eat, sleep, play

Most of my creative energy these days remains absorbed by the demanding work of growing a baby. The scope of my concern is so narrow, so confined to the most essential: eating, sleeping. I recognize this is pretty boring stuff, so I really won't be hurt if you stop reading here!

The dinners are slowly petering out, and I'm back to cooking for my family on a regular basis. I've found my usual culinary ambitions (i.e. dishes that require chopping) have been seriously curbed by life with little Bea, and no one seems to mind too much - in fact the kids are probably hoping the spaghetti and eggs and quesadillas will last for a long time.

The reason I can handle quesadillas is that Beatrice is six weeks old, and breathing room - at least a bit of it - is reentering my life. Our dear babe can tolerate solitude for a few minutes at a time, doesn't scream for the entirety of short car trips, and - the most wonderful development - has started smiling at us. And a couple of nights ago she slept for five straight hours! Heavenly. It's crazy when doing a few dishes without a baby strapped to your torso seems luxurious, but that's where I am, and most of the time I don't mind it. This morning I ran into a very pregnant woman in the bottle/nursing aisle who was expecting her third, bracing herself for this intense newborn period. She said according to her husband, it's completely manageable when you know what to expect: two weeks of blissful falling in love, followed by four weeks from hell, followed by gradual easing - more sleep, more smiles - until by six months, everything comes up roses.

I don't know if I'd say the past month has been from hell exactly, but I guess the timeframe for a period of, ahem, serious challenges sounds about right to me. Slowly we are integrating this new person into our family, and the more regular life things we do together, like eat dinner (even if dinner is peanut butter sandwiches), sing songs in the car and - wonder of wonders - smile at one another, the better everything gets.

Beatrice is too little to partake, but she is always on someone's lap when we play this new game. Frances and I learned about it in Then There Were Five, one of the exquisite books in the Melendy quartet by Elizabeth Enright. Maybe one of you has a name for it? One person is It, and while It is not listening, everyone else decides on a person - either famous or from regular, shared life. Then the person who is It has to figure out the identity of the person by asking everyone what flower he or she most resembles, what gem, what color, what tree, what fruit, etc. Frances has an almost alarming genius for this game. Last night our friend Chester and I chose the mother of one of Gabriel's friends. She was peacock blue, a ruby, a paw paw tree...and Frances guessed it. We've done everyone in our family (I was brought to tears when I was It and Frances, tricky girl, did me - an amethyst! a deep, deep blue! a rose! a dolphin, goodness me!). Everyone except Beatrice. We need to get to know her a little better. These sweet little smiles are just the beginning.