to be so foolhardy again.  So?  Done and done.  Southern France.  Two months.  With our infant daughter.  Whee!  Hope you are well and 2011 is merry and bright. 

Photographic evidence of The Belly (on my 35th birthday at 33 weeks):

Thank you for your sweet comments.  I have to say, I felt so much better for having written down something honest about how I'm feeling about the loss and put it out there and it sparked a much needed heart-to-heart with DK.  He asked me yesterday that I take it down and I understand and respect his wish. 

But I realized how important it is for me to keep writing and why I have this little neglected blog in the first place.  So I won't be a stranger.  And really, your kindness buoyed my spirits -- thank you. 

---------
On a more light-hearted note:

We've been hearing for the past week about the impending five-alarm threat of a Wild and Woolly Winter Wonderland for Wednesday.  The federal courts closed.  Meetings were canceled intermittently through the day.  State courts closed.  In anticipation, I packed up my computer and work papers Tuesday night with secret glee in my heart because SNOW DAY!  But  I woke up to sort of tepid flurries and mere inches covering the rooftops during which I half-heartedly considered schlepping to the office.  But after a lackluster start, the snow started falling in earnest around noon and the whole sky became a swirling mass of gray.  I loved reading My Side of the Mountain as a little girl -- anyone remember?  The little boy who runs away and lives in a burned out tree and trains a falcon and survives on algae?  The idea of being snug at home while the elements storm around just deeply satisfies me on some level and I get very "nesty" and feel the urge to make a huge mess of hearty soup and banana nut bread and snuggle on the couch with a book. 

My day, however, mainly consisted of sitting at the dining room table on a series of boring conference calls.  Would you like to hear about my progress on various witness prep binders and how to respond to a motion to disqualify?  No?  Me either.  But after that nonsense subsided, it turned out to be exactly the hoped-for satisfying, nesty day and I made this absurdly delicious Italian wedding soup my mother-in-law sent; holy chicken meatballs, batman, yes.  Less fortuitously, because I am susceptible to food articles and read Mark Bittman's recipe in yesterday's paper, I began to toy with the idea of whole-wheat muffins.  I compounded this glaring mistake by mentioning the possibility of such wholesome goodness to DK.  Having never met a whole grain he didn't like, DK convinced me to throw my planned delectable banana nut bread asunder for . . . whole wheat hockey pucks. 

Don't get me wrong, the batter tasted good -- 1/2 cup of butter, mashed banana, coconut and crushed pecans will make anything yummy -- but the consistency was bizarre and off-putting and I glowered at the lump of time-consuming dough (DOUGH, she stressed, not batter.  Dense, unyielding dough).  The end result was less deplorable than I anticipated, but even tarted up with nutella, they were . . . not good.  I started to leave a chiding, underhandedly dismissive note on Bittman's blog on the NYT before my blackberry crapped out -- which is probably for the best.  (ALTHOUGH, I have had conflicted feelings about Bittman ever since he made me physically uncomfortable with his shameless creepy old man flirting with hottie Spanish actress Claudia on PBS's On The Road) (ALSO, I have heard really unflattering things about him from friends in the cookbook publishing industry and I think it is telling that The Wednesday Chef who I once shamelessly grilled at a wedding shower refuses to make any of his recipes).  (ALSO, I have always disliked those How To Make Everything books since I suffered through law school with a friend who religiously followed the recipes and produced lots of mediocre food that I felt I had to effusively praise since (1) it was food I didn't have to cook and (2) it was kind of sweet how proud he was of making tomato sauce) (she said like a condescending ass).  Anyway, those crappy muffins did not help Bittman's cause in my heart. 

So I evidently have some rather strongly-conflicted feelings about Mark Bittman.  Also in that pile: John Mayer (like his music; wish he would never speak aloud again); Katie Couric; Caitlin Flanagan (so sanctimonious, so self-congratulatory, yet an undeniably talented writer); Scarlet Johansen; Mariah Carey (actually, no, her inability to wear clothes that fit her body puts her in the not-conflicted-do-not-like category).  In a separate pile, celebrities who I randomly root for reasons unknown: Gwyneth Paltrow (I know, I know, but I cannot hear one word against her); Britney Spears; Sienna Miller (I loved her in Keen Eddie, what can I say?).

But I suppose I was sort of a dogmatic child -- Coke, not Pepsi; McDonald's, not Burger King; Luke Duke, not Bo.  I'd go into Baskin Robbins and order a scoop of vanilla because I felt sorry for it (and disliked chocolate on principle because everyone liked lame old undeserving chocolate).  What about you?  Any weird loyalties to corporate giants whose clever marketing campaigns must have worked like a champ?  (Really, I thought Coke and McDonald's needed a helping hand?) 

You guys, whoa.  This month, I tell you what.  And how. 

Anyway, the why involves the work, but also the see this and do that and visit here.  Anyway, I can't rub two brains cells together enough to even figure out WHAT in tarnation I've actually been up to (though I could check my billing reports if you are curious. Let's see, last Wednesday I spent 1.2 hr doing the following: "Conference call with R. Matheton and J. Wolfe regarding oustanding issues and preparation for hearing") (this is just one example of the thrilling records I keep during the course of a day). 

But this is the real news. I'm on a plane to SF right this minute for depositions on Monday and Tuesday.  As a side note, to gauge how I feel about this, you should know I woke DK up on Saturday morning around 4:30 am to tell him I was "a serious serious bundle of nerves, darlin'."  But the good news is that my depo Tuesday is done by 3:00 and I'll have six and half glorious hours to be in my old hometown before I need to leave for my red-eye home.  Um, anyone have some good ideas?  It's been WAY long since I lived there and had thought about seeing the New deYoung and walking around my old neighborhoods and calling some old pals -- anything else a must do SF-ers?

xo N