savagemama

You may have guessed from my silence and the fact that I wrote most recently about eating a hamburger in the middle of the night that I might be carrying around a tiny secret.

Someone recently confronted me, “Only 16-year-old boys and pregnant women have cravings like that.” Arms crossed in front of her she waited for my confession. “Well, I’m not a 16-year-old boy,” I said.

Yes, it’s true. My little secret is growing bigger everyday forcing me into fashion-tragic pants with elastic waists and keeping me from eating almost everything. You guessed it. This Savagemama is pregnant. Knocked up. I’m in the family way, I’ve got a bun in the oven. [Read More]

As I lay in bed the other night tossing and turning, I finally rolled onto my stomach and looked out the window. I sighed and announced to Seth, as though he couldn’t already tell, that I was wide awake.

“I can’t sleep,” I said in the darkness of our room.

“Why?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m hungry.”

It was 10:30 p.m. and we had eaten dinner a few hours before but lying there I couldn’t stop wondering if the hamburger we’d had leftover from the night before was still in the fridge.

“Do you want something to eat really?” he said.

“Is that hamburger from last night still in the fridge or did you take it for lunch?”

“It’s still there with potatoes. Do you want it?”

“I don’t want to get up,” I said even though I knew I wasn’t going to sleep until I ate something.

“If you are hungry, you should eat. Do you want me to go get it?”

I lay there silent.

“Well?” he said.

I did want the hamburger and I did not want to get out of bed and this man, my man, was offering to go downstairs in the dark chill to heat it up and bring it to me. In that moment I decided I could probably live with the guilt that might come with saying yes.

[Read More]

Last week I took Eliza to our local library for story time. When we arrived I was surprised to see at least 40 other children younger than three years, their parents in tow, settling in for songs and stories – which is to say they were ricocheting off each other like pin balls.  As soon as we stepped into the large, carpeted room, Eliza was trying to twist free of my grasp. There were, after all, children to meet, adults to smile at. Before I knew it she was lost in a sea of little people checking things out.

Eliza, I’m learning, is not shy. In this, Seth says, she is like her mother. Truth be told, I am not very shy. I completely annoy Seth in restaurants because I stare – stare and eavesdrop. I tell him it’s not my fault the woman at the next table chose such a public place to talk about her divorce or that the people across the room, clearly on a first date, are so nervous they are giggling awkwardly and drawing attention to themselves. Every time we go out to eat, I start off minding my own business, I tell him. I can’t help it that these compelling stories are placed in my path. He usually tells me I’m full of it and when we leave I give him the run down of everyone within earshot of our table.

What can I say? People fascinate me. [Read More]

There are days I feel exceptionally greedy.

Today is one of those days.

I want and want and want for no other reason than I want. I want Eliza to take a nap. I want to eat three meals today and to not have a gnawing in my gut or the head-spinning anxiety that hunger brings. I want a long, hot bath without the dog scratching at the door. I want to sit and read something for longer than five drowsy minutes before I fall asleep at night. I want the bills to pay themselves.

I want a close relationship with my happy, well-adjusted child and I want it to be easier. [Read more]

When I landed in Eugene, Oregon at 23 ready (I thought) to embark on graduate school I wondered what my classmates might be like. Here’s what I knew to be true from the information packet I’d received: there would be six of us, all women, from all over the country. One woman had been a teacher in Samoa, one had an English degree, one was moving from New York where she’d worked as a book editor, one was coming from the best journalism school in the country and one worked with at an alternative high school.

As a whole they seemed like world traveling, smarty-pants and scary deal makers, far older than me, and, I was sure, wiser. I was a newspaper reporter from the South with an affection for southern literature. On paper, they terrified me. The morning we were to meet I was so nervous that I went for a 10-mile run before orientation to try and quell my nerves. When I arrived I saw four other women about my age who looked as uneasy and uncertain as I felt. I quietly matched their faces to the bios I’d read and stopped holding my breath. About 15 minutes into a speech from the graduate school director everyone turned to the creak of the door opening. A tall woman with wavy hair and stood to face everyone. She was late and she looked a little taken aback by everyone staring at her. After a few uncomfortable seconds we realized she was our sixth. In a pair of Patagonia shorts and a t-shirt, our book editor had arrived. This just might be okay, I thought. [Read More]

Eliza has never been much of a sleeper. I think she considers it overrated, the hours and hours of lying quietly, sewing together the loose threads of a busy day, letting her body settle into a deep place of restfulness. I think this because at a year old she still hasn’t slept through the night.

I have friends who have newborns, babies just barely six weeks old, who talk about six, seven hour stretches of sleep. At night. I wonder what that feels like. [Read More]

Last night when I got home I handed the baby to Seth and plopped down on the couch. I leaned my head back and felt the full weight of my body sink into the ancient cushions. I was so, so tired. Maybe as tired as I had been those first few weeks of pregnancy or after a really long run, maybe even more tired than that.

I am not pregnant (can you hear that hallelujah chorus, too?) and I’ve not been doing any long runs. I’ve been babysitting for two days in a row and I think it is official the two little creatures I’ve been chasing have worked me over good, sent me down for the count, made me cry mercy.

Thank God these two little girls are cute.

I asked my friend’s child the other day over a snack of cherry tomatoes if she knew any new words.

“Yeah, they’re up there,” she said pointing to a dry erase board with a list of words on it.

She’s not even two. [Read More]

So, they went.

Seth took Eliza to Portland and I survived a quiet weekend alone. As I helped Seth ready Eliza for the trip, I tried to remind myself this was a good idea.

After we put her to sleep that night. I stacked her clothes in Seth’s suitcase. I always over pack for Eliza and this night was no different. I packed several long-sleeved shirts, pants, a dress or two, some short-sleeved onesies and three pairs of shoes. Yes, three pairs of shoes for a child that isn’t even walking. Even while moving around the house matching outfits, finding diapers and bottles of teething tablets, I was still on the fence about this whole endeavor.

During the past 24 hours, I’d called everyone I could think of that might be able to reassure me that sending Eliza to Portland was OK. Everyone thought she’d be fine, that she wouldn’t wean if Seth took breast milk, that it could be an adventure. I was still unsure. [Read More]

Seth is going to Portland this weekend to celebrate the retirement of his papa. I’m staying home. We talked about taking a family trip to Oregon but then remembered we just did that in July and I was back East with Eliza for two weeks in August and like everyone else in Missoula we’ve been booked since Memorial Day, so I decided to sit this one out. I love Seth’s Dad and I’d love to be there to help him celebrate his cutting ties with the corporate world but Seth and I agreed; he should go, Eliza and I should stay.

We agreed, until last week.

Seth started dropping hints about how he and Eliza could go to Portland and what a treat that would be for his dad.

“Why not,” he said. He pointed out I had taken Eliza, more than once, to see my family when he had to stay home. Couldn’t he do the same?

“No,” I said.

“I’ll take breast milk. We’ll be fine,” he said. “Just think you could do whatever you want.” [Read More]

I have a girlfriend that I met when I showed up to her house for a book club someone else had invited me to. I didn’t know who I was looking for as I knocked on the door that night years ago but when she answered I knew we’d be friends. She was hip in a black t-shirt and pixie bangs. She was refreshing. She was open. She offered me a beer, referred to the “feminist perspective” when discussing the book and before I knew it we were exchanging life stories way into the night. I’d just moved to Missoula and when I walked into her house felt, for the first time since I’d been here, like I’d found my people.

I joked at her wedding a few years later that as soon as I met her I knew I wanted to be her friend and that I thought I would just follow her around until she wanted to be mine. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. We hit it off and we’ve been friends ever since I landed on her doorstep. [Read More]