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When I was pregnant, I would go to toy stores often to search for those handfuls of items worthy of a place in the nursery.  During these excursions, I began to examine the mother’s w/their children in light of the pending arrival of my own.  So often, they were frazzled.  Dragging kids out of the store kicking and screaming, sternly telling a child to put a toy back, negotiating deals to avoid tantrums.  We’re a certain kind of people - the mothers of young children.

It looks like almost all of us have dark circles under our eyes and exhaustion in our backs.  Most of us need a make over.  It’s remarkable, and especially in terms of appearance, there’s usually this lack of make-up or presentation that is entirely lovely in a simple almost austere or modest way.  Maybe it’s because we spend so much of our time in the company of women and children, but there is this childlike return to play clothes, sneakers, and pony tails.

The part I dislike in myself is the speed of my thoughts.  Living with a 2 ½ year old, my thoughts are driven in the second to second range.  Completion of my thoughts is rare, and I guard my quiet time where I can relish a wholly formulated thought.  I try and constantly write, I must always be writing or else I couldn’t see my circumstances clearly, so subjective and close up is this minute to minute existence.

The group of women that I’ve become close friends with grows by bounds every month.  I’m not by nature a social person, but it’s with these women that I think I’ve found something close to a childhood friendship – maybe even comparable to the dear friend you had when you were 13 and figuring out how to put make-up on.  The intimacy of that relationship cannot be underestimated, and on some levels, we’re all learning to become wives and mothers together.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had this many close friends.  The other day, I organized a play date at the FABULOUS local ice cream store, and we took over the whole place.  I stood back for a moment looking at us all with the kids raising holy hell and the mothers chatting each other up about the world at large, and I was so thrilled because we’re in the same boat and for the most part trying to keep each other afloat.  It’s a powerful thing, and I don’t think I could do it without them.

My grandmother gave us a bread maker for my anniversary, and I have been baking bread almost everyday since.

My mother and great-grandmother are/were the spectacular bread makers in the family.  My great-grandmother’s bread was the most fabulous light sweetness I’ve ever eaten in my life.  My mother makes wide varieties of breads, and I was raised with it in the house all through the cold months.  White homemade bread with butter and honey remains my favorite thing to eat when I need comfort.

There’s something spiritual about making bread for my family.  Despite the technology of the bread-maker, I feel like I’m doing something that generations and generations of women have done to take care of their family.  I’m prone to drifting away into my imagination, and I love to think of that while Buttercup and I measure the ingredients carefully into the basin.  It’s like I’m helping my great grandmother squeeze out perfect rolls of dough again, and for a minute, she’s with me again.

So far I’ve made honey wheat, white, three-cheese, parmesan peppercorn, cinnamon and raisin, and a rustic Italian loaf.  It’s delicious.  The honey wheat makes the most tempting French toast.  The cinnamon raisin is good for that, too.  It’s a good thing I joined the Y, or I’d be in great danger of getting a little more wiggle in my jiggle.

I want to make stuffing and bread pudding with the leftovers.  Next, I’m going to try my hand at pizza dough and someday soon – I’m going to attempt to make soft homemade pretzels :)

While I can’t quite make bread by hand as well as my mother or great-grandmother, I can do a decent job.  With the bread maker, it’s so much less time consuming that I can make all the bread for the house.  Considering the cost of a decent loaf of wheat, I’m happy to do this.  You can even use powered vitamin C as a preservative.  How much healthier is that than the alternative?  I can’t wait to go to the farmer’s market and check out the local flours available.

The idea that I would like weight training is as bizarre to me as it is to the people who know me well.  While I love taking walks, playing at the park, and enduring the sit-ups that hurt my neck, I’ve always regarded weight-training equipment as something of phallic expression of masculine strength ;)

The husband and I joined our local YMCA.  I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a long time, and it’s working out well.  I had gone to another gym, and it wasn’t for me.  There were a lot of large muscular men there who freaked me out a little bit, as big men have a tendency to do to me.  At the Y, it’s an entirely different dynamic.  During the day, when I go, it’s just me and the older gentlemen and ladies.  Apparently, weight training is popular for older people who need rehab for injuries or just to build their strength.  Well, I fit right in with them, and I don’t feel self-conscious at all, which is what I was primarily worried about.

The equipment is amazing, because so far - I haven’t hurt myself.  I was in three car accidents almost in a row as a teenage gal between myself and gal friends learning to drive.  I have a tendency to hurt my back, neck, and shoulders often and painfully.  The equipment doesn’t hurt me, which I thought it would.  I love it.  In fact, it seems designed to avoid injury.  The extremely built gentleman who showed me how to use the equipment promised me it wouldn’t make me big and bulky, but leaner and stronger.  He also said that it would make my metabolism sky-rocket, and I’d loose weight as I went along.

After I work out there, I have this incredible high.  I had no idea that exercise did this to you, but it’s this wonderful feeling of strength and accomplishment that blend into the whole day.  I want to go everyday of the week.  Who knew?

The best part is that they have an amazing children’s center where Buttercup can play while I work out.  She’s been doing pretty well with being away from me, and she’s lasted about an hour and a half both times until she told the teacher to come and get me, which I told her to do when she wanted me.  I’m totally impressed with her for handling being away from me.  I can see the window of the play room from the weight room, and I think this might be a really good way to ease her into being apart from me without any painful issues.

I’m really hopeful this will not only make me stronger and leaner, but that little beauty will benefit as well.  They also have a Mommy and Me swim class that I want to get us into…I went ahead and bought bathing suits today for it.  Here’s hoping my mommy weight training at the YMCA turns into a positive thing for the whole family.

For her age, my girl has always been physically advanced as compared to the so-called milestones of childhood.  She’s always been a baby on a mission, and I’ll never ever forget how the first time I held her, a few hours after she’d been born, her little neck was strong.  She couldn’t quite hold it up on her own, but I could feel the strength in it.  I’ve held lots of babies, but she was born with this incredible vitality.

How things have changed - and now, she’s climbing, jumping, running, leaping through the world.  When we were last on the playground, she climbed to the top of the rock-wall on the big kid’s playground.  She’s such a sturdy confident little person.

My brother told me when he was here last; he’d been terrified she was going to fall when she was romping on her slide.  I told him, “She never falls, she never has.”  It’s true, too.  She might take a leap in a direction she shouldn’t, but she’s never been one to fall down, even as a wee little gal.  All her movements are intentional.

It’s because of this that I think raising her has always been what my father would likely call watchful waiting.  She’s always excelled, and I’ve tried to allow her the room to try things out on her own.  While my heart may be pounding in my chest while she’s conquering her latest mountain, I have to stand back and hold myself still to give her that freedom to try the world on for size.  She’s so relentlessly brave, bold, and audacious.  It’s so challenging to temper that without damaging it.  I want her to become that as a woman - that alive and fearless.

There are handfuls of people that I consider prominent in our little world.  We found a new one the other day at the park.  It was the DUCK FOOD MAN!  He apparently comes early in the morning to fill up the food dispensers for our fun.  Buttercup was amazed by this whole process, saying over and over again, “Mommy, what’s he doing?”  One of the other little ones dashed right up to his bucket of pellets and tried to grab a few handfuls.  Little cuties.

He was so nice to us, and he counted the children there and handed out nickels to them all, which is the coin the dispenser takes.  Buttercup was thrilled beyond belief, and she danced around holding her nickels up high like they were prizes.

One of the other mother’s says that the ducklings come in April, and I just can’t wait to see Buttercup’s reaction to that.  I am dying waiting for spring, but I think it’s coming early.  It will be a summer spent at the park underneath the wide shade of the evergreens, picnics, ducks, and blowing bubbles.  Let spring come - we’re ready for it.