Week 1. - Page 4

[CookieMonsterMommy]

Originally Posted by jennifer williams

i am brand new here and do not understand where the writing assignment is supposed to be written &/0r sent to? jenniferw.

I think we're all new here! As far as I know--and someone correct me if I'm wrong!--you just "join" by posting, and when you write your assignments, you just post one or more up here as is, no editing. (well, that's what I did anyway)

[Calm]

Kelly, that's what I am thinking too. We write on paper at home, with a time limit to make a creative flow happen - which I have found great as I think "too much" with an open time limit. With my first five minute one, I just wrote and found that my writing was no worse (maybe better) than when I pore over it. And then we pick one we would like to share and post it. What happens then is still a mystery to me, but I like mysteries!

[Starflower]

I like the idea of writing again. I've been going bonkers lately because I feel like I never get to do anything for myself. I miss the creative me!

Joining a little late on this but still the 1st week - that's pretty good for me!

[green betty]

I am SO in... I'll post something tomorrow. Yay!

[Angierae]

Two o'clock in the morning and the sheets are wet.
The diaper failed again.
Tiny Baby is rolling side to side trying to find her way out of the wet spot.
Put a blanket under her and stop to think...
Changing all her clothes will wake her up,
and leaving her wet is unacceptable, I think.

Quickly change the diaper in the dark.
Is she still asleep?
(No wonder they leak when I put them on blind!)
Now about the clothes...
I know, just put dry pants under the wet pajamas and leave the pajamas unsnapped.
Thats okay, right?
I think I am allowed to do that.
If I pull anything over her head she'll be up for hours.

Yes! She slept through the whole thing!

Now, lay back down and sneak my arm arround her.
NO! NO! NO!
She woke up.
OK.
Just nurse her back.
She takes forever, savoring each drop,
"smack, smack, gurgle, hmm,"
She is asleep.

Turn over on my back and Older Child picks me up on mommy radar,
"Mommy can I have Boom Booms?"
(What a cute sleeply voice.)
"Of course, Sweetie"
(Did I just say that?)
At last both sides are drained and she rolls away.
At least I don't have to sleep lopsided.

She rolls on top of Wonderful Husband.
"Hey, since you're awake, you wanna fool around?"
Is this a bed or a circus?
"Snort, grunt, chuckle"
Laugh it off and he is asleep again.

Everyone else is asleep.
No one is touching me.
Hey, I even have a pillow!
Eyes wont shut.
Check the time...
Four o'clock in the morning,
and wouldn't you know,
that late afternoon coffee
(the one I "needed" to make it through the evening)
finally kicks in.

[MangoMamma]

Ok. Here goes. :

Home
When my daughter was two months old I took her for a walk in the stroller. We went to the Salvation army to buy baby clothes. I wanted to go to Value Village but it was too long a walk. She wouldn't stop crying so Salvation Army it was. At the end of our walk we came home. I opened the screen door, and the broken iron work caught me by the purse. I cursed it. I awkwardly pulled the stroller up the three cement stairs. When I opened the second door, the main door I stopped in the house and felt it. This was our home. We had bought the house when I was three months pregnant. We moved in or Dave moved us in the day after my C-section. For the first time after all that craziness I felt like this was the home we were going to live our lives in.

[mystic~mama]

here is my addition, its the one I feel most comfortable posting even though I am not feeling particularly pleased with anything I have written so far...it has been a postitive experience doing the writing though

Two O'Clock in the Morning~

Two O'clock in the morning
that time between wake
and sleep

sometimes I worry.

sometimes I dream.

sometimes I get up and have something to eat or to get something to drink.

sometimes I lay there and just look at my daughter, still and quiet beside me. I cherish the times when she is still and I can just watch her.

sometimes I cry at how she has grown. I love her and dont want to let her go.

sometimes I whisper softly into her ear, I tell her I love her. I tell her she is beautiful.

sometimes I caress her cheek softly and I kiss her.

but,
usually Im nursing my daughter and many times I just want to be free.

shes growing up and I am learning to let go just as right now she has to learn to let go of me.

maybe thats exactly what she is doing by being difficult to me. Shes letting go or pushing me away. Shes growing up and it makes me so sad, she has been the most wonderful, amazing joy of my life and I dont want these precious times to end.

But I know in my heart, it is not an end. It is a begining for both of us.

Two oclock in the morning has been very busy ever since meeting my little Rayna. Every since having morning sickness, two oclock in the morning has had a whole new meaning. Life has had a whole new meaning and I thank Jah for that. Being awake at 2 oclock in the morning has been okay at best but I would never trade it for anything in the world. If all I had was two oclock in the mornings with my little girl than that would be fine with me, I could forget all the rest! Ahhh, two oclock in the morning, that good old two oclock in the morning when just maybe I'll be getting some rest!

[northport]

The kitchen table

Baby interrupted me near the end, but here is my go at it.
---------------------------------------------------------

The kitchen table is a mess. Two boosters seats on top - yes on top. Cereal and blueberries strewn about. Gosh sounds poetic but it is not. It is the daily grind routine. Feed breakfast. Don't clean up....sometimes do. Who knows if there will be time for me to do so and whether I will have the energy.

It is not in the kitchen anyway as our apartment is too small for that it is in the adjoining dining area. I don't like the table. I don't like sitting height tables I like standing height tables that require high stools. That is what I am sitting on now. Hmm maybe two years too many dinners with my morose father at a regular height table, him staring at me making me make conversation. A black whole waste of two years of dinner.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger I think not. What doesn't kill you might just make you miserable the rest of your life.

I love our dining room table. I hate the table itself but now so many baby memories are being built on it that it might someday have some kind of sentimental value.

And it is a table from my husbands youth. And apparently an unhappy youth at that so why he would actually want the table at all is beyond me. Just cause a new table of that quality would be expensive? Sometimes he seems to attach more meaning to objects than I and sometimes less.

The kitchen table is finally a fully utilitarian eating only table. Nothing else can be on it or it gets food all over it or becomes an object of pointing and wanting and distraction from eating.

The kitchen table is near a window where the babies can watch the neighbors come and go. The kitchen table is the dining room table.

I just don't have much to say about the kitchen table. The babies eat there I don't.

Growing up the kitchen table held 5 cereal bowls in a U around my father as he methodically poured cereal then milk and maybe sugar? The kitchen table was visited by a mean goddess who poured milk into my orange juice glass and delivered eggs with uncooked whites. The kitchen table was visited by a lovely warm goddess who was the source of all life. The goddess though had to also keep the god happy and that took attention away when attention was very much wanted.

The kitchen table was...what is that sound on the monitor? Baby snore? I need to check...hang on thoughts...Ah a snorey grunty thing but since breathing is still continuing...

The kitchen table is on the lovely back porch with a view all the way to the ocean and no father and no oldest sister and bowl of steaming oatmeal in the chilly october morning...

The kitchen table has no photos on it. The kitchen table is full of my dad's automotive crap...

Ah the baby wakens...or not? Are you up baby?

My fathers automotive crap - on at least half of the formica top. And a litter box under one end. And cat food bowl where my cat died under the other end.

Papa is sleeping...must go to baby.

[SPOTTO]

I remember...

This isn't about motherhood, but rather about my life before baby when I was a professional ballet dancer. I miss my past career, but it's for the young and it's time for me to move on and dedicate myself to being the best mother I can be...

I remember how it felt to fly on stage. The sound of the music, the lights coming up, the vast darkness of the audience. I remember the feeling of nervous excitement, adrenaline pumping. I remember worrying that I’d forget the steps but knowing every step the second my foot touched the stage. I remember the one and only time I became one with the music. I was the music floating through space. I could feel the music coursing through my veins. I cried in my dressing room after the show because of the intensity of the emotions. They were tears of relief and joy for what I had just experienced. I will never forget that day and know no one really understands it. It’s something you have to feel.

[sagira]

I remember the days when time went by so slowly I could swear my father had spent days away when in fact it had been only hours. I remember when four hours seemed like an eternity to wait for the boat trip to be over.

When did everything change?

When did someone push the fastforward button?

Why do we still suffer so acutely but when it's over we think everything went by pretty fast?

I wish time could slow down for me once more. Now that I'm older I think I could appreciate the scent of a flower more, inhale it deeply.. not worry.

Who am I kidding? I have no time!

[sagira]

My "home" story is coming next.

[sagira]

One more -- Home

Home is wherever I am. It's holding my son in my arms, it's those distant memories of my birthplace. It's also this tiny island I'm on.. this room. My home is a room with a bathroom and a giant black box that my husband likes to stare at. Home is this bed I'm lying on. Yes, that's home.

[loftmama]

2 A.m.

Carefully, I unhinge my shoulder from sleepy brown curls,
turn, turn, turn.
Softly, the other shoulder sidles beneath pale blond down.
Eeeaassyy.
Arms press flat, a prayer against my thighs.
Shhhh. Don’t wake.

A magnetic sandwich, my body binds these two together:
sweet, nutritious, fulfilling,
offering nourishment, comfort.
Gravity pulls their bodies toward my soul, my love,
toward me.

Casting a peripheral glance, my husband’s buried body
rises and falls.
In the morning, when my quiet body can risk a move,
I will wedge in next to him, inhaling,
Exhaling the love in this room.

[julianna]

I remember...

I remember the very first time I felt my baby move in my tummy - it happened at 1:45AM on a Tuesday morning. I remembered to look at the clock because I knew I would be writing about this in my journal. The baby didn't wake me up; I was already awake. I shouldn't have been because I had to go to work the next day, but I was.

When I felt the baby move, I knew immediately what it was. I'm sure I held my breath hoping for another I could feel. The midwives and articles I've read said that first time mommies sometime miss the first movements thinking it's gas, etc. And maybe I had too... but I didn't miss this. I sat wide awake talking to this baby. I tried to wake my husband, but he was out like a light. As I held my breath, I was rewarded with more, light movements. I fell asleep with a smile.

[ezrasmummy]

I remember...

Who knows if my precious six-month old will et me keep up with tis but I want to try.
Here is my first piece:

I remember…
Lying on the grass with a boy, so many years ago. The night above me and the beautiful boy next to me. Love, lust, the hope of a future. He traced a line from breast to belly and spoke softly as if we were keeping secrets from the stars.
“You have fine lines. Like these ones.”
Never in my lonely life had I been touched by such hands, such words or such a cool summer breeze. It seemed as if I could never know anything more perfect, anything more beautiful. I was wrong. That one moment of beauty was the start of my soul reaching out into the future. Suddenly, the future I dreamed of has become the past and I can remember seeing a different boy as he was lifted from the new opening in my aching, tired body.
“I can’t see him,” I said.
“There he is. He is beautiful,” my first boy said, and they both were in that moment, beautiful and perfect.

Nice work everybody!
ezrasmummy

[insomniamama]

I remember weaving a path through Fall leaves, toys and classmates the day I learned to ride a bicycle in kindergarten. More than joyful I remember feeling powerful and triumphant, impressed that I had accomplished this myself through perserverance without assistance, and knowing that my mom would be as impressed as she indeed was when I finally met her applause under the eaves of our classroom, in the long afternoon shade. But I was in my world with a toothy grin (that I can still somehow feel), although I acknowledged her every time I passed the roundabout. It's not hard to remember the way the bicycle felt beneath me: tall and senior, rusting and red, with hard weathered rubber handlebar grips whose ridges likely left a dimpled mirror on my palms for a half-hour or more on my way home in the car.

[ezrasmummy]

Home...

Here is another one. As long as I can't sleep, I might as well get the creative juices flowing as it were.

Home…
The sound of a phone ringing, a child picking up and answering in a cool and practiced tone. “____ residence, _____ speaking, may I help you please?” No eating in the nice living room until we were 16. No earrings or heels (clogs included) until we were twelve. Warm heating pipes in the winter drying out five pairs of woolen mittens. Little girls everywhere, always running, always laughing. My big backyard. The nursery where I watched lights pass across the walls while my parents slept in the room next door. Hide and seek in the many rooms. Christmas morning waiting in the landing for hours it seemed. The color blue in all of its shades selected and painted by my father. Spouting all of this out makes me realize why I always call my childhood home “my house” even though I haven’t lived there in 10 years.

[CookieMonsterMommy]

Originally Posted by ezrasmummy

I remember…
Lying on the grass with a boy, so many years ago. The night above me and the beautiful boy next to me. Love, lust, the hope of a future. He traced a line from breast to belly and spoke softly as if we were keeping secrets from the stars.
“You have fine lines. Like these ones.”
Never in my lonely life had I been touched by such hands, such words or such a cool summer breeze. It seemed as if I could never know anything more perfect, anything more beautiful. I was wrong. That one moment of beauty was the start of my soul reaching out into the future. Suddenly, the future I dreamed of has become the past and I can remember seeing a different boy as he was lifted from the new opening in my aching, tired body.
“I can’t see him,” I said.
“There he is. He is beautiful,” my first boy said, and they both were in that moment, beautiful and perfect.

This really made me cry. I mean, I am wiping my cheeks right now.

Thank you

[Autumnschild]

Home...

In the days before children, the carefree days when I traveled wherever my fancy took me, I carried my home in a box. A trunk, actually. It was black and battered, with brass hinges and a myriad of stickers decorating it's surface. The trunk was more than a ritual to me, it was the magic that made my home. Inside the trunk were various tapestries. My favorite was a reddish color with an Indian goddess seated in the lotus position. There were candles and crystals, and an assortment of bells and chimes. A box of tightly bundled letters in every shape and size, albums of cherished memories. My trunk has traveled all over the country with me, and to this day contains the trinkets collected throughout the years. Seashells from the ocean, a beautiful rock with layers of rich red, from the desert cliffs of Arizona. Driftwood, dried flowers, stones from the river, a half-burned bundle of sweet sage.

The trunk now sits in the back room of this place I call my home. My tapestry is hanging in the doorway and my bells are hanging in places they will likely get brushed up against. My chimes hang in the trees out front and from the ceiling by the windows. My stones and crystals and colored bottles adorn the windowsills. I traded my freedom for a home.

The day Sophia was born, I understood for the first time that I had finally arrived.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just wanted to add...Ezrasmummy, you made me cry too. That was beautiful.

[Calm]

Autumnschild, I love the way you write. The details make it so alive.