Best Birthday Gift and Bring That Baby Out!

My actual birthday was a frigid day with bitter, strong winds. We had plans for a morning hike followed by a trip to the Museum. We ended up all sleeping in and the only thing I felt like doing was sipping hot drinks and parousing my new reads. Then in the afternoon, I brought my two boys to the thrift store. They rarely get to go to stores with me except Weaver's Way. Anyway, the serendipitous energy that I find around thrifting, I find, they also share. We found an authentic mariachi sombrero as well as a dressy wool fedora-style hat BOTH in BOYS' sizes! Also, we found an unopened boardgame called "Batman's Rooftop Rumble" to which Benici responded, "I have always wanted a game like that!" and as we made our way through the store he said, "Mom, I just can't stop thinking about that game we got!" Manny really wanted this turtleneck to look like "Freddy from School of Rock" and this red crew neck sweatshirt that says "California: in the same font as "Coca Cola." They make these careful and funny selections. Manny found a VHS tape of animated William Steig stories. It was so fun.

While we were mid-store, this middle-aged woman stopped us. "You have the most well-behaved and engaged children!" she said. Our interaction went on. I was polite and grateful. Then she asked, "Do you go to the Coleman branch of the Free Library?" I said, "Honestly, I have been avoiding the library bc I have about $20 in fines." Anyway, she happened to be the branch -coordinator for the Northwest neighborhoods and offered to remove our fines. I couldn't believe it. I live for little coincidences like this! What were the chances that I'd be in the store at the same time as this person and the chances that she'd OFFER to remove my conscience-binding fines and the fines that I unscrupulously incurred on my kids' cards? But she phoned on Saturday morning and Geoff said she was chipper and said the fines were erased and said, "Welcome back to the library!"

Yes, that photo is me jumping rope in the backyard yesterday. Just trying to jostle things around for the little bambina in there!

Ringing In Thirty

Geoff threw a surprise "Countdown to Thirty" party on Thursday night! Complete with selected readings, fondue and s'mores, a ball of lights to drop at midnight and breathtaking renderings that make this pregnant mama feel so loved!

Goodbye, My Twenties

"Kenneth, do you have a minute?/And I say yes! I am in my twenties!/ I have plenty of time! In you I marry,/ In you I first go to France; I make my best friends/ in you and a few enemies. I/ write a lot and am living all the time/and thinking about living."-- from Kenneth Koch's "To My Twenties" from his book of odes, "New Addresses."

Things I Loved About My Twenties: the way you begin your twenties while in college, surrounded by friends who are grappling for their identity along with you/ you don't have the foolish adolescent illusion that you are immortal but you have the resilience to take some lumps/ I loved how I felt like a physically-able birthing woman/ the glamour of substance abuse subsides and you can really learn how to appreciate food and wine/ living in Boston with Geoff-- so much promise, figuring out the life we wanted together/ having our first babies and being spry enough to play with them/ the flexibility to NOT go the grad school route and really get content about being home with my babies/ watching Geoff find his vocation--humbling and difficult at times/ getting a vision for our family-- let's buy groceries this way, let's try and save to travel that way.

Things I Look Forward To About My Thirties: NOT being tortured by questions of status or identity-- Do people GET me? Am I good enough? / Having some metabolic stasis/ putting roots down in Philly/ finally feeling like peers with my sibs/ making decisions with Geoff and making clear boundaries with our parents/ getting down and dirty with my kids-- making an Eden out of the backyard, stretching them athletically/ rolling up my sleeves and having fun paint stripper-- when you are not baking a fetus the world of household toxins opens up to you!/ Once I was mortified when a nursery school mom said, "I'm just not looking for any new friends" as her reason for not attending a potluck. Now I totally get this. I look forward to the freedom to not have to babysit my friendships but this seasoned and stable trust that we are present for eachother when needed. And in between, we are easy and honest.

One Recommendation and Two Disrecommendations

Okay, say you are in your third trimester of pregnancy. (And actually three dear friends of mine are.) My brother recently moved to Omaha and they have a restaurant there called "Burger Lust." I think we should go. I am an unapologetic carnivore but when I'm pregnant, I am a hopeless and brazen red-meat enthusiast. Ask Geoff how many times he's tried to quickscan a menu for the phrase "steak tips" or whatever the closest thing to London Broil happens to be. Anyway, my sister said it was yummy and you could even get guacamole on your burger, which secures Omaha squarely on my personal food map. As we used to say in college, "Anyone up for a 'let's go?"

Winter is our season for Netflix, cozy nights in cramming Oscar picks and getting transported by what we joke is "the magic of the movies." Last night, I was sorting bed linens and we had a double feature-- Two Films to Depress and Disturb You. The first one was by this female Australian animator. It was called "Look Both Ways." It was one of those overlapping plots movies but had these animated thought-sequences which where the characters' fears and anxieties of train wrecks, shark attacks, multiplying cancer cells. The animation pieces were imaginative but the payoff was not satisfying enough. When your setup includes testicular cancer diagnosis, a fatal stumble near a train track, and characters who are misogynist blame-shifters, I think you have to do alot of unpacking and winding around to get to a satisfying resolution. The writer was ambitious but too many crazy images viewed at night is a recipe for insomnia if you are 36 weeks pregnant.

I was pregnant with Clara when we watched "Fahrenheit 911," I spent the first 20 minutes asking if it was real footage. The second 20 minutes shaking my head in disbelief and the remaining time passed out asleep out of hopelessness. We watched "The Road to Guantanamo" last night. It was the story of four British men whose travels to Pakistan went painfully and dreadfully amuck. Three of them were accompanying the one who was set to get married. Can you imagine travelling to your friend's wedding in your homeland and taking a little tourist jaunt and ending up in Guantanamo Bay as a prisoner of the U.S. Marines? Held in captivity for 3 years? I wept at the inhumanity and how the sequence of events just got more convoluted and more desparate. I thought it preserved the men's dignity, it didn't have the Jerry Springer tabloid sheen to it. Not really the Abu Ghraib sort of zoo that makes me embarassed of our country. It did have a surprising and redemptive ending but again, I was asking, "Yes, but still what they went through?!" I usually yawn when people get all bumper-sticker-righteous but a professor I had said, "The personal is the political. Voting should be a visceral experience." I can't pretend that I am that informed. Geoff laughs at my ability to care ONLY about the weather. So I have a few news sources I follow and some folks whose politics I trust but when I see films like this I am jolted. I am confronted with the scarier end of the human spectrum.

So, I ask, "Is this the kind of world I want to share with a new baby? How can I make it safe enough? How can I protect and equip her for the range of experiences she will have?" I don't know. All I can say is, unless you have the ability to fall gracefully into a dreamless sleep or the yogic will to visualize healing all around you, don't rent these films.

What's In a Name?

There once was this article about my family in the Lebanon Daily News, our little hometown paper. The reporter listed through the six of us sibs, my brothers' honor society, altar service, sports achievements, student council, etc. When he got to me, he said, "Even though she's only in the third grade, she is showing academic prowess." When he got to my little sister, he ended the article with this power-punch question, "Right now she's just a kindergartener at St. Mary's School, but the question is, will Michelle Legaspi be able to continue to carry the Legaspi Family Dynasty?" Yes, that's a lot of pressure, I know. (Pressure that she thrives on with aplomb, fyi.) But THIS is exactly the pressure I feel in naming what I think will be the last of our children. It's gotta be great and it's got to carry the weight of a dynasty.

This is one of our daily exercises, trying out names on each other. Geoff will appear in the doorway to the laundry room, "How about 'Clementine Hope?" And I'll kick back, "Joyce Generosa?" Or later, over the popcorn during a movie, "Did we consider 'Mildred Skye?" I will say, the payoff is so good when we stumble on a good one. To me, it's sort of like a juicy thrift-find like a vintage cotton frock that has duckies wearing Debbie Reynolds' raincoat and umbrella circa 1952. Or the Fisher Price Camper set complete with all the little chokable people plus the little plastic campfire. Finding a great name is better than this.

I find myself limited by English. I want to find a name by starting with its meaning. I want a Japanese name that means "the branch that blossoms by faintest moonlight." Or how do you say in Hausa something that means "the people who get scattered but who are reunited gloriously and serendipitously?" With our sons, we say we named them after the station we found ourselves in life at that moment: God is with us every day and True forgiveness is possible. With Clara we named her after cute clipped variations of our mothers' names. With this one, it seems like we're naming her after the desire to close the baby-having chapter of our life. Something that packs a wollop, a cute, meaningful, musical wollop.

I was remembering this book that I read to my neices when they were little Catholic homeschoolers. It was about the girl martyrs and it was illustrated in the style of Maira Kalman, very whimsical and painterly. I say that bc somehow it captured the beauty of St. Agnes offering God her gouged eyeballs or the strength and courage of St. Agatha who offered her breasts to God on a platter. I was considering the names of the girl martyrs, full of integrity and this Godward energy that compelled them so deeply. And I do think about the youngest, how it seems whatever they do, however mighty there is something beautiful and humorous about them being the baby of the family. And even though I am very skeptical of "self-esteem" psychobabble I do think that girls have an uphill battle in our culture. I like the chutspah of a girl like St. Maria Goretti who took 70 daggers before she would submit to an Italian grape farmer.

And there is the whole topic of accents to consider. For example, my sister and I both love the main character in "A Separate Peace" but with our parents' Filipino accent, the name "Phineas" would be a perpetual fountain of phallic jokes. And I love that my parents named me after Mother Mary but I think that my name sounds terrible in Boston--"Mu-reer." Or even by the Philly sisters of St. Joseph--"Mu-ray-uh."

As for leaking the possibilities of THIS baby's name. I will say that this time around it was a GB pick. The first name is great. The middle name is giving me pause. I have some trusted namesmiths on the case. And I have good techniques for dodging the question in case you ever need them. If you know me, this is serious almost sacred business to me. I have been accused of "taking things too seriously" but to those critics, I say "if YOU have to push a child through a 10cm canal, you get to name that baby however you want to."

all things together and in a row

the kids and their pals at Allen's Lane on 1/1/07
We just spent the weekend recharging the battery, so to speak. A weekend at my parents' house which means a lot of good food, long naps for everyone, my seasonal "seminar" at my favorite store, and a date night three nights in a row. My Mom helps us do a lot of soul-work: encouragement for our marriage, pep talk for our parenting, even helping me to visualize the tone of my uterus and how "very strong" it is and will be for the birth. These are things I really needed. There's all the soul work. (We both came home having borrowed theology books: C.S. Lewis, Nouwen and JMT.) The wrestlings about being fit to welcome this new baby, to accept this great change.

And then there's the parenting work. How will this affect Manny's love of routine, Benicio's need to snuggle, Clara's babyhood? Anyway, it was out with the old and in with the new. I culled all the boys stuff: our fave 2-3yr old boys clothes have found new homes. I got them new warm socks and new undies. They have a fresh supply of recycled paper from my Mom's office and new art supplies. We threw away broken toys and organized their Christmas haul. I am trying to go through the girl-clothing, up to my neck in bloomers and pink onesies! Things are coming together, slowly.

Things I Want to Remember About Now

-the way the boys pack superhero costumes "just in case" whenever we leave the house, the way Manny fixates on my belly and rubs it any chance he gets, the way Clara wears a crown on her head upside-down and spins, the way she chooses a book and backs into your lap assuming that you are up for reading it to her, how Manny makes inventions like spider and star ornaments, pictorial pizza menus, how both boys ask us to "tell a story about our life that has 3 bad parts," they say "Save" when Clara or we do something to interfrere with their game, when we get strapped into the car they say "C" for not strapped in and then "L" for when they are ready for us to drive, how Clara paints on our faces with her fingers, how she and Maxine kiss, how Clara likes to carry the laundry soap one in each hand like she's entering the baggage claim. . . . I think I could go on all night. I just don't want the time to pass and for me to forget these little things, these things that make our lives so rich, these vivid personalities and quirky ways that even the best writers could not invent.

Mission Statement to End All Mission Statements

We come together as: independent women like Mary and Martha,
men discovering alternative power structures like the ruler Nicodemus,
children blessed like those who came to Jesus,
sexual outcasts discovering scriptural truths like the Ethiopian eunuch,
people with physical and mental illnesses like the "unclean" whom Jesus desired to touch,
collaborators with nationally and economically oppressive structures who are learning to repent and live justly like Zaccheus,
maritally suspect yet bold evangelists like the Samaritan woman,
rural like those who heard the sermon on the mount, and
urban like the crowds who shouted, "Hosanna!"

This comes from the "Congregational Vision" of the Germantown Mennonite Church right here on Washington Lane. When I read this, I thought immediately of Gerry Shank, Geoff's counselor in college. Gerry has passed away but he really lived like this. He was slight and graying, with kind eyes and the sheltering presence of a good friend. He wore chinos and broadcloth shirts that looked like he might go birdwatching in the woods a little later. I had some sessions with him and you could see that he believed that the Bible held the range of our humanity-- and so it was okay and normal to struggle. Not just okay but it was excellent and right to struggle. He was unflappable and nothing you could say could scandalize him. He responded to the Vietnam War in true Mennonite or Quaker fashion. He went to NYC to work with homeless teenagers. Looking at this statement, I see that he was so grounded. There were no "outcasts," no one Jesus was too good for. I so admire this. I want to meditate on this.

Accept, Regret, Wait Pool

We have now officially completed the process of applying Manny to kindergarten. Here is a photo Geoff took of us in front of the admissions building at GFS.

I know it is part of parenting to want to go into the world and hand-pick the very best for your kids. And to leave the rest. But applying to school really defines those categories: what kind of spiritual formation do I want for them? Is it more important for him to have an illustrious though arduous path to the ivy glory or to have a nurturing and free environment? Is it important to move forward with friends he's known for three years now or were those friendships valuable for socialization and now let's just move forward in our own direction? Will he be recognized as the amazing and unique boy that God made him or will he be just another statistic for the diversity column?

I am humbled because I don't know these answers. Times like these when I feel like we have really been given such huge responsibility.

Six Weeks and Counting

The fact that I received a hand-me-down bag in my kids cubbie is a normal occurence. The fact that the bag contained several perineal compresses is the fact that has me kind of "alarmed." I opened the bag ready to find some well-worn cotton tights or some broken-in Babystyle jeans but then it occured to me all at once--this baby is going to have to come OUT. Now, you know me, I love childbirth. It's kind of my field of study. Even with my growing tum, I haven't really given a ton of thought to the actual, you know, BIRTH.

Being my fourth baby, my midwife appointments are brief and informal. Even when we hear the rhythmic WHOOSH on the doptone, I breathe this, "Thank you, God" kind of prayer but then I really just flip back into my nonchalance about birth politics or the recent writings of Ina May or Henci Goer. With six weeks left I am really trying to tune in and get ready. I want to take the time to visualize this baby's entrance into the world. I want to brace myself for the sobering and difficult work of labor. Our bodies know how to birth. The uterus is an involuntary muscle. Get out of its way, I tell myself.

Even as I write this, there is so much to do for the other kids: finish Manny's app process to GFS, do the post-holiday toy purge, arrange the nursery (My friend Lisa'a house is my role model: a corner where she may want to write a letter, a corner to tune her guitar, photos of her with her cousins and friends.). I want to have the third floor all set-- a kind of kid wonderland where they can get solitude from a crying infant or a hormonally-ravaged mom. I have on my ical to read to the kids and pray with them every day. Today I spent a lot of time horizontal and cozy with them. If you ask them, they say that they're ready for the new baby. I want to be open-hearted and relaxed and ready, too.

Welcome, 2007!

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