The darkened room felt like the moment before a crescendo, the quiet anticipation before the deafening crack of thunder.  Tevy didn’t know what compelled her to rush into the girls room; one minute she was sitting on the couch reading her favorite Heinlein novel and drinking a beer and the next minute her entire body felt like a guitar string that had been plucked too hard, every inch of her was on edge.  She was in their room a second after the feeling had come over her and when she saw the room was empty, save her two sleeping daughters in their purple pajamas, homemade quilts kicked to the floor, the feeling faded almost as quickly.  Something new replaced it however, the lingering sensation that, although the room was empty now, someone had been here just moments ago.  The same feeling she had felt on a night 4 years ago .  The same rush of adrenaline, the same certainty that the girls were in danger, the same terror that she would not reach them in time.

The floor is covered in pink polyester play dresses, a rainbow assortment of tiaras and necklaces and a small army’s worth of trucks and cars.  Lyra and Landyn are outspoken, curly tressed four year olds.  They love to play trucks, love to ram the tiny vehicles into each other, dive them off of furniture, create racetracks through the hallway… but only if they are wearing their princess clothes.

They had moved out of the princess and trucks phase of their toddlerhood and moved onto the wrestling phase of their lives.  Lyra and Landyn were Tevy’s own little WWE stars.  They had inherited a little bit of their mother’s considerable strength, so when these girls wrestled, it wasn’t just normal little girl playing around, they could do some actual damage if they got out of control, which they so often did.

Tevy is reading a novel suggested to her by her sister, a travel book that she wouldn’t normally pick up herself, and her husband is in the garage cleaning off his paint gear.  She embraces these few quiet hours that she gets after the girls fall asleep and before she goes to bed.  Every night they seem like a small kind of miracle, a momentary vacation where she can catch her breath and prepare for another day.  She is listening to the classic rock radio station that never seems to be turned off anymore when she unconsciously tilts her head the slightest degree.  She hears something.  The tips of her fingers feel dry and her back is tight.  She puts down her book quietly and runs to the girls room (she still thinks of it as the baby’s room), her wool socks softening the blows of her feet on the hardwood floors.

Tevy picked up Lyra’s quilt and draped it over her sleeping daughter.  She did the same with Landyn’s quilt, making sure to tuck the edges in around Landyn’s warm little body.  Nothing else seemed out of place.  The window was closed, the draped pulled snugly together so no sunlight could peek through in the morning, an attempt to help the girls sleep in later.  Nothing was turned over or disturbed, everything seemed to be fine, despite Tevy’s overwhelming feeling that something was still wrong.  That’s when she smelled it.  The sickly sweet aroma of long dead flowers.

The girls are asleep in their brand new ‘big girl’ beds, their matching pajamas just visible underneath the pile of blankets they recently seem to want.  They will soon grow out of the desire to dress alike but for now they are still beautiful mirror images.  Their room has a dark pink glow thanks to the heart shaped night light they can’t sleep without.  To Tevy the room looks like the inside of a dying cotton candy machine.  Despite her fear the girls are fine, sleeping soundly.  No one is there, nothing is out of place.  And then she sees it.  A small, pale footprint, almost hidden by the child size table and chairs the girls played at every day.  It’s deceptive in it’s quiet innocence.  This isn’t the footprint of a giant or a crazed lunatic.  This is the footprint of a friend or a neighbor.  The footprint of a trespasser.

The smell of dead flowers makes Tevy remember the footprint.  She never told Lee that she found it.  It washed easily out of the carpet, she only used one squirt of the stain cleaner.  She didn’t want her husband to worry unnecessarily.  Nothing ever came of the footprint and she never saw it again.  She told her mom and Lowri of course, and Arielle.  A smell was less tangible though.  It seemed like less to worry about even though it struck the same chord of fear.

“Quinn Teresa Grand, get your muddy shoes off your grandmother’s carpet!” Lowri howled at her youngest daughter.

“Sorry Mama!” Quinn yelled back. She ran back to the foyer past her small brown bootprints and kicked off her shoes. She hurried downstairs to the family room to join her cousins in a game of Clue.

“Sorry Pippa.” Lowri said to her mother-in-law. “All the brains in the world and Quinn still can’t remember to take her shoes off when she enters a house.”

Philippa tucked her feet more snugly under her butt. “You think she’s a handful now? You wouldn’t believe the kind of messes Ari and Tevy got themselves into when they were teenagers. Sometimes I wished I could’ve been like Don’s mom and had all boys instead of two girls and a boy.”

“Really?” Lowri was surprised. Philippa was always saying how lucky she was to have such a well rounded family with ‘just the right amount of everyone’.

“Only late at night when one of them still hadn’t come home and still hadn’t called and I didn’t know if she was just at a friends house watching movies or lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Oh the things you have to look forward to!” Philippa laughed.  “Dylan, however, doesn’t seem anything like her aunts, thank god.”

“She’s so much like her father sometimes it’s spooky. I don’t think I’ll ever have to worry about her staying out too late partying or mooning over some boy; she’ll be too busy building some new contraption or blowing something up. On the other hand, maybe I do have to worry about her!”

Philippa and Lowri spent most of their afternoons together like this, sitting in Philippa’s living room while an ever changing contigent of Philippa’s grandchildren played downstairs, depending on who had practice or a game or a club of some kind. They passed the late afternoon with books and games and movies while the adults discussed the latest events of their lives, and they waited for the rest of the family to come home. The kids were old enough that they didn’t need constant supervision so it gave Philippa and Lowri time to talk.

Lowri had quit her job at an advertising firm six months ago and was trying to make a living doing freelance photography. So far the offers were slow in coming. Being around Philippa made things easier for Lowri for a few hours every day, she was so much calmer in her presence.

They heard a crash and some yelling.  “Everything okay down there?” Philippa asked Lowri. “Anyone need to be stitched up?”

Lowri looked down at the floor, “No, everyone is fine. Lyra and Landyn started wrestling and knocked over that tall lamp next to the couch. Hope it wasn’t a favorite.”

“It’s replaceable. We’re going to have to say something to Tevy about getting those girls some extracurricular activities. They have the energy of 16 year old boys stuffed into the bodies of two 8 year old girls.”

“They definetly need some kind of outlet.” Lowri agreed. “I’m sure Tevy will think of something.”

10.11. – 24.11.
“Dieses Land der Toten, ist das eine Welt wie diese hier, wie meine oder deine oder irgendeine andere?”, fragte Will. “Ist das eine Welt, in die ich mit dem Magischen Messer gelangen könnte?” Lyra beugte sich über den Kompass. “Ja”, sagte sie, “aber es ist ein düsterer Ort, Will. Wollen wir das wirklich wagen? Sollen wir ins Land der Toten gehen?”

————————————

21.11.: *grmpf* Wenn ich nicht krank geworden wäre, wäre ich schon längst durch…

————————————————

Und das Abenteuer geht weiter! Zunächst steht Will vor der nahezu unlösbaren Aufgabe Lyra zu finden und aus den Fängen von Mrs. Coulter zu befreien. Wir lernen Engel und Mulefa kennen, von denen vor allem die Mulefa liebevoll ausgearbeitet und höchst interessant sind. Wir erfahren, was “präventive Absolution” bedeutet und welche Interessen die Kirche in dieser Geschichte verfolgt. Und natürlich begleiten wir Will und Lyra auf ihrem gefährlichen Weg durch die Welten zum Land der Toten. Zusammen mit Mary und ihrem Teleskop finden wir außerdem heraus, wie Staub aussieht und sich verhält.
Das Abenteuer läuft am Ende auf die von Lord Asriel geplante große Schlacht hinaus, deren Entwicklung überraschend und eher unerwartet verläuft…

Lyras Geschichte hat mich gefesselt und in ihren Bann gezogen und ich kann sie einfach nur jedem vorbehaltlos empfehlen. Dieses Buch ist wirklich der krönende Abschluss der Trilogie und ich denke, wer ein wenig zwischen den Zeilen liest, kann einige Dinge für sein eigenes Leben lernen…

Und denkt immer daran: Erzähle ihnen Geschichten.

06.11. – 09.11.
“Lyra geht in ein altehrwürdiges Internat in Oxford. Eines Tages bekommt sie Besuch von ihrem Onkel Asriel, der dort für eine Expedition in den hohen Norden werben will. Er zeigt den Wissenschaftlern unglaubliche Bilder von dem, was er dort zu finden glaubt: eine ganz andere, fantastische Welt! Kurz nach seiner Abreise verschwindet ein Kind nach dem anderen. Ob das mit der Expedition zu tun hat? Als es auch Lyras besten Freund trifft, macht sie sich selbst auf in den Norden. Sie findet tatsächlich die Brücke zwischen den Welten und wagt mutig den ersten Schritt …”

———————————–

Ich konnte das Buch einfach nicht aus der Hand legen. Die Geschichte beginnt ganz plötzlich, der Leser wird direkt hineingeworfen und muss sich erst einmal zurechtfinden, während er Lyra bei ihrem Versuch, sich in den Ruheraum des Jordan College zu schleichen, beobachtet. Bis ich verstanden habe, was eigentlich die Dæmonen sind und was sie tun, hat es eine Weile gedauert, aber das stört das Leseverständnis nicht weiter. Die Idee hinter den Dæmonen, die einen Teil der Seele ihres Menschen verkörpern, gefällt mir sehr gut. Auch die Panzerbären finde ich sehr gelungen, im Gegensatz zu den Hexen, die auf mich eher desinteressiert, distanziert und ein wenig weltfremd wirken.

Aber worum geht es eigentlich?
Lyra gerät mitten in einen Vortrag ihres Onkels Asriel hinein, der Unterstützung für eine Expedition in den Norden sucht. Kurz darauf verschwinden immer wieder Kinder und gerade als Lyras bester Freund Roger ebenfalls verschwindet, lernt sie Mrs Coulter kennen. Diese geheimnisvolle Frau möchte Lyra zu ihrer Assistentin machen und anschließend mit in den Norden nehmen.
In der Hoffnung dort Roger zu finden und aus den Fängen der “Gobbler” befreien zu können, beschließt Lyra mit ihr zu gehen. Kurz vor ihrer Abreise erhält sie ein Lethiometer – einen Wahrheitsmesser. Und so stürzt Lyra sich in ein spannendes und gefährliches Abenteuer mit vielen Wendungen, voll Hoffnung und Geheimnissen, dessen atemberaubendes Finale sie und ihren Dæmon Pantalaimon sogar in eine andere Welt führt…

Aber diese Geschichte wird erst im nächsten Band “Das Magische Messer” erzählt *les*

I made this so that I could have another blog, but instead I ahve decided to post all my work on here, no matter how horrible.

So… Here are some awesome links to some awesome websites.

http://something2010.wordpress.com/

http://deathwolfrp.wordpress.com/

http://peachmanga.wordpress.com/

http://www.cityintheclouds.proboards.com/index.cgi

http://hexrpg.com/

http://drejpokemon.webs.com/

New image in the instruments photography contest

…
Lyra photography picture

The Timeless Tuesday Challenge at Flourishes called for a simple card using only neutrals and one colored image.  This card, which I made a few weeks ago, seemed to fit the bill, even though the image is not a stamped one.  It’s my own original artwork, sketched in pencil, outlined in pen and ink, and colored with brushed-on watercolor crayons by Lyra.

Many stars appear to the naked eye as single stars, but when you zoom in on them with telescopes you can see that they are actually double stars. Last night was Double Star night for astronomy students.   We star-hopped between Alberio (βCygni) and the Double-Double (εLyrae).

Alberio is at the eye of Cygnus the Swan, which is also the bottom of the asterism the Northern Cross.   The beauty of Alberio is that the two component stars of the double are dramatically different colors.  This tells astronomers that the stars are different temperatures, different chemical compositions, and perhaps different ages.

The Summer Triangle, the Northern Cross and Lyra

The same stars, with constellation art.

The Double-Double (the quadruple star system εLyrae) can be tricky to split- we used about 320X magnification.  The individual component stars are between 2.3 and 2.6 arcseconds across.  An arcsecond is 1/3600 of a degree.  The tip of your pinky held out at an arm’s length is one degree.  In order to resolve these double stars, we had to see something that could fit across the tip of your outstretched pinky about 2000 times. Wow! Here is a video of that zooming in…

…and here is a picture from astrophotographer Damian Peach.

The Double-Double

We glanced back and forth between the double stars and Jupiter and its moons.  The timing was good for us: throughout the two hours of classtime we captured the emergence of Ganymede from Jupiter’s shadow, and the disappearance of Io as it moved in front of Jupiter’s disk. done

All in all, a good night for astronomers in the light-polluted and generally-cloudy skies of suburban Boston.

No one ever told me adulthood is this difficult. I wish I had more bimbotic problems. Like boy problems or shoes crisis. And it isn’t fair there isn’t anyone to guide you with life problems. Everytime you chat with your friends or girlfriends, they pour out affairs of the heart to you. I hear sob stories everyday. Some almost interesting even. But what baffles me is nobody talk about life problems. I’m sure everyone has life problems, don’t they? So why isn’t anyone talking about them? So how is this supposed to be? Maybe one day when I’m sitting on some remote bench by a Hyde Park setting, an anonymous wise old man can come up to me and enlighten me.

I did analyse the situation. There are a few options. I can give up and go home. I can go home and prove Madame Rose right, and let poor piggy-cat down for never making it to Mars. Or I can go on. Go on and on without knowing what I’m fighting for. I feel a little tired and a little dejected. Leaves me somewhat helpless since I’m usually positive. How is this supposed to be? I tell myself if I keep staying positive, things will work out. I can’t even bear to say out loud, “I don’t know anymore.”

Mr. Jolly-O never takes me seriously. He lets me do whatever that pleases me because he thinks it’s just for fun. He never thought anything will come out of it. Madame Rose thinks I’m a rebel despite the fact I’ve done everything she asked me to for more than two decades until only now. And I get a little confused with the both of them, torn between the extreme opposites.

If only Lord Asriel and Marisa can try to understand Lyra a little more. One is never physically around, and one attempted to severe link between Lyra and her daemon wanting her to take form of something she never wanted. Lyra tried so hard to flee from Mrs Coulter and why would she want to go back now? Can she imagine life with Mrs Coulter again and living in the shadows of the controlling monkey daemon?

However brave Lyra is, she still got an ice bear. How can I go on.

(Deep breath, now. For

this

is

an

ultra

super

long

post

Brevity: Not. My. Forte.)

+++

As the mercury makes its slow descend, we here in the valley of the sun are all squirming with excitement. Stretching, we wiggle our fingers and toes, ready to spread out in the warm sun and cool breeze. Park days are back in business again and every weekend is crammed with events and activities of all sorts as everyone rushes to take advantage of the (finally) cool weather. There’s glee in the air, anticipation and the feeling that life is going to be good again.

Me? I lumber. Like a bear I push my snout along the ground, sniffing. I want to fill up with food, growl, find a cave and sleep. Because it is time to rest.

It’s funny how I feel this instinct, for someone who has grown up in the tropics and spent so many years there.

Perhaps I am connecting with that rising spiral of melancholy in me. The season is turning. Wafts of chill weave through our days and evenings and all around are signs of farewell– Is that leaf trembling to break free, to return to Earth’s embrace yet again? As I flip through the calendar, the pending onslaught of the holiday season, the jingle bells, the ho-ho-ho’s, the cheer and jolly-holly and the glittery holiday dresses and the potential of social occasions makes me want to crawl under a rock. I love my friends but I am also a hopeless anti-social freak. The holidays tire me out. The red, green, gold and silver merchandise, already populating the stores in looming numbers, makes me nauseous. I want to be in a little hut in the woods.

A sensation of hollowness fills my heart. Memories surge and tears well up. I miss him. Terribly much.

Yesterday I was at the hospital again. It was funny to be back again after nine months. It was almost like a circle was completed. Lyra was born here, and this time we are back to hang cranes in honor and remembrance of Ferdinand. The day before and that morning I felt a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat. So I was really thankful to have some support, moral and physical. Two other families joined us and we had a beautiful morning spreading out the painted rocks in the River of Hope and hanging up the cranes. It went smoother than I had expected- the ribbons needed no extension. When we needed a longer ladder and nurse Vicki went to borrow one from the maintenance guy he said due to liability issues he would have to be the one on the ladder. Still, he pulled down some branches so the kids could participate in hanging, and there were many lower, accessible branches for them to hang the cranes. It just felt so wonderful. I wish the pictures had turned out better. I am going to take a photography class coz I need to do better with my picture-taking, but here they are:

The garden prior:

Putting up the cranes ( every single soul there helped, I cannot tell you how heart-warming it was to see the kids participating):

And the garden after:

Not part of the garden but the memorial ceremony extends outside of the garden onto a lawn are with some trees so we hung some cranes there too:

The kids had pictures taken before a tree:

(kiddo in-front found a cool-looking bug and re-located it in the plastic box that held some painted rocks…)

A crane against the light:

And pictures of the painted rocks in the dry river bed:

(The kids -and moms- in our homeschool group painted some rocks too.)

The red rock in the picture above was painted by C, who lost her sweet baby girl Betty Sue, in May this year. C was there to help with the cranes and we both wore necklaces in memory of our babies. Over the months I have slowly gotten to know C better and I am so glad for the opportunity– I like her a lot. Anyways, the story here is that she set her rock down and one of the kids set down a rock next to hers. That rock was sent by Melka from the lowlands. She had painted a star in honor of Ferdinand and wrote in the local language the words “star voyager”. What a beautiful and moving coincidence that these two rocks are set together!

I’m kinda glad that this is done with. It had taken so long, as nurse Vicki commented. I saw some hospital staff stopped to look when the cranes were being hung, and their expressions spoke of… amazement and wonder. The garden was indeed transformed, and even if one day the cranes are going to be faded or ravaged by the rain, they were at least once beautiful, and we had warm memories of hanging them up.

Today she is nine months. I think it’s time I compile the notes and tell her birth story.

Her birth was my re-birth. All those months I hid away from the light. (Remember seeds need the dark soil to encourage sprouting?) Fear chewed and hope fought her way in. It was hard, and yet when I surrendered it was easy. Still, I would not have been able to have done it alone. I thank my family, my friends- including you, denizens of the Internet, who had walked along. You have no idea what all those words and support meant to me.

About a month before her arrival, I wrote these to the two women who would be supporting me at Lyra’s birth:

I get flashbacks, yes. Intense, heart-wrenching. But I think it is because the closer the time comes for this new little soul to arrive, the more intense my need to grieve and mourn for Ferdinand. Because it cannot be more glaring how this new life is the result of a tender one lost. Whatever the connections, whatever the Mystery within, the questions and answers, I will never know, probably not for a long time, so I try to accept, and not expect. I accept the pain of the memories, and I accept the gratitude of this time, this opportunity to do it again, to try again to bring a new life to this realm. I accept the long labor I may have; I accept all the pain and discomfort as my body gives way and open up. I accept the flabbiness, the looseness, the lack of control over everything. I accept achy breasts and tired arms. I accept warm pee and smelly poop. I accept midnight wailings and untimely spit-up’s. I accept joyous exhaustion. I accept overwhelming grief, all over, once again, after this new little one has arrive. I accept my heart bursting open. I accept brokenness.

Fear finds me, for sure. The unknown of what may happen haunts me. But there is no other way but to lurch forward into that mysterious darkness. They say, Jump! and then you will see the safety net beneath. So, I jump. No other way, and no turning back.

And four days before her birth I wrote:

I have no more fears. I think so. I can tell you I am prepared for her birth, as much as for her death. Not because Ferdinand died, but because, I know she, only she has sole privy to the choice that she is going to make. She is not going to come alive because I want her to, because I so desperately need her to. I do not own her, never did and never will. I trust, all trembling, to the road ahead of me that I have to walk. I trust, i surrender. I will be strong, yet yielding.

And I will tell you another secret. I am not so much prepared for the pain of childbirth. No.
I let go that it has to be painful. I let go of its names and labels.
I will just experience all that it is. Its whereabouts, its depths and width and breadth and sensation, but I shall not empower it by naming it. I will not ignore it either. Just let it be.
And I believe it can even be easy, joyful, ecstatic. Maybe, who knows? I will take it all, as it comes.

—

Fear and courage came in waves, much like labor contractions. Then there came the struggle of whether I should go in for an induction.

I remember the last time I went in for monitoring her heartrate spiked and stayed elevated for a good twenty minutes. That was unusual and made us very anxious. I still remember R saying, “I think we oughta get her out earlier. Maybe tonight.” But our midwife assured us that what transpired was normal (who freakin’ believe in “normal” after your baby has died?) and that in any case- the lesson of not-being-in-control being driven home to us- they have no beds for induction for the next two nights.

I had a cervical check that day and did not stop bleeding. By late afternoon I was concerned enough to call our midwife and was asked to go to triage.

After two hours we were sent home. The bleeding was not “usual”, the nurse said, but then the heartbeat was there. *shrug* What else is there to do but to wait to exhale with relief, or for the world to collapse once again? The nail called The-Lesson-of-No-Control was being driven deeper into our heads.

But wait– they will have a bed for us, two nights later. Come in around midnight, they said. Lovely. Now we get to plan. Ha.

The plan is to use a cervical gel to get things going. To nudge the body along, to coax it to yield the ripe baby. There will be three applications. After each application, I was to lay supine for an hour, trying not to pee. Then I will get up and walk for 45 minutes. Then I get checked again to see what wonders the gel had created.

We were both tired when we arrived. Sleep weighed heavy on our eyelids. Despite being excited, nervous, scared and nearly insane, we were very sleepy.

First application: nothing happened. Her movements actually slowed down, she wanted to sleep too; it’s midnight for goodness sake!

Second application: still nothing. We both started to doze off. Nurse was sure third time will work! If not, said she, you go home.

Third application: for the entire hour when I was laying down, NOTHING happened. R and I looked at each other, disappointed. I started to draft in my head what I will post on my blog and what to say in my email to all my friends who have been chewing on their fingers and toes. R said he was starting to welcome the notion of beng horizontal in our own bed.

Before sending us out on our walk for the final time, the nurse said, “Just go for 30 minutes.” In other words: get ready to go home and come back again two days later.

Sighing, we stepped out of triage. I stopped in-front of that wall that had tiles with baby names on it. Babies who had died. I could not help noticing there were a few last names that repeated themselves. Then the contractions started to kick in. It was about six in the morning. We were cold, tired and hungry, but the baby was ready for some action right about now.

I could not walk properly anymore, pounded with contractions. Had to remember to breathe. I thought I was going into a panic. What is going on? Is this for real?

Thirty minutes later, we dragged ourselves back to triage, looking like we just returned from a Halloween party- both of us with dark circles and bags under our eyes, haggard and doubled over, me with blood stains on my hospital gown. I headed straight to the bed to curl myself into a ball while R informed the nurse that “it seems like something is happening now.”

After about an hour of latching onto the bedrail in writhing pain, they finally moved us out to triage to a room. I think by then we had called Leigh and Mani, the two most wonderful, fabulous support, ever. Mani was at Ferdinand’s birth and I knew I needed her to be there for Lyra’s. She is my calm-my-heart pill. Leigh, is the valley’s doula-diva and a sweet friend. She was going to drive for an hour and drag a water tub for me to relax in. I will not get my water-birth but at least I get to labor in water- or so it was planned.

Pressure, pressure, pressure. I tried to remember to breathe, to relax, to not yell. They poked me to run antibiotics as I was Strep-B positive. And something else. I was not comfortable and I remember thinking to myself, it’s still a long ways ahead, she’ll probably be here tonight.

Mani arrived first, then Leigh. Only to be ignored by me. I had to focus, my back was about to break and I needed to pee but everything had to stop for me to breathe through the ramming contractions. My midwife Janice came in. I love her. She is confident, motherly and has a sense of humor that I liked. Janice asked the nurse a few questions and nurse told her I was probably about 8cm dilated. Janice checked and then she looked at us and said, “She’s complete!”

OK, that pump crazily pumping water into the tub was shut off. Janice asked for her birth equipment, got changed and everyone got into place. I said I needed to pee and Janice would NOT allow me to go to the toilet. “The baby is going to come out into the toilet!” Do it here, on the bed, she told me.

“I can’t!” I said gently yelled back.

“Yes, you can, just do it, I’ll hold a towel under you.”

Holy cow, say what you may but I absolutely do not possess the talent to pee while everyone is watching me. I tried, but I could not.

I tried to get comfortable, I wanted to squat or kneel. With every contraction I was told to push, but suddenly I was quiet. I felt still. I wanted to wait for her to come on her own.

“It is OK, her heartbeat is strong, it is ok,” Janice assured me, and I felt my tears surged. I needed to hear that even though I could not believe in that totally. I realized that in that moment, I was in a bubble that had brought me back to Ferdinand’s birth. I was birthing again, and perhaps another dead baby. Janice’s words brought me back to the present.

The kneeling position did not work. I tried to push to break the waters but it was not happening. Janice offered to break my waters and I agreed, in great relief. I needed help. With my first birth I was furious that they even dared suggest they break my waters- I wanted everything to happen by itself. But this time, I accepted that I needed help and was only grateful that it was offered.

The fluid was clear, and as Janice reported, all was fine, all was good. “The baby is ready,” she said.

All the while, Mani and Leigh and R were doing all they could to help me be comfortable. The room was dimmed and the atmosphere was just intimate and sacred. I felt that Ferdinand was close by, waiting, his hand and Lyra’s, entwined.

As the contractions started again I started to push and it was just hard! My heart was burning with anticipation, love and desire; it wanted to leap out of my throat. I closed my eyes. “How long will this take?” I wondered. It was a little after nine. Only about two hours since contractions kicked in.

Crowning. I reached down and touched her head, moist, warm and sticky. That gotta be real. I asked in my head, “Are you doing ok? Are you ready to meet the world?”

And then I lost all control and started to scream- I cannot do this! I was just a screaming banshee. Forget grace! I was tired, in pain and everyone was trying to help me, bless their hearts, but I was just screaming in their ears– I cannot!!

But that all changed when I heard Janice say, “OK, no crying now, and no more whining. The baby’s shoulder is stuck. You need to push now and help her get out.”

That did it. That lit the fire under my butt in my belly and it was time to give all that I’ve got. With one warrior cry after another I pushed, my heart racing, and unknowingly, my entire being was praying, pleading, “Please, be safe. Please, be born alive and well.”

And, not long after, she was unstuck and born. She cried. And I cried too.And I think everyone else cried. No dry eyes in the room, as they say.

Finally, she was born. And laid on me. She was so warm and her face was all scrunched up. It was a rough ride and she was not holding back her complaints. She looked so much like Ferdinand. Time and space did not seem to make sense. I felt I had given birth to Ferdinand all over again, but this time he was alive and screaming.

But no, it was not him, it was Lyra, our sweet, sweet darling baby whom we had waited months for. I held her, close, gentle yet tight, and I smelled her, that sweet smell of birth, of life. About that time, I felt Ferdinand leave the room, his job done.

That was my fastest and most intense birth ever, and I am grateful for that. I do not believe that cervical gel worked. I think Lyra just decided she was ready to get out, and get out fast. And I am glad for that. I am so glad. Welcome, baby.

First day of your life, and pouting in your sleep.

Being kissed by your sisters.

++

The two days at the hospital after the birth all I knew was fatigue. And disbelief. I was elated, boosted by birth hormones, but I was also shrouded by disbelief. It was only when we brought her home that she felt real. And it was only when I saw her in our house that brought me deep sorrow, for not having Ferdinand. My joy will also contain a wisp of sorrow, a feeling I am getting used to. When strangers coo over Lyra I wish I can talk to them about Ferdinand, but I did not want her to be shadowed, so I just remember him in my heart silently, and every time I feel his hand over my heart, whispering, “I know, I know.” Every time I would wish that Ferdinand would have received that delightful attention too, but I have to remind myself that as a parent, one of the most important things to remember is: what you want may not be what your child want. We are connected, but also separate, each with his destiny to be fulfilled.

Lyra’s recent pic.

]]> http://jzholloway.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/more-pictures/ Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:48:19 +0000 jzholloway http://jzholloway.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/more-pictures/ ]]> http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/little-goth-in-training/ Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:57:55 +0000 Marko Kloos http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/little-goth-in-training/

When we hit the big town, I sometimes take the kids through the toy department at MalWart and let them pick some small toys.  Quinn usually picks a 99-cent Matchbox car, and Lyra is usually happy with whatever I hand her off the shelf.

Today, Quinn wanted a toy camera, but the cheapest one they had was a $12 Barbie item that held a 30-second monologue in a highly annoying Barbie voice every time you pressed a button, so I just got him a $5 Kodak disposable instead.

We passed a shelf where they had life-like plastic bugs and spiders, so I took a palm-sized tarantula off the shelf, and showed it to Quinn.  He kind of made a face at it, and declined the offer.  When I moved to put it back on the shelf, Lyra asked to see it, so I handed it to her.

“’Pie!” she said, turning the spider over in her hand.

“Yes, it’s a spider,” I replied, and took it back to place it back on the shelf.  Immediately, Lyra went into Unhappy Mode, and held out her hand again.

“’Pie?  ‘Pie, pees?”

I handed the spider back to her, and she took it with much glee.

“’Pie! My ‘pie?”

“Uh, sure.  It’s your spider, I guess.”

Strange kid.  Quinn didn’t even want to touch the thing until it was established that it wouldn’t take Lyra’s arm off at the elbow, but that little girl was immediately fascinated by it.  For the duration of the ride home, she had it on her lap, repositioning it every once in a while and making it pretend-walk across her legs.

“’Pie! Eye-wa’s ‘pie!”

I guess I need to stock up on fishnet stockings and Doc Martens, for when she hits the teenage years.  I’ll need to run some heavy intervention tactics to keep her away from books about vampires…

Adeline, Eleanor, Amelia, Theodora, Beatrix, Sidony, Madeleine, Clementine, Henrietta, Ione, Lila, Delphia, Adele, Adela, Dora, Vera, Evelyn, Greta, Ingrid, Fern, Opal, Finola, Olive, Lyra, Willa, Angeline, Petra, Mina, Pearl, Mehitabel, Ellen, Keisha, Thora, Lucinda, Ramona, Naomi, June, Sarai, Thea, Evanthia, Thomasina, Tilda, Mirabella, Iole.

What do you think of these? which do you like? dislike and why? which could you see on a child born in the next couple of years?

Rarely Used list of Girls (2005) only 3 have entered the top 100. Are names really slow to enter and creep or do they suddenly appear at like 600?

Aeron, Aine, Allegra, Amity, Arabella, Ariadne, Artemisia, Aviva, Avril, Beatrix, Britt, Calla, Caprice, Cassia, Cecily, Daria, Dimitra, Donatella, Eleni, Ellery, Elodie, Emeline, Emlyn, Esme, Fifi, Finola, Gaia, Gemma, Hadassah,Hermione, Hollis, Honor, Isadora, Jemima, Junia, Kateri, Kiki, Lark, Lavender, Lilias, Linden, Lyra, Maisie, Mattea, Mehitabel, Melia, Mercy, Niamh, Olympia, Orly, Pippa, Romy, Shenandoah, Shoshana, Stefania, Tamsin, Tayla, Thomasina, Tilda, Topaz, Tova, Vashti, Venice, Verity, Zilla.

Arabella 2005- 795, 2006- 649, 2007- 648 2009-657

Gemma 2008- 888

Hadassah 2007- 996, 2008-988

and the SSA website has gone down for me so I can’t find the rankings for Tayla for the last 5 years?

PRESS RELEASE
LYRASIS Launches LYRA Resource Sharing Group

Atlanta, GA, November 9, 2009 — LYRASIS announces the launch of LYRA, a new resource sharing group serving the LYRASIS Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and New England regions.

As the nation’s largest regional organization serving librarians and information professionals, LYRASIS facilitates collaborative initiatives and promotes expanded opportunities for members to share with each other. The new LYRA resource sharing initiative is an excellent example of the organization’s vision.

LYRA is an opt-in resource sharing group open to all LYRASIS members. Members of LYRA will agree to borrow and lend returnable items (books and other resources) to other LYRA members for free. “Covering more than 22 states plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, LYRA represents a major increase in free lending opportunities for LYRASIS members,” said Russell Palmer, educational services librarian at LYRASIS.

Legacy LYRASIS organizations (PALINET, SOLINET, and NELINET) maintained smaller regional resource sharing groups in their original regions, including No Bucks (NELINET), and SOLINE(SOLINET), which remain active and available to LYRASIS members. LYRASIS will continue to manage the SOLINE and NO Bucks resource sharing groups. In addition, the SO6 group, formerly composed of a subset of SOLINE libraries agreeing to lend non-returnable items (photocopies of articles) to each other for free, will now be open to all interested LYRA members, greatly expanding the opportunities for sharing articles from journals, magazines, newspapers, and other serials.

“Members have outstanding options now for resource sharing and can choose the right one for their library. They can maintain membership in the smaller regional groups as their sole affiliation; join LYRA in addition and greatly expand their resource sharing capabilities; join SO6 for serials sharing; or they can opt to join only LYRA,” said Palmer.

For LYRASIS members interested in participating in LYRA or SO6, for more information, or to update/change resource sharing group memberships, contact the Member Services Help Desk at 800.999.8558 or email membersupport@lyrasis.org.

About Lyrasis

Created in 2009 by the merger of PALINET and SOLINET and later joined by NELINET, LYRASIS is the nation’s largest regional membership organization serving libraries and information professionals. The primary service area is the Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern, and New England regions but LYRASIS has members in many US states and in other countries. Though large in scale, LYRASIS is known for its local touch – fostering collaboration and cooperation among members and facilitating their success through networking and collaboration, innovative solutions, and significant cost savings through group purchasing for products and services.

For more information, please visit www.lyrasis.org.
Kathy Anderson, Writer/Editor 800.233.3401, ext. 1223 kathy.anderson@lyrasis.org
Donna Vito, Manager of Communications 800.233.3401, ext. 1235 donna.vito@lyrasis.org

09.11. – 10.11.
“Zehn Jahre ist es her, dass Wills Vater bei einer Polarexpedition verschwand. Jetzt plötzlich interessieren sich zwielichtige Gestalten für den Forscher – und für Will. Doch der Junge findet durch Zufall das perfekte Versteck: eine andere Welt. Hier begegnet er Lyra, die wie er einem großen Geheimnis auf der Spur ist. Gemeinsam geraten die Kinder in einen erbitterten Kampf, bei dem die Zukunft ihrer Welten auf dem Spiel steht…”

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Im zweiten Teil lernen wir Will kennen, der sich um seine kranke Mutter sorgt und seinen Vater nie gekannt hat. Als sie von Männern verfolgt werden, die etwas in ihrem Haus suchen, bringt Will seine Mutter in Sicherheit, findet den gesuchten Gegenstand und beschließt, seinen Vater zu suchen. Dabei gelangt er in eine andere Welt, in der er auch auf Lyra trifft. Die beiden freunden sich an und bestehen gemeinsam ein weiteres, spannendes Abenteuer, in dessen Verlauf Will auf das Magische Messer trifft…
Außerdem wird die Geschichte von Lee Scoresby erzählt, der alles tut, um Lyra zu helfen. Ebenso wie die Hexen, die diesmal besser in die Geschichte passen. Auch Mrs. Coulter taucht wieder auf, noch gerissener als zuvor…

Dieses Buch ist ebenso spannend geschrieben wie der erste Teil, dennoch wirkt es auf mich ein wenig “gezwungen” – als müsste einfach erzählt werden, was es mit dem Magischen Messer auf sich hat und die Geschichte drum herum wird nur nebenbei erzählt. Es läuft also alles auf den dritten Band hinaus, auf den großen Krieg, in dem über die Zukunft aller Welten entschieden wird.

*les*

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