Finn at 6 months

Sweet Finn has been here with us for just over six months now. It feels like no time at all since I was oh-so-very pregnant, sipping from that strange cocktail that is the last few days before giving birth: a combination of excitement, anxiety, anticipation, boredom and discomfort. I know I went about my life mostly as usual, shepherding Oliver through his comforting rhythm of meals and play, books and baths, songs and arguments, but my clearest memories from those days are the occasional stolen moments of quiet: pausing over a half-made bed to watch the poplars don their golden coats then let them go, leaves spinning headily across the sky; walking at night under the late-fall stars, footsteps heavy, hands resting on my taut skin; laying in the bath and watching the imprint of a foot appear and then fade.

And then he was here, sea-wet and smooth, already chubby-armed and round faced, and instantly I couldn't remember what our home was like without his sweet, serene presence. "He seems dreamy" my mom said during an early visit, and it's true. He loves to watch the world around him with quiet intensity. His brother or his daddy make the best entertainment, but the bamboo outside our bedroom window tossed on the breeze will do, or a toy held delicately in his hands, or even those hands themselves, examined from all sides, turned, stretched, fingers opened and closed. I wrote a poem a long time ago, more than a decade now, but I think it was about Finn all along. It's called Hands.

Curled spiders
all around the room,
I watch our hands.

We grow older
leave home
find god
leave god.

We hold god
in our hands,
release spiders
into the air.

That's what it looks like when he plays with his hands--as if his fingers are wrapped in an invisible spiderweb and he is pulling and stretching the shimmering strands with absolute concentration and wonder, as if he is playing with the trailing links to wherever he was before.

So Finn sits on my hip, or in the Ergo on my chest, or on the floor and watches his busy family spin around him, and I watch Finn and wonder who he will be at three, at ten, fifteen, twenty three, fifty. Or, more often, I don't--I hold him tight but stay on the move, meeting Oliver's louder needs and the pressing minutia of the day, until a jolt brings me up short and reminds me to slow down and really look at this little one, the little brother, sweet giggler, goofy-grinned guy. I meet his eyes and he gazes back with wholehearted delight.

Born into the role of little brother, I worry sometimes that he will be overshadowed by the joyous, chattering tumbleweed of his older sibling. He is so often quiet, fussing gently to remind me of his need to nurse or be changed, quickly soothed. Pushed too far, though, his wails reach deep into my primitive mother-brain, leaving me incapable of answering a simple question or carrying out a basic task until I have lifted, cuddled, quieted and can breathe again.

He is finding other ways to communicate his needs, too. Lately he has adopted a stuttering chuckle that means "I want it!", and a particular cry when the object of his attention leaves the room. Most frequently heard is his gasp of delight when Oliver appears for the first time in the morning or the 40th time of the afternoon. Daddy coming home at the end of the day is worth a full-body lunge towards the door, whole body smiling, arms held out. And when he wants Mama, only Mama will do, a sentiment conveyed by his laser-like lock on me as he tracks my every move. No complaints here--nothing sweeter than gathering in that perfect bundle of love and want and holding him in the space just over my heart.

Happy half-birthday precious Finn. We are so glad you are here.

Happy Chaos in a Small House

We live in a small house. A really small house--not like those featured in magazines about living in "tiny" spaces, which actually turn out to be 1200 or 2000 square feet. Ours is right around 650 square feet, with a less than perfect layout and lots of "unique" features.

Now, I know that for many, many people in the world, just four of us in a house this size would be considered the height of luxury, and I try to maintain a little perspective. When I get really annoyed at stepping over the litter box to make the bed or trying to shoehorn the clean laundry into over-flowing drawers, I can always make myself feel better by doing one of those carbon footprint calculators on-line and feeling smug about our reduced footprint (not that it's by choice, exactly, but I'll take credit anyway). Other times I pretend I'm in Japan, where we might be rolling up our beds and putting them away each morning.

Showing friends around the place for the first time (which can be done without even moving your feet if you stand right in the doorway between bedroom and dining area/hallway) is an interesting gauge of cultural perceptions. "How will you have kids if you live here?" one friend asked. Obviously that was a few years ago--if he were here now, he'd look around at the toys scattered here and there, the highchair tucked into the corner of the kitchen and the cute car stickers on the walls in Oliver's room and he'd have his answer--quite comfortably, at least for now. On the other hand, friends from Europe didn't blink an eye. This is a perfectly normal sized abode from their point of view.

On my more positive days, I appreciate the fact that having such a small place forces us to be very conscious in our consumption. We just don't have the room to accumulate too much stuff, and anything wishing to join our household has to meet a pretty stringent set of criteria. Do we love it? Truly need it? How much does it hurt when we stub our toes on it? Can it survive the attention of two small boys and two furry cats? What do we want to get rid of to make room for it? We also have a regular flow of bags and boxes to thrift stores and Friends of the Library book sales.

Living here successfully is like inhabiting a large 3-dimensional puzzle. All spaces have to do double or triple duty, and we do a lot of rearranging throughout the day. The litter box, for example, lives between the side of our bed and wall during the day. At night, because the cats drive us crazy with their scratching when we are trying to sleep, and because Alonso needs a clear path from our bed to Oliver's so he can soothe nightmares and bring drinks of water without tripping, the box goes in the kitchen. I start most mornings by sweeping the bedroom to get rid of yesterday's tracked litter (yuck), moving the box into the bedroom and then sweeping the kitchen to get rid of last night's tracked litter. Some people go for a run first thing, others make coffee--I carry dustpans and boxes of cat litter. Fortunately, Finn finds all of this very entertaining to watch.

The greatest challenge of our space is accommodating guests comfortably. I feel bad that they end up on the floor, where the first light of day and Oliver's pleas to get up and play make sleeping in impossible. Our one bathroom can only be reached by going through our bedroom. And meals are eaten perched around the house, cradling bowls of soup on our laps. I like to cook for those I love, and love eating together around a comfortable, beautiful table, but for now I'll have to be happy to gather around our living room rug instead. High on my list of projects for the backyard includes building a patio and investing in an outdoor table big enough to seat a crowd.

The true saving grace of our home is the view from the living room window. The sky is huge, and in the winter we can see across the wide laguna to the hills on the other side of Santa Rosa. We watch water levels rise with the falling rain, and the tall Lombardi poplars arc gracefully in the wind. When spring comes, green explodes over the trees: oak, walnut, apple, plum, each wrapped in a shimmering coat of leaves. Winter and summer alike, birds hold parties on the bare branches and lush crowns and red squirrels argue and race on the rooftops. Their calls drift in through the open windows and the house breathes out, big enough.