Time warp

What?
What just happened, here?

Suddenly I'm approaching my last full week of maternity leave (sob, panic, panic some more) and I'm standing here looking at the past 3.5 months, shaking my head.

How did this happen?

I had all of these lofty goals for my leave, and I am absolutely laughing my ass off at how totally clueless I was (and still am, but it's getting better) about parenting. Here are the things I thought I could accomplish while my baby napped (ha!) and hung out happily by my side (ha ha!) all day long:
- redesign my website.
- blog.
- sew cute little baby clothes.
- take an online Photoshop class.
- catch up on TV via hulu.
- read books.
- watch movies.
- document every second of his life in photographs.
- update my Etsy shop with tons of new items.
- make some new art.
- go on lots of outings.
- visit lots of friends.

Here is what I actually did:
- held baby on couch for many hours at a time.
- cat-napped.
- spent 10 hellish weeks learning how to breastfeed.
- listened to baby scream in his car seat.
- read "The Hunger Games." (Book #1 only.)
- ate a lot of trail mix.
- went on walks around the neighborhood, pointing out various trees, birds, animals, and vehicles.
- went to our weekly parent/baby group (thank jeezuz for this).
- played the piano.
- sewed some super simple bibs in 10-minute spurts.
- did lots of laundry.
- documented some of his life in photographs.
- went to yoga as much as possible.
- got at least 20 new wrinkles, and let's not even talk about the gray hair.
- snuggled.
- rocked.
- cried.
- marveled.
- grew.

Some people thrive by doing. They tick all the "things" off their lists and all of those little checkmarks pile up to create a sense of accomplishment. I'm one of those people. But I'm learning to let go of that a little bit. The biggest difference between my first list of ambitions and my second list of reality is that the first list contains some really big, broad things. Redesign MY ENTIRE WEBSITE. Take a photoshop class. Go on lots of outings. In reality, I had to learn to do things in tiny chunks. It was an accomplishment if we got out the door for a 15-minute walk. That was the definition of "a good day." It was an incredible day if I wore pants that were not black and stretchy and put on mascara.

So when I look at my second list, I actually feel pretty awesome about it. Hell, we survived! Isn't that enough? I think it is.

And beyond survival, I learned that the heart can grow, but it can take some time. When I was pregnant, I would hear things like, "I immediately fell in love with my baby the moment I saw her face." Or "The birth of my baby was the best day of my life."

I expected that I would feel the same way. But I didn't. It took many weeks, months, even, for my heart to grow. My son's birth was absolutely not the best day of my life - it was hard. It was traumatic. I still replay that day in my head, and doesn't seem real. It took me awhile to accept that all of that was perfectly OK. Love doesn't happen all at once. It grows, like a snowball rolling down a hill, collecting gravel and little bits of debris along the way. And suddenly you are standing there, trying to figure out how you'll ever wrap your arms around the span of this immense thing, this love, and you know you'll never really be able to, but dammitall, you're going to try.

Try your very best.

The post office

(The photos that illustrate this post come courtesy of the Flickr Commons, which hosts a wonderful collection of vintage postal photography from the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and more.)

When I was growing up, my dad was postmaster at a small Wisconsin post office in the next town over from ours. I always thought that his title sounded so powerful and important: POSTMASTER. Being declared "master" of anything should automatically entitle you to carry a really awesome sword or wear a cloak, or something. But really, he just wore ties and plastic pocket protectors to keep his No. 3H pencils (ALWAYS No. 3 pencils) from shedding graphite dust in the pockets of his clean white dress shirts.

Some of my best childhood memories are from time spent at the post office while my dad worked Saturdays. To a child, the post office was magic. Everything smelled of carbon paper and ink, and it felt like the entire building and its contents were covered in at least 30 years of dirt - sunbeams streaming through the high windows revealed just how dusty it was. There were always rubber stamps and label makers to play with, and an old typewriter to plunk around on. When that got old, I would draw pictures with No. 3H pencils and thick black felt pens, or go fill the powdered soap dispensers in the bathrooms (exciting, I know...but it was!). One time he taught me how to decipher bar codes. And when all that that got boring, I'd explore the guts of the post office - the stuff that most people hardly ever get to see.


One of my favorite games was to shoot rubber bands at the big wall of open PO Box cubbies - the side where the postal workers stick your mail. I'd sit on a low countertop opposite the mailboxes, swinging my feet off the edge, and make a game of trying to get my rubber band into a certain "target" box. One time I thought it would be fun to try to hit a box just as a customer was opening it to claim their mail. Surely my aim couldn't be that good. But I totally nailed it, and the person jumped back, surprised at the rubber band that was flying at their hand. (I ran and hid.)

The rest of the post office was a maze of shelves and mail cubbies, and each letter carrier had their own little space to sort mail and organize their daily haul.

I'd explore each cubicle, finding all sorts of curious things. Once I found a coconut that someone had covered in stamps and sent just like that, with the address scrawled on the husk. Another time there was a crate of live, chirping crickets. I'm sure those aren't the strangest things that the post office has ever seen, but for a little girl who only thought of mail in terms of letters, it blew my mind that someone could send CRICKETS through the mail.

The best moments were when my dad would let me help him sort packages. He taught me to memorize which addresses were rural routes and city routes, and I'd toss packages into big canvas bins labeled with corresponding numbers. "River Park Circle!" He'd call out, and I'd respond with "Rural Route 3!" I can't believe I still remember that, to this day. My dad had a great way of making you feel important, even if you were only seven years old - and tossing brown paper-wrapped packages into those giant rolling bins made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

The little post office that I remember best eventually moved to a bigger location as the town grew. My old typewriter was replaced with a dinosaur of a computer, where I occupied my time learning to type with Mavis Beacon. An automated machine sorted letters right outside my dad's office. The old PO Boxes with the tiny brass dials, the kind that required a special series of turns and stops to unlock them, were replaced by sleek gray metal panels of doors that unlocked with a key.

One Christmas when I was about 13, I think, I asked my dad what happened to all of the letters that kids sent to Santa Claus. I don't recall the exact protocol that they used, but at the time, I think they eventually just threw them out. This broke my heart, so that year, I decided to collect the letters that came through the post office and respond to every one that had a return address.

I vaguely recall whipping up a snazzy stationery design on the computer, one with lots of festive 90s clip art. That Christmas, somewhere in a little sliver of southeastern Wisconsin, a handful of kids got a response from Santa Claus. (Maybe it ruined them for future years, where they didn't get a letter back...oops.) I don't remember what I wrote in those letters, but I remember my heart feeling fuller than usual that year. One letter was written in Spanish, and I did my best to decipher it and respond. I'm sure I butchered it. Another envelope contained a letter and a single yellow feather. I kept that feather tucked away in my top dresser drawer for years.

So when I hear stories about how the postal service is struggling, it hits home and makes my heart drop a little bit. And it makes me even sadder to hear people complain about the postal service, or poke fun at its employees. Those employees were, and still are, my family.

But of course, I'm biased. I will always have a beautiful, romanticized idea of the post office to hold in my heart - images of big wooden rolling carts loaded with heavy canvas bags, of inky fingertips and air mail stickers, and of seeing the inner workings of that world as a little girl. Those Saturdays spent "working" with dad made unintentional memories and sparked hours of creative play, with nothing more than rubber bands and a typewriter. Good, clean fun.

I'm pretty darn lucky.

Arlo's room

When we first found out we were expecting, we agreed right away that we wanted the sex of the baby to be a big surprise. So in a culture that loves to code things in pink and blue and princesses and cars, we were faced with the (kinda fun!) challenge of creating a gender-neutral nursery. I think that even if we DID know whether our little one was a boy or a girl, we would have still tried to keep things neutral. Neither of us is big on themes or characters or that pink/blue nonsense. We just wanted a bright, cheerful, and relaxed space for our kiddo to hang out in.

The crib area is my favorite part of the room. Back in September, I wrote about a few simple nursery sewing projects that I did to spruce up baby's little sleeping corner. The little cloud embroideries and the crib bunting make my heart oh so happy. And the blue crocheted blanket seen below was my husband's when he was a baby - so awesome that we can pass it down to our son.

Hanging above the crib is a sweet mobile that we got on our fifth anniversary trip to Orcas Island. We had stumbled upon a most excellent farmer's market, and lo and behold one of my most favorite etsy shops, Bossy's Feltworks, happened to be a seller there. I had been coveting one of their cute felted sheep mobiles for awhile, and there it was, swaying in the breeze, right over my head.

As soon as we got it home and hung it, the cat promptly attacked the two lowest sheep and I had to do some serious reconstructive surgery to get them looking normal again. Sigh.

The only furniture we bought new for the room was the crib. The rest was pieced together with old IKEA furniture on its second (or third, or fourth) life. Instead of a dresser, we took our favorite, heavily used wood bookshelf and added storage bins and baskets. The bookshelf, which is no longer available at IKEA, I think (I don't even know the name of it anymore), is the single best piece of furniture that we've ever purchased there. This is the fifth place we've lived where it's been put to good use.

The decor is a hodge podge of vintage goodies. A wonderful hidden gem of an antique store, just a few blocks from my house, has been an awesome source for good finds like the colorful metal xylophone. (Not pictured: some sweet vintage globes that got added later on.) I also made the round blue gingham-checked fabric bin seen below, which is quite possibly the most poorly-sewn thing that I've ever created. Seriously, if anyone were to deconstruct that sucker, they'd wonder if I let a possum loose with a sewing machine. It's appalling. But at least it looks passable from afar.

The element of the room that took me the most time was sewing the yellow chevron curtains (fabric from fabric.com). I love the cheery bright punch they add to the whole space.

The raggedy chair in the corner is a Goodwill find that we've dragged through two apartments and now to our house. I've been meaning to reupholster it forever, and still intend to. In the meantime, it makes a good snuggling and storytime spot, and the dog enjoys expanding what was once a tiny hole in the fabric of the seat with her claws of death. (Oh animals. Are you sensing a pattern here? Yes. My once-precious fur babies are driving me NUTS right now.)

Last but not least, some sunny artwork by Laura George adds some color to the "library corner," where re-used IKEA bookshelves hold lots of books, thrift store finds, and some mementos from my childhood.

My favorite thing? A tiny travel clock that reminds me of the one my dad always used. It has a nice soothing tick.

All that said and done, now that I'm getting to know this little baby boy of ours a little better, I'd do his room completely different. Crazy. But in his two short months with us, I feel like his personality clashes with the calm, cutesy feel of the room. Sure he has his calm moments, and he is 100% cute, but his personality has an edge to it. There's an intensity about him that I'd love to capture in the next iteration of his room with something bolder and more spirited like the stubborn, insistent, constantly-in-motion, curious fella that he is.

I'm thinking firefighting laser octopus robots. Or something like that. Yeah. That's more like it.

Holiday Etsy Sale

In between feeding, rocking, soothing, and staring at cranky baby trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with him, I've somehow managed to update my etsy shop! There are lots of new jewelry designs to check out. Here's a wee sample...



Ice stone necklace

Yellow pennant hoop earrings

And hey, how about a sale!

Get 15% off your entire purchase (not including shipping) through Friday, December 2, by using the coupon code HOLIDAY2011 at checkout. Enjoy!

Hazy days

I knew that taking care of a newborn was not going to be easy, but this little dude is giving his mama a run for her money.

Good thing he's so cute.


In other news, the Window Ledge Arts Etsy shop has re-opened. After a brief "maternity leave," we're back up and running! When I grab a few moments of grace, I'll be posting some new photographic prints and jewelry designs. But for now, enjoy some more recent creations made from reclaimed leather and vintage wallpaper:

"Vegas" silver leather earrings

Folk Art necklace (vintage wallpaper)

Shiny and new

Arlo James came crashing into this world on Monday, Oct 10th, at 2:15 AM - a week past his due date. He weighed 6 lbs. 8 oz and measured 21 1/4" long. He looks like a miniaturized version of my husband, at least in my opinion, right down to the inward curve of his long skinny pinky finger. He has perhaps acquired my nose. Only time will tell.

Everything about his birth defied my every expectation. All of the book reading and nesting and last-minute frantic slipper shopping because OMG I'm so going to need something to shuffle down the corridors in while I'm in labor...it didn't matter. Not even an ounce. My "birth plan" never left the front pocket of the suitcase.

But everything about him has exceeded my every expectation. All I can do is stare at him. Except for now, when I have been granted these few precious moments to catch up on the outside world.

I'm still wrapping my head around his birth story. Every time I think about it, I'm left a sobbing mess. But I'll get there.

Now. Off to go stare at a certain little man...

better than words...

...but if I had to choose just one, weary would be it.

they never mention temporary insanity in all of those cutesy pregnancy books.