where the concrete is less concrety, and the real estate is less surreal.

T., sometimes I wish I could look into the future and see what kind of girl you'll be. Will you hate us for taking you away from San Francisco, probably out of California as well? Will you criticize us for not making it work, will you mock your Dad's impressive imitation of Arnold's reference to the "California dream"* and wonder why we pulled up stakes? What I know about you so far, T., suggests that you'll understand: you love being outside, you love trees, you love to explore (now on foot, most of the time), and like us, I think you need a little less concrete and a little more green in your life. I'm still a little shaken from yesterday's police activity--the sirens, the cops, the gun--so maybe this is just the stress talking. You were content in your stroller and didn't seem to notice the swarm around us, or our brisk walk home as I tried to chart a route that would bypass the guy-lose-in-neighborhood-waving-gun, but now reflecting on it, I wonder why should this be part of our day? I always thought that the test of our mettle would come when it was time for you to start school, but T., I'm already wearing out.

We're not going anywhere just yet, little girl, but the time will come. We'll end up out of this bubble, somewhere where you and your cat can have a dog (she'll love that) and homegrown vegetables. It's hard to imagine the teenage you being pissed--I'm stuck with the picture of this weekend's you just starting to roll your tongue around the word "no"--but still, try to be easy on us. Wherever it is, it won't be Agrestic.

*If you mentioned the Iowa dream, nobody would know what you're talking about, but the Cal-i-forn-ia dream, now that means something.

A dying breed?

Apparently there are only 11 woolen mills left in the US. I've been looking around for a place to turn some raw wool into yarn and/or other wool products. Now I know why it was so hard to find a mill. Back about 3o years ago, it sounds like you could've snatched up a failing New England mill for a song, just another example of opportunity passing me by. Will add to the list along with that whole dot-com thing.

Aside from the publication linked-to above, I'm interested in finding some agriculture/wool industry periodicals. This might be the perfect melding of my geographic, librarianly + crafty tendencies to date.

I was the recommender.

One of my hopes when I became a librarian was that I would always have an answer to the question "can you recommend something?" When I was an unattached graduate student, I had what seemed like endless time to soak up news and events, and read journals and reviews, and basically cultivate a few stock answers to that question as well as some subject-specific ones. This was back before amazon was amazon and there were few algorithms to sort your purchases and spit back a recommendation. Now I'm constantly taken aback by such questions, like last night when my mom wanted to borrow something for the airplane or this morning when a colleague asked for ideas on how to spend an unexpected windfall in my area--geography.

My proudest recommendation, Norman Bel Geddes' Magic Motorways, was offered back at my old job as a librarian in a public library where you never knew what could come your way. This is an incredible book that that can cover requests across many areas: geography, california/los angeles, history, urban development, highways, cars, design, weird corporate stuff (he designed the GM pavilion for the 1939 world's fair), theater (he designed sets), and general "give me something strange and random that I haven't seen before" queries. It's in the spirit of the finds at the Prelinger library described in that recent Harper's Article (this might be the only reason that I miss pumping--the time to catch up with Harpers and the New Yorker).

So, you heard it here, one belated New Year's resolution: get back my status as the recommender. It's the most fun part of being a librarian. I hope I can send something as gratifying as Magic Motorways in your direction. Please, request away.

(oops, edited to delete lame, sleep-deprivation-induced typo).

School pics.

One unexpected benefit of daycare: freaking cute school pictures.

maneuvers

If you had asked me yesterday (or even this morning) what was hardest part of being a mother, I would have answered handily: time. There is no time to do anything I used to do. I have no idea how I turned out the last post--I wasted a lot of time at work and made use of the slim hour between dinner and bedtime. So, time. That's what I would have said, but this afternoon as we made our way from the train to the car, I noticed this note on the windshield:

Hey Jackass-
nice fucking job.
Next time be
considerate. Not
everyone drives
a POS like you.
Someone is likely to
Vandalize
your car if you
continue to
Park like such

an

ASSHOLE!
Have a nice day.

I was really taken aback and was close to tears, especially when I realized what "POS" meant. And that's when "time" got knocked out of its number one place to be replaced by "forced adult reserve" or some such sensibility. It's really hard to keep calm when all you want to do is shout obscenities all the way home, but it also felt really important--particularly for something random and strange like this--that I not freak out on T.

So we made it home, I parked in a spot that could earn me another note, we made it through the bedtime rituals and here I am, still feeling a little threatened, but not so pissed anymore. For the record, my parking job was excellent this morning, a sweet parallel park in a tiny space with a centimeter or so of space on either side of my bumper. In New York he'd have applauded me. I guess I'll be left to wonder which SUV driver left the note.

The little girl turns one, and I reflect.

T. , last night I sensed you were reliving the events of one year ago. Around midnight on May 2, 2006, I went to the bathroom and saw a bit of blood (the bloody show!) and a bit of mucous (the mucous plug!), just like I read about in the how-to-birth-a-baby guides. Last night around the same time you let out a few yelps. After weeks of complete silence between the hours of 7 and 4, it felt significant. You didn't want to be awake just like last year. This morning you woke up around 4, right around the time my bag o' waters broke last year. You nursed and went back to sleep. You woke up for good around 5:30, and this is where the stories diverge. I understand that you'd want to maximize the hours of daylight on your birthday--you might remember that you didn't get to see much of May 3rd last year...

Little girl, my notes from last year are vague, but I will reconstruct the events of May 3, 2006 to the best of my ability. After the water-breaking, your Dad and I went back to bed. It was barely morning and we couldn't yet face the ticking clock, the fact that one way or another you'd be out in 24 hours. Dad wanted to call the hospital and play it by the book, but I was really paranoid about the "hijacking of my birth experience." T., this is the influence of life in NorCal. Not all Bayareans are this way, but your mom, like many converts to a new cause, fixated on this one idea. Fortunately your Dad is a lot more rational and by 7 or so called the hospital. We were told that we didn't have to hurry as contractions hadn't really started yet, but should arrive in an hour or so. I stalled and stalled, took a long shower, sent out an email to all of your "aunties", something to the effect of "it looks like today is gameday." Later I would regret sending the email out so soon, but at the time I didn't expect to be back home.

By 8:15 the contractions were 8-9 minutes apart and we made it to the hospital around 8:45. We scored the premium "woman in labor" parking and headed up to the top floor. They gave me some juice and stuck us in a terrible little windowless intake room. I can't remember if I was still pissed at your Dad for dragging me in so soon, and "enabling the hospital to potentially hijack my birth experience," but I remember it all being pretty mellow. They hooked me up to a monitor and the contractions were mellow and infrequent. We noticed that there was another screen in the room, live from one of the labor rooms and following the labor of a woman whose initials were incidentally E.R. (we could actually see her whole name which was weird). We laughed about it, thinking of the weird privacy implications, but it was a nervous laugh because with each spike we remembered that we'd be there ourselves soon enough.

By 10:20 a proper exam room opened up and the doctor was just about to take a look and confirm the state of things when her pager beeped and she went off to deliver a baby. About a half an hour later, she returned with a clean top and blood-splattered pants. I think your Dad noticed this--somehow I hadn't thought about the blood yet. Anyway, she was very nice and gave us permission to go home unless we wanted to stay and induce things. I was so so glad to be able to leave, and so by 11 we were on our way home. Our instructions were to be back when contractions were 5 minutes apart or by 6 pm.

We got home around 11:30, unloaded some stuff from the car and made some toast. This is when I wished I hadn't sent that email because the phone started ringing, everyone wanted to wish us good luck, but honestly it was killing the vibe. Anyway, your Dad remembered some bit from the Bradley book, something about a comfortable resting position and suggested I lay down. I remember being really confused because I remembered a different page, something about how nice it is to walk and how that can get things moving. I tried to comply but was really really uncomfortable on the bed so we decided to go for a walk. We had no real destination but set off in the direction of Bernal Hill. The last time we had headed that way a few days before, I bird shat on my shoulder, clearly a sign of good things to come. Dad brought a pencil and paper to record the contractions and each time one came, I would slow down and hold onto his arm. After it passed we would keep going.

T., it was an incredible walk. This May 3 is proving to be a bit dreary, but last year, it was the most beautiful spring day in San Francisco. As we walked, we noticed new things about the neighborhood like the way multiple ice cream men hover outside of (more like barricade) the grammar schools waiting for the kids to be picked up. Before we knew it we were almost to the top of Bernal Hill. It was around 3 pm. The contractions were closing in on 5 minutes, but I insisted we keep going because I thought they might slow down when we got home and I was starting to worry about our 6 pm deadline. We neared the top of the hill, we took in the view, and although we were nervous, we were also really happy, and I thought that no matter what happened in the next few hours, I would always be so grateful for this interlude.

We didn't want to press our luck so we headed home and got there close to 3:30. Things did slow down a little bit, but Dad started talking about returning to the hospital. He finally convinced me to let him load up the car, and I insisted he take his time. I wanted to wait as long as possible because I knew there would be no turning back this time and I wanted to savor every minute we had to experience this on our own. He went to load the car and I went to bathroom and suddenly we both knew: we had waited about 15 minutes too long. During one of our appointments, when we asked the midwife how we would know when it was time to go to the hospital, she said we would just know. And we did, but like I said, maybe a few minutes too late. Something about the time 4:40 sticks in my head--I think that was when we got in the car. The part of my brain that was still able to do math shut down when I began realize that the drive was about 20 minutes and that could mean 4-5 contractions in the car. The reality of natural childbirth became clear around this time. Really, there aren't words to describe what it's like to have contractions in a car. As we rounded the last corner towards the hospital, Dad and I checked in with one another. He asked me how I was feeling about the no pain meds. At that point I was still on board.

Around 5, we arrived at the hospital, parked in the woman-in-labor parking again, headed up to the top floor. Somehow I declined the offer of a wheelchair because it still felt better to stand. (Did I claw at the walls of the elevator? Maybe.) We got to the desk in time to score the primo birthing room, the corner suite with panoramic views of the Golden Gate and the bay. Dad went down to move the car to longer term parking and I got to know the nurse. I gripped the table as I admired the view for what would be the first and only time and I gave her some details. Dad says I was completely naked by the time he came back and that may be true. I don't remember. Somewhere in there our midwife came in (when we had seen her for the last time the day before, she said, "I can't tell you what you really want to know--when this baby will come," but on our way out she also said, "fyi, I'm on call Wednesday and Thurday."), and checked my dilation. It was around 4 cm. She also noticed the New Yorker sticking out of our bag and chuckled to herself.

T., this is when it starts to get hazy. Our nurse filled up the bath. I was in for about 1 contraction when I realized that the jets (and essentially the whole premise of us choosing this hospital--ooh, a bath with jets!) were exactly the wrong thing. Your dad had to wrench me out as the next one came along. That was when the anesthesiologist came in and introduced herself. We were both way too curt and even a little rude--why did we need to meet her when we were all nat-u-ral? Somewhere in this time, we overheard the nurse, the midwife and the anesthesiologist talking about how they had all either given birth at home/were born at home (the anesthesiologist delivered by her grandmother).

And then I was sitting on the toilet, puking all over your Dad. It felt like it had only been 10 minutes and maybe 3 contractions since we'd arrived when I told Dad that I was done. It was probably at least an hour and I knew all about the doubting thoughts of transition but couldn't believe that this was it. The very perceptive nurse brought the midwife back in (midwife: "but I just checked her." nurse: "just check again."). She checked and first said 6-7 cm, but then quickly corrected herself and said 8. I thought to myself "she's totally lying" and "it's totally working." The nurse started talking up the wonders of nitrous and brought the anesthesiologist back in. She agreed to set me up with it without an IV. T., this stuff is excellent. Really excellent. And really nice removed from the context of the dentist's office. When a bad contraction came, I would inhale and when things got fuzzy, I would drop the mask. Trippy.

Our favorite nurse went off duty around 7:30 and I remember as she left she called it for 8. I made the mistake of looking at the clock. Never look at the clock. Wrecks the vibe. The new nurses spent a lot of time filling out paperwork and didn't interact with us much. Dad held me and walked with me. I wasn't connected to any monitors and I remember them trying to find your heartbeat. They couldn't and I couldn't handle the feeling of the monitors on me. They kept confusing my heartbeat and yours and things started to get a little tense. The midwife came in again at some point and sorted things out. You were much lower than they thought and it was all okay. She also gave the okay to push if I felt the urge. I thought to myself "why would I ever want to push?"

And then I did.

Sometime around then, I remember seeing them set up a table with all this equipment. They set up a little bassinet/warming station on the other side of the room and I thought I must be close. I also remember that one by one all of the soothing techniques we learned about were totally wrong. First the bath was out, then the ball, then massages or music or snacks. I was vomiting with every contraction and all I could handle were some ice chips and some hits of nitrous.

At first the urge to push was minimal. They sat me on a birthing stool on the floor and it felt awkward, but I went with it. I remember consciously not pushing that hard. It just hurt too much. As this was going on, the midwife rushed in and was all "no no no." She helped the nurses arrange the bed so I could sit on the stool on the bed, set up the squat bar, and your Dad lifted me up off the floor. This was probably close to 8 pm. I remember wondering what happened to that "rest period" after transition and before pushing. I was just so wrecked and pushing hurt way more than I expected.

Suddenly it all started to make sense. It wasn't the biggest shit of my life, it was a baby emerging just like they say. The midwife led me through--some big pushes, some short slow ones. It was really hard to commit to a push because there was just no relief. She asked me if I wanted to see your head and I just couldn't deal with it. I'm sorry I didn't, but I just couldn't handle the visual then. She said you had hair and she rubbed your head a little bit. I was so jealous of her calm. She said to push again and I told her that I couldn't, that I couldn't hurt myself, I couldn't tear myself open. She was comforting but stern--I just had to do it. And at that moment, visions of Ina May's book came to me. T., this may be more than you ever want to hear from your mom, but I remembered the bit about the birth orgasm. I was convinced it was a myth, but the possibility was there. Just the thought of it got me past my fear and so I pushed one last time and you were born. The feeling of you emerging was profound, far from orgasmic, but a profound relief. At 9:01 pm, you slid out into the world (just like in that birth class film "Birth in the Squatting Position"), the midwife whipped the cord around your head and lay your little body on me.

There you were, so small and beautiful. It was several minutes before we thought to check if you were a girl or a boy. I had been convinced that you were a boy, but you weren't, you aren't, you're this incredible little girl.

T., the aftermath still makes me sad so I'll be brief. They whisked you away because you weren't breathing well and I made your Dad go with you. I have seen too many TV movies and didn't want anyone to kidnap you or switch you. But then I was all alone and there was so much blood and stitches. I noticed blood on the ceiling--was that mine? When they were done with me, I realized it was almost 11 pm and I hadn't called your Grandma (it was 2 am for her) to tell her that she had a granddaughter. We talked for a little while but then the nurses insisted that I go to the bathroom. Why was it so far from the bed? They helped me up and I promptly passed out. When I came to, they were inserting an IV, hydrating me and filling we up with pitocin to make my uterus contract. I was so confused--I never expected it to go like this after you were born. Your dad came in to check on me and tell me about you and was just as confused, but I made him go back to you so you weren't alone.

By midnight we were all together as we have been ever since.

T., this is the story of how you arrived. This is just the first of many stories you've given us. Happy Birthday, little girl. It's been an incredible year. I can't wait to see what else you have in store for us.