I hadn’t seen airport carpet in quite a while when I bundled up baby Marion and carried her and my carry on into PDX International. I hadn’t flown anywhere in a year and a half, honestly. Continue Reading…
Little Marion’s been out here breathing air for half a year. I wrote a post when Lucie turned six months old, and so many of the same things could be said this time around…but it’s also an entirely different experience.
Mom of two.
Me.
A jump of a different sort into a new world. Not like the original: going from half of a footloose married duo to partnered first time parent. This time, the family rhythm thing was already ticking along in the background of our life story, but the change felt a bit like adding a second jump rope to the routine.
Quick.
On your toes.
Faster.
Watch out.
Here it comes again, sooner than you think. Continue Reading…
You have to start those grand adventures with little baby steps, right?
With both girls, we traveled across state lines from Oregon into Washington during their first week or so out in the world. Our newborn photographer Erin Tole shoots just outside Portland, across the Columbia River, and she’s well worth the foray into that mysterious land of Vancouver… (WA, not B.C.)
These newborn photos are for posterity, and also (let’s be real) for my personal enjoyment, and since I’m feeling particularly sappy today, I’m finally posting them here to share with you. Continue Reading…
two(miniOregonians)
Lucie bumped, cuddled, elbowed, and queried my rounding belly for the better part of last summer, fall, and winter. She grew herself through tiny tot stages, adjusting and growing and trying to understand. We started reading I’m a Big Sister* shortly after her second birthday in September, watched “circle tub” water birth videos in the new year, and practicing giving her own little baby a bath during the weeks before my due date.
I credit her with so much.
Trying at two to comprehend the foreign notion of big sister and what such a life change entails.
Since I’d never had a baby sister of my own, I wished so much to watch the two of them meet and see her heart expand.
How special for Ted and me to welcome little Marion on a Friday afternoon and then have my parents bring Lucie to the birth center just a few hours later to meet her little sister for the very first time. There’s never any telling how something like that might go, but I had my hopes…and a camera lined up just in case…
Continue Reading…
BabyOregonian, Musings, Short and Sweet and Scattershot, Tidbits About Us
Mama Said: Wit + Wisdom
May 8, 2016Last spring, my friend Tiffiney from Wild Child Travels wrote to me asking if I’d contribute to a collection of short stories about motherhood. Something distinctly *not* “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” Something candid and truthful and maybe raw with a little humor for perspective.
Of course I said yes, and then agonized over what to write.
My piece, “Spill It” (ironically submitted just a few weeks after Mother’s Day, while I was pregnant with Marion but didn’t yet know), delves into my personal story of breastfeeding difficulties with Lucie. Not something I’d probably splash across my blog…but a story to share with the right kind of audience. I’m honored to be included alongside all sorts of moms from all walks of life.
A year later, here I am with not one but *two* little girls, and the Mama Said: Wit + Wisdom for Mothers anthology is hot off the press and available for just under ten bucks.
~ Happy Mother’s Day ~
P.S. Sweet little hours-old Lucie is pictured on the front cover, and more pictures of us are peppered through the pages of Mama Said. This reminds me (well, not that I forgot, just that I haven’t had time yet), that I hope soon to get my act together and publish the new posts of hours-old and days-old Marion photos by the talented Erin Tole.
Hang tight…they’re in the queue. [Update: they’re here!]
xx
Bethany
BabyOregonian, Musings, Tidbits About Us
Dead Woman’s Pass: The Long and the Short of Labor
April 1, 2016Today: I’m choosing between a shower and a blog post. (Not what you wanted to know, probably.)
In my defense, many of my previous adventures in life necessitated the foregoing of showers, and I was always glad for the stories I lived to tell afterward.
Backpacking in the Cascade Range, for example. Or trekking along a certain busy South American route* where showers were available but, uh, less than desirable. (Give me changing diapers any day over dealing with those latrines.)
But anyway. The nitty gritty of unpolished living is something that we’re all familiar with, yeah? So, I invoke you to recall your own unshowered, perhaps sleep deprived days (and nights), and you’ll have a pretty good guess about how I’m getting on right about now.
I haven’t introduced you to my sweet new girl because, well, I’ve been living with my sweet new girl, and life often gets entirely in the way of writing about life.
But here I am today, trying.
Flashback to where we were on February 3rd (my birthday): waiting. The day before a due date.
First it was just us two.
Then three.
Then our hearts broke when we thought four was certain…but life held other mysteries.
Now, sweet little four is due to join us in the short, cold days of winter, and we’re living in the joy of anticipation.
I’ve been so angsty these past four months: unsure of how to process, unsure of how to celebrate, unsure of how to share the news.
My heart hurts even right now for dear friends carrying the weight of bitter pain while I get to post this cheery note.
For every pregnancy announcement popping up, I’m acutely aware that another heart somewhere is stinging with loss.
For every pair of baby shoes joining the row of family sneakers, every gaggle of blue/pink balloons soaring into the air, every double line on a stick that was, let’s face it, involved in someone’s trip to the toilet, for every happy due date…there is another someone’s disappointing goodbye to the fertility specialist, a punch-in-the-gut ultrasound sending parents spinning into darkness, a purchased pack of pads for blood spilled much too early. Continue Reading…
Lately, I’ve been dreaming of far off places again. Ted know this. As my head hits the pillow, I mumble fanciful wishes for plane tickets and foreign sublets and new horizons, unfamiliar sights and smells and tastes…
The siren’s song is everywhere.
I load little Lucie into her car seat, and we set out on the daily circuit around the city.
We have a new CD of poetry read aloud by Julie Andrews; her melodic voice fills the air as we drive (a pleasant jump from jazz radio) and briefly, ever so briefly, the poem Cargoes sweeps me away: Continue Reading…
Mt. Hood from Lolo Pass Road
Remember last time?
[A Wild Christmas Tree Grows in Oregon: New Traditions for Our Little Family]
Well, here I am, reporting back. Another year, another Christmas tree, another holiday season…and this time, a babyOregonian who graduated to toddlerhood. Continue Reading…
First, a year of the two of us, circling the globe. Then a year of the three of us, riding the orbit around the sun.
September 17th.
We’ve made it back to this place in space, and we couldn’t be more grateful for Lucie Anne Rydmark, the Little Peach. Continue Reading…