jubal is 13 months now and has started walking in short, proud, tottering bursts. if you hold your arms open to him he will smile and walk toward you, often making it to your arms for a happy hug, other times plopping to his bum to hear the applause of everyone in the room, cheering and complimenting his brave steps. they are moments of pure joy, where we are entirely present, witnessing and adoring jubal ray. i love those moments each and every time, never boring of the game of walking. he walks around the house, too. to the t.v. or the shelf for his toys, or just around. toddle, toddle and boom.
i am so grateful for his life in our family, so glad that we made him and that i birthed him--purple and mad in the bathtub after so many hours of pointless, painful pushing. i'm glad that i endured at home, past the pain and futility that i truly believed i could no longer bear...with dad so compassionately proposing that i hang on for just another half hour (hahahahaahahaaaa!!!) and re-evaluate then. we haven't ever discussed it, but i like to believe that he knew how much i wanted to give birth at home and he obviously had faith that i could do it. it was--though i good naturedly laugh at the idea that while in the midst of endless waves of pushing pains the phrase "half hour" could ever have the word "just" in front of it--it was the right thing to say and to do. frame a block of time that has a beginning and an end (even though i know that if jubal hadn't come by the end of that time block we would only have created another and another block of time until it was finally over). it helped and i am grateful for that, as well.
and our family is happier and more complete than we knew it could be with him in all of our arms. and while the blocks of time are larger now--another year and *maybe* my house will be clean again! another three years and i'll have free time for projects! etc. etc.--the moving through those blocks is so perfectly fun and miraculous and joyous, that i almost never notice them. and so 13 months went by, like *that!*, and my baby walks and talks and eats regular food and is able to communicate with us. i marvel at how miraculous AND mundane life can be, plodding through the days and the chores and feeling blazing, burning joy a hundred times a day at the sight, sound, and antics of my gorgeous and amazing children.
today i am grateful for:
1) seasons
2) that puppies grow faster than humans (almost no messes in the house anymore!)
3) joy, and how effortlessly it encompasses you
4) rodney's whack sense of humor
5) the love and adoration of my children, which is strong and unconditional and pure
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an excerpt from a work-in-progress
they ate breakfast together: an omlettle he made filled with spinach and cream cheese and tomatoes and a bagel they split with salmon and more of the cream cheese and some capers she went back to the fridge for. they amused themselves discussing what capers are and how they came to be in jars at upscale markets for them to buy and eat on bagels with salmon. he liked to think they came from the sea somehow, and she assured him they were really little berries of some sort of fragrant bush. she fished the capers out of the tall jar as they talked and ate more than usual, something about their brininess described a hunger for her that she didn’t know she had, and then filled it. they drank steaming mugs of rich coffee with cream (and two sugars in his). she loaded the dishwasher and wiped off the counter while he cleaned the coffeegrounds and little spills from the coffee pot. the sun shone cleanly into their white kitchen and onto their bodies as they moved about their tasks and then they kissed one another and left for work, him to an office in town and her upstairs to her office where she worked as a freelance ad designer. it was a perfect morning. it was the perfect morning.
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