From The Peanut Gallery: First day of preschool

On the car ride home, right before falling asleep: "I love preschool so much, I couldn't believe my ears."

Growing pains

JJ started first grade last week, and the tears that have been shed since then could fill an ocean.

I thought this transition would be easy. After all, he went through kindergarten at the same school, he knows every single kid in his class, and the drill isn't that much different.

But it is different. Very different.

The day is longer. The work is harder. The expectations are higher. Recess is on the (gulp) Big Kids Playground.

And Mommy isn't there.

JJ has always been very attached to me. One of my closest friends (and the mother of JJ's future bride) once quipped that if JJ could climb back into my womb, he'd do it without a second thought. Truer words have never been spoken.

One of the biggest tear triggers has been The Peanut's stroller. We walk to school almost every morning, and both kids happily skip most of the way there. But inevitably, The Peanut gets tired and climbs into the stroller…and then the tears begin to flow.

"I want to ride in the stroller," JJ sobbed this morning. "I wish I were still little."

"I know," I said. "Sometimes it's hard growing up, isn't it?"

"But JJ," The Peanut said helpfully, "soon I'll be too big for the stroller, too."

"But you're little now," he retorted. "I miss being little. I miss being with Mommy."

And that's the big issue, I think. Each morning when we drop him off, there's a piece of paper at each child's place. At the top is printed "Me and My Family." The point is to draw a picture of your family, and every other child has been working on his picture for days. JJ's paper is still blank. Well, not totally blank: there are faint traces of circles and lines, erased and redrawn many times. This morning I asked him about it. "Are you having a hard time with your picture?"

He burst into tears. "I hate it. I hate this picture."

"Why, honey? Why do you hate it?"

"I just do. I hate it. And I hate school."

I don't understand it, and he can't find the words to explain it to me. Possibly he doesn't understand it himself. But those words "I hate school" cut me to the quick. One of the gifts I've worked hardest to give my children is a love of learning new things. Is school going to kill that love? Or is this just a temporary blip?

Please tell me it's a blip.

Hello, Spring

In a past life, I studied hibernation in ground squirrels. I still find the process incredible: the squirrel literally drops its body temperature to ambient. Curled up in its burrow, it feels like a dead thing: cold, lifeless. Its heartbeat and breathing have slowed until they're nearly undetectable. Then Spring arrives, the squirrel warms up, and life begins again.

I think emerging from depression must be a bit like arousing from hibernation. You come partway out of your burrow, blinking sleepy eyes against the sun's glare. You look around, surprised: the world has gone on without you. The stark winter landscape is now burgeoning with new life: tender green shoots and leaves unfurling, blossoms shouting a riot of new color. Spring's heady perfume is overwhelming. Everything seems almost too alive.

Perhaps it's too much for you: you crawl back into the cold, dark safety of your own sadness. Or maybe you take a few tentative steps outside, welcoming the sun's rays on your pale skin. Don't rush yourself, it takes a while to get used to being alive again. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel the pounding of your heart. Stretch your cold muscles. Look for familiar landmarks, then venture forth.

Now you can start catching up on everything you've missed.

Science in action

We went for a walk this afternoon and passed a yard that was full of plastic spoons. A shitload of spoons, maybe 200 of them, handles stuck into the earth. I don't know if it's some new-fangled (or old-fashioned) aeration technique of which I've never heard, or if it's the work of a crazy person (I'm leaning toward the latter), but JJ and The Peanut thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

As soon as we came home, we planted our own little patch of plastic cutlery: we were out of plastic spoons, so we used forks instead. The kids have different hypotheses about what will happen. The Peanut predicts that the forks will grow to be gigantic, "as big as a MOUNTAIN!" JJ suspects that they won't grow, but they might fall over or get dirty or be chewed by critters. (We have a raccoon problem.)

"I can't wait to see what happens," one young scientist pronounced as he watered the forks. His colleague was more interested in practical applications: "I going to use my giant fork to eat a big, BIG pancake!"

Food, glorious food

For the first time since The Peanut was born, I feel pretty good. Not that I was completely miserable, but I was depressed. Not getting enough sleep for an entire year really took a toll on my body, mind, and soul, and I suspect that my postpartum/breastfeeding hormonal cocktail was doing me no favors.

Never one to let well enough alone, I've decided to do some more work on my fucked-up relationship with food. When I've written before about my struggles with eating and body image, it's been in the past tense. And it's true that I've worked through the most severe of my symptoms: I no longer starve myself, throw up, or exercise excessively. I don't count calories. I haven't weighed myself in more than six years.

But I'm still not happy with the way I eat or even think about food. I'd like to be more present in my life, and eating/not eating is one of the ways I avoid the world. I use food to comfort myself—and sometimes punish myself. I seldom eat mindfully: I either snatch bites here and there, or I binge. I binge when I'm unhappy, lonely, or nervous—whenever I don't want to face an uncomfortable situation or feeling. I also binge when I haven't eaten enough throughout the day and am suddenly starving.

I know it's unrealistic to think that I'll ever be completely free of my food issues, but I'd like to feel more comfortable with food. And so I called R., my psychiatrist/therapist/fairy godmother, for a few tune-up sessions. As always, R. has been helping me navigate through the sticky territory of my psyche while also offering practical suggestions. And one of her suggestions was to write about all of this. Which, for some reason, I find enormously difficult and painful. Maybe it's because for me, food has its own language—a language that doesn't translate easily into English.

But maybe finding the right words is a step in the right direction. If I can explain my feelings about food, perhaps those feelings will no longer have so much power over me.

It's worth a try, right?

Good-bye, Dee Dee

It's been a little more than a month since I nursed The Peanut for the last time. I've tried to write about it several times, but I've found it surprisingly difficult. I'm not sure why, exactly; our experience weaning couldn't have been better timed or more mutually respectful. But I can't help but feel a bit sad that my breastfeeding days are over.

I loved breastfeeding both my children. I loved that my body could provide all the nourishment they needed for their first six months in the world. I loved the comforting warmth of their bodies pressed against mine. I loved the way JJ looked drunk on milk and love when he pulled off my breast. I loved how The Peanut's hands never stopped moving as she nursed: stroking my hair, patting my cheek, then reaching down to touch her own belly.

Of course there were things about breastfeeding I wasn't wild about. With JJ, the first two weeks were a hell of sore nipples and anxiety about producing enough milk. With The Peanut, I had the comfort of knowing from the start that I'm a genuine milch cow, but the misery of cracked and bleeding nipples stretched over an entire year as we passed a thrush infection back and forth. And I sometimes resented being tethered to my children when they were tiny; despite our best efforts, both would have rather starved than drink from a bottle.

I nursed JJ until he was 20 months old, which is when I decided to get pregnant again. I know I could have continued to breastfeed, but I didn't feel up for it. Weaning JJ was an incredibly organic experience: one day the thought popped into my mind that I was ready to wean, and the next day he skipped his bedtime nursing session. Within a month, we were done...and I was pregnant again.

The Peanut got to breastfeed until she was almost two and a half. By then, we were only nursing in the mornings: she would wake up, come into our bed, and then nurse and cuddle for a while. I might have gone on that way forever had my body not decided to stage a protest. One day, seemingly out of the blue, my milk dried up—and breastfeeding became an agony.

I thought it would be hard to talk The Peanut into weaning. Toddlers can be remarkably stubborn about the tiniest things, and The Peanut's beloved Dee Dee (as she called nursing) did not qualify as a tiny thing. So, bracing myself for a violent backlash, I told The Peanut one morning that Dee Dee would have to stop. She was surprisingly calm about it: "Why we not do Dee Dee any more?"

"Well, you're growing up, sweetheart," I replied. "And you've probably noticed that there's not really any milk coming out."

"Dee Dee all gone?" she asked plaintively.

"Yes, sweetie. It's all gone. But let's have Dee Dee one more time, just so we can say good-bye."

"No." She shook her head decisively. "I done now. No more Dee Dee."

And that's how it ended, with barely a whimper. We still have our morning cuddle sessions, and she still comforts herself by stroking my hair. (Cries of "I need to touch Mommy's hair!" ring out quite frequently these days.) But I miss it, I really do.

Good-bye, Dee Dee.

Happy New Year!

Here are ten things in my life that bring me great joy:

1. My hilarious, brilliant, fabulous babies.

2. My adoring and adorable husband.

3. My work, which helps tether me to the world outside the House of Crazy.

4. The House of Crazy itself, which has taught me the meaning of the word "home."

5. Our beautiful coastside community, which despite its flaws, is exactly where I want to be.

6. Wonderful friends who make me feel good about myself and put up with all my bullshit.

7. A healthy body and (more or less) healthy mind.

8. A space of my own where I can write.

9. Having more than enough of everything -- so we can give to those who don't.

10. This blog.