the busy heart

Photo Source.   (We didn't take a single photo. It seemed like taking a picture of a holy moment, or a car accident. So here is a blue jay who is not ours, but is also lovely.) We recently watched our neighbors--a nice retired couple with chickens and a gorgeous garden--build an elaborate net structure around their bushes to keep birds and squirrels out. It was like a room for their blueberries, made of net. Since then I've seen birds fly into it, glancing off one way or another as the netting pushed back.  But last evening, as Henrietta and I hung out in the backyard while Sam finished dinner, I realized the bird by the blueberries didn't fly away, though he tried. And then I realized he was somehow inside the structure, flying against it from the inside again and again, getting more frantic each time.  "Birdie stuck?" Henrietta asked.  "Birdie stuck," I said. "Let's go tell Hank and Linda." I carried her on my hip an...

Just before I got married, the women in my mother's ward--though they didn't know me all that well--were kind enough to throw me a bridal shower. Somehow the conversation turned to marriage advice, and I still remember just about everything the bishop's wife said about marriage. My impression of her prior to that shower was that she was quiet and smiley and not particularly "real"--if you know what I mean. But she was more than real that night, and I am still so grateful. Just about everything she said has proved true of my own experience in marriage. Among other valuable and down-to-earth advice, she told me that eventually our arguments would whittle down to shorthand. That after awhile we'd know each other so well and we'd have had the same conversations and disagreements so many times that we'd be able to say, "Hey, could you ...?" And the other person would know instantly how we meant to finish the the sentence and be able to say, ...

Henrietta has been sick. She's happy, for the most part. It's not the miserable sort of listless sick. She's just had stomach trouble. Explosions in her diaper. Horrifying puddles on the floor. You see what I'm saying here? It's lasted a couple of weeks, as her pediatrician told us it would, and though at first I was surprised by how cool I was with it, it has begun to get old. I'm ready for that sort of event to not  punctuate our days, and I'd really like to take her places without worrying she'll pass illness to every kid in a mile radius of the park. One night last week, Sam and I both had trouble sleeping. I was up late working on a freelance project, and after that I couldn't settle my brain down. It was nearly three in the morning when I finally fell asleep, and just after three in the morning when Henrietta woke me up, crying. Or actually, it was Sam who woke me up, saying she'd been crying on and off for fifteen minutes, and maybe we...

Our first family visit to San Xavier del Bac On our first Sunday here, I completely mistook the time the local LDS ward started, so I joined Sam at mass. We attended at the San Xavier del Bac Mission , located on a reservation about 45 minutes away. The mass was packed, all of the ornate wood pews full. It was a punishingly hot day to attend a packed meeting in a church without air conditioning. They had fans going and all of the doors open to the courtyards, and still we sweated. We passed Henrietta back and forth, trying to keep her entertained, handing her toy after toy after cracker from my purse. When she dropped toys, those around us were eager to hand them back to her, smiling. She did remarkably well for a ten-month-old, leaning into us and shyly grinning when she received attention, and when we were asked to offer each other a sign of peace, a woman made the sign of the cross on Henrietta's forehead, and Henrietta looked at her in awe. It was a lovely meeting, and at ...

Golly. You know how everything is going along sort of normally and then you decide to move and chaos reigns? You don't think you'll give up every single excess thing you usually do, but it turns out you severely underestimated the moving beast. Moving is a beast, right? And it's a bummer because I have all of these things I've meant to tell you, posts that flit into my head and flit back out again when I crash for the night without having written them. So here is a brief report on all of the ones I can remember. *A few weeks ago we got ourselves bamboozled into an in-home presentation from an earnest and awkward vacuum salesman. Even now I keep thinking of him carrying these little filthy filters--round white circles black with dirt--over to us very carefully, like the dirt was sacred. He did this half a dozen times--on our carpeted stairs, on our couch ottoman. He told us about bugs that live in our bed and feast on our dead skin. He told us if he vacuumed o...

On a Friday a month or so ago, Sam and I were driving to the art museum in Worcester. It was sunny and glorious outside, and we were talking, again, about Sam's dread for the coming school year. He's been on paternity leave, as I've mentioned, but he's dreaded the end of that leave every single day, and we've discussed his dread most days. The job is a bad fit for a number of reasons, few of which I'm interested in going into here. We thought that a move closer to the school would help (his commute was horrendous previously), but it hasn't, so as we talked, driving along, I said what I had started to say when this subject came up, "Don't go back then. We'll figure something out. Don't go back." Prior to that Friday, this would lead to some circling around the possibilities, and end with one of us saying, "No, it'll never work. We can't do it. We'll stay one more year and see how it goes. It's bound to get better....

Last night, while I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, I came in the living room to see Sam dancing with Henrietta to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He was swinging her around and tossing her up in the air and she was squealing with joy. Sam was shirtless, and I tried to talk him into putting a shirt on so I could take video of it, but he declined, and so I just sat and watched them, laughing. When I finished the kitchen and came upstairs, Sam was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, and he was worried. His throat was tight and his left arm was numb, which are alarming symptoms when you're a man who had a heart attack at thirty-five, which Sam happens to be. I changed the baby's diaper while we talked it over--it being whether or not to take him to the ER. We prayed about it, and I felt more worried than I had before we prayed, so I talked him into letting me call his cardiology office. The doctor on call said what we expected: don't take a chance; he needs to go...

[Scene: Driving down I-95, both of us running on 3-5 hours of (interrupted) sleep. We're holding hands; Baby's asleep in the backseat. Our tiredness is tipping into punchy, making us feel more in love instead of less. (It happens ... on occasion.) Sam's just gotten off the phone with the cable company.] Sam: It's just seven dollars more a month! And we'll get HBO and a million other channels and ... [sensing I'm unimpressed] they'll send us a parakeet! And a piñata! And ... a new car! Deja: Yeah, but you always reach the point where you'd pay them seven dollars to take away those channels. Sam: I know, isn't it incredible?! The wheel of life! And then we both laughed hysterically.

Enjoying a restaurant spoon--a baby's best friend. Henrietta is hungry. I realized this after about a week of much more fussiness than usual, and waking up about 4,000 times a night. But let me back up to why this was not immediately clear. When I got pregnant, it felt like I was required to choose a mothering identity: would I have a natural birth, or a medicated one? And the identity spread out from there: cloth or disposable diapers? Breastfeeding or formula? Babywearing or the opposite of babywearing (whatever that is)? You get the idea. These felt like big decisions, decisions that didn't have to do with the decision themselves so much as who I was . I can say, six months in, that I've ended up rejecting the false opposites here and doing a little of both in almost every case, which is all well and good, unless you're me, and you long for nothing more than to pick one side of the spectrum and endorse it and love it and become it entirely, to enthusiasti...

When the explosions in Boston happened, I was in Lowell, walking by the Merrimack river, pushing Henrietta in her stroller. Sam was back at the house, writing. It was sunny today, a sweet sixty degrees, and the water was calm. Pairs of birds flew low on the water, then arched back up into the sky. I felt happy as I walked, calm and content and grateful. Henrietta enjoyed the walk out but got sleepy on our return. The wind picked up, so I alternated between hurrying to the car and stopping to help her relax, and by the time we got back she was sleeping. I sat on a bench to let her sleep for a minute before putting her back in her carseat, and happened to check Facebook on my phone. My friends in Boston were posting notices they were safe. I didn't know what they meant. I typed "Boston" into Google, and one of the auto-fill options was "Boston explosions" and I followed the link and then I knew. I put the baby back in the car, turned the radio on, and cried ...

[Conversation over dinner at a Mexican joint.] Deja: Do you think I expect too much of myself? Sam: [without hesitation] Yes. Deja: Oh. Sam: What are you, thirty now? Deja: Yeah. Sam: You probably have to start making some decisions. Deja: What do you mean? Sam: Well, like. There are all these different things you wanna do, and you can't do all of them as well as you'd like to. I'm sure you can do any of them well, but you can't do all of them well at once. You'll have to pick a few. Deja: [chip, salsa, mouth] Sam: You wanna do your blog; you wanna be really involved in church; you want to freelance edit; you want to be the perfect housewife. And you'll never be able to perfect your writing and your dishwasher organization at once. Deja: [Looks at Sam, sadly.] Sam: So you just need to  really focus on that dishwasher. Deja: [Wads napkin, throws it at Sam's head.]

Sam said, "The Ruddick household is a bit ragged, lately." We were driving home from Boston, stuck in traffic, I think, and at first I didn't know what he meant. And maybe he didn't even say that, since the alliteration isn't exactly like him, but he said something along those lines, and when I didn't understand, he explained: "Neither one of us have written since we've been home from vacation; the baby is sleeping terribly so we're sleeping terribly; our house is crazy because the painter has been there every day this week. I mean, last night we nearly killed each other." "We did? Why? I don't remember that at all." "You were mad about the laundry. I was mad about the couch." "Oh. Right. We did nearly kill each other." So there you go. That's the situation. It's been a hairy week. And though I miss blogging, though I have ideas for posts that swirl in and out of my brain, by the time I have...

I've been in a bit of a slump this week. A funk. Sloggy and a little sad for no particular reason. I've spent a lot of time on my couch, wondering which of the following might make me feel better: a nap, making a healthy and delicious dinner, vacuuming the stairs, taking a walk, playing with baby, writing. And since exactly none of them seem like they'll make me feel that much better, I stumble upstairs, opting to try the nap, since it requires the least effort. Yesterday was a weird day, particularly in the morning, and in the afternoon Sam and I went out to run some errands. On the way home we listened to NPR coverage of the presentation of the new pope to the world. Sam was driving, occasionally shouting at the reporters for pinheadedness, and I sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window, feeling sloggy and still not sure why. I had wanted to tell Sam all sorts of stuff about this and that, but I was quiet so he could listen. It was good for me to be quiet...

[I'm worried about this post. It's pretty close to my heart. I wrote it weeks ago, but I keep putting off publishing it. And then in quiet moments I’ll think of it and feel, again, like I need to say it. So let's all put on our generous hats, shall we?]  One Christmas I came home to visit my family and realized that my oldest niece and nephew were growing up. They were twelve, I think, on the cusp of teenagehood, and I realized I was terrified for them. They were (are!) such awesome and good kids, and I was excited for them, in a way, but also scared. That was when the world got complicated for me, and I don't think I've ever quite forgiven the world for becoming so. When I say I was scared for them, I mean I was nearly trembling. It was almost a physical reaction, a slow-motion "Noooooo!" in my head, willing them away from the cliff of further development. I just got called into the  Young Women's program , the organization in our church for g...

Last Wednesday we went into Boston so I could clear out my office. We brought Henrietta, and I met with my (former) boss and she got us a box, and I put everything in it: My notes to myself, my pictures of Sam, my lemon pepper for my lunches, my purple velvet ballet flats I used to change into after wearing my snow boots into work, my framed prints. I threw out stale walnuts and old soup and dozens of sandwich baggies and grocery sacks I'd kept just in case I needed to bring something home on the train. My coworkers gathered around the door to my office, there to see the baby and say hello. They were so kind and asked nice questions about Henrietta and said how pretty and alert she was and Sam told them about our new house. I cleared out all of my files while Henrietta fussed, and Sam held her, telling her we were almost done, it was almost time to go home. It was cold that day, very cold. My car temperature said it was 12 degrees outside when we left home, and it felt cold...

I've gotten questions about Henrietta's name, and I thought I'd officially answer. Her name is Henrietta Plum Ruddick, and we'll start with the last name, which is indeed Ruddick, not Plum, as some have assumed. I wouldn't have put it past us to give her an entirely original last name--one neither of us share--but the truth is that we're more traditional than we seem. Though I've toyed with going back to my maiden name (and I do publish under it), now that she's here I rather like that we're all Ruddicks, and I doubt I'll ever bother to go back. On Plum. This is honestly a product of dozens of very lengthy (and fun (bordering on tedious)) conversations between Sam and I while I was pregnant, trying to settle on her name. We'd suggest whatever would pop into our heads, whatever we'd see out the window or put our finger to in a book: Me: "Stopsign Ruddick. Stop Ruddick. Spot Ruddick. Hester Spot Ruddick." Sam: "Book R...

Our fourth wedding anniversary was at the end of July, right around when I hit 28 weeks. And behold! A dress still fit me!  We went out to dinner at a place we'd heard about called Craigie on Main, and it was a lovely meal. The weird part: One of their specials was pig's head. As in, the entire pig's head. We asked about it, mostly out of horror (we're both latent vegetarians, I think), and the waitress commenced telling us all about it--how they'd cut it in half for us, how everything was so tasty and we could eat all of it--the ears and the cheeks and the on an on. I think Sam held up his hand for her to stop. And we didn't order the pig's head. But we had a lovely time. Here we are, across the table from each other, clearly in love.

Me+Baby at 20 Weeks This is basically the only pregnant picture of me that exists. At least the only belly shot. And it's sort of a pathetic belly shot anyway, right? I mean, I told you I'm not really showing. And wow, looking at it really confirms that fact that I'm just looking chubby. But hey, someday I'll be glad we took it. Perhaps. Right? I had Sam take this right before my 20 week ultrasound, the one where they found my shortened cervix and sent me straight to bed rest, do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. I worked from home that morning, finished up a memo summarizing a meeting, sent it out, and we had lunch on our way to the appointment. And part of what amuses me endlessly about this picture is that I'm actually not holding onto the baby at all. Did you know this? That babies ride much lower for most of the pregnancy? That if I actually held onto what is baby, you would think I was obscene? So here I am, clutching my smushed internal ...

The ultrasound last Friday was lovely--one of the loveliest. We saw her hands and arms, her profile, her cute nose, her brain, and the beating chambers of her heart. And the ultrasound tech showed us how confident she was that that the baby was a girl. A girl. A girl! I felt pretty and motherly, wearing a polka dot blouse and vintage skirt. And then everything got very dramatic. The tech told me to wait there, that she needed to show something to the radiologist, that after that the midwife would probably want to speak with me. She asked if I'd had any cramping, and I remembered the evening we had spent at the MFA the night before, how I had clutched my stomach as we walked down corridors and through large, beautiful rooms, and I told her, "Yes, actually." I waited, we waited, wondering what it could be, but not concerned yet, not really. And she came back, and invited me into an office where people were entering information into computers, talking about what they...