hard like mountains

The last 7 to 8 months have been full up of bearing witness to the growing up of a little human being, right before my eyes. My dear child has tattooed her laugh and movements and dainty spine and long toe nails and sweet coos and terrified cries and deep scowly brow under the thin skin of my eyelids. She lives.

 You know. She really does. She breathes. She learns. She speaks. She speaks words; she speaks garble. She dances. She cares for her mamas. She offers love.

And, I can barely keep up.

 Really, barely. We are often just making it through each moment.

Waking at 2:30am.

Singing or storytelling Willa back to sleep.

Waking at 4:30am.

Kk offering her mimis sometimes in will's bed and sometimes in our (yes, she still breastfeeds; in the early morning and before bed mostly).

Waking for real at 6:50 or 7:00am.

Morning kisses; morning hugs.

Playing. Will loves to play in the morning.

Making coffee.

Making breakfast.

Taking care of the chickens.

Dressing Willa.

KK dressing.

Me dressing.

Getting out the goddamn door.

In the summer, some days we rode will in to daycare. On those days, it was a 26 mile round trip for me (and when we took the big ass Yuba Mundo--we bought a sweet cargo bicycle--that was a lot of mileage with a huge ass load. But, my ass is firmer and so is kk's).

On the days that we do not ride will in, kk drives her in and I still mostly ride my bicycle (yes, it was our deal; I could ride my bicycle as much as possible even after having a kiddio).

 Will gets dropped at daycare.

We both go to our jobs.

We work hard.

Sometimes too hard.

 We pick up will via bicycle or motor vehicle from daycare by 5:30.

If it is motor vehicle, traffic sucks at 5:30 and somedays it takes 40 minutes to go 13ish miles. If we ride her home it takes a solid hour.

It takes me 40 minutes to ride home if I am by myself. And, 45 minutes to ride in.



Upon arriving home, I make supper. I have tried to be less elaborate, but I fail miserably and usually spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half preparing dinner. But it is beautiful. Not my food, but the time in the kitchen with willa and kk. Willa sits in her 1960s table-edge seat and noshes and I cook and talk with her and act like the big goof that I am.



We eat.



Then we dance party, or read stories, or play with animal dolls, or draw (kk cleans up dishes; at times I do too; and kk straightens the house; and kk washes clothes; and kk has a hard time sitting still till I really get on her).



Then we have bath time.



Then we read more. Every night when Willa sprawls across me for our reading time, she must first remove my belt cause otherwise it pokes her back. It is our ritual.



Then she has mimis and passes out.



Then k and I talk, (or sometimes get it on), or read. I have read a deep load of lesbian romance novels in the last four months. some are shitawful and some are interesting and good. It is my escape and how I spend my time when suffering from severe insomnia. I have had terrible insomnia for the last year; it does not help that I am regularly awakened from sleep upon falling into it and then I cannot get back into it. We often have a beer or a cocktail...



Then head up to bed (we sometimes sporadically get it on).



5 or 6 hours pass and it all happens all over again and again and again.



Then there are times like now, when I travel for work (2 big trips since October 4) and miss my loves like crazy and work a lot, but also have some time to myself and a bed to myself.



That has been our lives for the last many months.

It is good and crammed up with so much activity.

It is hard, not easy.

It is not forgettable; it is more than memorable.

It is beautiful and ugly.



Again, parenting is hard.

hard as nails.

hardness--a lovely element of life, like rocks, mountains, and good eggshells.

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a photo song from our basement

Well, I've been gone a long while.  KK says it is ridiculous that I have mostly stopped writing.  She is right.  But, being a full time activist and parenting the rest of the time is pretty darn tough and mostly time consuming.

This morning we woke up to a frigid house.

Willa said, "I cold."

This child is rarely cold.  She runs hot blooded.  She is a fire head through and through.
We should have realized that something was amiss.  In the end, we discovered the boiler had gone out.

It was hard to restart it.

We pulled an emergency parenting tactic and put the will in front of cookie monster and ernie, so the two of us could deal with the pilot light.  And, so willa could be orphaned at a young age should the boiler explode.  I have never let will watch anything by herself before.  She is allowed about 15 minutes of screen time a week.  But, both (or one) of her parents are always by her side.  The damn show came in handy.

After maneuvering around on our ancient basement floor for quite a long time, we finally finished the task.

I also had a lovely time of re-exploring some nooks and crannies of our 109 year old basement.  So the following are some shots of those corners and walls.  You get a peek of a gritty basement instead of my sweet kid.