portrait of a mother of three

Taken by Shaggy at the top of the Astoria column

Self-portrait in the same place

heard on the street

"What do bones do when you cry?"

-Oscar, coming out after bedtime to ask a pressing question. I told him they don't really do anything, they just stay bones, and he said, "Okay. I didn't know." and went back to bed.

learning list, fall 2015

About a month ago I asked Lucy if we could make a list of the things she thought she wanted to learn this year. At first she said no, she learned a lot of things last year so there was really nothing left that she wanted to learn, but when I asked her again about a week later she had no trouble coming up with this list:

Lucy wants to learn
1. How to tame snakes
2. Forest school
3. How to make paper
4. How to play guitar
5. How to cook a family dinner
6. How to do jump rope really good
7. How to dive on a diving board
8. Swimming lessons that help you go under water without goggles and swim really good
9. How to tame tigers
10. More books about Zeus and the Olympian gods. Why would Zeus marry Hera?
11. Learning more about hwo to use computers and websites
12. Learn about D-Day
13. Build model airplanes


There were a few things I wanted to add to the list, so I made my own list for Lucy.

Mommy wants Lucy to learn
1. Days of the week
2. Months of the year
3. How to tell time

Lucy is really into the idea of directing her own learning, so she thought that if I got to make a list for her then she should also be able to make a list for me.

Lucy wants Mommy to learn
1. How to not make lists for Lucy
2. You have to do jump rope (You haft to do janp rope)


Should be a fun year!

one month

Dear little Fife,

You have been here for one month now. You are cheeks and hair and mouth and toes. And thighs! With thigh rolls! You are the first of my babies to not need a bili-blanket for jaundice; you are the last of my babies.

Your siblings fight daily over who you look at more, smothering you with kisses and trying to teach you everything: how to smile, how to grab things, how to open your mouth wide for mama milk. It took them a whole month to realize that you (and all babies) are actually kind of boring, in that you can't really do anything with them yet. We are all excited for you to grow.

For me it has been a month of soft hair and warm breath--I waited so long for you to actually arrive, and now that you're here I just feel relaxed. You are nice to hold, you are nice to feed, you are nice to rock and sing to. Not overwhelmed by the particulars I am instead in awe of the universal, of the fact of human development: that you didn't exist at all, and then you did, and then you grew into something recognizably human, all invisibly inside my body, all in the space of nine months.

We call you by lots of nicknames, trying things out to see what fits:

• Fife
• Fifey
• Fifer
• Fifignewton
• Fifelina (e.g. Royal Tenenbaum: "Where's my Fifelina?")
• Filomena Halloweena
• Fillyjonk
• Fifearoo
• Electric Fiferella

We have also been looking for a suitable animal nickname, to go with Goose and Ox. Before you were born we were leaning toward Birdy, after a game that Oscar liked to play while I was pregnant, but then you were actually born and there was nothing remotely bird-like about you. The midwife at your birth suggested Moose, given your impressive size, but it didn't take. I am pulling for Bobcat (we saw one at the high desert museum, and it was cuddly like a house cat but much larger), but I seem to be the only one.

Maybe we'll have one by next month.

We love you so much!

Love,
Mama

the world according to fife

The first two weeks: