Show & Tell Friday: Coming Back

Slowly but surely, I’m emerging from the cave of Newbornland. My newest daughter is now 38 days old. Everyone in my house except for my 3 year-old–including myself, my husband, and our dog–is exhausted. The 3 year-old is fueled by some energy source we can’t find. We’ve looked for it.

We are happy and sleepy. And we have no idea what day it is.

Oh, yes–Friday! I’ve got some things to share that popped up while I was in Newbornland:

 

1.) The Girls of Atomic City: the Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win WWII

I may have already mentioned this, but I can’t wait to read this book! It’s all about the young women who were recruited to work in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during WWII. On the Manhattan Project (you know, the Atomic Bomb). My grandmother was one of those girls. She was recruited right out of Winthrop University (then College) in South Carolina, with a friend, but when the friend bailed, she still went. She met my grandfather, a nuclear physicist and a Yankee to boot, at a dance. He told her he was going to marry her the night they met. My mother and aunts were raised in Oak Ridge, the “Secret City.” And the rest is history.

Speaking of history, these women, and their stories, are incredible. A must read for your nonfiction stack this summer. It’s already on mine.

2.) Brave

Have you seen this movie? It’s not just for kids. About a strong-willed young Scottish princess, Merida, and her quest to break from tradition in order to live her own life. It’s set in the Highlands of Scotland and is a great big adventure, complete with a legend, a witch, and ill-fated wish, and a host of unforgettable characters. The animation is absolutely gorgeous, and truly different than anything I’ve seen before.

We watched it over the weekend with my 3 year-old (who’ll be 4 in late July), and she loved it!

My husband and I backpacked and traveled through the Scottish Highlands several years ago, and came away forever changed–not to mention determined to get back there one day. Disney Pixar gets it right with this one. It’s a good movie for everyone–battles and humor and danger and redemption–but it’s great for girls. All hail the female hero! Plus, it won the Academy Award for best animated film.

3.) “Being But Men” by Dylan Thomas

This was the featured poem-of-the-day on Wednesday at The Writer’s Almanac. I love Thomas, and this poem demonstrates why I think he’s a poet for the ages. I think it speaks to quiet truths about nature and humanity; that it’s lovely and sad at the same time.

Poets slay me. I don’t know how they do it.
 



4.) And last, some quotes to welcome the unofficial start of summer:

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” ~ Henry James

“A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn’t mean in winter.” ~ Patricia Briggs

“Come with me,’ Mom says.
To the library.
Books and summertime
go together.”
~ Lisa Schroeder

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
~ William Shakespeare

“The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes”
~ John Ashbery  

“If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.”  ~ Bern Williams

“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.”  ~ Wallace Stevens

In the Family Way

Maternity corset, Victorian era
(www.melissanemitz.wordpress.com)

Yes, I am "with child." I am also...

"In a delicate state."

"Carrying a child."

"Expectant." 

"Fecund," "fertile," "fraught." (Oh, boy.)

"Fruitful."

"Gestating."

"Heavy." (Yes, oh, heck yes.)

"Parturient." (Whaaat?)

"Productive."

"Prolific."

Can you tell I love my Writer's Thesarus? It keeps me warm on cold nights.

But back to the topic at hand: It's true, and at 15 weeks along there's no denying it. I am expecting Baby #2--gender yet to be revealed--on May 8, 2013.

Holy freaking moly.

To say that trying to manage all those things in my life I love to talk (or complain... cough) about has been difficult would be a massive understatement. As so many mamas know, working, parenting a young child, taking care of a house (snort), trying to promote a novel and attempting to be a reasonable spouse all take on an entirely new meaning when you are "in the family way."

Add a full graduate course load and attempting to write a second novel, and it's a circus act of massive proportions. Except, in my case, it's not snazzy, fancy Ringling Brothers, but instead one of those state fairs where the carnies running the ferris wheel look like meth-heads, all the animals in the 4-H competitions bolt for the hills, and carnival-goers all seem to look as if they'd sprouted from the same gene pool.

Nursing corset, circa Thank God NOT 2012
(www.breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com)

Please forgive me. I'm pregnant.

What I'm trying to say is, the past 3+ months have been a doozy. And I've not done anything--parenting, wife-ing, teaching, writing, novel promoting--particularly well.

See, I'm a college English professor who just used the word "wife-ing." I should be shot.

Thankfully, I seem to have moved out of the I-want-to-die-NOW portion of pregnancy, that oh-so-lovely first trimester. (I'm writing that in a whisper, so the nausea gremlins don't get me). With this move into the Lord-be-praised second trimester, I seem to have reclaimed some of my old energy. When I was pregnant with my now 3 year-old, I used this energy to grade papers, to exercise, to hike some pretty big hills.

Somehow, this isn't the case with Number 2. There's more to do.

I don't have the antidote. The magic potion. The solution. If you do, send it to me. Please. Now. Ye shall be rewarded forthwith.

Some day, "they" tell me, I will write about all this. And I'll be calm. I'll be enlightened, helpful, humorous.

But for now, I'm just pregnant. Happily, but maddeningly, "fecund, fertile and fraught."