Looks Like We Made It: An Easter Story

Growing up, Easter morning was almost as big of a deal for the kids in my family as Christmas morning. My parents created an elaborate treasure hunt with clues throughout the house leading us to Easter baskets and chocolate. Since moving to Berlin three years ago, 2013 was our first Easter in the city as a family—we normally travel during this time—and Lennon was finally old enough for a proper Easter hunt. 

The morning started off early—5:30am early—with a note from the Easter Bunny and a chocolate rabbit placed strategically near where we'd suspected he'd awake—in our bed. Behind the note was a clue as to where Lennon could find his next Easter surprise—from Mr. Bunny, of course. The clue came in the form of a printed photo of a location Lennon frequents in our apartment, making it simple for him to know where to look.

On the edge of the bathtub, Lennon found a papier-mâché egg with Easter stickers inside, along with another clue.

Atop his play kitchen, was a new cooking and eating play set. Though another clue was included here, he became a bit distracted at this juncture.

His final clue brought him to his bedroom where he found a new bed for his baby doll. We're hoping to make him into a little Papa before his sister arrives in June. So far he’s playing along nicely.

Later that day, we would be visiting several of Lennon's friends and I wanted to bring something special for each of them. I made five small Easter baskets with a few goodies inside. For the baskets, I purchased this pattern but modified the handles and some of the construction to make it more Easter basket-like. I used my handy printable fabric to make the name plaques on the front. The linen and dotted fabric was purchased from IKEA—of all places—and the orange and white rick-rack was a market stall find. 

Each child received two decorated sugar cookies inside their homemade basket. After much trial and disappointment over the years with sugar cookies I tried this recipe entitled 'The Best Sugar Cookies.' They lived up to their name! An organic chocolate bunny lolly made by Alnatura was also included.

The tutorial for the carrots can be found here—it's free! Along with the dotted fabric from IKEA and the market stall rick-rack, the green check fabric I used for the carrot tops was also found at the market, on an enormously wide bolt. Just one meter yielded so much that I've already made big plans for the leftovers.

The padded baskets came in handy later for egg hunting with Lennon's buddy Otis.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Kreuzberg for a family supper with more of Lennon's little buddies and their parents. Lennon had been gifted a beautiful, mint condition vintage suit, circa 1950s, by my Mother, purchased from an Etsy seller. I couldn't wait for him to don it as his Easter outfit. With the absence of an authentic 1950s boys button down shirt, Lennon wore a white long sleeve onesie from H&M underneath and I made him a coordinating neckerchief from leftover vintage yardage and mini rick-rack, which sweetened the whole look.

For supper with friends, I made an asparagus quiche and a carrot cake. Other folks had made lasagna, salad, and homemade bread. Our hosts made lamb and a pear tart—so much good food and really wonderful people.  

I pushed myself beyond my energy level this Easter making sure I created the type of day I really wanted my family to experience, but it was absolutely worth it. I’ve been taking extra naps ever since to make up for it. My stamina is just not the same in the third trimester. Fortunately, I'm currently on maternity leave from my PhD program, which I'll be writing more about in the months to come. Taking this leave has lifted a tremendous weight off my shoulders and has allowed this pregnant mother to do just what she desires at this exact moment: focus on being a mom.

With 99% Certainty

Last week we had an appointment with my Frauenarzt (Gynecologist in German) for a routine checkup concerning Little Inside Baby, hereafter referred to as L.I.B. All looked well on the doctor’s grainy ultrasound monitor and she asked us—my husband and son were present—if we knew the gender of the baby. I had told her the gender in our appointment four weeks ago. We even had a conversation about how the health of the baby is what’s important, which seems to be the common condolence when I tell people I’m having another boy. No matter. She’s a busy doctor with many patients. She’s likely to forget a conversation that took place a month ago. I told her that the Perinatal Specialist had said we were having a boy. She started to shift her ultrasound wand back and forth on my belly, trying to get a better view of the baby’s undercarriage. “Is it still a boy?” I asked. She said that she just couldn’t get the baby in the right position to check for sure. It was of no consequence, really. I felt I was having a boy. I had committed, happily, to being the mother of boys.

Yesterday, we had our follow-up visit with our Perinatal Specialist. We chose to see a Specialist because of my “advanced maternal age.” Lovely. Lennon came for the visit this time and ran around wildly, playing with the nurse. Unlike my pregnancy with Lennon, I am much more calm this time. When the Specialist told us in November that our baby was healthy and had no signs of genetic defect, I imprinted that information in my heart and let it give me peace. With Lennon, I second-guessed every diagnosis. I think my calm this time also comes from the knowing that whatever child I am blessed with, I am just that: blessed—something I didn’t realize before giving birth to Lennon.

As I reclined on the exam table, five feet in front of me was the Specialist’s enormous flat screen TV where I could see the 3-D ultrasound of L.I.B. captured by his fancy, state of the art equipment. He started to verbally check off all of the baby’s features, with comments like “perfect” and “normal.” He then asked if we knew the gender already.

“Yes, a boy.” I said.

“Who told you that?” he said.

“Your nurse, when we called in December.” I answered.

He then told us unequivocally that we, in fact, had a girl! He was concerned that we had not been told that the gender results from the eleven-week ultrasound were not meant to be 100% accurate. I reassured him that, indeed, the nurse clearly stated that the certainty was only 99%. The Specialist apologized more than was needed, really, and stated that today’s gender results were now upgraded to 100%. We would be having a baby girl. My husband and I were in a state of thrilled shock. I believe I still am.

Afterward, the Specialist looked once more at November’s ultrasound picture, from which L.I.B.’s gender had been given that early determination. He said that in looking again at that eleven-week picture, he would still say it was a boy. Apparently, the little gender determining parts just look so darn similar at that point in the pregnancy and what with how the baby was positioned…that’s why he makes his early determinations at less than 100% certainty. He wanted to make sure we understood, however, that all the other factors he checked at the early ultrasound—the bridge of the baby’s nose, the Nuchal fold, the heart—were absolutely accurate. We had a healthy baby. He didn’t need to say this, but I’m glad he did.

On the way home, I felt a little guilty being so giddy about now having a girl, as if I was betraying the little boy I thought I was going to have. Silly, right? It’s still the same baby. Over the past six weeks, I had reconciled any disappointment in not having a girl and had really fallen in love with the baby boy I thought was growing inside me. What I learning now is how little gender really does matter. Boy or girl, I fell in love with this child’s unique soul.

Post-Script:

Early on in the pregnancy, weeks before we saw the Perinatal Specialist, my husband and I performed the “thread and needle” gender test. The test is about as accurate as any old wives’ tale, but the needle that hung from the pink thread spun around in circles when dangled above my newly pregnant belly. We performed the test several times to confirm the result. I performed it again on myself the following day. Each time, it made gentle circles above my belly.

Circles for a girl, back and forth for a boy.

A Mother of Boys

When we found out Little Inside Baby is going to be a boy, I’ll confess that I had to do some readjusting. Even though I’d long convinced myself that a healthy baby was the only miracle gift I could want and that having two boys would be such a magical thing, I secretly desired to see myself reflected in a child of my same gender. As soon as we found out, I began problem solving—figuring out how to not just accept that we wouldn’t be having a girl but to celebrate having a boy. I knew, after all, that there were no guarantees that a girl child would be any more a reflection of me and my interests than my sons would be. Their paths are their own. Still, I read a ton online about being the mother of boys and spoke to other moms in my community, also pregnant with their second sons, about how they felt. While I found some comfort in knowing I wasn’t alone in my ego dream of wanting a baby girl, more so I found there to be pieces missing in the conversation about raising boys, specifically when it came to sexual orientation.

Valerie Monroe wrote an article for Oprah magazine entitled, “How to Raise the Men We’d Want to Marry.” Before I address the article’s the title, which is directed toward mothers, there are some important points in this piece I’d like to note. Monroe sites William Pollack, author of Real Boys, who contends that “for boys to be happy and healthy, they must be allowed to have feelings, to show empathy, to be able to express the range of emotions encouraged in girls.” Monroe continues by nakedly acknowledging that to do this isn’t always easy given so many of the images we’re presented with of what it means to be a man. She talks about the difference between “Daddy’s Girl” and “Mama’s Boy.” The latter has a decidedly pejorative connotation in our society, she asserts. “Mama’s Boy”, Monroe claims, draws up images of a man “tied to his mother’s apron strings.”

Olga Silverstein, author of The Courage to Raise Good Men, also sited by Monroe, says that mothers withdraw from their sons because they are afraid they will “contaminate them with female qualities.” Silverstein calls for a shift in how we perceive these “female qualities” stating that, “As a culture, we perceive empathy, nurturance, talent for friendship and relationship as belonging only to women and less valuable than independence and the kinds of strengths traditionally associated with men.”

If you’ve ever met my husband, you’ll understand that a strong, independent man can also be an empathetic and emotionally available one who has a very close relationship with his mother. Though I’ve believed it all along, Monroe’s article put words to my own formula for raising a brave boy: love and emotional well-being.

But the article’s title…

The closing paragraph of the piece reads thusly:

“A child who is fully and deeply loved, who learns to acknowledge his feelings and is well equipped to express them, and who learns to take responsibility for his actions, to value compassion and live it daily—this is the boy who will grow into a man who’ll make a loving companion. That’s good for the woman he marries. Even better for the man he becomes.”

I had a conversation with another expecting mother of her second boy shortly after I found out we were having our second. We cheered each other by recalling those things that make our situation wonderful: our little guys will be each other’s best friends and little boys love their mamas (see above why this is so very okay.) The other mama went on to say that the down side of having boys is that they leave you—they get married and become more attached to their wife and her family and become less attached to you. I wanted to say, “Unless my son is gay,” but I didn’t—not because it would have been just as gross of a generalization as her statement, but because after my pop culture, cross reference reading of what it means to be a mom of boys, I discovered that being gay is not a comfortable part of the dialogue for most people when considering the future of our children.

Monroe made assumptions, even in her article’s title, that the splendid partner her son would become would be for someone of the opposite sex. To be fair, that isn’t where the weight of the article is and my intention isn’t to undermine the value of the points she raises by harping on this one oversight. I suppose anyone who reads her article can do what I did and replace the word “woman” with “woman/man,” as surely the author didn’t intend to exclude this possibility but perhaps was just trying to be tidy and elegant with her verbiage—and even “woman/man,” of course, isn’t totally allowing for inclusivity of all gender and sexual identities possible for our children. As far as the politics of this article, my objection is minor, but what it and other sources keep intonating again and again is that we should assume our children are “straight” until they show us otherwise.

I’m just beginning to understand what it is to be a mother, but what I understand clearly is that the love I have for my child is deeper and more enduring than I ever thought was possible. I would be heartbroken if my son felt that there was a part of his remarkable self that couldn’t be expressed because he was scared of rejection. Maybe he’d never been told that being gay was bad or wrong, but if it’s never acknowledged as a possibility of life, will he feel any safer?

I read a beautiful blog account of one mother’s discussion with her six-year-old son. She’d noticed her son’s interest in the “Kurt and Blaine” high school romance on the TV show Glee. Eventually her son explained to his mother that Kurt and Blaine “just kiss boys.”

“Mommy, they are just like me!” he said.

“That’s great, Baby,” she responded, “You know I love you no matter what?”  

I feel grateful to this mother for setting such a loving example for us all. I want to be very clear here that my praise of her isn’t qualified, though her conversation made me curious about the message being sent when we use the words “no matter what.” Her “That’s great, Baby” said everything I wanted her son to hear, but the words “no matter what”—ones I’ve heard used before in a similar context—sound to me as if one is calling in the unconditional reserves—that it’s something to be tolerated out of love and not fully embraced as a wondrous part of being human. I’m so far from these moments with my boys—I may crumble under any implication of them having romantic feelings toward anyone. My research on this subject is as complete as the dialogue out there. But I do know that I want to be very aware when I talk to my sons about this kind of love—because to love and be truly loved by another person is my life’s hope for them. Full stop.

Post Script:

Last spring, my family and I made the trek to Wuppertal to see Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater perform. A sixty-two year old French dancer named Dominique Mercy performed the last solo of the piece. His body was completely fluid and vulnerable. A repeating theme of the solo was a collapse where he gave into gravity and seemed to crumble backwards towards the ground. I couldn’t stop myself from weeping at the beauty. I thought, what a gift it is to be a man in his sixth decade of life with the ability to give himself over to expression this way. How rare his gifts are in men of his generation. How unique and sublime his experience of the world.

Photo source found here. 

Looks Like We Made It: Year End Making

I’ve been stockpiling ideas lately: things I want to make, things I want to write about. I’m saving them up for the New Year when it’s fresh and holiday time restores to everyday time. This last post of 2012, my seventieth, incidentally, takes care of a little house keeping. There’s a few projects I completed in the last months that need documentation before the year is out. No year end recap to be found here, but rather a hurried show-and-tell of last minute crafting before we’re pushed into 2013.

You may remember that I was commissioned to make a special hush-hush birthday crown for a friend here in Berlin. Her husband turned forty-five in November and she threw him a Moustache themed birthday party (sound familiar?) I had heaps of fun making this crown. I collected a few bits of inspiration that I shared with my friend before the build to make sure I was on the right track. She assured me I was.

It also gave me a chance to use my new HP DeskJet 1000 color inkjet printer and printable cotton fabric. I’ve often seen printable fabric used in quilting and fabric book making to transfer photos onto fabric and have coveted the technology. Once I realized how inexpensive these printers actually were—they get you on the toner cartridges—I splurged. Since we have a laser printer for documents, the color printer would only be used infrequently for crafting. I’m seriously hooked, though, and keep trying to find things to print out on fabric. My latest obsession: labels for everything. The photo below is of the keepsake label I printed for the outfit Lennon wore to his first birthday party. The printer is a stop-gap measure until I can afford an embroidery machine—an expense that can't truly be justified when I currently sew on a borrowed machine.

Just before I was finished with the crown, I looked over my friend’s original email request which explained that the color theme for the party was Tiffany blue and black and asked that I incorporate these somehow. Oops! The black was taken care of but I had to get creative in bringing in the blue, which, in the end, added a surprising twist to the color story.

Onto my Christmas making! I made stockings for all four members of my family. Though one of them won’t join us until summer, we’ve already chosen his name and it has been printed on fabric and attached to his stocking. All four hung in our living room but L.I.B.’s (Little Inside Baby) stocking included a piece of paper covering the name. The stockings are made from white burlap, natural linen, and white cotton rick-rack. I lined them with market stall unbleached cotton.

Each year I make an ornament for our tree. Last year, I allowed Paloma’s Nest to do so as it was Lennon’s first Christmas and required something extra special. Next year, L.I.B. will also receive a Paloma’s Nest ornament. This year, there seemed no better way to mark these Holidays than with a picture of what is to come in 2013. I scanned L.I.B.’s photo from the amazing 3-D ultrasound we received when he was eleven weeks in gestation and printed it out in color on the printable cotton. From there, I made a simple pillow with blue rick-rack trim. I love how chunky it is on the tree, just as the previous year’s ornaments are. I can’t wait for our tree to be overwhelmed by big, homemade ornaments from so many happy Christmases.

Gender Reveal: A Pictorial

Next summer, 

we will be welcoming a new baby boy 

into our family! 

We feel incredibly blessed.

Guess What?

I needed a wee rest after my epically lengthy 40^th birthday and blogging marathon! I’m back now and ready to talk about the “project for next year” you might remember me mentioning: the above was taken on October 3^rd, twelve days into the “40 Days of Birthday” celebration. Fortunately for me, I was spared the knowledge of pregnancy on my actual birthday, allowing me champagne. I’m aware that some mamas choose not to indulge anywhere near even the possibility of conception, but I prefer to plead unawares.

The truth is, I was aware very early this time. Not enough to be extra cautious on my birthday, but later that week I started to experience strange symptoms, the kind I’d only experienced much later in pregnancy with Lennon. On the way home from the Lady Castle, after carrying a heavy-ish bag, my fingers tingled ala Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, which I suffered from last time only during my third trimester. I also had strange gum tenderness on the day we first tried to go to the TV Tower. I realize these could be related to any number of things besides pregnancy, but my uncanny intuition told me otherwise. Right around this time the nausea also started in, something that didn’t occur until a good six weeks into my last pregnancy. I decided to take a pregnancy test the day before my missed period (sorry, Gents, if talk of such things causes you the same queasiness I’m experiencing) because I just “felt” so pregnant.

The fancy Clear Blue Easy Digital test I took—the same I used to test with Lennon, incidentally—not only literally spells out pregnant (in German) it tells you how many weeks into your pregnancy you are. The day before my missed period, the test read “2-3" weeks. This is where the confusing math comes in: the test instructions state that 2-3 weeks will translate to 5-6 weeks at your doctor’s office: Doctors will count from the first day of your last period and the test counts from two weeks after the point, when you are likely ovulating. Of course this is all mute if you know the exact date of conception. We did not. We knew what the successful course of action was when trying to get pregnant and chose not to hedge our bets. We were sure to make everyday in the month of September a possible day of conception.

With such a strong presence of hormone the day before my missed period and such early symptoms, I was pretty certain this was some powerful pregnancy. I even suspected for one frightening moment that it might be twins, throwing a wrench in our “family of four” plan. I’ve since had it confirmed several times that it is only one, very hormonal baby.

By the way, for those keeping score at home, if at any point on or after October 3^rd you witnessed me on my blog with what appears to be an alcohol beverage, let me assure you it is the alcohol-free variety. Lucky for me, Germany makes delicious alcohol-free beer! I practically lived on the stuff when I was nursing. It was fun to enjoy them in those first few weeks during this pregnancy as well, but once my nausea peaked, I couldn’t look at anything resembling beer—or squash, or tomato sauce, or bread, or nuts of any kind, just to name a few provocative aversions. Fruit and Asian noodles have been my go-tos this time around.

Lennon’s sibling should be arriving around June-ish. I’m not going to talk about specific dates since, in my experience, they mean nothing anyway. If I haven’t made it clear already, we’re very excited. Truly, I can hardly believe how incredibly blessed I am.

Post Script—Forty blogs entries for forty weeks of pregnancy? I’m already a little behind, but I’ll try to keep you informed in case of anything juicy. Also, "Gender Reveal" coming soon!

40 Days of Birthday: Day Forty {End of Days}

My 40^th Birth-Day came and went and instead of writing about it, I took a day off. I hope the suspense hasn’t been too great. The day began with taking my son to Kita. The day before, I had asked if there would be any sort of Halloween festivities, but beyond having a Jack-o-Lantern in the lobby, the answer was no. It’s still catching on here, as you may have read. When we arrived, however, there was one child who’d come in a half-baked Darth Vader costume. I say half-baked because he was missing his mask, the ultimate accessory for any Vader. Nonetheless, this made me wish I had put Lennon in his Beagle costume for the day. Discussing it with Nicholas later, it was determined that we did the right thing by bringing him sans costume: The Beagle costume is still a little big on Lennon and it might have been annoying for all parties to have him tripping on it all day. In addition, it had already gotten some good play this costume season. I reminded myself that there is always Fasching in February—his bigger fitting Beagle costume should still be in working order then as well.

I received a couple of last minute birthday gifts on my final Birth-Day: Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep the night before from Lennon, and in my mailbox when I came home from Kita drop off, a lovely bracelet from my sister-in-law, Kim.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a large package from my sister, Erin, stuffed with fun bath toys for Lennon and a birthday gift for me: Artisan wool felted cuffs handmade in Northern California. I wanted to wait until my last Birth-Day to show them off—giving them their proper due. So pretty.

I did some gifting myself, this being a holiday beyond just Birth-Day Forty. I made some extra banana sweetened “acorn” muffins for our upstairs neighbors, the family that includes Lennon’s buddy Otis. I reckoned since the boys are too young to go out for Trick-or-Treating—or eating candy—they could enjoy a healthy “treat” at home. Lennon would have his “acorn” muffins with cream cheese for breakfast the rest of the week. Incidentally, the muffin recipe is the same one I used for his birthday cake. No sugar but lots of love.

When I retrieved Lennon from Kita, his teachers informed me that Lennon had walked from the playroom to the bathroom all by himself. When we got home, I tried to recreate what had happened at Kita: he walks! He walked all the way down our hallway. Then he walked across the living room. I tried to film, but realized this was a two person job so waited until Nicholas got home. It was literally overnight that he went from taking just a few steps beyond our arms to truly walking on his own!

After filming the boy and his new amazing feat (or is it amazing “feet?”), I put him into the tiger costume that I had worn on Halloween when I was his age. I talk more about it here. As always, our photo shoot did not go as planned. Our independent little boy isn’t interested is posing—certainly not when there is walking to be done. Miraculously, we captured some shots of him that mirrored the ones of me wearing the costume—completely by accident. Finally, Lennon was happy to be freed from the acrylic confines of the 1970s baby romper and into his own cotton pajamas.

The main activity for my Halloween Birth-Day was to do a Native American-esque smudging ceremony of our apartment. Truth be told, I had meant to do this directly after we moved in, but there was still so much commotion, it just never seemed the right time. On this last Birth-Day, as I put my transition into this new decade behind me, it felt right to cleanse. I had purchased the sage smudge stick in Half Moon Bay, California this past summer. I love that it wrapped wrapped in a pretty orange, cotton twine. After the smudge was lit, I started clockwise from our front door and visited every room, letting the smoke waft throughout. Many people had lived here temporarily in the months leading up to our moving in and the place needed a clearing out. In addition, whatever stress or fears we brought with us regarding the move or the financial jump we’d made to the larger apartment could stand a cleansing as well. With all my esoteric good intentions, the first change I noticed after I smudged was that my cold-turned-sinus-infection seemed much worse. Even the gentle, aromatic smoke from the smudge was irritating. Small price to pay, I suppose, for clean house.

Later that evening, unexpectedly, a small group of Trick-or-Treaters rang our bell. We hadn’t purchased any candy, not having had any visitors on Halloween for a couple of years. We buzzed them in thinking they’d go to someone else's door in the building. When they knocked on ours, Nicholas was standing, frozen, by the knob, signaling to me not to make a sound. One Halloween, before I moved to Germany, Trick-or-Treaters knocked on Nicholas’s door and he was mortified to not have anything for them. I assured him it would be all right and grabbed my bowl of acorn muffins—at least we could offer those. At the door was a group of four twelve year olds dressed in classic witch and goblin attire. Nicholas explained, rather defeated, that we did not have any candy but asked would they like a homemade muffin, baked fresh today. Three of the kids took a muffin. The other, perhaps, had been warned by her parents not to take any homemade treats. In general, that’s probably a good rule.

Nicholas then ran out to a convenience store to grab a bag of candy. I put the contents in a bowl by the door, proper Halloween style. Luckily, we did get one more small group of Trick-or-Treaters who were thrilled by our selection: Haribo Maoam.

Side Note: On the way home from the store with the candy, Nicholas informed me that one of my muffins had been found half eaten on a window ledge in our building and another was perched on the pumpkin outside our door. I really can’t blame those twelve year olds. How can banana possible stand up to all that delicious sugar?