self-portrait, Siesta Key, SarasotaCanon Digital Rebel XTi

I’ve been reading and loving my friend SARK’s new book called The Fabulous Friendship Festival. It is truly wonderful book and just became a national bestseller. Go SARK! It came out at the perfect time for me, just as I’ve been contemplating friendship in my own life.

I’ve been in an interesting place with this lately, noticing for the first time that I have indeed moved to a new town (Berkeley from SF) and even more importantly, from pregnancy to motherhood. I didn’t realize I would spend so much time by myself at home, or that most of my friendship time would be on the phone. I imagined that I would be one of those moms that cruised all over town, into the city and back, to gallery openings and street fairs, to concerts and dinner parties.

And alas, we are all too tired to go anywhere at night, and during the day, my life is now ruled by THE NAP.

It was so easy to judge when I wasn’t there myself. I vowed to never be the parent that couldn’t go anywhere or could only stay for 5 minutes because THE NAP was looming… I rolled my eyes at how uptight that seemed. “I’m going to take that baby everywhere!” I’d say to myself.

Ha! We were at a fantastic barbecue the other day and I mentioned to Matt several times that we probably needed to scoot soon. He was having a great conversation with our friend’s mother about his Rebar projects and she was finding him/them fascinating. When Ben started to finally meltdown, I walked out there again and said, “If you want to go home with someone else you can!”

I get a little crazy when I hear that baby cry.

What does all this have to do with friendship? It means that since nights are out and my friends work during the day, the only folks I occasionally see are new mom friends that live in my neighborhood. I am lucky to have found truly wonderful new pals… they are fun and likeminded and we can talk shop about babies until the cows come home. I look forward to going deeper with these friends.

And yet, I miss my dear ones. I feel like I’m in junior high and just moved to a brand new school, all awkward and gangly and insecure. In lots of ways I have. Motherhood is a place it turns out, and right now it seems far away from my old life. Little adventures that used to be easy, like going to Glide for example, seem so complicated now.

I’m not complaining when I share this. Please don’t get me wrong. I very much WANT to be here. I’m simply noticing that on so many levels, my life is new. I am still transitioning and trying to figure out what I can keep from that old life, what is worth fighting for and what I can let go of and embrace about what is happening now.

I’ve been in a funny kind of isolation. You might have even noticed out there in blogland. Motherhood is new and I still feel like a brand new pony with it. All legs and wobbles and no grace.

I’m curious about what you wise ones have learned about all this.

Ben, five months, Canon Digital Rebel XTi

My beautiful boy.

ben has a new trick where he flips over, Canon Digital Rebel XTi

Happy Mother’s Day! To the mothers who are mothers, to the fathers who are mothers, to the aunties and godmothers, to the soon to be mothers, to those who desperately want to be mothers… I celebrate all of you.

Taking a wee break from the blog… I’ll see you back here soon.

ben in his new Speesees seal pup, Canon Digital Rebel XTi

If you’ve tried to order a necklace in the last couple of weeks you probably noticed I had to close the floodgates on mother’s day orders! You guys are amazing. I have had a fun and also overwhelming time trying to balance Ben and the jewels. In these moments it’s so important to ask for help and have learned once again how wonderful it is to include others in your process and stop pretending that you can do it all alone. Ha!

I have been inviting different mom friends to come over and sit with me each day while I bead and wrangle the babies when they get fussy. It has been a really wonderful way to spend time with people. So thank you mamas! Bethany, Maggie, Karina, Carolyn, Suzanne, Athena, Natasha… I still have a lot more to do but I am on my way!

I have also noticed that Ben has been particularly fussy this week and resistant to napping. It’s as if he knows when my attention is split, when I am not completely present and connected and demands the very best of me. If I am willing to let my agenda go and just be with him, things go so much smoother.. And yet I have a real deadline I am working with. So much more to say on this topic, but I must get back to work. Looking forward to this weekend when his amazing babysitter comes over!
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In other news, after seeing the Oprah green episode I was really inspired to make at least one new permanent change toward greening our home (we already use green cleaning products and paper products) Then I found the Reisenthel bag ! They fold up perfectly in a little zip pouch that I store in my diaper bag and whenever I am grocery shopping, I just pull one or two out and voila! stylish, green mama. Matt and I reuse bags as much as possible but inevitably forget to bring our ginormous stack with us to the store. It is satisfying to finally answer the paper or plastic? question with my own bag.

I have a yellow and a purple one…