Thoroughly Modern Medusa

Philip + Savannah

2012-02-01T06:59:00.000-08:00

Maybe it was the cat's cradle of contrails in the sky this morning, my giant cup of coffee, or perhaps Savannah's oh so perfect shade of lipstick in her photos with Philip, but I've got love on the brain.

Are they not just swooningly perfect together?

It makes total sense that wedding photographers should be married. TO EACH OTHER. Who else would totally get their client's big day as well as they would?

They are excellent shooters and excellent partners and I was beyond thrilled to get to hang with such a lovely couple AND hang out in front of their lens. Memphis has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to great photographers, and these guys are heading the pack. And making me wish I could convince my husband that hanging out with me for 12+ hours on the job would be a blast!

You've got the look

2012-01-31T11:49:00.000-08:00

We all want to put our best face forward, and considering that so much of how we communicate these days is by scribbling off 140 character missives and status updates that your friends, ex-lovers, future bosses and stalkers peruse next to a big fat photo of YOU, you kinda wanna look nice, right?

Because I shoot boudoir photography and because Christa Meola made me look smokin hot, an arty black and white photo from our session has been my go to profile pic across the board. It was a great representation of what I was trying to represent, that it is ok and feminist and hip to declare yourself beautiful and be strong and sepia is flattering and what IF I might be naked beneath that flower in my hair?

And then this happened:

Client: Hey! um, WOW! Nice to meet you!

Me: So nice to meet you!

Client: WOW! I almost...wow. Your Facebook photo is really beautiful!

Me: .....

In my defense, I had a fever of 101 when showing up to the gig and couldn't cancel, but all of a sudden I was that guy! I was the handsome in a non-threatening way guy who had been writing to you on Match.com about my love of movie marathons at the local arthouse and artisanal pickles and greyhound rescue and then I show up at your door, bald and gassy and smelling like pickles and like I might live on the floor of an arthouse cinema.

The shame.

In any case, I'd been feeling it was time for a new headshot, and that is when these awesome people came to my rescue. Savannah and Philip also happened to be in the market for new headshots as she is in rocking a killer fauxhawk and that dewy, 20-something, poreless gorgeous skin that could sell skin cream to a, well, me, so we spent an afternoon trading pics. They made it truly fun to be on the otherside of the camera for once, even though it was freakishly warm and humid and my hair started to rise up and puff like it had a date for cotillion.

So here I am, coming to a social media site near you. And yes, I know it's not hip to pose a profile pic of you with your kid, but as D qualifies as a third appendage, I say I'm not breaking any rules. Thanks, Savannah and Philip!

Pink Eye

2012-01-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

Time for bed. Business as usual. She walked up her step stool in front of the sink, reached for her toothbrush, and froze.

Oh no, she said, suddenly tense. I don't want to look in the mirror. I WON'T.

I handed her her toothbrush, and she brought it to her now quivering lips. Ever the patient mother, I took her brush and nudged her mouth open. Sure, babe. You need to brush.

I CAN'T she said, now starting to cry. I don't want to look in the mirror. I don't want to see the pink!

?

The pink? I asked. I put the toothbrush down.

The pink, it HURRRTS, she cried.

The pink like the pink on her weirdly flushed cheeks? A few hours earlier, her face had started to look unusually rosy, her cheeks so brightly pink so that she looked like a kewpie doll. A kewpie doll with possibly some bizarre rash that needed to be googled. Google sent me photos of miserable babies with torsos that looked they had served as picnic grounds for an army of ants. I should know better by now.

The pink thing in my eye, she cried. I see it EVERYWHERE.

I turned her to face me.
Is it on your eye? NO
In your eye, here? NO! IT HURTS!!!!
Do you see pink when you look over here? NO
What about when you look in the mirror? I'M NOT LOOKING IN THE MIRROR.

Alrighty. I got her into her pajamas, tucked her in with stories and our usual ritual of describing the coterie of animals, circus performers and ninjas hired to work security detail under her bedroom window. No more mention of The Pink.

Cuh-RAZ -ee I reported to her father downstairs, the pot calling the kettle black and settling into watching her DVR.

* * *

2 AM

I WANT TO PUT THE COFFEE IN! she screams, her usual morning greeting except for the fact that it is dark and cold and 2 in the morning. She's run into our room, and Caleb scoops her up. It's not morning time, he soothes her, but she is now screaming crying, coffee forgotten.

MY EYE! My EYE! It HURTS!!! Caleb glances at me as he carries her into her room. Oh God. This shit just got real.

Annnnd now the baby is awake and screaming. I stumble into his room, giving him the dregs of a bottle while I contemplate The Pink. Thanks to Facebook, I knew a classmate of Harlow's had just been sick, her symptoms mirroring scarlet fever until they learned it was strep. But was this scarlet fever? Was this what the victims saw before their eyesight vanished in a pepto-pink smear? Scarlet Fever! The virus that Helen Keller contracted that made her go blind and deaf and dumb yet she still managed to write a memoir!

THE PINK!

I tiptoe downstairs, desperate to Google. Glaucoma? Conjunctivitis? Google sends me more sad babies with scales and things that drip. Why in God's name do people put these photos on the internet? Why in God's name do I seek them out? I truly should know better by now. I hear her whimpering upstairs.

We call her bedroom the Pink Palace, a 10 x 12 box of now hideously ironic pink stripes. And now it was a Poe short story come to life, a wan, limp heroine doomed to be swallowed whole by the very color she demanded be on her walls and socks and baby dolls. I joined Caleb at Harlow's bedside where she was delicately daubing at her eyes, her hands shaking. It hurts to touch it, she wimpers. Is it a sharp pain? I ask her. Pressure? A hallucination latently brought on by some terrible genetic cocktail? This is my fault, right? MOM, I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, she demands, shutting us down. I'm at a loss. We search her clear, non-pink eyes and each other's. What the F -? my eyebrows ask him. Why don't you come get in bed with us, Caleb asks. She nods, her eyes wide and serious.

3:30 AM

She lies between us, staring up at the ceiling. I meet Caleb's eyes, and then we both return to staring at her.

I'm looking at the fireworks, mommy, she tells me calmly. Up on the ceiling. They are so beautiful.

Jesus Christ. It's starting. I watch her watch the ceiling. Do they make walking sticks for five year olds, I wonder? At least she won't be able to see the pitying looks. She will grow into a stunningly beautiful blind woman, men drawn to her looks and later awed by her commitment to forestry and dexterity at handling power tools despite her disability thanks to her father's patient tutoring. They will want to save her and she'll be too proud to be saved, and she will trip over an ottoman carelessly left out of place and she will curse her God and one of the Dakota Fanning tribe will play her in the movie.

It's exhausting, the parenting.

I fall asleep. When I wake, she is back in her own bed, her eyes clear. She is in the mood for granola.

Caleb and I sit her on the couch, both desperate to make some sense out of the night before.

Do your eyes hurt now, sweetie?

Nope, she says, busy coloring a fairy on a piece of paper.

Was the pink something you felt? No.
Can you see it now? No.
Was it a pressure like - she cuts us off. I don't want to talk it about, mom, she says. She is not crying but eerily calm, poised. Adult. Caleb tries to extract information, gently, and she rebuffs his efforts at well. She's not talking. End of story.

This is not from my playbook. There is something wrong? A hint of maybe something wrong? We are discussing that mother into the ground. Caleb knows when to let it go, and he leaves to make some coffee.

I look at her eyeing my laptop.

Hey Harlow, I say, casually, nudging my computer toward her. Want to play PBS Kids?

YES, she says, bouncing over.

Ok. Tell me what the pink is and you can play it.

Her face falls but I know I have her. She takes a deep breath and gulps.

I prepare myself. Did she stare into her flashlight, or the stupid pink light she insists on leaving on while she sleeps, her retinas now seared permanently pink?

There's this kid at school, she starts -

And he showed her something horrible. Something inappropriate. Something that will require meetings and therapy and awkward encounters at birthday parties and school functions and what is WRONG with kids these days and -

...and when he rubs his eyes, she continues, it gets all pink and I don't want to look like that. Ever.

She looks like she is about to puke, just at the thought.

I stare at her for a long moment and then gather her up into a hug. I thank her for telling me but she's already turned her attention to Curious George and the birthday present game. I give thanks for her perfect health, her openness to bribes, and I say a special thanks to the College of Dramatic Arts that will be accepting her in the Fall of 2024.

9 months

2012-01-16T19:58:00.000-08:00

Have y'all met my boyfriend?

Tipping the charts in length, lacking any teeth, and weighing in at a scrappy 18 lbs 10 ozs, my Mr. January makes 9 months on the planet look to be a dashing affair. Maybe it's the whole guy behind bars thing that lends him a slightly dangerous air. Or maybe it's that framed pic hanging in a oh so not baby book approved fashion over his crib. Either way, I'm not afraid to shout it here to the internet:

I have a mad crush on my baby.

Maybe it's the additional sleep I'm getting these days, the incrementally more exercise that's helping to lift the depression that is apparently standard during the first year of my children's lives, but things seem brighter, no more so than my little nugget who - no joke - is the cutest goddam baby on the planet. I may have it scientifically validated. All I know is that when that kid smiles, which is pretty much 98% of his waking life, it is impossible not to believe good can triumph over evil, Stephen Colbert could become president of South Carolina and I could stop being so snarky for five seconds to say thank you to said baby, husband, and daughter for helping me to perk up.

Back to baby.

He's got the inchworm crawl down, his preferred targets a plastic ball and the TV speakers we for some reason refuse to pick up off the floor. I've got about a 10 second window to turn my back and google something before he eats ground up leaves and dog hair off the carpet, so the obvious solution? Less blogging, more tweeting. And that babyproofing when we get around to it. And that smile! He smiles HARD. So hard it physically weighs his head down so that he has to brace himself and turn away just to compose himself. You try staying crabby in the presence of such goobery joy. Given the go-ahead to eat pretty much anything except the scary peanut, Declan has shown himself to love the meatball. Judging by the rumbly tummy 1 hour later, meatball doesn't exactly love him back. But I assured him as with any relationships, these things take time.

The Staves

2012-01-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

It was a bad beginning to a date night.

He was late. The babysitter was already on the clock, Harlow all but tossing my purse and umbrella out into the rain so she could get on with her night of TV and late bedtime debauchery. He hustled in, shaking off the rain only to be hustled promptly back out by a wife tired of cleaning up baby puke and ignoring that burgeoning sore throat.

The bar was full of blonde and silver divorcees and men in ties, a vaguely creepy scene, but we bellied up to the bar, sharing a pizza and some Rick Santorum jokes, and the wine began to smooth out the prickly sore throat. And maybe it was the wine, but it was so incredibly sexy to just listen to another human being talk, and be heard, and not feel obligated to spoon pureed sweet potatoes into the mouth in front of me.

We made it to GPAC in the cold drizzle, hoping we had missed the opening act, cause you know, that's how we're trained, right? We were ushered into the dark theater, appearing to be maybe the ONLY people to arrive late. Of course our seats were the dead center of our row. We squeezed down the aisle, flicking raindrops onto silently fuming strangers. Don't they know they are supposed to skip the opener, I reasoned. Yeah, it's these people in MY way when I'm the one on time.

And we sat down, and not only did I eat my words, I choked and sputtered on them.

We came to hear The Civil Wars, and I left in awe of The Staves, the three-sister opening act who had nothing but an acoustic guitar and three gorgeous harmonies. Even my jaded folk rocker hubby was mesmerized by the simple beauty of each song (and maybe by those lovely British lasses as well). It was a warm, cozy evening, and I woke up the next morning with "Mexico " on the brain.

And a raging sore throat.

The Staves - Mexico (Official Music Video) from The Staves on Vimeo.

Kimbra

2012-01-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

Holy shit

Mr. Wizard is mine

2012-01-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

You might not know I snagged Mr. Wizard.

I married him, bore his children and now occasionally provide some light housekeeping so he can work his magic around our little abode.

That used to look like this fright show.

In the 9 or so months since moving in, Caleb has built an archway to the entry, built our wooden island top, rearranged the downstairs layout three times, reorganized the laundry area four times, tiled the kitchen backsplash, built a wooden fence, rebuilt Harlow's bedroom nook, and for his latest feat, transformed a vintage map table into a coffee table/art station with functional storage. Of course, this is after physically rebuilding the house himself, installing and staining the wood floors by hand, turning a card catalog into my desk and what's that, Inferiority Complex? Cool it for now?

Ahem.

Weekends often find us scouring the West elm outlet, yard sales, and Summer Avenue antique stores, and we scored this guy several months back.

I fought to preserve the shelves as is, because they are undeniably cool. But our space is undeniably cramped and in desperate need of storage space, so Caleb came upon an elegant if not labor intensive solution.

The map table was built in two sections, so he selected the top portion for our coffee table, reconfigured the drawers so they could actually CONTAIN shit and not awesome, wildly impractical maps. He returned the exterior drawer panels and hardware so it would look like the original strutcure and outsourced it for a snazzy new paint job. The bottom half of the structure is now the drawer inside Harlow's reconfigured bedroom nook which will get its own post some time soon. More to come of our home's amazing transformation, thanks to my man's talent and determination and my growing addiction to pinterest.

How to Raise an Interesting Child

2012-01-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

I want to tell you that I have all my creative ducks in a row and I'm churning out pages and getting in my 60 minutes of cardio daily and cutting dairy and all the promises we make in the first week of 2012.

I can't tell you that.

But I got 8 straight hours of sleep for the first time in 9 months last night. How's that for a start?

Something else I can tell you is that I am so freakin excited over the artwork for my graphic novel How to Raise an Interesting Child. And for you, a sneak peek into the first several inked images by artist Kayla Cline! I make my push for representation soon, so I'll be keeping you apprised of the agonies and ecstasies of finding an agent amidst the smoking ashes of the publishing industry.

Here's to all of us chasing our dreams in 2012.

And cutting out dairy.

A Boudoir Marathon

2012-01-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

You know you wanna.

In honor of the soon to-be launched Delicate Matters website, I'm going to be hosting boudoir mini-sessions on Saturday January 21, just in time for Valentine's Day!

It's a new year, a new you, and now is the time to take the plunge!

A mini session includes:

1 hour photo shoot in an elegant hotel suite
up to 3 outfits
professional makeup session
a password protected gallery of retouched images
a 6x6 little black book of super sexy YOU
*add ons and upgrades available

$450

email medusahead@mac.com to book your session today!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

Here's to a brilliant 2012, y'all. Looking forward to meeting the challenges and witnessing the thrills that are sure to come!

Nashville

2011-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

It was supposed to be simple.

Drive to Nashville. Visit Alexa and Susan. Spoil the kiddo with a stay at Opryland, currently the headquarters of A Dreamworks Merry Madagascar Christmas, cause, you know, nothing says the holidays like Shrek inside a casino-sized hotel that made out with a mall and gave birth to a theme park.

The reality saw our little black cloud pull into Nashville with expired tags and get pulled over pretty much the second we arrived in town. With Alexa unexpectedly having to work most of the weekend, we cruised over to Opryland, and I swear to god, if they had an app for it? The man would have filed divorce papers on the spot.

I had been to Opryland once before for a photography conference, just after the holidays. The hotel was all decked out with giant Christmas trees and lights and - here's the catch - minus the 20,000 or so people that comprise the holidays at Opryland. So while I was expecting the labyrinth that is Gaylord Opryland, none of us were prepared for the multitude of Mississippi State bowl gamers, Cheer Nationals with its hordes of disturbingly painted, groomed, and undressed, dancing preteens, and most of the rest of the country that thought Christmas with two million pounds of Alex the Lion ice was the way to salute the season.

Throw in some overpriced pizza, gastro distress and an 8:30 bedtime for the four of us in one hotel room, and you've got a magical evening consisting of one screaming child, one crying adult, and another who looked like he was about to pull a Jack Torrance and run through the halls of Opryland with a baseball bat. But I meant magical in that Declan screamed repeatedly throughout the night approximately 4 feet away from his sister and not once did she wake. Not once. Bottle that shit and you could cure insomnia.

The next day proved more of the same with missed naps, aimless driving along 40 to makeup for said missed nap, impromptu car repair, epic traffic and a meltdown so tremor-inducing that we had to bail on visiting with Alexa and Susan just to get back on the road. I'm glad that Harlow loved her time meeting the different Dreamworks characters and hope she treasures the memories as we will not likely take another family roadtrip until 2020 or the coming apocalypse forces us to travel to higher ground. All I know is that we'll be getting separate hotel rooms.

Christmas Magic

2011-12-26T19:39:00.000-08:00

magic

You ask Harlow what she wants for Christmas, and you get one answer:

Magic

Not dolls, not a bike, magic.

At the mall last month - in November and just before Thanksgiving, mind you - the eager beaver mall employees had set up a an old fashioned-looking mailbox with a letter writing station to Santa. She hustled to her seat, scribbled on the provided paper and sealed that envelope tight. But before she popped that badboy in the mail she let me proof the final version:

Santa.

MAGIC.

Harlow

Santa was gonna have to put on his big boy pants for this one.

Magic! This has been of debate for quite some time in our family, the desire to create and preserve the mystery of magic for our children but also wanting to impart some critical reasoning/i.e. not break her heart when she realizes that "magic" is not going to come sprinkling out her magic wand and send wings shooting out from underneath her shouder blades. When she was 2 1/2, we stood on the front porch, the day of reckoning at hand as she had on her tinkerball costume, her wand pointed to the sky and her impossibly huge eyes on me as she waited for the magic to kick in. She told me matter of fact-ly that she was ready to fly. I told her that we could pretend and jump as high as we could.

She burst into tears.

So did I.

But despite my fumbling, lame attempts to foster her beliefs while simultaneously debunking them (of course Santa is real! Of course monsters aren't!) at nearly five she's not ready to give up believing in magic, and I'm not ready to stop providing her with ample evidence that it's alive and well in the Sweazy residence.

Nearly everyday she finds "magic" diamonds in our yard, these sparkly black rocks she wipes off on her pants and then adds to the rock collection on the window sill (next to jar with the rock collection I started at around the same age). So Santa was going to bring a rock tumbler for sure. And a vegetable garden whose roots are visible through an ant farm-like contraption. Magic was quickly taking on a very seventies, Mr. Wizard, of the earth variety. But the kid loves some magic tricks after watching a magician perform and catching some tricks in the you tube, she would be getting a magic kit and a hat and a wand.

But what about the, you know, magic part of the magic?

On Christmas morning, Harlow made her way down the stairs, eyeing the bounty of wrapped presents and happily digging through her stocking. She was excited, but she wasn't really feeling the magic.

But then she saw the typewriter.

We have an antique typewriter that rests by the TV, and lo and behold, Santa typed her a letter. He told her that he had received her list and hoped (oh did he hope) that she saw the magic in her gifts. Oh and that he shared some of his cookies with the fairies outside by the hollow tree.

About 4 seconds later Harlow was bundled up and throwing on boots and dashing out to the tree in the yard where fairies had left her notes in the hollow of the tree.

Today there was a door in its base.

When she opened the door, she found a letter addressed to her. Caleb read it aloud - it was a scavenger hunt, a hunt that sent her all over the yard with a shovel digging up something pretty magical indeed.

Geodes.

Having learned months ago that geodes are usually only found around volcanos and caves, she was pretty thrilled to suddenly find them scattered all over her front yard. BY FAIRIES. She followed the clues and gathered them up, bringing them to the garage where we could smash them open with a hammer and some safety glasses. She was pretty dazzled by the sparkly crystals inside, and one geode in particular yielded an impressive, gemlike sparkler. She gasped upon seeing it, closed her eyes, and made a wish.

Caleb and I spent the day feeling pretty satisfied. The girl had magic tricks and the magic of the earth, la la la, and a freaking rock tumbler and a fairy-led scavenger hunt, so magic was all up in this joint as far as we were concerned. It was only around bedtime that she plopped into my lap and asked me point blank why, after wishing on the diamond in her geode, she hadn't been transformed into a real fairy princess.

I told her a story about two brothers who wished they had fairy wings. They wished so hard that they got tired of waiting and decided to invent their own way of flying, ultimately designing the first flying airplane. I told her that imagination was a truly powerful kind of magic and with hers, who knew what she would be able to dream into being.

And then she rolled her eyes at me and promptly got up out of my lap.

8 months

2011-12-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

Today Declan is 8 months old.

Today he is 11 days off the boob.

And today...I am okay with that decision.

Perhaps it's because I'm on the otherside of the precipitous, post-nurse hormone drop and the guilt and yes, shame, but I truly feel okay, because our child is finally sleeping better. Well, if he hadn't hit a growth spurt just a few days after weaning he would be probably be sleeping better, but we had 2 magical nights where our kid went to sleep, woke for a bottle before midnight, and didn't stir until 7 AM. Of course Harlow, our formerly rock star sleeper decided it would be her turn to wake several times in the night while he slept, but I saw it, y'all.

There is an end to this misery.

The nursing was never miserable. No, that's me already editing my memories. But as with anything so vital and passionate and important in one's life, I mostly loved it. I will miss the way his body curled into mine, his gaze, the sweet bleating noise he made when he was hungry. I already miss the instant fix of the almighty magical boob. What else will I miss? The 10,000 or so calories I burned on a daily basis. The big boobs and the skinny jeans were a seriously awesome bonus for our marathon nursing sessions, but these too shall pass. Very, very rapidly.

And Declan is thriving, my little man. Not crawling, not yet, but so, so close. He pivots 360 degrees and can stand when you take his hands. He just smiles and laughs and screams with delight and frustration. He is mad for his sister, his handsome reflection, stuffed animals and baby dolls...because they are delicious.

Infant cannibalism is a milestone, right?

Girls

2011-12-13T08:16:00.000-08:00

Today is my sister's birthday, and it's starting to set in that she's no longer a 25 minute drive away but starting a new chapter with her family in Atlanta. I was grateful to spend time with her over Thanksgiving, especially so Harlow could play with her two cousins. These were some of my favorite images from our afternoon in Seaside.

Happy BIrthday, lil sis! I miss you!

1000

2011-12-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

Dang...this is my 1000th post!

I've been so busy with the Christmas card photo rush and general baby duty these past few months that I haven't been as present on the blog as I would like, something I hope to rectify next year. In honor of this auspicious event, I'm having a little contest. Leave me a comment telling me why you need a $25 gift card to Target, and the funniest, weirdest, whatever fits my mood best at the moment wins!

*edited to say that I will close comments at 8PM CST tonight, so keep em coming!

The Nutcracker

2011-12-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a brilliant, child-free evening of dining with friends and watching my man rock out at The Cove. A mere 4 1/2 hours after my head hit the pillow, I was off to collect the children from my wonderful parents and endure lashing rains and thrashing children at Pump It Up!, a large warehouse of bouncy houses and slides, zero coffee, and (hopefully) vats of disinfectant.

So I was rather beat and reluctant to head back out into the elements. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to take Harlow to her first ballet.

The book, First Ballet, has been in steady rotation since we bought it for her a year ago, and it was pretty thrilling for me to take her into a space that looks almost exactly like the drawings in the book. Memphis may be lacking in many respects, but you cannot beat a more grandiose, cinematic experience than watching a performance at The Orpheum. It wasn't her first time inside those fabled walls, but it was her first Nutcracker.

She curled up in my lap and clapped and oohed and ahhed, lifting her arms to the sky to mirror the ballerinas on stage and softly singing along with the children's chorus spotlit in the balcony. Every now and again she would spontaneously hug me so hard I thought my heart might explode from gratitude. I constantly fought back tears, remembering how powerful my first trip to the Orpheum was. I sat in the balcony with my mother, afraid that I might tumble off the edge and fall into the vast galley below, but the fear quickly ebbed as Yul Brynner took to the stage as the King of Siam in the King and I.

I hope that one day when she is older, she will hear Tchaikovsky's music and think of falling snow, sugarplum fairies, and her mascara-smudged mother buying her a souvenir.

Advent

2011-12-01T06:25:00.001-08:00

Every year I say I'm going to make an advent calendar, or at least buy one. I grew up with the kind with that resembled a little house, the kind with tiny, perforated windows that required mom's long fingernails to jimmy before we ripped them open. Each day brought us closer to Christmas. Each number revealed was likely one less aspirin mom needed to take to stave off the incessant WHEN IS CHRISTMAS? IS IT NOW? IS IT NOW? questions. (You know the calendar was invented by the really, really tired parent of cranky children. My theory.)

Every year I have good intentions. Every year I also have an empty riddling rack I picked up on an excursion to Napa. Every year I try to justify keeping the ridiculous heavy, so not babyproofed space taker-upper.

And then my a-ha moment! (Not the kind where I get sucked into a black and white sketched video. That would be way cooler)

Wine bottle holder = unexpected advent calendar!

A quick trip to Michaels, some stenciling and closepinning, and voila! A budget friendly calendar.

The dilemma was what to put inside them. I'm not really keen on the idea of treats or presents inside. There is little left of the meaning of the holiday beyond the gross commercial aspect, and I didn't want to encourage it anymore than necessary. Leave it to my artist daughter to happen upon an elegant solution. She sketched some holiday-themed drawings and tucked them inside the pouches. Caleb and I pledged to do the same, so that each day we will open up someone's work of art, a story, and we'll have a countdown that hopefully puts a little more love and closeness into the season.

Here's day 1 with Harlow's Christmas elf. And possibly an incarcerated frog.

How does your family acknowledge the holiday season?

Rosie + Zach

2011-11-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

It's part of the photographer's trade to work with people who swear up and down that they don't photograph well.

Obviously the majority of folks being photographed for an engagement shoot aren't professionals, so there's some nerves, the apologies for cracked lenses, a lot of photoshop work in post. Hell, there is a reason I shoot people rather than seek out the other side of the lens.

But there is nothing like the potent combo of dopamine and adrenaline that rushes forth in the presence of two people in love that turns the non-pros into naturals before the lens.

Rosie and Zach were silly, sweet, romantic, and born to be photographed together. I can't wait to capture their big day!

Thankful

2011-11-22T14:03:00.001-08:00

By the time you read this, I will be on the road for a Thanksgiving adventure in beachier, sunnier climes, ideally with family members who are not 1) running a temperature on par with the sun 2) vomiting 3) breathing without being confused for Darth Vadar and 4) needing to physically be on my person for their healing, eating, boredom needs. It has been a long three weeks, and I am - wait for it - thankful - truly thankful that my family is recovering.

And going to the beach.

What else am I thankful for?

You, of course. My amazing clients who have given me the privilege of capturing their families as they grow.

Even if they weren't always thrilled by my presence.

Happy Thanksgiving!

7 months

2011-11-14T02:22:00.000-08:00

Declan is seven months today. What is 7 months? 7 months is just a shocking amount of happy and general bonhomie, except when being fed green vegetables or placed on his stomach for longer than he would like. Or me watching anything but the Daily Show on Hulu while I nurse him, because how else would be get his news? This child has not met a stranger, beaming at anyone who comes across his baby blues. He sits up for long periods of time, eats the hell out of some sweet potatoes, and generally seems to enjoy being strangled by his well meaning sister on a daily basis*

While seven months is remarkable milestone in itself, it also marks seven months of fractured, fitful sleep for his parents. Work has been off the charts busy, and I've been taking lots of pictures of babies, talking to parents about their babies. And I swear it feels like I am the only parent whose baby doesn't sleep.

I know this is isn't true. You all have told me as much.

But not sleeping well for seven months, averaging maybe 4-5 hours nightly, is taking a serious toll. At his longest, Baby D sleeps six hour stretches, but never after midnight. And while his disposition is unfailingly cheery, his health remarkable, Caleb and I can't say the same.

I look awful. I feel awful. I don't have enough energy to exercise. I have frequent headaches from interrupted sleep. I can't remember shit, often forgetting to pay bills and mixing up appointments. I even started giving the baby formula, hearing anecdotally that the additional calories would help the baby sleep.

Nope.

While feeding the baby and feeding myself, I was skimming an article about willpower and how multitasking and sleep deprivation - through depletion in glucose and overloading certain parts of the brain - are documented motivation killers.

That stopped me in my tracks.

Sleep begets sleep. No sleep fucks everything up. So I guess my job right now is to just be at peace with the fact that I won't get much accomplished for the time being. I'm trying to take comfort in that maybe biology is at play in my inability to work on my novel at this time. Or maybe I was just crazy to attempt it during my busiest work season yet. It certainly doesn't help that my entire house is suffering from a ubiquitous cold, so I know when we all start breathing better, we will (ideally) start sleeping better.

Now if only I can remember to tell you if we do.

*Harlow's love for her brother is rather awesome to behold. She's his own personal troubadour, smothering him with hugs and making up songs on the fly. Sample lyrics:

You are the KING of babies
The KING of babies!
I love you I love you I love you
I love you so much
I won't throw you away in the trash can.

Another fave

2011-11-13T14:16:00.001-08:00

Opus One

2011-11-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the night!

The Memphis Symphony Orchestra will be performing at the New Daisy as their alter ego, the hipper, edgier Opus One. Their special guest?

Rapper Al Kapone

I was honored to be chosen as the photographer to shoot the publicity campaign, and what that entailed was staggeringly talented musicians, jook dancers, gangsta rapper Al Kapone, and gleefully happy me inside the crumbly old Sears Crosstown building snapping away. It's been fun seeing the images pop up in the local paper and online, and I made the Flyer cover! Now it's time for Opus One and Mr. Kapone to bring it!

I'm just looking forward to Whoop that Trick set to violin and harp.

Fierce

2011-11-07T12:48:00.000-08:00

I had the gorgeous Sabine* over to my home for a studio shoot. I'd been itching to shoot a boudoir session without the usual bed/window trappings, instead relying just on headshots and movement in front of a seamless backdrop to capture the loveliness of the human form. And funny how this town works. I had seen Sabine at her old place of business, wishing I knew her so I could take her photo because she was just that freakin stunning. And lo and behold she's now a friend and partner in crime. I mean, this woman was born to be photographed, no?

More loveliness to come!

*not her real name. I give all my boudoir clients pseudonyms whether they ask or not, cause it's a little naughtier that way.

** want to get captured? Want to let your significant other to know that you are going to give yourself the gift that truly keeps on giving? Give me a shout to book your session. Gift certificates available!

Babes in the Woods

2011-11-07T12:31:00.001-08:00

Whew.

I love people. I love my camera. I love taking pictures of people with my camera.

But this weekend was one of my busiest on record with four shoots, a 5 year old's birthday party, Rock n Romp, and two kids spewing crud from their noses and lungs, so I'm plum. tuckered. (Also the name of my band if I ever get around to learning that ukelele)

Harlow was still sounding like a formula one pit crew was trying to find its way out of her chest, so it was decided she stay home. And truth be told, I missed my kiddos something fierce. It's been an all day cuddlefest. The weather was lovely enough for us to stroll over to the zoo and back again for an impromptu midday slumber party in the yard. And yes, that's the hotly contested, almost-finished, sure to be kickass garage in the background. Or magical princess palace, considering who you ask. If mama gets her firepit out front, you can call it whatever you want.

I love my babies.

Cece: Sneak

2011-11-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

A fave from last weekend's baby session in Tupelo.

She's Brave of Everything

2011-11-02T12:26:00.001-07:00

So I was trying to write this post about Halloween, and about how my little Queen of Hearts is suddenly a much more fearful creature than this time last year. She used to be brave of everything, because obviously, the opposite is scared of everything.

I was telling her there is nothing to be afraid of which is really the first of many lies we tell our children, but parenting is nothing if not leading by example. I've been telling her there is nothing to be afraid of when I feel my daily existence is based on avoiding the things that terrify me.

And what scares me most right now?

Dying a mean, jealous, embittered old woman who failed to have the strength to finish her novel.

November is National Novel Writing Month, and while I will not be officially NaNoWriMoing because I already have a quarter of the thing written, I will be working off the energy and passion of all those trying to write their first drafts in the next month. The plan is to have 50,000 more words written by December 1.

So posting will be light this month. Between the shoots and the editing and the diapering and the not sleeping, there's not much left over for writing, but this sucker is gonna put me in the ground early if I don't try.

So wish me luck. I'll see you soon.

Especially if I'm procrastinating.

Muse: sneak

2011-10-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

In my molasses-like crawl to turn my short film script, The Department of Signs and Magical Intervention, into an actual production, I took a big jump forward today, running around town with a friend and muse to shoot some inspiration images. And one of the wonderful things about being a photographer and a woman is that when gobsmacked by a another woman's beauty, I can beg to take their photo and hopefully not come across as weird and skeevy. Who needs Hollywood star Jessica Chastain when I have my own? Here's a fave from today:

Jeff & Elisabeth are married

2011-10-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

One of the wonderful things about my work is hearing the love stories that brought these couples together. Jeff and Elisabeth's is an international affair, he in Bangladesh, she in the states, and on a perfect Sunday, they reunited in Memphis to finally become husband and wife. After a beautiful ceremony and reception at the Metal Museum, we scooted over to the Corn Maze and jumping pillow for a post-day shoot, and now? Now I am super spoiled and may insist on all my weddings including trampolines. A special thank you to Chip Chockley for being my wingman. Congratulations Jeff and Elisabeth! Here's a sampling from the day!

Fox

2011-10-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

I remember many years back hearing about Meg Ryan adopting a daughter, naming her, and then maybe a year later, changing the kid's name to something else. Because, according to Meg Ryan, she just wasn't a Lily or a Ruby but was now whatever new name had caught her fancy.

It seemed a weird if not potentially cruel thing to do, but perfectly in keeping with celebrity whimsy. I mean, they can't wear the same dress twice. Why would we expect them to stay true to their progeny's given name?

So where am I going with this?

It's not that I don't like my son's name.

I do.

I just wasn't my first choice.

My first choice was something that Caleb wouldn't get on board with, but Declan was his favorite. The more I said Declan out loud and in my head, it grew on me, and his first choice combined with my second seemed like the winner.

The baby came, the baby was named, and most of the family seemed to like it, even more than my first choice.

And six months later, I read about the impending birth of an acquaintance's son, baby Fox.

It was a like a punch to the gut.

It was the name I wanted for my son. It was cute and irreverent and a name I'd loved since my obsession with the X Files and all things Fox Mulder. Coupled with one of my favorite movies, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, the name just seemed ideal for the newest Sweazy.

But there was the fear of a lifelong deluge of Fox stuffed animals and figurines that I would have to haul by the sackload after each birthday and Christmas. The inevitable playground taunt that would send my little Fucks Sleazy home crying. (Fucks and Harlot, what a pair, right?)

But still. Fox!

I'm not sure what makes me sadder - that gut realization I should have fought harder for the name or that I have a much larger issue with not being confident with the choices I have made.

My Declan is my Declan. It's a great name. And let's be honest, there's a reason all that bureaucratic red tape exists because of flip floppers like me. I'll take my baby D over months of paperwork with the social security and birth certificate offices.

Any of you have a name that was the Name that Got Away?

McElroy: Sneak

2011-10-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

A favorite image from today's super fun family session!

Anthony & Kate Get Married: Sneak

2011-10-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

A favorite from this weekend's lovely fall wedding

Roses

2011-10-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

A sneak peek from a favorite family session.

And my obsession with the Asuka wallpaper from Osborne and Little continues. When I die, would it be bad form to have my tombstone wallpapered with this?

Damages

2011-10-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

My guilty pleasure during wedding/portrait season? Netflix. (and whatever Hulu will let me watch for free). When a wedding is finished, I'm giddy because 1) I get to sit down and 2) I get to watch the latest 4 episodes of Modern Family or Fringe or yes, I'll confess, Castle, because I just can't quit you, Nathan Fillion. Even with the terrible. cliched plots and writing.

Because I shoot digitally, every session requires some dedicated editing down time. Sometimes I listen to music while I process photos ( a current fave is the Pumped Up Kicks station on Pandora). A lot of the time I listen to podcasts (Fresh Air and The Moth are mainstays), but really, catching a series I never made time for when it originally aired - while I'm working - makes me feel like I'm eating a giant piece of cake of breakfast, just because I can.

So there's this show? On FX. It's called Damages.

Yeah.

Why didn't you tell me??

This show has been on since 2008, and I am just now clueing into the fact this may be one of the most entertaining, brilliantly written series on TV.

What I was not prepared for was how I would need to put my life on hold for the next 24 hours to watch the entire season, because y'all, I didn't have a choice. I HAD to know what was going to happen to bloody Ellen in the flashbacks, to the pompous, vulnerable villain played by Ted Danson, and that devil in the $1000 suit skirt, Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close.

Not every subplot worked (stalker girl?) Some of the logic failed me in the end, but the show was consistently suspenseful, brilliantly acted and my new preferred method of running photoshop actions. Cause the great thing about being so behind on the show? I have 3 more seasons to go!

Man of Mine

2011-10-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

Six years ago today I married the man of my dreams.

Literally.

I had a premonition that I would meet him five years before I did, down to the sweatshirt and the basketball game we were playing.

We officially met on my 25th birthday. The photo above was taken on my 28th. It took those three years for fate - or maybe my love of throwing giant, kickass, joint birthday parties, to lead us back to each other. Whatever needed to happen, I'm so grateful it did.

I love you, baby.

Boys

2011-10-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

Six Months

2011-10-12T07:28:00.001-07:00

Jeff & Elisabeth: Sneak

2011-10-11T17:58:00.001-07:00

A fave from last weekend's glorious wedding.

Freckles

2011-10-10T11:17:00.001-07:00

Egads I am behind on posting pics. This one is a fave from a lovely wedding I assisted with the mahvelous Chip Chockley.

Unicorns!

2011-10-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

Have the rest of you fallen down the rabbit hole that is Instagram? I was only partly destroyed when I realized I hadn't brought a card for my camera, knowing I could grab some fun shots and make them awesome with my fave app.

But not much magic required when you attend a unicorn party. That's included.

Hair today, gone...later that day

2011-10-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

I said I was never going to do it again.

And can you blame me?

After that catastrophe, I vowed to never cut my hair again. It might result in me perennially wearing nothing but long nightgowns and traveling exclusively in the company of cats, but I would just pin that shit up, and when the time was right, let down those curls and exult in the thrill of long, sexy hair.

But then I had the baby, and the Great Shed of 2011 began in earnest. I started looking less fertility goddess and more Jenna Maroney on a windy day. My hair was falling out in gobs, and Declan got into the spirit, doing his part to rip out a few strands every time he could grab a fistful. Every day was a bad hair day, even if I had the blessing of time to wash and dry and style it.

I was tired of the greasy ponytail, the horrible breakage, looking like a haystack with limbs.

So I did it.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I cut it off.

If hair doesn't have nerve endings, why does it hurt so bad?

Lick

2011-10-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

A fave from today's engagement shoot...at the Blessing of the Animals. Currently the owner is being very blessed.

Germz

2011-10-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

I was in the Target parking lot today (an activity that passes for exercising these days), working to get Declan out of the car when Minivan lady parked next to me hops out, barrels past and I'm like, whoa, lady with a baby here and she's all Yeah? TWINS, bitch! as she extracts her doublewide ride from the back of her Odyssey.

She didn't really say that. But her high pitched "oops!" as she squeezed past totally did.

So I'm staring into her open minivan, the twins' matching carseats locked and loaded, when I noticed a plastic tag affixed to the seat closest to me.

"Please wash your hands before touching mine" it read.

Really?

Do I hate it when people come up and touch my baby's hands? Yeah, kinda. But 2 things here. 1) I hate other things more, and I think trying to banish germs while wheeling your infant in a shopping cart around Target is about as logically sound as sleep training an infant at the Volvo dealership. And 2) at my core is my southern upbringing. Southerners don't say what we mean; we expect people to already know it and then quietly seethe when they go and do something to the contrary. You certainly don't just go and have it specially printed on a tag.

And really, what are you saying here? Do you offer a bottle of hand sanitizer clipped on the other side of that car seat? No. While your placard sends Joe Q Public's grubby little mitts in search of warning-free baby cheeks to infect with baby anthrax, you've made a safe getaway to the sitter, just in time to catch the matinee of Contagion.

Every mom's got their crazy re: baby threshold. What makes you batshit? The germs? The cough in the quiet house that wakes the baby? Republicans? Tell me.

Guy on a Buffalo

2011-09-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm way behind showing images from the past several weeks. There's house news abrewing, posts in my to-do queue, but really, all I want to do, all I can do is share this.

Thank you, internet. Everyone else? You are welcome.

All aboard the sleep train

2011-09-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

and on the inside we are crying

The victory of making it through my daughter's first year of life, aside from the obvious not accidentally killing her, is that we learned to trust our gut. We put the books down, googled a lot less, and congratulated ourselves on being parents. The movie image that keeps coming to mind is of me, Caleb and Harlow in a top down convertible, one of us tossing What To Expect: The First Year onto the pavement as we screech our horribly non-babyproofed mobile toward the next adventure.

And cut to today. Different baby, wholly different movie ending.

Last week I had to spend an inordinate amount of time at my car dealership's service department. New tires, oh new tires not here, yes it took us three hours to figure this out, blah blah blah...three trips in one week. This meant hauling the baby over to the service dept, watching Kathie Lee and Divorce Court and nursing and soothing a baby during the very time I was supposed to be putting the baby down (still awake! drowsy!) in his crib so he soothes himself to sleep. See, I'm back on the books. No longer content to listen to the "oh, he'll eventually sleep, it will pass" advice from the well rested, I am a woman desperate to bring some order into the chaos that is bedtime. We have a small house and we sleep in close quarters, so if baby is up, we're all up, and as we are approaching month six of fractured sleep, I am throwing down the gauntlet.

So. The baby sleep books. The I hate working moms Weissbluth, the it's okay to be a wuss Pantley, the Canadian, the sleep trainers to the stars. And the consensus I'm getting from most of these baby sleep books is that I pretty much can never leave my house if I expect to get my child on any kind of sleeping schedule. The baby must nap at regular intervals - in his crib - not in a stroller, not in his carseat - if I'm to expect his long, juicy naps to beget the long, juicy sleep I crave like a junkie craves juice. But see, there's this pesky thing called "life," and "already having a first kid that needs to be picked up from school" that requires a lot of deviation from these rules.

So there I was at the dealership. For weeks I'd been putting off the appointment in the hopes that the baby would start sleeping better and I could schedule an appointment around his nap. But the car was making Very Scary Noises, and then it was me, Hoda and Kathie Lee.

The baby was still in the middle of his morning nap, conked out in his car seat as I wheeled him inside. Kathie Lee was off. At first I was grateful. It was quiet. But then Legs got up to make herself some coffee, the clank of her heels booming as if Paul Bunyan was splitting rails next to the vending machine. I glared at her heels. Sweet grandmother to my left started noshing on peanut butter crackers in the loudest gd wrapper invented by man. I turned the sound machine app on my phone and shoved it by the babies ear. I scribbled in my notebook with my other hand, because free time, you know, not really forthcoming these days. I made eye contact with the lady in the tracksuit seated across from me.

You are motherfucking crazy said Tracksuit's wide eyes.

I went back to scribbling.

How old is your baby? grandmother asked me sweetly.

five months old (DON'TTALKTOME!) I whispered to her.

Oh. Ok she whispered back. She went back to her book.

And quiet reigned. People read. I wrote.

And then the doors blew open. The lady's cackling entered the room before she did, a woman in business suit and heels, doubled over into her cell phone laughing at the funniest. joke. ever.

Declan shot up in his car seat, his arms trembling. Funny, so were mom's.

OH HEY BABY! WHAT A CUTE BABY she screamed into her cell phone. LOOK AT THOSE TOES she said as she wiggled them.

My body went rigid.

CUTE BABY she said to me as she sashayed into the bathroom.

Thank you, I managed through clenched teeth. I couldn't look at her.

Through the door, I could still hear her.

I WAS TALKING TO A CUTE BABY, she said to her phone. WOKE THAT BABY UP, hee hee.

You know in books when the author trots out the cliche of one's blood boiling?

It's a cliche because it is true.

I wanted to kill her. I want to jump her as she sashayed back from the bathroom, Tracksuit and Grandmother hauling us apart as I tried to strangle her with her smart suit jacket.

I rocked Declan's stroller back and forth in a manic fit, my wide awake baby gurgling.

She came out of the bathroom.

How old is your baby? she asked, her cell phone tucked away.

Five months, I said, forcing myself to look at her.

I'm sorry I woke your baby, she said. And I could tell she was sincere. She was going to have to share the next two hours in an enclosed space with this maniac, so what else was she going to say.

I should have done my homework, she continued. Checked to see...

She trailed off, and I looked in her the eye.

You have nothing to apologize for, I said. And I was sincere. Done her homework? Who goes to a public space - a car dealership - prepared to be silent around a stranger's sleeping baby? But there I was, wanting to strangle a lady because I failed to give my son the morning nap he needed.

Because that's how I was looking at it. My failure. Sleep begets sleep! the books trumpet. His non-napping during the day with me has a ripple affect, coming back to bite my family's collective ass at 3 AM when the baby can't find his pacifier or needs to talk it out with his stuffed penguin.

Tracksuit was right. I was crazy. Lack of sleep will make you do and think crazy things. Trying to carve out a schedule for an always changing, ever evolving baby and a part-time working mom is crazy making, too. But I was horrified by myself in that moment. Things have to change, so I'm hopping aboard the sleep train in earnest. As my grandmother was given to saying, Just do something, even if it's wrong.

No single one of these books is right. But I'm going to find a plan and stick with it, consistency being my tough loving friend at 4:30 AM. So as long as the baby isn't teething, or meeting a major milestone, or being a baby, we'll start tonight.

Wish me luck.

Twister

2011-09-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks back, it was a hell of morning, wakeup come way too early. Harlow came thudding into the room and jumped onto the bed, or namely me, her hand just uncanny in its way of finding my boob that had just been in service to the munchkin to our right. She pinched my nipple. I wanted to grab the pillow and bite it and hide underneath it.

Tuh, she said.

What? I muttered

Tuh, she repeated. Ah.

Tuh. Ah.

I looked to where she was looking.

Tuh - Ah - G.

She was staring at Declan's onesie. The one that read TAG.

She was reading.

And just like that, it was a beautiful morning.

Marathon weekend

2011-09-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

Some things I learned during my three shoots in 24 hours:

Never tuck your car keys into your pocket on your way to squat down in a soccer field to photograph children running. They will be lost. You will have to call your husband to come pick you up all the way out on the suburbs just as he has started sipping that well deserved glass of wine and you will feel badly. But you didn't leave the spare in your locked car, so maybe there is a god who pities you.

Moving your Saturday morning shoot to 8:30 AM will pretty much ensure that the famous rapper that was to be the star of the shoot will cancel.

Googling xanax and breastfeeding has been done by at least one other person than me.

Opera Memphis has a really, really cool secret warehouse full of crazy shit.

Sears Crosstown is also full of really crazy shit. And just shit.

Of the girls given the choice to arrive to the birthday party as a mermaid or a pirate, most of the girls chose pirate. Interesting. My daughter went as Barbie mermaid.

I love what I do. I will freak the hell out leading up and tear myself apart afterwards, but in the midst, I find the joy.

Baby Tommy: sneak

2011-09-13T20:52:00.001-07:00

This is Tommy. Tommy is one of the dangers of my profession. He makes me forget that I've publicly declared I'm only having two babies because he is soft and new and sweet and makes the most insanely adorable sounds you've ever heard.

He is dangerous, the Tommy. And so, so cute. Mommy is rather stunning, too, don't you think?

The lady in the Ganges

2011-09-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

This photo has nothing to do with this post. But it makes me happy. So there.

My child is not sleeping much. This fact dominates my walking hours and plagues the sleeping ones. It's causing a toll on my mental health, my appearance, my marriage, and my overall well being. I've been wanting to open up about it here, as it is what I do,~~complain~~ blog, but then I think about the woman in the Ganges River and I close up my laptop in shame.

We all have the woman in the Ganges River. She is the person who has it worse than you. She is the woman who brings her five children down to the fetid river to bathe and drink and she would curse her horrific, cosmic joke of an existence if only she had the time to do it because one of her kids just tried to drown another and she has to walk the six miles back to her shared hut barefoot before sundown.

So how dare I complain that the defining drama in my life is a baby who is still getting up 2-3 times a night (and napping only 30 minutes a time)? Hell, other moms in my circle have older kids who still don't sleep through the night, and D is only five months old.

I shouldn't complain.

But I was at birthday party this morning, chatting with parents as our kiddos bounced and ate cupcakes, and one dad, tellingly referring to his cherub of a 10 month old as The Beast, said he is still up 2-3 times a night and then raring to go at 5 AM.

5 fucking AM. It's supposed to get better from here, right?

It was the most depressing thing I ever heard.

I know. Ganges, right? She is hobbling after her four kids (she just lost one somewhere in the market), and she's all, you want depressing? I'll take your 4 hours of sleep, lady, and make you a g*ddamn rainbow out of it.

But it's bringing me down low. I can't help it.

I've been reading books and downloading pdfs and consulting online sleep gurus, getting one school of thought here and the complete opposite there. Some assure me that exclusively breastfed kids can sleep from 7 to 7, while friends swear that formula is what set them free. A lot advocate crying it out, and none offer answers as to what to do if said baby then wakes up the 4 year old, the only sound sleeper in the house. But I have been trying arm myself with knowledge, a plan, something to try and change this current situation as my family is having a hard time functioning. I'm having serious memory problems and trouble staying patient with the 4 year old. I know things will eventually get better, but eventually makes me feel powerless and dumb and so, so tired.

So my apologies to the lady in the Ganges for bitching about my big fucking deal.

I just want some sleep.

Sears Crosstown

2011-09-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

This past week I had the opportunity to location scout the Sears Crosstown building, a million square feet of rambling, dessicated factory space that dominates the landscape in my midtown neighborhood. It's been considered for an arts program makeover, currently hosts artists' networking events and most recently, hosted a kinda lame music video featuring Justin Timberlake. But last Friday it was mine to explore. The day was a scorcher. The building has no air conditioning, and I did not have a babysitter, so after I climbed andclimbedandclimbed my way up to the tippy top of the that sucker, wearing the baby, a purse and my Nikon slung around my shoulder, I was dripping with sweat but rewarded with some amazingly cool spaces to potentially use in an upcoming photo shoot.

This was once the Sears cafeteria. Does this not look like something leftover from those 1950s atomic bomb test films?

Some great, sprawling factory space:

This room looked like Tesla's workshop to me. I don't know what the hell was going on in here, but it looked difficult, mysterious, oily and very photogenic.

Twilight hour

2011-09-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

In D's nursery (where maybe 16% of his nursing actually takes place) there is a mod sleeper couch, scored from Craigslist, that offers the loveliest spot to soak up that pocket of light when the sun stretches long in the western sky. Because I have a captive model, impromptu photo shoot!

You Got the Bronze

2011-08-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

When most people ask if Declan is a good baby, what they are really asking is - does he sleep?

I can answer honestly and wholeheartedly that is he is a good baby, a great baby. An easygoing, funloving, smiley, happy sweet baby that on the best of nights grants us a solid, five hour stretch - while we are largely awake. So good baby? Yes. Sleep much? Hell to the no.

(I would be remiss if I didn't state here that apparently D, extraordinarily gifted, has read this post (written yesterday at the apex of sleep deprivation and sugar crashdom) and purposely slept from 1:30 to 6:30 this morning. Fool.)

What we need to focus on here is what, exactly, is meant by "sleeping through the night?"

When pediatricians and baby guides say baby is sleeping through the night, they typically mean 5 hour stretches at a time. Now, if your own doctor asked how well you were sleeping and you replied with a "well, uh, on average I get about 5 hours. Mostly in 1.5 hour increments but on good nights 5 hours all the way through!" he or she would doodle CRAZEE on their notepad, cluck their tongue, and write you a scrip for 6 month supply of Ambien. Because an average of five hours of sleep a night over an extended period of time - unless you are Tom Cruise - can turn an ordinarily sane person into an actual undead zombie, minus the dripping flesh if you discount the elephant pouch that was formerly my stomach.

So what I take from this is that we are being asked to set the bar very, very low.

Declan is working back up to five hour stretches of sleep. I am going to sleep earlier and earlier despite the mountains of work, that novel I'd like to read, that husband I'd like to talk to, turning "sleep when the baby sleeps" into a desperate attempt to scrap together little nuggets of sleep that will hopefully make functioning at 6:30 more manageable. Fortunately I married my own Tom Cruise (minus the manic, big eyed, batshit crazy) and he has saved my life on more than one morning by getting up with Harlow so I can try to cobble together a few more minutes of sleep.

To quote Harlow who has turned her entire life into a race, for the moment, I got the bronze. When we race to the car to the door to the toilet to bed she gets the gold. Daddy is typically silver. Mommy gets the bronze! she crows. I try to insist that it's not a race but if it is, bronze is okay because it's not really about winning. And she looks at me like, WhatEVER, loser. Bronze.

So today I got the Bronze. But maybe in a 5 hours, I'll get the gold. Here's hoping.

The Unintentional Nursing Dress

2011-08-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with breastfeeding.

I love being able to feed my baby (and love the gazillion calories it burns while doing so), to comfort him in a way that is unique to me, and I love the warm, fuzzy we share from all that oxytocin flooding the system.

One of the things that I hate is attempting to feed the baby in public, particularly in a shirt or outfit that isn't easily accessible for nursing. Not that I often wear clothes that aren't nursing-friendly as I am concerned my child has confused eating with breathing. So I find myself gazing longingly at my closet full of dresses that I won't be able to wear until sometime in 2012, the halter necks, the long-sleeved ones, the fitted ones, essentially any that don't have a hidden, plastic snap or an awkward cutout to free up a boob. You'd think with every celebrity popping out a baby, somebody (Heidi Klum, I'm looking at you) would have come up with a seriously cute, affordable line of nursing dresses - and here is the big catch - that don't look like nursing dresses. If I am going to invest upwards of $70 on a dress, I want to be able to wear it beyond the year or so that I will be nursing in it. I don't want it to be a cheap rayon or polyester. Yes, I know it washes out well in the machine, that's half the battle, right? But I don't want to look so... cheap.

So my solution? The unintentional nursing dress. Hopefully the first in a series. Even better, the precursor to its own website. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Today's selection:

The little green dress from Urban Outfitters

Yes, the irony is not lost on me that the first place I scored an UND was the mecca of super hipster anti-babyness Urban Outfitters. And the dress is not without its faults. But first, the pros:

PROS

It's comfortable and super cute, coming in three different colors.
The dress opens in the front via four brass snaps which makes for easy boob access.
It's made of linen so it is machine washable.
It has pockets! Mine are filled with passies, wipes and a lipstick that helps me ignore the passies and the wipes.
Cost - $59. Not super expensive but not Target-cheap, so I feel good knowing this is a dress that I can and would wear long after nursing

CONS

The snaps require you to use both hands to refasten, and if you are by yourself and cannot briefly put down or handoff the baby to cover up, this could get tricky. Or make you very popular, depending on where you are.

It's made of linen which means that if you don't snag it from the dryer immediately, this sucker needs to be ironed. Or should be. You just need to remember where you stowed that iron. Leaks are also hard to hide as linen is a very thirsty material.

The back of the dress has a bra-like strap that is fastened with a snap, highlighting a cut-out section that reveals the small of the back. Kinda sexy, great for summer, but kinda impossible to wear with a nursing bra, which may be a deal-breaker for the larger of the mama-llamas out there. Or those whose nipples are so raw they might set fire to the dress upon contact. I have worn the dress with and without a bra, and found it to be fine either way, but big boobied buyer beware.

*belt in photos not available with the dress

How to Raise an Interesting Child

2011-08-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

I think there is a naturally tendency after having a baby to hunker down a bit, to rest, or take stock of the damage, or to just get a bit hermitlike as the hormones run roughshod. Have you seen me lately? I'm the adorable Ted kaczynski, with not as much hair. People, I have lost so much hair in the past two months from post-preggo shedding that I have to keep a bag in my car to deal with the mess. My trash cans are full of it, as are my baby's fists. But in this self-imposed exile, a gift. I have been writing. A lot.

Or maybe staring at a blank page and thinking about it a lot. But from the moment I wake until I go to sleep, my stories are staring me in the face. They are Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction and they will not. be ignored.

The only way I can explain it is that I gave birth to my second and last child and the REST OF MY LIFE suddenly loomed large in front of me. I am writing like my life depends on it, and depending how much sleep I got the night before, I think it just might.

For several years now I have been kicking around the idea of a parenting story, one that focused specifically on the first amazing, terrible, life changing first year that a couple becomes parents for the first time. And whlie the title is always flucuating, I'm calling it How to Raise an Interesting Child. One, because I think it's catchy and sounds like a quirky parenting manual, and 2) because the story is as much the birth of two people into parents as it is the birth of a child.

Because in a former life I was a screenwriter, the story has always been intensely visual, and I thought the topic would be excellent fodder for a movie. But here was the dilemma for me: that first year of parenting is so jarring and disorienting by its long, drawn out grind. The sleep deprivation. The constant near-panic over the exotic sounds, smells of this new baby, the enormous shift in identity that occurs as husband and wife become father and mother and all the existential flotsam and jetsam that crowd a day already jammed with the task of shaping a human being. Heady stuff, but not exactly compelling to watch for two hours on a screen.

And then I happened onto what I thought would be an elegant solution. The graphic novel.

Here was a way to crack open the brains of my characters and show them as they thrill and despair in their day to day challenge as new parents. I could tell the story with a traditional narrative framework but also throw in some really crazy shit. Her anxiety fueled nightmares. His comic book within a comic book. Twitter feeds. A poo chart. A DETACHABLE poo chart. It's been exciting to write, and as I am nearing completion of the first draft, the other essential part of the equation has come into play.

The artwork.

I can't draw. But I found Kayla Cline, an enormously gifted artist who can. Her work reminds me of Craig Thompson's Blankets, one of my favorite graphic novels, and a really beautiful meditation on falling in love for the first time.

So I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to share a sneak peek into the book. Here's a rough sketch of Sam and Jesse Miller, the heroes (and sometime villains) of How to Raise an Interesting Child. Voila!!

4 1/2ish months

2011-08-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Is it me or has this summer just seemed like a giant, hazy time suck?

I swear it's like I just woke up with a 4 1/2 month old.

And a really, really cute one to boot.

We have milestones! Declan rolled over for the first time Friday AND sampled some oatmeal. Maybe I'll see if I can get him to rollover into some oatmeal to encourage him to eat more of it. The poor thing has enough gas to power a zeppelin and eats like a linebacker (did I mention the child has grown six inches since his debut??), so his baby doc thought it might be time to try some food. He couldn't get enough. And then spit it out every time since. I guess he checked out his sister's oatmeal all tricked out with brown sugar and blackberries and rightfully went on strike.

The first feeding!

Man from Mars

2011-08-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Any of you catch that Fresh Air interview with Tom Wolfe the other day? The topic was Ken Kesey and the Magic Trip, the documentary that explores the now mythic road trip undertaken by Kesey, Neal Cassidy, and the Merry Band of Pranksters who dropped acid by way of breathing.

Terry Gross asked Tom Wolfe about his look, you know - the now iconic three piece suit -* and he told her a story about being a man from Mars.

He was working on a story about stock car races, and to fit in, he described what he felt was his casual green suit, matched with brown suede shoes and hat. After about two weeks of following around his subject, Junior, at the races, Junior politely informed Wolfe that his friends kept asking about the "little green man" who kept following him around. He realized his folly in that moment, that in trying so hard to fit in, he was missing the real story. There were details about the races he had been dying to know, but an insider wouldn't ask such questions...and wouldn't get much of a story.

So he decided right there to adopt his uniform and be the little green man, the man from Mars who is unafraid of asking whatever questions need to be asked in order to get to the heart of the matter.

As I heard him tell it, I remembered hearing this story in my freshman writing class, and while it serves as great advice for fiction writers, I think it's a good life lesson in general.

How often do we nod, say yes we have seen that movie/read that article/heard that joke /did in fact know that it was my turn to the dishes and just haven't when you have no frickin clue?

I am going to work on being a man from Mars this week. Anyone else unafraid to just pipe up and say I don't know?

* on a trip to NYC with my mom, she and I walked down 5th Avenue and passed none other than Mr. Wolfe in an elegant three piece suit. I don't think I could have been more excited than if Lady Liberty herself had pulled up her moorings and come over to shake hands.

photo of Tom Wolfe by The Selby

argh

2011-08-18T12:58:00.001-07:00

I'm here. I'm so freakin here I am about to explode out of this stupid blogger window with how much I need to vent and talk and really, really overshare.

I am an open book.

It's why I blog.

Things happen to me, I come here.

But things are happening in my life right now that are truly fucked up and awful and I just can't talk about it now. I hope to at a later date. But it's not just me who is having a shitty run of things right now, and it's out of respect for them that I need to stay quiet on this subject.

I will be back shortly. I will be taking deep breaths, long walks, and looking forward to returning to regularly scheduled programming.

Bubbly

2011-08-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, last day of summer.

Home again home again

2011-08-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I thought this year would be different.

Last summer, the trip to Colorado was a mostly stressful affair, chasing after a 4, 3 and 2 year old who woke at dawn and fought for the duration of the daytime hours. My sister and I returned home frazzled and exhausted, jealous of our working husbands who seemed to have the real vacation with no children or bitching wives to deal with.

But.

You just don't turn down the opportunity to spend a week in mountainous paradise when walking outside in Memphis is like stepping into a punch to the face. Just reading the weather channel's prediction that the nightly lows would be in the 40s was enough to disregard any stress that the kiddos - now with more kiddos - could bring.

And it was broughten.

The tears, the fights, the nursing around the clock. D's frequent meltdowns in public due to his trouble adjusting to altitude (or perhaps my insistence on scarfing chocolate and local beers). But my mind keeps casting back to a dinner we ate on the patio, when a light rain started to fall, the pizza was hot on my tongue, and the temperature read 58 degrees.

58 degrees. The air temperature in my heaven.

It is decidedly not heaven at home, now that our A/C unit is out and, genius that I am, got the wild hair to try and broil some mangoes and turned our downstairs into somewhere slightly south of the equator. At least upstairs has air - and the bed I'm hoping I'm allowed to sleep in. I'm sorry!

Vacation

2011-08-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

So I kinda disappeared there last week, didn't I? Just more time for you to stare at my rockin blowout.

I wrote a short film last year, The Department of Signs and Magical Intervention. "Short" clocked in at a meaty 36 pages and while that's a mere haiku for me (to quote a writing professor: Melissa, can you challenge yourself to just write something simply? - it's just not gonna fly as a beginner's foray into filmmaking. Even though my dream is to shoot this sucker in Memphis and take it on the festival route, I decided to enter it into a contest where the winning scripts are produced for you, and right now, just having someone put my wet clothes into the drier makes life seem more manageable, so I'm down with turning the film over into capable, baby-less hands.

If I win.

In order to win, I had to cut about 15 pages, a process of brutal slash and burn that took about a week of hairpulling to do, on top of tending said babies, running the photo biz and occasionally brushing my teeth.

But the script has been submitted, and to celebrate, I flew across the country with a 5 year old, a 4 year old, a 3 year old and a 3 month old that screeches for my boob like a pterodactyl with a bullhorn strapped to its beak.

That's right. I'm officially on vacation which means Baby D had his inaugural flight. No meltdowns, just the happy, very loud screeching and of course, what flight would be complete without the inaugural baby boy diaper blowout? After squeezing myself into the toilet to change him, I looked down at my sweet little man who was grinned up at me from the toilet where he was propped, not seeming to care his lower half was covered in slimy poop. I cared, especially since I forgot to bring a change of clothes for the kiddo.

Thought I was past these rookie mistakes.

Anyhow, I have a week to recover. I'll be checking in periodically to share with you just how amazing life can feel with 20% humidity.

A Birthday Message

2011-07-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

For years I've listened to NPR, played the game of Name that Voice before the reporter signs off, picturing each commentator (Cory Flintoff delivers his stories from a leather winged-back chair, a burning cigar just out of frame; Ann Taylor has white hair. Smart gingham jacket. And pearls. Always pearls.) And then one day I decided I wasn't content with my imaginary stable. I needed to know that very minute what Melissa Block looked like and I hopped over to the site and she was so, so extremely NOT what I had pictured that I stopped myself from looking any further.

It's not unlike a time in college when I grabbed a friend and spontaneously drove to Nashville to listen to Stephen King be interviewed on stage. Sure, I knew what Uncle Stevie looked like thanks to the innumerable book jacket photos, but seeing him in person kinda threw me. He was just as foul-mouthed as his characters and rather pompous and blase about it all (this was pre-car accident), and I was still living a sheltered college girl existence, but I was really put-off by Stephen King, the person, not the creation in my head. It stayed with me as I read more of his stories, unable to divorce the man from the work.

So I think about this conundrum as I find myself visiting blogs and websites about the ever-evolving status of the publishing industry and its relationship with social media. I'm currently at work on a graphic novel and curious about the best way to approach publishing. According to the bloggers and writers who are the most media savvy, these are the writers that we as readers are going to seek out because we have a relationship with them. We not only know their words, but thanks to twitter and you tube and google plus, we will know them as people, too, and this will make us seek out the work more. If a writer is to be successful in the 21st century, he or she will have a brand, a platform, a strong, finely honed identity that will make them stand apart from the rest. I think if you are writing a memoir, this kind of natural cross promoting works. But what about a fiction writer? If you know his/her thoughts on abortion and pets and a recipe for quick weeknight meal, are you more likely to seek out their literary thrillers?

With everything so accessible, isn't there something kinda magical about a little mystery?

I ask you, while said writer is tweeting and FBing and blogging and letting you in to their personal sphere, shouldn't they maybe just be writing?

Or if you write and don't blog about it, will anybody download your book to their kindle?

So all that said, my video debut!

a birthday message from Melissa Anderson Sweazy on Vimeo.

Cruel summer

2011-07-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

If people lived by the credo of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all," I'm not sure blogger - let alone the internet - would have been invented.

So I will not whine about my raging mid life crisis. How I have reached a certain age where I truly need makeup yet can barely find the time to apply it.

I could tell you about the cold fear in my belly as I fished my daughter from the pool, having realized she was struggling to breathe in the five seconds I turned my back. How the look on her face in that moment keeps me up at night.

My depression over our trips to Florida -and California - being cancelled because our house ate our bank account was a strong contender.

Instead, I will tell you about Harlow staring at my belly.

"Mama, look at how fat your belly is," she said. I stared down at her, eyebrows raised.

"Please," she added.

Because if I want to leave you with anything, it is that politeness right there? That is the product of awesome parenting.

Ellee

2011-07-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

Meet Miss Ellee. I was thrilled to, especially after having the privilege of shooting her mommy and daddy's wedding.

Hard, being so loved and so damn cute, eh?

3 months

2011-07-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

New couch. Newish baby.

When Declan was three days old, the nurse wheeled me to the hospital exit, wished us well and released us into the world. Caleb hustled to buckle the baby into his sister's old car seat, and I hurried to join them in the back, the wind that April day particularly cold and biting. Baby was situated, we were ready to go - and that's when we realized that we had locked ourselves into the backseat of our own car.

Directly in front of the hospital lobby.

Thanks to Volvo's ubersafe childproof locks and Declan's carseat situated in the middle, we weren't getting out easy.

We hadn't even left the hospital parking lot and already, we had failed.

And what did we do?

We laughed hysterically for about five minutes before Caleb managed to squeeze his lanky frame over the passenger seat and drive us home.

I think that moment is a pretty good indicator of the past three months with Declan. By no means is he a "hard" baby but certainly harder than his sister was as an infant. Thankfully, the second go at this has made everything seem easier.

I'm a bit weary of the incessant spitup (and overflowing laundry) but I'll take that over the colicky screaming fits that blessedly strike with less frequency these days. I've made miserable attempts at cutting out certain foods (no cheese, no sampling the chocolate chip cookies I just baked with the kiddo), but honestly I'm hoping that the books will be right this time, that those newborn intestines will work out the kinks by week 12 and the gassiness will just magically disappear.

Because I like manchego and chocolate chip cookies.

He giggled at me around the second month, a strange, burbling sound that truly does not seem part of this world, more of an echo from his alien beginnings. A friend shared with me that some tribal cultures don't believe that the baby is truly human until their first laugh, a sentiment I can get behind. Even though they are here, in your arms, don't they truly seem that they are not yet fully part of this world? The unearthly cries that don't seem to come from his throat or lungs but elsewhere, those phantom, almost metallic sounding grunts as they paw at the breast for food? I guess it's the trade off for those big, gorgeous brains they have - we are blessed not to give birth to a munchkin that's been bulking up for 52 weeks, but really, wouldn't it be nice to cook those babies a little longer so they come out as if they were 3 months old - bright eyed, smiley, and ready to engage with the world?

I'm happy to report that Declan is fully with us on the planet. Kiddo is strong - he could hold his head up well at 7 weeks, so now his neck works like a spectator at Wimbledon, constantly swiveling to see where that pesky little blonde girl went. He is committed to what we call his baby crunches, curling forward so that he can (one day) sit up. Unfortunately he likes to practice this in his car seat, a move that typically results in his getting his head stuck on the side of the seat.

Some patterns are starting to emerge from the haze of those early weeks. He has a bedtime which is early (yay) but coincides with his sister's next door, so it's like trying to soothe a baby to sleep by placing it in a ballpit inside a Chuckie Cheese. To her credit, Harlow tries to be quiet, but really, I don't want her memory of bedtime to be SHHHHHHHHHHHHDONTWAKETHEBABY. Fortunately for us, she has chosen just the right time to fall in love with a fellow 4 year old lad in her summer day care, so she's eager to hear bedtime stories about Prince Bryce and fall sweetly into dreamland for more.

They are both asleep. The house is quiet. Mama out.

Burn the dance floor

2011-07-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

The last time I went dancing at Raiford's Disco, I was on summer break from college. I have no memory of who I was with, but I remember everyone else - soused college boys, beer-soaked 45 year old ladies in cut off shorts cougaring long before it was forgivable, fog machines, red lights, and Raiford himself - slick jheri curl, sunglasses inside, a mouth of gold. True to the club's name, the music was pure 70s, and the dancing was frenetic, the kind that leaves you wet and wrung out and sticky with cigarette smoke and sweat. In the red lights, we were foolish and we were beautiful.

Good god how I miss dancing.

Saturday night I got the chance to visit the new Raiford's - slightly bigger than the original, but still the same acrid smoke smell, the stripper poles, the warnings not to check your coat with the coat girl as Raiford's did not actually employ a coat check girl. My friends Chris and Lurene set the bar for celebrating 15 years of marriage by doing so at a disco. Caleb and I tried desperately and failed to score a babysitter, so we decided to take shifts. I took the 9-11:30, showing up in my sparkly mini and heels to a largely empty disco. But by 11:30, my muscles already ached from dancing, my hair the no-nonsense wet mess in a bun that frees up your neck for more head tossing.

I love how dancing is like riding a bike, that there is some serious wobble until the third or fourth song - or until Stevie Wonder arrives to make dances pros of us all. At 11:30, the dance floor was pea soup thick with fog machines, friends, drunk college boys, and better dressed cougars. I started to see some awesome dance archetypes falling into place, beginning with a couple of my signatures.

1. The Clapper - the dancer keeps the beat like they are warming up at a pep rally, front to back, over the head, getting in some serious cardio but not really dancing so much as jogging in place. Small wonder my quads catch fire the next morning.

2. The Trancer - they love to dance and they really want you to know they love to dance. They exist in their own little square footage and make no mistake - they are not dancing with you, just kinda adjacent. They are terrified of #5.

3. The Storyteller - this one acts out the lyrics of the song, i.e. scrubbing a phantom car at the Car Wash, texting Lady Gaga during Telephone, crumbling, laying down and dying and flexing muscles to prove they Will Survive. This can quickly segue into

4. Bag of Tricks - there is always the one, the guy who busts out with the sprinkler, the bus driver, the shopping cart

5. The Lyricist - this is a close relative of the Storyteller, a dancer who leans in during the chorus and demands unfaltering eye contact as you say AHOOOWAH DANCING IN SEPTEMBER, AHBOOGAH YO NO SAY REMEMBER. (What the hell is going on by the end of that chorus, anyway? )

6. The Exotic Dancer - if there is a pole, they will use it, and disturbingly well. If there is not a pole, there will be a drunk college boy as a willing stand in. And he will catch it as she drops it, repeatedly.

7. The Wishes Every Dance was a Line Dance - this one usually is some combo of #s 1 and 7 but catches FIRE during the Electric Slide. They know every move, every kick and go left and to the back and walk it out with finesse.

8. The Galaxy - gravity doesn't apply here. He/she flings themselves onto the floor and is at the DJs mercy, careening around until they collide into #4's shopping cart or the DJ stops the room cold with El deBarge, whichever happens first.

Do you see yourself in a combination here? Did I leave out some good ones? Have you been dancing lately?

You should go. Your heart and quads the brain cells responsible for moving you through YMCA will thank you.

Harlow and the Wolf

2011-07-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

Last week was Harlow's Peter and the Wolf ballet camp. (yeah, yeah adorable but seriously. why is school still out for the entire summer?) I picked her up on bird day and duck day, and she told me about flutes and oboes and masks and dancing with her best friend, Adelaide. I picked her up on wolf day and she was low to the ground, skittish, jumping into my arms and declaring that she DID NOT like the French horn. It was scary! she declared. This was a dramatic reversal from previous statements, where she insisted I inform Miss Mandy that she - and she only - would be the wolf. I thought this was kinda rad.

I quickly moved attempted some PR spin.

I love that your imagination is so strong, I told her. The music scared you because you imagined the wolf being right there!

You know my imagination, mama? she replied. I'm gonna pound it. In the face.

So much for that.

We're gathered at the recital. The kids come streaming in wearing their handmade shirts and costumes and then suddenly there is this creature who breaks rank and comes running for me, a cat-masked, duck-feathered, wolf-tailed Harlow who squeals Mommy! and flies into my arms. She gives me a hug, and I squeeze her back, laughing, kind of embarrassed to have all eyes in the performance space on me. But just as quickly my heart hurts in my chest, so humbled to be the only parent singled out for such a display.

I was too busy watching Harlow be all Um Miss Mandy? Oh, Miss Mandy? Can you, uh, Miss Mandy? to take pictures but I'm happy to report she flapped and quacked and yes - even waved a paw in the air and grrred through the scary French horn section.

***

photo by Nana

She has a brother, too. I may have mentioned him before. He's 3 months old (!) and cooing and smiling and fighting his way to sitting up and so deserves a longer post than I can manage at the moment. Maybe if he stops waking up at 4, I can find the energy to tell you more about him.

Abe

2011-07-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

Here's a little sneak from this weekend's baby shoot.

Yes, I want to eat him, too.

Happy 4th

2011-07-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

Because, y'all, seriously. If you've been reading this blog, you know this

just doesn't

ever

get old.

Wonder Woman

2011-06-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

I know she's dressed like her favorite Amazonian superhero. Yes, I know she asks to watch vintage episodes of Wonder Woman EVERYDAY on You Tube. And yes! She talks about fighting bad guys and using karate and kicks and her lasso of truth.

But is it wrong that I just want to pull a Rapunzel and keep her in a tower until she's, like, 30? I'll let her watch all the You Tube she wants until then.

Little Disco

2011-06-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

Have you been to the Little Disco?

If you're in Memphis and are in with the 7 and under scene, you really should go.

I was thrilled to learn of its existence after Stacey's and my failed efforts to get Baby Loves Disco to set up a franchise here. (Too dang expensive). I might argue that Little Disco may be too pricey for it's own good, (RockNRomp only charges $5 per adult and kids are FREE) but I get why they ask for $10 per person (that goes for each kid) There is the dancing, naturally, but the kids also get their faces painted and have a meticulous balloon artist on hand. A portable library was set up in the corner for those less inclined to booty-shake. There's chair massages for adults. Hand paraffin massages. Free snacks.

And maybe 30 people, total, showed up.

It's a great setup. I just worry that the pricey cover may ultimately scare away a family of four looking for something fun and affordable to do. I think doing away with some vendors to lower the cover charge would be worth it, my 2 cents.

But it WAS fun. I really want it to catch on as Harlow and my 2 nieces had a blast.

It was kind of thrilling to see Harlow shout out I LOVE THIS SONG! when Footloose played, watch her sprint around the dance floor, alternately doing her weird Twyla Tharp/Solid Gold gyrations and breakdance (I blame this video)

About halfway through our visit, Harlow went over to the library and I joined her at the table. We flipped through a cool popup book when she sighed.

Mommy?
Yes?
The boys are SO ferrrusstraaating.
(Um, I know!) Why are they frustrating?
Because they just run and run and don't do what I want them to do.
(You're learning young, grasshopper) Ok.

She jumped up from the table.

Where are you going?
To go frustrate the boys.

(Oh dear) Oh dear.

Heaven

2011-06-23T09:46:00.001-07:00

What do we do on our last night? she asked me as I readied her for bed. The sun was still out, the longest day of the year in fact, so her bedroom, painted to resemble a candy cane, was even pinker than normal.

What do you mean? I asked, Like, last night?

No, she snapped back. She has little patience with those who can't keep up with her. On your last...night. You know, before you settle down.

Into deadness.

She punctuated this by crossing her arms over her chest, a mini sarcophagus.

Uh...

I didn't know how to respond. She's spent a lot of time lately drawing angels, asking how she can go to heaven to see one. There is also the ever evolving list of those she plans on granting eternal life - currently her, a handful of Montessori friends, and me. (I was alternately crushed and smug that daddy didn't make the list.) It's clear; Death is on her mind. She tells me often how MUCH she misses her great grandmother who died earlier this year, a woman she met once in a nursing home two years ago. It's fascinating, watching her try on this etiquette, the pretend-mourning that elicts a hug and a pat on the head everytime she mentions it.

I tried to be casual. Deadness? I asked. Yes, like my great-grandmother. I miss her SO MUCH, she sighed, collapsing into her pink chaise.

I couldn't form the words to ask what she would do on her last day. The mere thought whips up so much parental dread it hurts to type this.

I'd spend it with you, I told her, pulling her into my lap. I was afraid my playing along was confirming her suspicions that yes, dead means just that. Dead. We don't come back. We make plans for our last night.

She sighed again.

I just hope she goes somewhere wonderful, she said. Huh? Oh. Your great-grandmother? I asked, trying, as always, to keep up.

Yes. Like Malibu, she decided. Malibu would be lovely.

Indeed. Sign me up for this heaven.

Sara + Kenny are married

2011-06-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Caleb's gorgeous stepsister Sara married handsome Kenny on a perfect, cloudy June day in Illinois. I was honored to capture the day (and grateful to family for baby wrangling while I worked!)

Congratulations!

World's Tiniest Letter

2011-06-20T08:06:00.000-07:00

How was your day, daddies?

While my dad was off in Paris, celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary with my mom, we didn't even try to compete here at Casa Sweazy.

Caleb elected to do yard work and buy house plants, and that seemed to suit him just fine.

Plus, we had already told him how much he meant to us, courtesy of the world's tiniest letter.

You send them the text, and they send you an adorable, tiny package, including the magnifying glass that makes reading the letter possible.

He also is the proud recipient of a subscription to Citizen Bean, a service that sends him small batches of indie, sustainably harvested, hippie voodoo feel good downright delicious coffee. That one is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Papa

2011-06-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day, Papa. We love you so much.

(We're also more than a little jealous you are in Paris right now. But we'll let it slide because you are celebrating your 40th wedding anniversary)

St. Louis

2011-06-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

I just crossed the river after an impromptu trip to St. Louis, and I'm mad.

I'm mad at Memphis.

I had humble expectations for our trip, excited to visit the City Museum about which I'd heard amazing things and just as excited to score another chocolate chip cookie from Crepes, Etc., a cute bakery next door to the hotel where I'd shot a wedding. But mere hours after our arrival, after eating some (dare I say) great Tex-Mex at Rosalita, rolling around at the foot of the arch and soaking in the lovely variety of architecture, I started to feel an unpleasant twitch.

The twitch got stronger after a leisurely walk downtown, eating a yummy breakfast at Rooster (furthering my belief that most meals need to be in the form of a crepe) and then having my head explode at truly the coolest museum I've ever experienced.

Look closely. Do you see the kid climbing in the wire cage from the suspended airplane? I KNOW!

Part steampunk, part giant welding experiment, and a rooftop ferris wheel and circus thrown in for good measure, the City Museum is 10 stories of letterpress type and terracotta building facades and preserved bug specimen and children climbing in cages and abandoned bank vaults and glee. It's like somebody designed a museum based on Jean-Pierre Jeunet's dreams and it actually exists. You know how I know it's 10 stories? Because my 4 year old rode a slide from the top of the building all the way to the bottom.

All 10 stories.

BY HERSELF.

I'm in awe just typing that sentence fragment.

After several breathless hours of exploring, we ventured onto the Magic House, a clever children's museum with a decibel level hovering somewhere around an indoor DC-10. We left slightly deaf and hungry and fell on a pizza so delicious that it makes me want to weep. Our waitress at Good Pie explained that the owners fly in the dough from Italy because why mess with perfection? Just two blocks away we treated ourselves to chocolate malts at The Fountain on Locust. and I couldn't decide what was making me more sad - that the pizza I just ate blew Trolley Stop out of the water or that this chocolate malt was leagues beyond anything Wiles Drugs or the Silver Caboose could produce? On our drive back to the hotel, I noticed a wild Moolah temple that is now home to a bowling alley and movie theater. Everyone seemed dressed up on their way to somewhere exciting.

Caleb and I exchanged guilty looks. "I'm mad crushing on St. Louis," he confessed as made our way back to the hotel.

I was, too.

Saturday morning was the lovely discovery of Rue Lafayette, a Parisian bakery in the heart of Lafayette Square, one of the oldest and loveliest neighborhoods in the city. Give me some macarons and Victorian rowhouses and I'm a goner. We spent the next hour driving around the neighborhood, gasping over the architecture and renovations in progress, stopping to look at For Sale signs and grabbing flyers from open house signs in yards.

The itch was a full blown flame.

We hopped back on I-55 and made our way home, my mood darkening as we sped closer to our River City. I suppose the timing is in keeping with my usual moods. Now that our house is for the most part finished, it means it's time to settle, which is my cue to get out the map and start throwing darts to reveal the next destination.

But it's deeper than that. Now that the baby is here and we're looking at the rest of our lives, trying to make sense of our jobs and our dreams and desires, we've been asking ourselves what we want.

I want to live in a city that hums with energy, that offers walkable neighborhoods with blocks and blocks of shops and restaurants that reflect the creativity of its residents.

I want to live in a city that doesn't feel like it's constantly struggling to keep up.

Honestly, I want to live in a city where I don't have to "be the change." Yes, it's lazy. But I have so many dreams for this city that just don't square with its bank account, its small size, and its racial, social strife.

I want my children to experience big city living as a way of life.

I want to live in a big city as I am a big city girl at heart.

But I can eat all the imported dough from Italy pizza and gorge on hipster boutiques and gasp over swoonworthy architecture in my fantasy big city, and it'll be an awfully lonely enterprise.

I never expected to meet so many wonderful people in Memphis, and the only thing that makes me sadder than feeling like I'm living the wrong city is the thought of having to be without so many great friends in the right one.

Damn y'all are for being so awesome.

Sara and Kenny got lucky

2011-06-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

A lucky little sneak from Sara and Kenny's vineyard wedding. Looking forward to sharing more!

Week 8

2011-06-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today, I hit the wall, and the wall hit back.

Last night was good. Last night found me in a sparkly miniskirt and heels, my hair teased and my dopamine levels coursing high as I joined a bunch of ladyfriends for an 80s themed birthday party at Andrew Michael. There was wine, a crystal-studded microphone, and a baby eating pumped milk from a bottle several miles away.

So I suppose it was only fair that there was today.

I'm not sure what was worse - sitting at my computer in my nursing bra and underwear, screaming baby slung over my shoulder as I tried to finish up photoshop work for a client, one handed, already 10 minutes late meeting my mom who had graciously kept Harlow, or later that afternoon, still sans makeup, last night's teased hair now a frizzy ponytail, a crying baby again riding my shoulder as I tugged Harlow behind me a cart across Target, two ladies muttering a low OH GURRRL as our freakshow ambled by. All I know is that I got back in that 10,000 degree car, prayed that the baby wouldn't cook before we got home, and tried not to cry at the sad, wrinkled, exhausted face that stared back at me in the rear view mirror.

Caleb met me at the driveway and collected groceries, politely waiting until we had had a few moments to cool off from the heat before he asked me when, exactly, had I turned into a housewife from the 70s. Was it the canned pineapple? The bag full of frozen vegetables? The lemon in a bottle? I now recall conversations with my mom where I derided her for microwaving and depending so heavily on canned foods when fresh was such a better alternative and I want to take a time machine, go back to 2003, and punch me in the mouth. I love my mom for not doing so when she had the chance.

I know it's going to get better. That's my hard won wisdom from the first time around. But right now I am hobbled with the rookie's fear that better is a long, long time coming.

Project Motion

2011-06-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

Any of you catch Project Motion's latest production? I was thrilled to shoot their dress rehearsal as my first job back post-baby. The show combined filmed images and choreography inspired by motion pictures. The results were pretty fabulous. Here's one of my faves from the show.

lace

2011-06-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

Another fave

Milestones

2011-05-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

A week ago, Declan started smiling. It was right around that magical 6 week window when the baby books try to assure you that, if you had a crappy baby, things are gonna look up, and if you got lucky with a sleeper, get ready, because their lower digestive tract is about to rock everybody's world.

But at least they are smiling about it.

The milestones are coming fast and furious. The shockingly fast neck control, the five hour sleep stretches at night ( I KNOW, right? The only reason I'm letting this become public knowledge is that it took about a year for Harlow to start sleeping like that. I earned this one, people.) I leave the pediatrician's office clutching his little list of milestones, his whole amazing life ahead of him, and I can't help but wonder.

Where's my list?

You fall in love. You get your driver's license. You graduate. You fall in love again. You can legally rent a car. You get married. You have a baby. You maybe have another baby. You rapidly approach 40.

And then...what? You... wait for those kids to fall in love. Graduate. Get married. Yo turn 40. Maybe become a grandma?

You hit all the big milestones celebrated by movies and literature and pop songs, checked off all the to-do's. You finish making those babies and then what? What's left for YOU?

Where is my checklist for what's next?

This is a strange purgatory, the place on the other side of having children. I'm not sure if I ever let my brain cast out a line far beyond this point. Just like in my deluded thinking that I would never go past my due date, I just always assumed that at this point in my life, I wouldn't have to be figuring out what's next. I would be well on my way...to wherever that is.

Perhaps this IS the next milestone. I have ideas of where I'd like to be. I'm daunted by the work it's going to take to get there, but I certainly don't want to be here 10 years later, blogging about why the grand plans I had for my life are now a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't fight for your dreams.

So, for posterity, here is my current checklist:

1. Finish my novel
2. Finish my graphic novel
3. Film my short.
4. Sell a screenplay
5. launch my boudoir business
6. Make enough money so that family vacations become the norm. I want my children to grow up with the ability to fall in love with travel the way I did.

Baby's asleep for at least 20 more minutes. Time to get to work on 1 or 2.

What's on your checklist?

Tease

2011-05-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

A little tease from yesterday's seeeeriously smokin hot boudoir session.

Wizard girl

2011-05-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

This weekend was about Harlow. While everyday is about Harlow, the past six weeks have mostly been about that new kid on the block, and big sister has taken it all in stride.

She has fetched diapers, applied pacifiers, kissed her brother's face, only stuck her fingers inside his mouth once and maybe squooshed his head a handful of times, doing it all with aplomb. And then several days ago, in her small girly voice, after repeatedly asking me a question while I cooed over her brother, she folded her arms and declared that nobody liked her anymore.

I scooped her up (after scooping up my heart off of the floor) and reassured that definitely was not the case. In fact, she was liked so much that we planned out several activities over the weekend devoted just to her.

Friday night - picnic at the Wizard Garden, the newest attraction at the Memphis Botanic Garden, complete with wandmaking, magic potions, and wandering magicians. While she and her daddy explored the grounds, I got dinner ready for Declan, suddenly remembering that I had failed to bring a blanket or cardigan or anything that I could use to afford me a little privacy while nursing in public. So that rainbow blanket in the pic above? The giant blanket I was sitting on? I yanked a giant corner of it over me and Baby D, effectively turning us into a large rainbow burrito. And for some reason I still can't figure out, rather than taking the 10 seconds to shift my body and child in any other direction, I chose to face the entrance of the garden, so that everyone who walked in to the picnic area was greeted by a grown, heavily sweating woman rolled up in a rainbow cannoli. And the dude playing the didgeridoo right behind me.

As if I didn't feel enough like an asshole. I saw those looks when other families came in - how could we not be in cahoots, weird breastfeeding rainbow girl and the white beatboxer who whispered spoken-word over pre-recorded train whistles and rainsong?

My family finally returned to claim me, Harlow with a homemade wizard's hat, feather pen and potions bag. After our picnic dinner (turkey sandwiches and Dragon's Blood (grape soda - her first!), it was time for more exploring. Harlow wanted to return to her favorite play area, and I wanted to work on giving her a little freedom, so I chatted away on the phone while watching her scamper around the slides from a safe distance - until she started hollering for me.

I hustled over to the top of the playground corkscrew slide - she was about a 1/4 of the way down and had jammed on the brakes because of "weird goo" on the slide.

I told her she had to keep going down.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! at a decibel level I didn't know she could reach was her reply. This from the child who will pee her pants so she won't have to pause and episode of Max&Ruby suddenly objected to sliding in goo. She started screaming in earnest, and I did the only thing I could think to do - I got down on my belly and crawled as far into the slide as I could to grab her arms. It was ridiculous how serious this suddenly became.

Suddenly I was Sly Stallone in Cliffhanger.

MOMMMYYYYYYYY! she screamed.

Just hang on! I panted, her hands slipping from mine.

MOMMMYYYY NOOOOO!

Harlow, breathe. Relax, just don't let go, I begged. She was twisting away in panic. I could feel her slipping away. I dug my fingers into her arms and pulled as hard as I can.

When I had to actually remind myself that she was stuck inside a PLAYGROUND SLIDE and not about to plummet into an abyss, for godsakes.

Sweat dripping from my forehead, I fished her out and she fell into my arms. I hugged her and picked her like she was baby. She was safe. The 8 year old waiting behind us in line actually turned away so we wouldn't see her laughing.

******

Surely Saturday would redeem us. Saturday was Breakfast with Belle at the Bookstore formerly known as Davis-Kidd (and please know that regardless of what I am about to write, I am THRILLED it is still here). Harlow put on her princess dress and slippers and we made our way over to East Memphis to break bread with the Beast's main girl. Except she wouldn't be joining us for breakfast. Really, I don't blame her as the buffet pancakes were sterno-torched, but Harlow was starting to get a touch impatient. We were told to move to the story area to prepare for the main event when a staffer/friend pulled me aside to give me a headsup - Belle would not be joining us that day. For reasons unclear, the children were to be informed that her majesty's wagon got stuck in the mud and sadly she would not be able to make her own party.

And what did I do? Mother who had hyped said event to her child for the previous 24 hours, reading Belle stories and getting daughter ridiculously amped?

I pulled out my camera and waited for them to break the news, poised to snap fifteen-odd princess dreams destroyed in one fell swoop.

I'm a class act.

To her credit, Harlow took the news in stride and sat gamely for the Kix 106 DJ who read a Belle story. She also did not bat one long eyelash when said DJ paused from the story to say "Oh my gosh, y'all! Can you BELIEVE that Gaston just stabbed him in the BAY-UCK?

I loved every second of it. Harlow just wants to know who is going to help Belle out of all that mud.

Four weeks

2011-05-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Days have settled into more or less of a routine. Baby eats, then baby screams, then baby spits up and (finally!) poops and then mama reads the contents like tea leaves, googling what "green, mucus-y" diapers means to the internet.

Glamorous, non?

While I haven't completely ruled out food sensitivities, it sounds like the likely culprit is my milk oversupply, a benign sounding "problem" until you see - and hear - the affect undigested lactose has on a wee one. It's like living in a tiny town that has only one restaurant with one dish that gives you food poisoning everytime you eat there, but then, what else are you to do? Not eat?

It's not all gloom and doom around here. The fussing *usually* is relegated to the daylight hours, letting us get enough sleep to handle the fussing in the daytime. It' s just becoming demoralizing, this sitting down to write and then baby firing back up again just when you have managed to cobble together a sentence. I suppose I am going to have to become super adept at working in minute-long increments. That's how are brains are trained, post-Twitter and Facebook, right? And how Brad Pitt must get anything done in between shlepping 6 kids and -

motherfucker

I'll be back...

Safety goggles

2011-05-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

She wanted to help with D's bath time, but she'd heard tales of what could happen when in proximity of a diaperless baby boy.

She wasn't taking any chances.

Beautiful girl

2011-05-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

Sure the presents delivered to me in bed were appreciated, the ability to sleep in deeply so. The breakfast they made was lovely, and the oohs and aahs when I appeared in my first post-preggo heels made me believe that perhaps my future is not entirely comprised of sweat pants and spit up.

But what made my mother's day truly special?

I have a kid who did this:

And what is that terribly photographed jumble of paper?

My alchemist husband recently put his skills to work on a vintage card catalog that he transformed into my desk. I cut out slips of paper to label the adorable little drawers, and because I hadn't hidden them away with a padlock, Harlow took off with them. I was annoyed that I was going to have to trace and cut them all out again - until I saw what she'd done with the slips of paper.

She made flashcards. For her three week old brother.

I have a kid capable of that kind beauty. And that's why I had a wonderful mother's day.

Mom

2011-05-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Isn't she just lovely?

Now that I have another child, I'm aware that I owe an even bigger round of apologies and thank yous to the woman who raised me and my younger sister. She made it look so easy. The house was spotless. She was always present, patient, and gentle. I can only hope that when my kids look back on their childhood, they can say it was moderately clean. And that their socks sometimes matched.

So this is for you, mom. Who can say Happy Mother's Day better than...Mr. T?

Special thanks to Leah Keys for this gem

Skipping rocks

2011-05-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

Floodwatch

2011-05-05T12:11:00.001-07:00

My kid's school made NBC's Nightly News the other night, not for being insanely adorable, which it is, but for being mere feet away from the rising flood waters in downtown Memphis. Caleb was part of a volunteer effort to fill sandbags as a last ditch effort to protect my daughter's classroom. The bags are in place. Concerned parents pass along news and gossip on Facebook.

But all we can do now is wait.

The days are warm and sunny. We stretched out on a blanket underneath an impressive oak tree in our front yard, Harlow gathering dandelions and Declan snoozing on the porch. It would have been a magical afternoon if not for the increasingly grim reality that our poor city is about to take another beating.

The river is forecasted to crest next Wednesday at 48 feet - the same level as the devastating flood of 1937 - while others are speculating it may yet reach as high as 50. In any case, it's not looking good for large chunks of downtown. We are fortunate to have had extensive warnings and time to prepare; no lives will be lost, just massive property damage. We will regroup and rebuild. We end each day watching the increasingly depressing roundup of catastrophic damage in the south, of homes swallowed, roads submerged, news reporters speeding around surreal, flooded neighborhoods in bass boats, and we are heartbroken for them - and yes - grateful that our home, our families have been spared.

Nonetheless, it is personal. It is difficult to sit by helplessly and watch the water slowly but surely advance on my daughter's school, a place that has become increasingly special to her and my entire family. All we can do is hope and pray that the damage - if it occurs - won't be catastrophic.

So please keep the city, really, the mid-South - in your thoughts. We could use all that positive energy.

And because I am loathe to end this week on such a downer note, funny dog!

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

2011-04-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

How has Declan made his mark on the planet these past 2 weeks?

At the doc's, he weighed in at 7 lbs 9 oz, gaining nearly a pound from his teensy 6 lbs 14 oz debut.
Nowhere on his little milestone sheet did they account for his new chin. We worked hard for that chin! Despite his being only in the 24th percentile for weight, baby boy is chowing down like one of those professional hot dog eaters.
He is in the 65th percentile for height. Sadly, again, there is no marker for foot size, as my child would likely rank in the percentile reserved for Croatian basketball players traded to the NBA. Or skyscrapers.

Big feet, people. I see my future, and it is me screaming at a pile of giant, festering Converse while Declan hunches over the refrigerator, eating peanut butter from a jar, possibly wearing frayed highwater pants a la The Hulk. He comes from tall people. I fear I will soon be surrounded by a family of knees.

And how did mama rank at D's first visit? Did I manage to avoid shearing off the passenger side mirror on our inaugural trip to the doc? No rookie mistake of calling the doc because my child is (gasp!) hiccuping?

We just asked one question: why does our son sound like a broken clarinet solo while nursing? Because D was conked out, Caleb cued up the recording he made on his phone (how did I parent before apps?), and we all hovered around it, alternating staring at the phone and the doc who looked appropriately meditative. When the HONKS and ZINGS finally finished (think Dick Van Dyke's one man band in Mary Poppins - no zen nursing for me, thank you), he laughed and said while he'd never heard anything quite like it (strangely stirring some maternal pride), baby boy was eating and gaining just fine. And that was it. No more questions.

I wanted to leave with my own worksheet, show the world my gold stars and stickers for keeping my collective shit together these first three weeks. How magical parenting is when the soul crushing fear is stripped away!

Harlow arrived in a new house in a new (old) city to new parents who had no fucking clue. I still marvel that the human race survived, that we flourished despite those early days of severe sleep deprivation, self doubt, and the constant spector of accidentally killing your child dogging every single move. I simply didn't understand these parents who claimed to be "blissed out" and marinating in sweet love hormones with the new baby. Horrible Things lurked around every corner. My life was over. Who was I? Had I ever even been someone before?

Friends ask if I am just head over heels and just loving being a mom again, and I can say - cautiously - yes. I now understand the signs of postpartum depression. I understand that I had been holding my breath for months, cutting contact with friends, hunkering down, simply waiting to see if the crazy-making cocktail of hormones was going to strike again. Yet so far, so good. Really good. I feel...normal. Like giving birth this time around course-corrected for smooth sailing, not batshit crazy. Because of that freedom, I truly understand the gift of the second kid, because I now have permission to enjoy it. I laugh at his sweet cries. I know when to ask for breaks. And I give extra hugs to his sister, because I still glimpse the sweet baby she was inside the beautiful girl she has become, and I want them both to know that mama is feeling just fine.

2 weeks

2011-04-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was day 4 or day 11 - time has swirled into one giant neurochemical smoothie- I was headed toward the stairs with baby boy still swinging off one breast when I paused at the front door. A mother robin stood on the front porch with a worm clinched in her beak. She looked at me. I looked at her. Judging by her four fat babies jostling for room in the nest conveniently perched in the magnolia, she'd been at it for weeks. I wearily saluted her and trudged toward the nearest diaper changing station. The nest has been a fun teaching tool. Harlow and I have sat on the porch and watched mama and daddy Robin (he of the more brightly colored orange breast) dutifully zigzagging the yard in pursuit of baby food. I watched the nest long after Harlow returned to her gardening and gravel road building (my own little corps of engineers). The babies were so impossibly big in that nest but so strangely quiet, casually holding their beaks wide in expectation but what - already too bored to make a fuss about it? Spoiled from the constant on demand delivery?

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised but I was startled to step outside the other day and find the nest empty. Babies had flown the coop. But that didn't stop Mama (Daddy? The orange breast was ragged and dirty from the torrential rains and mud) from returning to the nest with more offerings. I am knocked sideways from sleep deprivation and a witches brew of hormones so I am about as vulnerable as my newborn, but that was the saddest thing I had ever seen. Well into the afternoon the robin continued the search for food, perching on that empty nest for a long beat before setting off on yet another fool's errand.

I gathered up Harlow and kissed her until she swatted me away. The days are long but the years fly by. I shall tattoo it on my eyelids.

Week 1

2011-04-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

We take our child labor very seriously here at Casa Sweazy

Some observations on Declan Grey's first week on the planet:

1. People are really excited that I reproduced "properly"

The folks at the hospital, from the nurses to orderlies to my favorite - the men and women who announced themselves as "Dietary" as they waltzed into my room bearing dinner - are frickin thrilled for me that I now have a son to pair with my daughter.

"You've properly reproduced yourself!" the nurse who wheeled me to the front door announced. The bleary-eyed young father who rode down with us agreed. "A daughter AND a son. THAT's how it's done," he affirmed. It was as if I'd scored perfectly on a test I had no idea I was taking. Surely this is just the party line. What would they have said to me if I'd had another daughter? "How sweet that you now have two creatures that will one day rise at 5 AM to do their hair before school!"

2. Sometimes when feeding my kid, I notice that he resembles a tiny Sir John Gielgud, and then I very quickly try to think about anything else. He happens to share a birthday with SJG, so maybe it's a subliminal thing. He also shares a birthday with Adolf Hitler and Baby Doc Duvalier so I will be watching closely for signs of vegetarianism and the urge to express oneself by painting. Or mass murder.

3. Declan falls asleep with his eyes open. This is hilarious when not absolutely creepy. One minute he's staring at you with those big eyes and hey! He's smiling...followed by his eyes rolling back in his head and facial twitching that makes him look like the little girl from the Exorcist. I hope this trait actually sticks around through his teenaged years. I forsee him being very popular at sleepovers, not to mention overnight dates with ladyfriends.

4. It is my mission in life to fatten this kid up. Do you remember in Muppets Take Manhattan when Kermit pedals his bike through Central Park? Those impossibly string bean legs? Kermit's legs are like Beyonce's compared to this kid. I think he is up to about a gallon of milk a day (estimates based on the volume and scope of the volcanic reef that used to be my breasts) and I think he has added a chin and improved vision but those legs! Maybe under the milky white skin and blonde hair, a secret Kenyan is yearning to break free. Stranger things have happened.

Birthday Boy Pt 1

2011-04-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

Just like before, it's quiet, here on the otherside.

Declan is asleep (DECK-lan, for the curious) It's what he does best, eat and sleep. My son, (my SON!) already a champion on his fourth day of life. Honestly I wish he would wake up, because it's kinda boring having already caught up on my DVR and laundry. I'm seriously considering scrubbing some toilets because they're not going to clean themselves and clearly, I've got some time. So wake up little man!

And should I just go ahead and tell you?

Don't hate me.

He slept for six hours last night*.

(It's ok if you hate me. My boobs - I mean, the Twin Mt. Vesuviai, LOATHE me)

I feel ok telling you this because I know its not going to happen again. I fully expect to have about an hour of sleep tonight, so I'm just reveling in this awakened state.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ultimately it would not be the pineapple or the spicy food or the sex or the marathon walking that brought Declan into the world but a scheduled trip to the hospital. I NEVER thought I would go past my due date. When I found myself revving up into contractions and still no baby after the 11th, I was still in disbelief. Disbelief that the appointment I'd made for my induction on the 14th would actually stand. (I actually laughed at the lady who called from the clinic, merrily informing her that sure, 7:15 on the 14th sounded fine as if I would ACTUALLY BE THERE) Sure I would get tickets for my husband and daughter to see a show at the Orpheum on the 15th. Sure it was fine for Caleb to play a show later that day on the 15th. Baby would be here for at least a week at that point.

But then I was staring down the 14th, and baby just wasn't coming out.

I didn't want to be induced. My daughter was induced because of my "high risk" pregnancy, and I wanted to let this kiddo come on his/her own. My doc didn't, and there will always be a part of me that will be sad over that fact. But I don't want my own birthing insecurities/fear of judgement on how he came into the world (truly - how odd there is such a thing) color what was an amazing day.

Three hours after my labor began, I was fully dilated and ready to push and laughing. I don't even remember what he said, but my amazing man held my hand, cracked jokes, and over the chorus of nurses chanting for me to push, his voice guided me and helped me laugh and cry my beautiful boy into the world. Harlow came in with her dad, took one look at brother, and promptly announced that he couldn't come into her room. She's already taking her big sister duties very seriously.

Little man is tiny. 6 pounds 14 ozs and skin that puddles around his knees and ankles as if he was wearing a suit that needed to be tailored. We may finally spring for preemie diapers as he is swallowed up by the newborn kind. He is blonde as his sister with grey-blue eyes that just aren't open enough to my liking. I don't even dare to judge his temperament after only 4 days, but currently he is calm and sweet, just a mellow soul who I want to inhale. I didn't realize how much I missed that new baby smell.

*24 hours after I wrote this I can confirm that this was a one time performance, no repeat feat of magic

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

2011-04-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

There's a conversation Caleb and I had that I replay over and over in my head. We'd had one of our numerous "should we/shouldn't we have another kid" discussions and almost in passing he said, "It's not like there's some kid that's just waiting on us to be born."

In that moment, right or wrong, I absolutely believed that there was.

Not long afterwards, just out of the shower, I remember pausing in my closet and urgently needing to have a conversation with said baby.

Things are good, I told him. (I said him because I felt like I was addressing the son I wondered if I was fated to parent.)

I like my life. I like this threesome. Things are good. Why invite change?

So if you are going to show up, I told him, it needs to be soon. Really soon before I lose my courage and close this door forever.

I got pregnant that night.

And 10 months later, he's finally here and so, so worth it.

Declan Grey Sweazy, meet the world.

photo by Nana

D Day

2011-04-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Baby,

Today is the day you have been predicted to arrive. While I apparently arrived a day early, I don't expect any child of mine to be punctual, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

But look at your sister. She is so impatient!

She really wanted you to come Sunday night. I think this is mainly so she could get out of school and spend the day getting spoiled by her grandparents, but why quibble. She wants to meet you!

I'm ready to meet you too. So is daddy. We have spent most of the weekend looking at my contraction app (I know! They make an app for everything, right?), watching it rev up (along with our hopes) and then eventually slow down. You, for one, don't like all the squeeziness and tend to thrash around until the next one comes, which is about every 20 minutes. For the past 72 hours. Not that I'm counting. I spent most of my time hiding out from the heat and pollen and wonderful friends who can't believe you are still in my belly and not in my arms. But the longer you stall, the more movies in theaters I get to see, the more "No, this decadent, giant dinner out will be my last" I gobble away. So it's a win-win.

So you take your time. But not too long. I'd rather you come out on your own, kicking and screaming, then be forced out, you know, kicking and screaming.

And look who you get to play with. You're gonna love her. She's gonna love you. So forget what I said. Hurry up and get here already!

slide photo by uber talented Chip Chockley

The Makeover: Phase 2

2011-04-09T11:04:00.001-07:00

I suppose this is the equivalent of the spray tan.

I was initially a little scared to go all white, but I think it looks pretty kick ass.

Next week: some azaleas, some hydrangeas, and probably a baby.

Old Wives Tale Test: eggplant parm

2011-04-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

(or basil and oregano and papaya juice with a little nipple stimulation for good measure)

The Old Wives Tale:

Eating eggplant parmesan will trigger labor

Report:

There are myriad stories on the internet about women going into labor after eating a salad from an LA trattoria or diving into a plate of eggplant parmesan at a Georgian Italian joint.

The thing both of these recipes have in common? Basil and oregano. For some reason, the fresh herbs are thought to have something to do with kickstarting labor, and it provides some solace to those living outside LA and Georgia and can't get the actual item off the menu. So I aimed for the next best thing - a pizza from Trolley Stop Cafe loaded with fresh oregano and basil.

I've also turned up stories about papaya juice having similar properties, so that was my beverage of choice along with the pizza. One giant slice and half later, I felt full. Still pregnant. Took a bath with the kiddo, climbed up on the bed to comb her hair, and then tried to move. Miss Buzzy Lightyear all Infinity and Beyonded into her bedroom, and I just sat there on my bed, stuck in my pretzel position, fat, bloated, in pain, and now just full of pizza and miserable. I broke down into tears, and Caleb eventually came along and helped me off the bed. After kiddo went to sleep, I had a couple of contractions, which, at this point is like breathing they happen so often without being productive. Eager to help them along, I did the one thing that many sites claim WILL work but must be done with caution - playing Tune in Tokyo with your own tatas. Googling with one hand and twisting away with the other, I'll be damned if the contractions didn't get stronger. The idea is that nipple stimulation produces oxytocin, the same hormone that triggers milk letdown while the baby breastfeeds and promotes contractions. Spooked, I quickly stopped, doing some calculations. Did I REALLY want to go into labor at 10:30 at night having just popped a sleep-inducing Zyrtec for my horrendous allergies? Phone up the parents at 3 in the morning to come collect the kiddo and generally sleep deprive everybody on the phone tree?

I let it go. Er, literally.

Conclusions:

Basil and oregano make for excellent pizza and parmesan toppings. Nipple stimulation can most certainly cause contractions - not necessarily strong enough to get labor going successfully, but enough to warrant some caution. As in, why don't you try this on a full night's sleep with a babysitter lined up and not, say, after gorging on pizza during a failed science experiment at 10:30 at night.

Old Wives Tale Tests: pedicure

2011-04-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

The Old Wives Tale:

Getting a pedicure (and complimentary acupressure leg massage) will trigger labor

Location of test: Pro Nails in Spottswood/Target shopping Center

Report:

The theory goes that there exists points on the feet and legs that when stimulated can cause labor to begin. Perhaps this is due to massage releasing oxytocin into the bloodstream, the "cuddle" drug that also regulates orgasm, nursing letdown and yup, contractions. The Chinese believe that acupressure and acupuncture move the chi (or life force) throughout the body, so maybe stimulating these points would be akin to hotwiring a car to get it started. I figured this test was a win, win. If it works, I get a baby. If it doesn't work, I get a relaxing massage and cute toes...about the only thing cute on my body at this point. I didn't share my theory with my pedicurist, afraid that I might somehow sway her usual technique and skew the results.

I wish I had been more forthcoming.

I saw her grab the pink lotion bottle and I closed my eyes, ready for some relaxation. She started in with about 10 brisk punches to the soles of my feet. Let me repeat - for no immediately clear reason she was PUNCHING ME IN THE FOOT. BALLED FISTS. REPEATEDLY. I about dropped my OK! Magazine into my foot bath as I tried to steady myself and make sure that I hadn't somehow mistakenly offended her. I just tried to hold on until she worked out whatever she needed to get out of her system. Finally finished with the Mike Tyson to my arches, she grabbed hold of the webbed part of my toe between the big toe and his neighbor.

Good, I thought. That is a spot acupuncturists typically avoid for fear of triggering labor. She squeezed down. Hard. While the baby didn't move, I thought my heart might explode due to the amount of adrenaline flooding my bloodstream. After a few hearty squeezes, she let go of the toes and dove into the fascia on my arches. Now I've had significantly painful bodywork performed in the past. Due to a really nasty neck injury years ago, I underwent multiple sessions of rolfing, bodywork that purports to realign the body only using the practioner's hands. Imagine having someone massage you with a giant nail.

I think my pedicurist might have taken some classes.

The fascia on anyone's feet are already sensitive because they are a big bundle of nerves. But having a good 40 extra pounds flattening them down repeatedly made them in no mood to be messed with. Instantly it felt like someone lit a match and held it up to my foot. I think I may have actually whimpered because we made eye contact and she quickly moved onto the other foot. About 30 seconds later, she finished the "massage," dumped my feet back in the bath and left to file a report to Guantanamo. Or get my nail polish. I don't remember. But hey! The color is cute.

Findings:

Negative. Most likely the pressure points need to be stimulated for longer stretches, not just periodically slapped around. One Braxton Hicks contraction in the 12 hours since treatment.

Up next: the spicy food test

Remember that scene in Alien?

2011-04-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

The miracle of pregnancy...or something from a Ridley Scott film.

You be the judge.

Remember that scene in Alien? from Melissa Anderson Sweazy on Vimeo.

Old Wives Tale Tests

2011-04-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Over dinner last night, I smiled at my husband and said, "you know, I'm really ready for this kid to come out because I just can't wait to meet him/her." He just stared at me and said, "That would be nice. If it was true."

He can always tell when I'm lying.

At 39 1/2 weeks of pregnancy, I'm done. I want the kid out. I want to stop feeling like I have a bowling ball dropping onto my bladder before lodging in my butt everytime I stand. My doc wants the kid out not much longer after my due date, so we've signed his/her eviction notice for a date in the near future. But I would really like baby to enter the world without unnecessary medical intervention.

So.

Because my due date is mere days away, I figure no harm can be done by indulging in the various old wives tales that purport to nudge little kiddo into the world. Spicy food's got to be a bit more kind than pitocin, right? I'm going to try as many as these as I can and report back on my findings. So if I disappear for a bit, you can safely bet that one of them worked. Or baby felt sorry for me and my ridiculous tests and decided to get a move on.

The first report up soon!

The Makeover

2011-04-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

So you know that moment in every guilty-pleasure Saturday afternoon tweeny movie when the geeky girl gets the glasses off, goes to the spray tanner, gets her nails done, curls her hair, hits the mall for THE dress and makes her debut at the top of the stairs looking all Miss Thing?

We're in the glasses just came off stage.

The makeover has been a slow and awkward one, piece-mealed together by weather factors, budget, and the fact that Caleb is, amazingly, only one person. Complicating things a bit have been passive-aggressive scuffles with our neighbors who have taken issue with our wanting to put up a fence (long, long, stupid story that I won't elaborate on), so I have been DYING to show our street, the world, just how pretty our house is going to be.

It's just going to take a little bit longer than the movie montage leads you to believe.

In unrelated news, 39 weeks and holding somewhat steady. With a head cold. Um, thanks?

Pocket Full of Sunshine

2011-03-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

With our spate of March birthdays at their end (hmmmbaby??), our house is rife with not just birthday cards, but singing birthday cards. Harlow has taken to carrying them around with her, playing them in the car, hiding them from mommy so she can't pitch them the second her back is turned...

But due to her newfound love of the musical card, I couldn't resist sharing this little gem with her from Easy A. She now wants to watch this more than listen to any of the cards...so....yay? The only way I know to get this freaking song out of my head is to pass it along to you, so enjoy!