Life on The Farm: Some Things That Are Not Connected To Each Other At All

We have a chipmunk and Matt named him Alvin. (Startlingly original, I know.) Alvin lives in an old hollow stump just outside the downstairs floor-to-ceiling picture windows and every day we grow more and more attached to him. Often these days I wake up, burning hot at 4:30 AM, and can’t go back to sleep. Today I gave up trying shortly before 6 and went downstairs where it’s warm (we keep the heat up downstairs, the air cool upstairs) to read and have some breakfast. I finished reading the thoroughly readable and amusing The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place and then got myself some cereal. I walked to the windows and noticed Alvin was also having his breakfast, standing on the edge of his stump munching contentedly on a nut while he gazed out over the woods. (He doesn’t like to eat indoors; he pops out for his snacks and then dives back in to go back to sleep.) I stood behind him eating my Honey Oaties and did the same. We contemplated the leaves and the rising sun together. There is no profound moral to this story, it was just a lovely moment I didn’t want to forget.

As you may have gathered by this point, I kind of love that I’m having a baby right at the turn of one season into another. (It goes without saying that I’m also loving being somewhere where you can actually see and feel this happening.) It’s soothing to join the rest of the natural world in the waiting for a force beyond any control to sweep in and do what it will. The wind blew pretty furiously the other night and the trees were noticeably nakeder when morning arrived. Fall will soon be winter, and my party animal baby should be here just in time to show off his good looks at all of the holiday parties he’s hoping to be invited to. I hope it snows before we leave.

Matt and I attempted to teach ourselves a ye olden card game last night. It’s called Piquet, and though once considered the granddaddy of all card games, most people have never heard of it these days, much less know how to play it. It seems deceptively simple but actually is somewhat like chess, you realize as you wade in deeper—it requires a ton of forethought in strategizing, planning ahead several moves, and an excellent memory. No wonder it’s fallen out of fashion—it’s hard. People these days prefer Spoons and Slapjack for obvious reasons. Piquet is so hard that it led to a whole discussion about how much dumber people have gotten. Back in the fifteenth century people didn’t have iPhones, laptops, Netflix, cable, Xbox, or even very many books. All they had to do all day was use their brains, for everything, fun and profit, all the time. So they all played this game like crazy over their mutton chops and ale and had a madcap good time of it and you didn’t have to be considered a genius or a scholar to play it, either. I was ashamed and exhausted by the realization of how little I actually use my brain when I’m not in school being forced to do so, so naturally my solution was to put the game away and go watch The Wedding Planner on Netflix.

Another thing we (and by we I mean Matt) did was put together baby’s little newborn bed, the Rock N Play sleeper. I wanted it to have plenty of time to air out, and it’s fun to look at, sitting in wait next to my side of the bed.

I’m officially one week from my “due date” and finally my belly is satisfyingly large. It still looks weirdly small when I look down, but the profile doesn’t lie. There is very definitely a small human living in there. See this iPhone self portrait here.

However large I may appear, my belly button ring is still hanging in there, and my belly button itself remains unpopped.

The baby continues his hard work at scooting further and further down, giving me cramps and sharp round ligament pain as he digs his little feet into my ribs for traction. It scares me because I don’t want my water to break before labor begins and I always wonder how on earth it doesn’t when he pulls this circus trick, but that amniotic sac is stronger that you would think. He just has to hold on for about 30 more hours for Grandma to get here, and then he can do whatever he wants. I have no idea what to expect anymore, given the various stories you all have shared with me about your first spontaneous labors and the fact that I have never done this before. I could go tonight, I could go three more weeks. I have no clue. I’m hoping for at least another week so I feel more ready, but as my friend Myriam wrote to me after my last blog, there is no such thing as “ready” anymore. That was surprisingly comforting. It’s good to have friends who know you well enough to know what you need to hear.

Tomorrow we are venturing into Nashville for a day trip before picking my mom up at the airport, so probably it will be tomorrow. My water will break dramatically in the middle of Broadway in front of Taylor Swift or Toby Keith or someone like that.

My grand plans of learning to use my sewing machine before giving birth have been thwarted by my failure to remember to bring any fabric with me. My grand plans of making baby a beautiful scrapbook baby book have been thwarted by my laziness. And still, the time here is flying by. This last month of pregnancy has been anything but slow. Of course, I could still have three weeks to go, and if that’s the case I bet it will start to feel slow.

Also, Matt and I are watching our way through The Office (his first time, not mine), which is a great stress and anxiety reliever.

I’m reading Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho now, and it’s extremely good which is a huge relief since I only like about .5% of the YA I’ve read since graduating from VCFA and the rest just pisses me off and I quit. The only way to explain it is that the writing is either too much or not enough. This book is just right. When Matt read the jacket he asked me warily, quoting one of the blurbs, “Dazzling prose?” And I said, “Don’t worry, not that kind of dazzling prose. Not like the glitter that gets trapped under your eyelid and cuts your eyeball.” Side note: the jacket also calls it a “whip-smart” debut. Matt pointed out recently that “whip-smart” or "smart as a whip" are actually kind of really sexist terms. It implies condescension, a shock or surprise at the intelligence. I propose that 99.9 % of the time it is only used in reference to pets, women and children. Something to think about.

Tonight we made coconut rice, jerk seasoned broccoli and sweet potatoes, and cumin lime black beans. A surprisingly fast and easy Caribbean style feast.

And that’s all the news that’s fit and unfit to print today. Stay tuned for more of the cozy, the wondrous, the mundane, and eventually, the baby.