this winter, while more or less house-bound, we’ve been marking our time in music.

noam goes through his exercises once every day, and jasper has been following along with his “practice violin” (a cardboard box and paint-stirrer!).  usually daily practice happens early–before the sun rises and before breakfast–since that’s when everyone seems to be at their best here.  while i bathe or dress or nurse renn before heading out to teach my 8 a.m. class, morty goes through exercises with noam (and jasper).  oftentimes he plays his guitar with them, which has made practicing fun (and funny) for everyone.  i take noam to lessons friday afternoon, and saturday mornings this month we go to group rehearsals:  a huge room full of tiny violins, and players, and jabbing bows.  the wonderful thing about the suzuki method is that parents are actively involved.  we learn as they do.  and the learning happens seemingly by accident.  music is learned by ear, not note-reading.  all of the sudden, noam is playing songs that grew from learning rhythms alone, coupled with a lot of listening to the songs on c.d.  it’s kind of magical sharing this with him.  his second concert, but first big concert, is this sunday at the university.

jasper is adorable:

at the end, he says something like:  “the author goes in 7, 7,” meaning, the author died in 2007.

generally, this winter both boys are…becoming, becoming, becoming.  something familiar, the people they have always been, the people i knew immediately in the minutes after their births, but more vividly– and in much sharper contrast to one another.  they are becoming their own people in the world, in relation to others, and it’s so incredible to witness them filling out and taking shape in their own ways.  jasper is headstrong, temperamental, particular, and verbal; noam is accommodating, empathetic, capable, and competitive.  they are very different physically in the world, though they enjoy similar kinds of play.  they are both verbal kids, but they seem to use speech for different purposes (jasper tends to use it more to exert his will or to demonstrate how he is different than/separate from others, whereas noam seems to use talk to bond with others, to make sure he’s understanding and, in some ways, pleasing others).  much of this has to do with their ages, of course, and some has to do with their birth order, of course.

and baby renn, our gassy, giggling bed bug:

no teeth yet.  no solid foods yet.  he’ll be six months in about two weeks.  he is such a sweet thing.  big, open-mouthed smiles.  greets new faces excitedly with quickened breath and reaching fat fists and fingers.  good sleeper, good nurser, good little spirit.  thinks noam’s face is hilarious.  is most ticklish under his chin.  wakes himself with his own farts.  happiest when being undressed and free of cumbersome clothes.

dirty dog

this afternoon while changing renn’s diaper, jasper ran into my bedroom, bit my ass, and yelled, “see you later, dirty dog.”

death and christmas

“is it ever still christmas if everyone is dead?” 

noam just asked this. 

…

 

holiday

christmas morning, 6:00

light-sabers

car track

christmas eve., morty and i worked swiftly until about 1 a.m., impossibly finishing christmas wrapping while two bigger boys slept and one little baby boy woke periodically to nurse.  we collapsed into bed and were awoken around 5:45, maybe 6:00, to start the day’s events.  this included christmas at our house, a two-hour commute to des moines for christmas with my mother-in-law and later my own mother.  the night ended at my grandmother’s house, making four christmas celebrations for us in one day.  four christmases + three children under the age of five = ?  chaos?  massive end-of-the-night meltdowns?  we were ultimately pleased with how well everything went.  it helped a lot to have my two brothers entertaining noam and jasper while morty and i passed a dreamy renn back and forth.  and we brought pajamas and toothbrushes to my grandma’s, so that on the commute back to my mother-in-law’s the boys could keep sleeping while we carried them up to bed.  all in all, a warm and happy time with family.  we are incredibly blessed.

beautiful blankets made by my mother-in-law for each boy:

blue:  noam

green:  jasper

red:  renn

 

on forgetting november

November’s cold chain
Made of wet boots and rain
and shiny black ravens
on chimney smoke lanes.
November seems odd–
you’re my firing squad,
November.

i didn’t update the month of november because, i suppose, on some level i knew i wouldn’t want to remember the month of november, month of dreary transition from our vibrant harvest days of babies’ birthdays and butternut squash, our transition from the postpartum babymoon of renn’s infancy to the sleepless, spent, and oftentimes indifferent days of early babyhood.  the hormones have bottomed out, and i am tired.  yes, this is a transition, too, of magical changes as this new person becomes more and more himself–and i am so beyond blessed to be a witness– but now we are contending with colder weather and active older brothers who must get some outdoor social time, which is difficult with a little baby and, quite honestly, very little mama drive for outdoor expeditions.  my oxytocin-induced desire is to cuddle nonstop in bed, leaving me little energy for much other than reading books to the older boys (our favorites this november:  Snowy Day, Bear Stays Up, Snow [my personal favorite--such beautiful images], The First Day of Winter, and Owl Moon).  i also had little energy for grading papers, and that created a lot of anxiety, which created a lot of avoidance, which created a lot of crazy in our house over the month of november and up until this past week when the semester ended.

but now we are officially on holiday.  i get to spend dark winter mornings again in bed with renn and a cup of coffee.  i can write again.  and i’m very much looking forward to a fellowship this early winter at the Obermann Institute.  this is the first time in a long time that i’ll be able to sit with other scholars and talk about ideas.  what a wonderful way to begin the new year and what will, i hope, be the year that i complete my dissertation.

until then,  moments from november worth remembering:

a really beautiful november morning at blue’s house

the day after thanksgiving, hours before our annual thanksgiving flu hit the house

porkchops

oh, october, the tenth and most beautiful of months.  you come and go too quickly every year.  but there have been pumpkin patch visits and apple turnovers and tractor rides over shallow streams on sunday mornings.  and sad little bees.

and beautiful little blue eyes:

and little babes in wraps and all things happy:

a parade this morning and one tomorrow night!–october is the best month.  cooking lots of hearty soups and casseroles, sharing some with friends and taking some to work (yes, i am back at work already–two hours of teaching or writing center work in the morning, plus the 30-minute drive back home).  it is not so bad, but not so easy either.

there is so much more, but i am alone with three boys, ages four and under, so there are meals to be made and games to be played now.  maybe some sleep to be slept.  let’s hope so.  certainly, too, there are papers to grade.  and so, so much more.

morty took this hilarious photo of the two “little” boys while i was teaching and noam was at school.  they are such porkchops:

noam writes

a couple of weeks ago he got his first library card:

then a couple of nights ago while nursing renn in the porchswing i saw very clear chalk inscriptions reading, ‘N O A M’:

harvest party

what a lovely night.  i kept looking around the house, thinking:  how cool all of these wonderful people are here together, talking, sharing some drinks and conversations while their children play together.  ultimately we had about 40–40!–people in our small, cozy cottage house.  and we made all of the food in one day, most of which was made while i was alone with all three boys:  autumn chowder, my grandma’s potato soup, a strawberry cream cake, chocolate brownies, yam/sausage/apple crockpot dish, squash casserole, peach cobbler, pear/bacon/cheese savory turnovers in puff pastry, nuts, artisan bread, brie, etc.  and kids were content, for the most part, so much so that most people stayed until way after dark:

i was hoping it would be an adult-friendly kids’ party, and it was.  i hope this is the first of many, many years of throwing a harvest dinner party for our harvest boys.  what a great night.

harvest time

minutes after renn’s birth

i remember how sacred of a space our bedroom was after noam’s birth.  since that day four years ago, two other babies have come into our family in this space.  it’s also become a space where i spend mornings reading with the older boys, talking with morty late into the night after he returns from work, and nursing little renn by the window.  the light in here now is so beautiful:

it feels like fall here now, though the official first day of autumn is next week, the day of our sons’ harvest dinner party.  morty and i have been planning an autumn-themed meal and i’m just finishing the invitations.  we sent/delivered half of them two mondays ago, but that night i had renn and the rest were derailed:

i hope we have enough food.  over 15 families were invited (or will be)!  the event is just as much for morty and me (social time with adults) as it is for the kids.  i think it’s going to be a great night, if we can pull it together in the days before.

here are a few other photos taken by Iowa City Birth Photography of Renn’s birth and the moments following:

Noam is such a great older brother.  i’ve been so proud of how he’s handling this transition.

here i am working through contractions with morty’s support.  i labored like this the entire time until transition, when i bore down more in a hand-and-knees position.  it was such a smooth, peaceful labor through contractions.  i remember the smell of morty’s skin when i burrowed into his neck at the height of each contraction.  so calming.

still pretty blissed out here at our home.  beautiful weather, healthy children, long, slow days that are almost dream-like.  savoring every minute.

five days

this evening renn will be five days old.  how to express the gratitude i’ve felt this week, i don’t know.  i think it is impossible.  there have been hormones and sleeplessness and unhappy older brothers and arguing mamas and papas and completely neglected cats some hours, some days.  but there have also been breezy, lavender twilights spent nursing sweet renn on the porch, noam chasing a fly-away orange balloon, and jasper pointing at the moon, big-eyed, exclaiming and questioning, “moon!  touch?  moon!  touch?”  there have also been dawns when renn’s adorably staccato chirp wakes me into that dreamy night-nursing state, the sensation of quick wakefulness followed shortly by the perfect contentedness of a little nursling latching on and drinking, drinking, drinking his milk.  there have been mornings like today’s, when before renn wakes to nurse, i hear the muffled conversation between noam and jasper at the breakfast table as morty quietly opens the bedroom door to bring me a cup of coffee and a warm cinnamon roll.  how did i stumble into this blessed life?  there are these, the flowers noam picked and brought me during my labor with renn.  i remember so clearly the smell of marigolds, though i could not open my eyes to look at them:

there is so much right now.  and i’m thankful for all of it, the hours of working through this new rhythm in our home.  five days, five days.