Owls' Court

Today:

Today, I WILL write something in the actual green witch document instead of making handwritten notes in the printout. I know I've been working on it, but I feel as if I'm accomplishing nothing because the ultimate word count of the file isn't increasing.

Today, I WILL go for a walk.

Today, I will NOT grumble about the fact that there are no road crews here to finish the bloody road, that still doesn't have all the drains set, is far from being paved, and that still presents a danger to anyone in a regular car and who tries to pull into a driveway. Of course, despite the lack of road crews, the 'no parking between 7.00 and 19.00h' signs are still up.

One Day At A Time

Okay. One and a half days down, and five and a half to go. Thank you for the support and sympathy; I wasn't looking for pity, I just needed to to vent. But you're all wonderful.

After the initial shock of the situation, it's really drearily like how we interacted with him for the first week at Ste-Justine. Same procedure: masks, gowns, baby in isolette 24/7. It's simply in a closer and quieter room, with a bigger baby, and now with gloves. I just wish it didn't feel like such a step backwards for my relationship with Liam.

The good news (because there's always good news with this kid) is that he's taking the bottle just as well as he did yesterday. One bottle, three gavage feedings, another bottle... and they've upped his milk to 40 ccs, so that's a total of 320 ml per day (more if he gets fussy and hungry and demands food in between scheduled feedings, which he's begun to do). Yikes. And so, of course, he gained more weight: he's now at 1.8 kilos, or 3 lbs 15 oz, and climbing.

Still no sign of Liam developing the cold/flu thing. But really, no surprise there.

After our evening visit HRH went off to pack up his studio (he's moving it into the garage), and I took a bath then went to bed to read. I fell asleep very early, which was lovely, and was woken up a few times by HRH wandering in and asking me questions. All in all, I got a wonderful night of sleep, and I feel much better today. Ceri took me out for lunch yesterday, which helped immensely as well.

So, thank you again, everyone.

And the nurses have asked me to bring more milk in, because Liam's eating more. So there.

The Good, the Bad, and the Even Worse

Okay.

I really had to wait until now to write up a post, because ... well, because. Things haven't really been easy the past 24 hours.

The Bad:

Remember that whole "I'm a regular mom with a regular baby" thing? Yeah. Well, scratch that. All that joy and relaxation we felt about being in a normal nursery has been snatched away from us.

See, one of the babies back in Ste-Justine got sick. One of the babies who'd been rooming with Liam, as a matter of fact. So Ste-Justine called LaSalle and told them to lock Liam down in isolation for one full week, in case he was carrying the virus, so he wouldn't infect the other babies.

Isolation. This means that he has to stay in his incubator at all times. Anyone interacting with him has to wear a gown, a mask, and gloves. Any equipment used to care for him has to be either thrown out or sterilised.

I can't touch my baby at all. Not only am I not allowed to hold him, I can't even caress his skin with my own.

Now, excuse me if I'm overreacting, but I feel as if I've been sucker-punched. I feel as if someone gave me a wonderful, wonderful present on Christmas morning, and then took it away from me on Boxing Day. It felt remarkably surreal when they told us last night. I'd been looking forward to another long cuddle like a normal mother cuddles her baby, without wires or protective gear, and we were met with gowns, masks, gloves, and warnings. I asked about the kangaroo we'd planned on that night, and they called the doctor who said that we could still practice kangaroo care but for only half an hour, alone in an enclosed room with a nurse in attendance, and the baby would have to be completely hooked up to the monitor. But as there was no free nurse in the evening, we couldn't do it then; we'd have to come in the afternoon when it was more convenient.

Fine. It was upsetting, but we did what we could. We put the masks and gloves and gowns on and petted him for a few minutes through the portholes of his isolette, and promised him a special cuddle the next day to make up for missing this one.

The wind had been rather taken out of our sails after a day of looking forward to the relaxing atmosphere of the LaSalle nursery. I had a lot of trouble with these new strictures, and I spent a lot of time fighting back the choked-up feeling of imminent tears of disappointment. I completely and totally understood the situation intellectually: babies are delicate things and need protection. What bothered me was that Liam isn't sick, nor is he likely to be sick if he hasn't developed the symptoms by now. I felt like all three of us were being punished for something done by someone else. At least we could still practice the skin-on-skin care, even if it was going to be rather sterile, we'd be back to the monitors and masks, and we'd have to do it in the afternoon, which is slightly inconvenient for HRH.

The Good:

This morning I geared myself up for the whole sterile procedure again. When we got there it was just in time for his second breakfast, and the nurse was preparing a bottle. This was new; Liam's always been fed via gavage. The nurse said that he'd been sucking on anything he could get his mouth on, with good suction (haven't I been telling nurses this for a week?), so she was going to try feeding him by bottle. We were pretty excited. Sure enough, he took it and drank a whole 24 ccs. Bottles tend to tire preterm babies out quickly, but he packed away quite a bit for his first time before he fell asleep. He thought about it a lot, pausing with the bottle in his mouth as if allowing the experience to really sink in. When he'd start sucking again though, he'd go for a while, coordinating the suck/swallow/breathe sequence incredibly well for a beginner. He'll get one or two bottles a day now, with the rest of his feedings via gavage as per usual, because bottle-feeding him all the time would use up more energy than he'd gain from the milk he took in.

The Even Worse:

After clapping and congratulating the baby, and receiving the congratulations from the nurse for how well he'd done, I asked when would be a good time to schedule the afternoon kangaroo care session. The nurse shook her head and said flatly, "We can't do it."

And lo, the surreal feeling hit once again.

Turns out that they don't have the facilities to do it. They'd have to pull a nurse off her regular duties, and they'd have to use a private hospital room, and the room would have to be disinfected when we were done. That's a huge waste of resources, and a huge risk of infecting anyone we come across during the whole procedure. The other babies have to be kept safe, as do the nurses caring for them.

So yes, I started to cry yet again. All I want to do is hold my baby; is that so very wrong? And now I can't do it for an entire week because some other baby in another hospital is ill. My baby is strong enough and clever enough to coordinate the suck/swallow/breathe sequence, and I can't have the opportunity to try and breastfeed him for seven days.

The nurse told me I should be happy that he was taking the bottle, that he was still gaining weight (he's officially over his birth weight now, at 1.770 kilos), that there had been no apneas or bradys for five days straight now, that he's incredibly strong and stable and doing impressive things for his age, but none of it removes the sting from the fact that I can't touch my baby. I don't think I'm being selfish. I think I'm being healthily angry. Because, oh yes, I passed upset and hurt and wondering what we three did to deserve this particular kick in the teeth, and now I'm just angry. I've been terribly, terribly good up till now. I've accepted the separation from my baby rather well over the past two and a half weeks. I have intellectually and emotionally come to terms with it. It's not ideal, but I understand the necessity. This, however, really feels like a punishment for something we didn't do.

I'm really, really, really tired of being good and strong and understanding about everything.

Solitary Wicca for Life!

Hurrah! Amazon.ca now has the Wicca book image included in the listing, so I can show you all how it ended up after I gave them feedback on the original proposal (although I see from my quick search that I actually didn't blog the Wicca cover incident, so in a nutshell: it was stereotypically gothic, dark, and pained, and not Wicca-like enough).

In celebration, I made a page showcasing Solitary Wicca for Life, doing that description and chapter outline thing.

You know, despite the fact that I've been talking about it recently, I still periodically fall into a complete state of stun about the fact that I have a published book on shelves across North America. I really didn't have much of an opportunity to become used to it before Liam came onto the scene, let alone revel in it. (I also have periodic disbelief about the fact that I have a baby. Why does so much happen at once?)

Not So Gratuitous Pictures

Okay, I've scanned and posted the last two weeks' worth of photos on the Newt page. Enjoy!

(I have been informed that pictures of newborns do not qualify as gratuitous, which means they must be necessary. I stand corrected and now feel no guilt in sharing them with you. Muah-hah-hah.)

As If I Need One

Another good reason to visit Liam:

The nursery is air conditioned to a lovely just-barely-cooler-than-room-temperature.

The cats are all puddles in various places where they were walking and just fell over. I might join them after a cold bath. I'm certainly not going to get a hell of a lot of work done today with my brain stalled by the humidity.

The Daily Liam News

I love the LaSalle nursery.

I chose LaSalle as my hospital because of its philosophies and association with the birthing centre on the West Island. When I was transferred to Ste-Justine I was upset because I'd developed a relationship with the LaSalle team, I knew their policies, and I didn't know anyone in or anything about the new hospital. Of course, it was for the best and I'm plenty delighted with the care I received and how procedure was handled in Ste-Justine; in fact, if I wasn't this happy with LaSalle, I might choose to work with Ste-Justine again in future pregnancies.

But I'm happy that Liam's safely installed at LaSalle, because this is what was supposed to happen. It feels like we're back on track: finally, something's going according to the original plan (okay, still off-schedule, but at least we're in the right place now). And the baby seems to have made the transfer without being upset. He passed his first night at LaSalle comfortably, without apneas or bradys, and he's still eating well. (Nothing seems to disturb that!)

It's so quiet at LaSalle, both inside the nursery and outside the building. I'd forgotten that. At the moment there are only a handful of babies in the ward, which again is a big change; we're used to having six babies in a single 15 x 15 foot room, and nine of these rooms in the intermediate care ward alone. The energy is just so much calmer -- not that it was recognisably hectic over at Ste-Justine, no; it's just more relaxed here. There are fewer alarms going off all the time, fewer babies in need. It feels normal, which is a huge change for us. He's rooming with regular babies, which makes me feel a bit more like a regular mother instead of someone who has to ask if she can help somehow. It means that we now have the opportunity to think of Liam as normal instead of delicate or in danger all the time.

That may sound easy, but it isn't. We're used to keeping an eye on his monitors and having him whisked away when he gets agitated. Here, when we hold him, he's not connected to anything. In fact, they unplugged him completely and turned the monitor off when they swaddled him and handed him to me last night. Babies are never unplugged at Ste-Justine.

Actually, the fact that they swaddled him, handed him to me, and walked away last night was a huge deal. It meant that they trusted him to keep breathing, trusted him to keep control of his heart rate. And it also meant that they trusted me to hold him without direct supervision, for half an hour in swaddling and then an hour of skin on skin.

That's a big thing for a mother who's only been able to hold her infant for a total of an hour a day if she's lucky, and only after asking permission.

It's a big thing for HRH too, because he can hold the baby when he's swaddled and Liam doesn't fuss or get prickly from HRH's body heat. The climate control in this nursery is perfect, whereas in Ste-Justine they relied on an air conditioner in the window frame that had to be turned off a lot because of the circulation of cold and flu germs. There's lots of room, and you don't have to worry about bumping into someone or being in someone's way. There are lots of comfy glider rockers (we so need to find a secondhand glider rocker! I love them!) and good wooden chairs; there are privacy screens to use when you practice kangaroo care, and horizontal blinds on the viewing windows too to adjust to your comfort level. We love it.

Liam seems bigger in the LaSalle nursery, somehow. I think his isolette is a bit smaller, so he doesn't look as tiny. But the illusion helps us psychologically. They gave him a new hat, too, because the other one is so big. This one is a Wedgewood blue, and makes him look a bit like a gnome. We've brought his pretty one home and it's waiting for him. I was right; it goes very well with the lovely little boots Gran knit for him. And the whole family has new hospital bracelets.

After our long, long visit last night (gosh, but it was good to feel welcome instead of dumb and in the way!) we had to make a dash to the pharmacy to buy our first bag of diapers and take them back, as LaSalle doesn't supply them the way Ste-Justine did. They also don't have the milk storage facilities Ste-Justine has; the nurse told us that they could feed the entire ward for a week on what I'd banked so far! She packed up most of it for us to take home and keep in our own freezer because it was taking up too much room. They'll call us when we need to bring in more. The older nurse told me that the amount of milk I was producing was rather miraculous, and that we'd certainly never be in need for it. She also told me that when Liam starts on solids, instead of thinning the puree with water I could use my milk: this technique not only creates an enriched solid, but will help him digest it because we know he metabolises the milk perfectly well.

So there you are: Liam's doing wonderfully well, and so are we. Well, the humidity has HRH almost non-functional, but other than that, things are pretty good. Now if I could just get the damn book more back on track than it is...

It's The Little Things

Y'know, despite the big things I have to be thrilled about these days, there are little things that are sending me right round the bend.

Such as the fact that OUR ROAD DIDN'T GET PAVED YESTERDAY.

No. Instead they raked it all up again, and then rolled it flat again. Just like they've been doing for over a week now. Except this time they've lowered it so far as to make getting into the driveways over the sidewalk impossible unless you have an SUV or a pickup.

And then the water truck came and watered it twice. As it's done every second day for a week.

It looks -- LOOKS, mind you -- like they're trying to sink the drains today. I'll believe it when I see it. They began the roadworks around May 15; I know this because we dropped off boxes around the 14th and things were fine, and then the sidewalks were gone the next day. That's over thirty days of inconveniencing our neighbourhood. It's not the noise, or the fact that they're doing the drain and rebuilding the road from the ground up that irritates me; it's the fact that for sixty percent of the time we've lived here, we haven't been able to use our driveway safely. I'm kind of tired of the dust, too. Moving away from a major street was supposed to diminish the dust.

Grr.

Gratuitous Baby Pictures

I took that film in to be developed today so we have a handful more of images to show you, in celebration of his transfer:

Liam with his darling little knit cap:

And without:

Go on, squee. You know you want to.

(By the bye, that little afghan in which he's wrapped in that second photo is the one my grandmother sent us at the beginning of the pregnancy. It's the one we brought in to use when we practice kangaroo care.)

Hurrah

Two important things:

1. They are finally paving our road. You know, the road that was somewhat torn up before we moved in, and fully torn up the day I went into the hospital? The paving crew has finally gotten their act together. Good thing, too; everyone was getting a little tired of the no parking signs up for ages for no reason, and ignoring them.

2. Liam is at this very moment being transported to LaSalle Hospital. (Literally -- I just got the call confirming it.) He's so stable and doing so incredibly well that Sainte-Justine no longer needs to care for him; the regular nursery care of a non-specialised unit will be fine.

I am, of course, ecstatic. HRH is pleased but still has reservations, and won't be fully okay until we see Liam tonight in his new home-away-from-home. But that's all right; that's the way he is.

He's up to 30ccs per feeding (that's a total of about 8.5 ounces a day!), and he's gained weight again so he's only a breath away from his birth weight (not surprising, what with 8 oz of milk daily). I made sure to thank the head nurse when I spoke to her earlier today on the phone about the transfer, and to tell her how much we appreciated the care all the nurses in intensive and intermediate care had lavished upon Liam, and how good they'd been with us. (Mostly. It really wasn't the time to bring up the two or three aberrations.)

So after a brief engagement with a friend this afternoon (happy 25th birthday, Colleen!), I'll be calling LaSalle to get the latest info on Liam's whereabouts and status. I have no idea if he'll still be in an isolette or if he'll be swaddled in a regular bassinette, but I do know he'll still be plugged into monitors so they can keep an eye on his heart and respiratory rates.

I'm so proud of him for being so strong, and doing so well. And this is a giant step closer to bringing him home.

More Book Pictures

It occurs to me that I've been categorising my entries about the spellcraft book as "Writing". I wonder if I should be categorising them as "Books" now.

Nah. "Books" to me means other people's books.

More book pictures!

This is Scarlet's copy of Power Spellcraft for Life. Observe the orange sticky notes. Like me, Scarlet is an academic, and can't read a book without making notes on it. (I'll bet there's highlighting inside, too.)

This is Blade's copy. Note the presence of Cloak, the polydactyl (and demonic) cat preventing Blade from actually reading the thing. Ah, well, at least I know it's good for cat comfort as well as instructing...

"I'm On Chapter 6"

Ceri's the latest local caught reading the spellcraft book:

That's Tybalt with her. Ceri says, "We took this after Scott finished with the baby quilt photos. I suggested that I sit under the baby quilt while reading, but we figured you'd notice."

Anticipation

Ceri is a quilter, among other things (like professional writer, and saxophonist, and priestess, and editor, and so forth). And she's made a baby quilt for Liam.

I've been so, so good up till now while she's planned it and chosen fabrics and pieced it and quilted it. I really have.

But now the suspense is absolutely killing me, and I'm so giddy that I don't think I can make it to the reveal on Saturday without hurting myself.

Half-Asleep Morning Thoughts

Thinking about Ceri's kittens reminded me of feeding and caring for the litter of newborn kittens over at Scarlet's place almost three years ago. This morning, while waking up and thinking about Liam, my sleepy mind made a connection between going to see Liam and those kittens that my waking mind never could have made.

It was wonderful to watch them grow as I nursed them over those ten weeks, and part of the fun (once I'd accepted that I'd invested too much in the littlest one to give her to another home, that is) was looking forward to bringing a kitten home with me. Two or three times every day, I walked over to play with them, bathe them, prepare their food and feed them, and cuddle them. Scarlet and I were particularly worried about that tiniest kitten, the little black one, who was weaker than the rest and thus received an extra feeding per day and extra love to make sure she grew strong and well. Over those ten weeks, I wanted to bring that kitten home earlier, but it was best to leave her there for a variety of reasons.

And I thought this morning about how tiny Liam is, and how it's best to leave him where he is for now, and how much I want to bring him home. For now, though, I have to be happy with seeing him twice a day, bringing him cups and cups of milk with me each time, and cuddling him when I can. I can change him, and burp him after his gavage, and touch him gently through the portholes of his aquarium. It's a bit different, of course, as Liam is flesh of my flesh and all that, and the fighting desire to have him with me is much stronger than the coveting of a kitten. But I was patient before while I nursed weak little baby creatures and helped them grow big and strong; I can be patient again.

And Liam is two weeks old today. In six days his gestational age will be 34 weeks, that magic date that the doctors set as the safe minimum age at which to deliver him. Day by day; hour by hour. We may have bad days or weak moments, but we get through them. And every day is a day closer to having our family all together.

Locally Famous

Power Spellcraft for Life is popping up on various local in-progress reading lists. I am amused.

Success!

We have a fully assembled crib! And it's so beautiful!

(Oh, for a digital camera... you'll just have to wait until we develop this disposable camera next Monday, and I can scan the photos in on Tuesday.)

That didn't take long at all. And it was so easy that HRH intends to do the dresser next.

Later: And a fully-assembled dresser! They're just perfect. Although I think we'll have to move the armoire out of the room, because now you can't see the blue paint on the bottom half of the walls; there's too much furniture. So the armoire will go downstairs, and I think the chest I'm currently using as a night-table will be moved into Liam's room to store his linens and such instead.

Picture Call!

I like Blade's idea of a series of pictures capturing people reading my first book. Or pictures of my book in different situations and places.

It started with Airea; who will be next? Send your snaps to me and I'll post them, or post them on your own site or journal and I'll post the link to them!

(And if you send me the link, let me know if it's OK to snag the shot for myself as well, because I think HRH wants to make a photo collage of them to post on the Spellcraft page of my site. Heck, I might put it on the home page because I love you all so much.)

However

Not all of yesterday was horrible. Instead of going into work and leaving me a quivering mess because I hadn't been able to spend more than two minutes with the baby yesterday morning, HRH stopped by work and gathered the stuff he'd need to work at home, and we both took lots of breaks. It was nice having him here. I napped. We rented Finding Neverland to watch over lunch, which was excellent (although we both bawled at the end, and HRH says it ought to come with a warning label that says 'Do Not Watch While In A State Of Emotional Distress'). There was a time-out to go have Blizzards at the local Dairy Queen. And after the disaster of a late-afternoon visit to the hospital there was iced cappuccino to soothe upset feelings, and I took him out to buy him two new pairs of jeans. I had a warm bath, and purposely didn't turn on the computer all day. We rented Spiderman 2 to watch before bed (which was also excellent, but in a different way from the first one).

It was, in fact, an excellent day, as long as we don't count either hospital visit.

Today has been a similar kind of day. We didn't spend long this morning with the baby, because he was fussing a bit and we didn't want to overstimulate him. But we had a chance meeting with the nice lady doing that observational study, and had a lovely talk with her. She's promised to send us a copy of the study results when they're done in a couple of years, and said that she was truly glad to have met us, and to have worked with Liam because he was a wonderful subject to study. (Even with the determined removal of those straps and that mask, she said.) While we were there, though, I noticed that his hair is lightening even more, and he's gained a few more grams (but only a handful, probably because it was his first day off the IV).

Our main objective was to unpack a few more boxes and to prettify the new place today. We now have pictures on the walls, which has gone a long way to making the space feel even more lived-in. And there was a nap this afternoon in the sun, which was lovely. Now, I think, I will suggest putting the crib or the dresser together while Ceri's stuffed peppers and Luanna's second meatloaf heat up.

One Day At A Time

The preterm baby books tell us to take it one day at a time. One day can be up in the NICU, the next day, things may not be so good.

What they failed to clarify is that this applies to the parents, not just the preterm infant's status.

The past day and a half -- pretty much since I waved a deliriously happy Firewillow off with her new harp strapped into the back seat of her car -- has been the worst stretch of thirty-six hours since Liam was born.

Let me take a moment to assure my anxious readers that the baby is fine. Baby is more than fine. In fact, baby's doing so well that they took him off his IV, and he's now being nourished by breastmilk alone, 28 ccs of it per gavage feeding as of yesterday afternoon. (We have discovered that they augment the feeding by one cc every eight hours, if things are going well.) He's also weighing in at 1.701 kilos, which is only a few days away from 2 kg, one of the criteria for being removed from the isolette and placed in a regular bassinette. (After 2 kg infants usually have enough baby fat to regulate their own temperature and no longer require the climate-controlled incubator.) And today he completes 33 weeks of gestational age.

Yes, Liam's all right. HRH and I, on the other hand, are not.

Things have been happening in NICU that have been setting us both off, things beyond our control. And the little things have become the proverbial last straws that send us right over the edge. HRH and I are both polite, thoughtful, respectful people, and really, we're very understanding in most situations. We love most of the nurses, and they seem to really like us: we don't make trouble, we try to stay out of their way, we always say please and thank you and we smile a lot. (Liam's a really good baby, too, which helps because they like him for not being trouble, unlike most of his roommates.) However, things are understandably a bit tense in our lives right now, so when a new nurse whom we haven't previously met snaps at us or brushes us off, not displaying the same sort of respect to us that we offer them, we get a bit upset. That's my baby, you see. My baby, whom I am not allowed to have with me, who is kept in an institution where I have to visit to peer through a cage at him as if he were in a zoo. I get to see him for one hour in the morning through the plastic of his climate-controlled isolette, and one hour at night, in my arms if I'm lucky. So when I arrive at a time I think is good, and a nurse slaps me with a comment such as I could have come at a more convenient time to hold my son, and I dissolve into tears because all I want to do is hold my baby in the corner of the quiet room, and the other nurse's eyes blaze with indignation at how I've been treated...

Allow us say that we were not impressed with this particular nurse.

Let me get this straight: it's four-thirty in the afternoon, it's nice and quiet (a complete switch from that morning's crowded visit, where I couldn't be in the room because there were too many people doing nurse-type things and I felt like I was in the way, so I ended up seeing him for only two minutes after waiting outside in the hall for over half an hour trying not to cry or fall asleep and failing at both), and you're snapping at me that I can't kangaroo with my infant because you leave for dinner at six, and have to feed all the babies first, and there isn't enough time? I'm sorry; when did your personal schedule become more important than your job of fostering the relationship between me and my son? What about my schedule that I'm trying to bend in sixteen different directions, what about my husband's schedule, what about the baby's schedule?

The other mother in the room was shocked at what this nurse said, or more correctly, how she said it and the tone of voice in which it was said. Louise, the other nurse (whom we usually deal with in the evenings and whom we adore) was furious, absolutely furious. So furious, in fact, that when HRH went to go find me tissues because I couldn't stop crying after the nasty nurse thrust Liam into my arms, Louise caught him outside and was fairly vibrating with anger while she assured him that this nurse's behaviour was completely unacceptable. HRH let her in on how badly the morning visit had gone (he left out how his kangaroo the previous evening had had to be cut short because his body temperature was making Liam fuss and his heart rate go wonky, which upset HRH dreadfully because he felt like the only one-on-one thing he had with the baby was being taken away from him), and how fragile we both were -- as preterm parents are to begin with -- and off the indignant Louise went. I think she talked to someone higher up, because the nasty nurse was called out of the room, spoken to in the hall, then came back and was much nicer to me, and backpedaled a bit, saying she'd just been concerned that I would be disturbed while she fed the other babies, and that of course I could hold him for a full hour, she would feed him last. Making mothers cry is apparently frowned upon in NICU.

I was too understanding in return, too self-effacing: yes, I'm stressed, I'm tired, no, it's not just you, it just seems like it's never the right time when I come visit him.... If I'd had the presence of mind, I should have said some very pointed things to her. But I'm so tired of trying to communicate about medical stuff and sensitive personal stuff in French. I'm fluently bilingual (and a good thing too, because HRH gives it the good old college try, but just doesn't have the vocabulary for these situations), but when I'm stressed it gets harder to think in French; it's still my second language. And all I wanted to do was hold my baby at that point; I just wanted her to go away.

It could have been simple. We arrived at 4:30-ish and had to wait until she came back from wherever she was at 4:45 to ask for our hour of kangaroo care. She could have said calmly that ideally, it's best to hold them after they've been fed, and that feeding time was coming up. We would have said (as we tried to do) that we thought he ate at 6:00; that's what we've aways been told. She could have said that actually, feeding begins earlier than that, as it ends around 6:00. We would have said ah, we understand; next time we'll aim to be here a bit earlier, or come at our usual time of 7:30. In the meantime, could we please hold our baby for as long as possible, before he needed to be fed?

Instead, she snapped at us that it's not a good time because she has to start feeding them at 5:15 and he'd be overstimulated. So we stammered that we thought he ate at 6, and she brushed us off by saying that she goes for dinner at 6, so how could he be fed at 6:00? Besides, there were six babies in the room, how could they all be fed on the dot of 6:00? No, madam, it's not a good time at all. Come earlier next time if you want to hold him.

If I'd had the strength, I might have been angry. As it was, I just broke and cried. We thought we'd visit him before his six o'clock feeding, so as to have an early night instead of getting home at nine-thirty; we're very aware that we need a lot of sleep right now. You can be damned sure we'll never go back in the late afternoon, because I never want to deal with this nurse again. We'll stick with our evening visits, because we love Louise, and Francoise too, who's often there on weekends.

All we ask is respect, and to have the support that the NICU staff is supposed to be offering us. And we've received it from everyone except three nurses. (The first one I didn't hear about until about a week ago, because it was HRH alone who was trying to learn about some of the equipment Liam was being hooked up to, and he didn't understand a word the nurse used in French so he asked if she knew the English term. She told him snarkily that she couldn't (i.e. wouldn't) speak English because she was a Quebecoise. I flipped when he told me. He didn't get her name, unfortunately, because otherwise, I'd have reported her to the hospital ombudsman.) We've been very fortunate so far, and the staff have been very understanding and helpful. It's just that the past couple of days have had a speed bump or three.

So we'll go off in about half an hour or so and see him this morning, and we'll go in at our regular time of 7:30 tonight. And I think we'll pick up a little something nice for Louise, for being so kind to us last night.

Gifting

My father-in-law just showed up with a patio umbrella, which is the perfect size to shade the back deck.

And firewillow is on her way over, mumbling somewhat incoherently with joy and excitement, because she's taking home that lovely wire-strung harp that's been sitting in the corner for a couple of years. Since t! directed it into my hands, I played it enthusiasically for one summer, then put it aside because I joined orchestra and went full-time cello instead of scattering my musical energies. Now, because firewillow happened to mention harps on her LJ this afternoon, things went click-click-click into place, and t! has once again directed it into loving hands. I'm sending her home with the one harp book I can find, the stand HRH built for it, and the tuner I picked up as well. The other harp books will follow once I find them.

Life's pretty good.

One Of Us

Everyone's reading it. Really. Do you have your copy yet?

(I don't, of course, because my author's copies haven't arrived yet.)

The Morning News

26 ccs via gavage this morning. I have the suspicion that my son has a pocket dimension located in his stomach. This can be the only explanation for how much milk he's taking in. Eight feedings of 26 ccs each (assuming they don't bump it up yet again during the day) means he's taking almost a cup of milk a day.

And he lost his cord stump just after his bath this morning. Liam's gained a few more grams since yesterday afternoon, too. He got a spiffy little certificate of participation from the woman running the observation study, and it's been put in the scrapbook.

He's eleven days old. It feels like we've been doing this twice-daily trip forever, and yet it still seems surreal. He was really awake when we went in this morning, waving his hands and feet around in a friendly fashion (until bath time, that is). I love how he turns his face into his father's hand when HRH gently cups the top of his head. I love how he grabs onto my index finger and drags it to his open mouth, and then proceeds to suck furiously. (The strength of it shocked HRH when he offered his little finger for the same purpose.) He took his training pacifier for a bit longer today, too.

It was a good visit. But still, mankind isn't meant to be separated from its new young like this. It gnaws at me. I know he's in a good, safe place that is caring for him better than I could in this situation. But he belongs with us. And knowing that I had a baby and he's not here is just confusing my subconscious.

The Sound Of Stress Easing

My new deadline for the green witch book is July 25.

My editor has stressed that I'm not disappointing her at all, and that the situation is perfectly understandable. And she offered the extension.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But other employers I've had in the past wouldn't have been so understanding.

This plus the actual movement of word count yesterday have made me feel much better about the project in general.

Good Things

Total words, green witch book: 46,335
Total words today: 489

46,335 / 60,000 (77.2%)

Not the thousand I was hoping for, but it feels so, so good to have actually written something again instead of just reading through the MS and making notes in the places where work is needed.

And...

It seems that I fit into my size 5 miniskirts. (Yes, MLG, this particular news is pretty much just for your benefit.)

Thanks to all who patted my head after my moans of "it's not fair" earlier today. I'm better now.

Insert Pitiful Moan Here

I just want to bring him home. That's all. I don't want to spend two hours a day travelling to see him, or have to walk up to the hospital any more; I just want him home.

Liam Update

Liam's now at 1.67 kilos, and is taking 24 ccs at each feeding. We're not sure where he's putting it, because that's an awful lot of milk for someone whose tummy was the size of a chickpea last week, but it seems to be doing him lots and lots of good. They've changed his IV formula as a result, taking away the fats and fiddling about with the proteins; apparently he's getting pretty much what he needs from my milk, which almost makes up for the four hours a day I spend expressing the stuff -- almost. If I were actually nursing him, I'd love the time I spend doing it, but I have a love-hate relationship with my pump. It allows me to feed him, yes, and I'm so very thankful for that; but I resent the time I have to spend doing it when I have so much other stuff that needs to be done (including eating, and sleeping too). Besides, it's slightly uncomfortable. And frankly, it's boring; I can't even read while I do it.

Speaking of sleeping, we overslept the alarm again today.

But he was in a fine mood this morning, even if we were a bit later than usual. His eyes are open a lot more of the time, and wide open, too, not the sleepy squint he had last week. He can grab my finger and pull it to his mouth, and suck on it, which is remarkably heartening because it means that he's training himself for feeding from the breast. I have no idea how long it will be before we can give it a go; he needs to work up the correct strength and the ability to suck, swallow, and breathe all in the right order. Until then, it's feeding via gavage tube, and sucking on fingers. He gives the training pacifier a go for a suck or two, then lets it drop out of his mouth; fingers are warm and much more exciting, apparently. I would have to agree.

I'm so damned tired. The last week and a half is finally catching up with me. Now that I've eaten, I think I'm going to have to go lie down and read until I fall asleep. Or I will after I express again, damn it. It's the scheduling of the event that irritates me more than anything else. Can I nap, or shower, or make and eat lunch, or do I need to express first? Gah. No fun. No fun at all.

Only Human

I just wrote one of the most difficult e-mails of my life. I finally broke down and told my editor that what with the circus my life has become, there's a possbility that the green witch MS may not be in for the July 1 deadline.

I feel awful. I've never bucked a deadline before. I know I have a damn good reason for this one, but it's still tearing me apart.

Haven

I forgot to say that HRH finished painting Liam's room last night. It's wonderful; you can feel your blood pressure dropping and the tension easing out of your shoulders as soon as you step in, it's so calm. It's a beautiful sand colour on top, and a deep Wedgewood blue on the bottom. A pecan-stained chair rail will be put up between the two this coming weekend.

He didn't get to the chest of drawers or the crib, though. I'm impressed that he finished the room at all. We're moving a lot slower than our usual pace, and he forced himself to stay up until it was done. Perhaps not the best idea, but it's finished, and I love being in there.

Ready For My Close-Up, Mr DeMille

Liam is now up to 20 ccs of milk per feeding. I honestly think they're increasing it every time they feed him, or every second time.

Today was his first day of two days of participation in an observation study for ICU preterm infants. The study involves reducing the stimuli coming into the baby's awareness by putting little earcovers and a sleep mask on him, then recording vital signs over a four-hour period while videoing the whole thing. Tomorrow is his second go, where they'll record vitals and video for four hours without the stimulus reduction gear. A nurse approached me after he'd been born and talked to me about this study, which is being done by a PhD candidate from McGill. The theory is that in ICU there's a lot of sound and light and movement, and when you're that tiny it can be extremely overwhelming. (See here for an idea of what happens.) What if there was a way to keep preterm babies calmer by removing or reducing some of that overstimulation? It would allow them to focus their energy on healing and growing, instead of using up precious calories fussing and reacting to what's going on around them.

I read through all the material and the study proposal, talked it over with HRH, and signed the consent form. We'd already seen how much calmer Liam was when he wore his sleep mask to protect his eyes while under the phytotherapy lamp to treat his mild jaundice. Since we knew he was fine with the gear, we agreed in hopes that this data will help future preterm infants as well.

The woman leading the study called me yesterday to let me know that she'd be beginning to gather data from Liam today, but I didn't ask when. We go there around eightish, and there he was, all geared up, and messing about with the tiny velcro straps that held his mask and earcovers on. He'd already managed to pull it askew a couple of times in the two hours since the period of observation had begun. Perhaps I should have warned the woman that Liam, also known as Master Of My Own Destiny And I Want This Thing Off NOW, has already developed the incredibly impressive ability to rip off, pull out, and unplug almost anything attached to him. HRH had to undo the little straps and pull the sleep mask away from his mouth, where it had ended up after he'd tugged it. (In self-defense, sometimes the nurses tie little mitts on him so he can't grab whatever it is he wants to get rid of.) Once it was back on him tidily, though, he went back to being calm (not that he'd been fussing much to begin with). In fact, it stressed HRH out more than the baby. There's a nifty little globe camera that simultaneously broadcasts onto a flat screen monitor behind the isolette, so you can see Liam moving there too. When he had the mask and earcovers back on, he lay back in a relaxed position as if posing for the camera. (Come to think of it, he was much better with the flash from the diposable camera last night, too, and didn't turn away from it when we took photos of he and HRH together. This is also progress.)

His eyes are now open almost all the time when he's awake and we're there with him. He looks at us and interacts with us, and we can play with his hands and feet and he responds. Seeing the development between this time last week and today is phenomenal. Preterm infants don't need a lot of stimulation since they're so sensitive, so gentle touching and talking is all we do and he seems to like it a lot. We watch for his overstimulated cues and end the visit if he begins to get overtired, after soothing him and trying to ease him into sleep. (Baths overstimulate him; feeding does not. His personality is already becoming evident to us!)

And more joy: we asked about a parking pass, since we're paying anywhere between five dollars and eleven dollars twice a day to use the hospital lot depending on how long we're there for. We learned that as long as Liam's in the hospital, we can buy a week's pass for $25, or a 30-day pass for $45. Even if Liam ends up being transferred elsewhere at 34 weeks (and there's no guarantee, even with the scarcity of apneas and bradys, and the excellent growth and feeding) the 30 day pass is worth the money. What a relief! I wish we'd asked when I checked out last week, but we didn't think of it, particularly since while I was in hospital HRH usually found metered parking on the road. This, alas, is no longer the case due to the times at which we visit.

Today: green witch stuff. Or Else!

*blink* *blink*

My spellcraft book is on Ceri's Bedside Reading list.

What an odd feeling.

Better Late

I know I'm a week behind everyone else, but:

The Invisible concert so completely rocked!

Yes, I finally had the chance to watch the video, and wow, guys, you are all so amazingly cool. I can see why you're leaning in an originals-only direction: your stuff is fantastic. I loved A-D-E. Once it started I was killing myself laughing, and HRH had to ask what the joke was.

I am smitten with the lead guitarist. He's so calm and collected on stage, and his playing rocks. And he has a lovely amp. (And he's married to one of my best friends. But still.)

The opening act was some band I'd never heard of, but it was interesting. I'm looking forward to hearing what they can do with more songs, now that they've got a brief stage appearance under their -- er -- halter tops, and a shot of excellent, well-deserved confidence. Their arrangements are kind of neat, rather different, and very creative.

Liam News!

He gained not one, but two ounces yesterday.

And he's eating 17 ccs per feeding now. Basically, they're bumping him up one to two ccs per day, depending on how much milk is left in his stomach before the next feeding. (So far, it's been nothing left, so they add another cc to the syringe, because if he's digesting it, hey, give him more!)

We can see that he's beginning to fill out a bit: his cheeks have a bit more definition, and you can't see his ribcage along his back. His chest also isn't quite as concave-looking,; he seems a bit more baby-like there as well. It's nice to have visual proof that he's gaining weight and doing so well. We see him every day, so it's hard to mark a difference from one day to the next, but thinking back to how he looked a week ago, there's definitely progress.

And while he's packing on the ounces, I'm dropping pounds despite the amount I'm eating. Thirteen of them, as a matter of fact. I weighed myself the night that I came home from the hospital and was slightly stunned to see that I hadn't lost any weight at all; I was expecting to see a drop of at least four pounds (you know, one less baby plus amniotic fluid plus placenta, at least four less pounds, and usually more?). But when I weighed in last night, I was equally stunned to see that my weight had dropped back down to only five pounds over my original pre-pregnancy weight. The books weren't kidding when they told me that there's a lot of fluid retained in pregancy, and lost in the first couple of weeks post-delivery. Wow.

I'm still wearing maternity clothes, though, because they're comfortable, and because they're loose-ish. And because, damn it, they're pretty, I like them, and I'm going to get my money's worth out of them.

HRH gets to cuddle Liam tonight in celebration of Father's Day. Yes, I will have the disposable camera to hand. And the pictures will go into the lovely scrapbook that my in-laws' neighbour Cheryl made for us. Let it be known that Cheryl is a brilliant scrapbook artist, and the book she put together for Liam is spectacular. I shall bring it to the shower so that everyone can ooh and aah. Thank you, Cheryl!

Happy Father's Day...

... to every single dad I know (and wow, that includes a lot of personal friends around my age). A special "yay" goes out to my own dad and my father-in-law, both of whom get to celebrate their very first Father's Day as granddads.

And, of course, to HRH, who is my very own Mr. Incredible. I would not be sane at the moment were it not for him and his superpowers. (Besides, he let me kangaroo with Liam last night even though it was his turn, just so he could cuddle him on Father's Day.)

Focus? What Is Focus?

I get to see my baby in about two hours. And hold him, too, for a whole hour this time.

You know, the worst thing about this whole preterm birth thing is that I was pregnant, and now I'm not, and I don't have a baby to show for it. I mean, sure, I have a baby, but he's not here. He's somewhere else. It's odd to have gone through the whole huge birth event, and now to be back doing the same sort of mundane thing I was doing beforehand. Or trying to do it, anyhow, interspersed with lots of time spent in the baby's room with the impersonal pump.

In other news, the green witch book is not a disaster. It is, however, incomplete. 45K isn't bad at all, but it just doesn't feel anywhere near done. I think it's because my last two books were 80K long, and this one is contracted to be only 60K. I'll have no problem making up that last 15K, what with all the meditations and rituals to go in, but the balance of the book still doesn't feel quite right.

Well, that's what revisions and editing are for: making it right with someone else's input.

Did I Mention Tired?

1. Two visits to the hospital daily, plus travel time and doing at-home stuff (or work, in HRH's case) is beginning to take its toll.

2. HRH got to hold Liam last night for almost a whole hour. This was the first time he'd ever held him, period. It did both of them a lot of good. Yes, I got pictures.

3. Evidently Liam absorbed some of HRH's appetite while they cuddled yesterday, because his feedings have increased from 8 ccs yesterday to 11 ccs after our visit last night. Woo-hoo! (Two days ago it was only 6 ccs per feeding. Hungry little chap. That's fine, there's more than enough milk for him.)

4. We went out to dinner last night, and I ordered a glass of white wine. The waiter came back and told me it was warm and he couldn't serve it yet, and would I like something else? I said no, just give me water, and proceeded to fight back a welling up of irritated tears. A glass of wine, for heaven's sake. Did I mention that I was tired? (The flank steak with bordelaise sauce made up for the wine disappointment, although the rice was flabby and the vegetables overcooked. So dinner was basically steak and iced lemon water. Why can't I ever remember that Pizzadelic does good pasta, amazing pizzas, wonderful meat, and lousy everything else?)

5. We had a lovely short visit with Jeff and Paze last night, where they fed us lemon bars and gave us tons of their baby stuff. We haven't had the energy to go through the bag of clothes and toys yet, but HRH has installed the car seat and keeps sneaking looks at it while he drives.

6. I get my hour of holding Liam tonight, and it's what's keeping me going today. I asked HRH to drop me off at home directly after the hospital this morning, instead of me taking him to work and having the car all day. This way I can't say, "Oh, I'll just run this errand, and then this one," and end up with only three hours at home on my own before having to leave to pick him up for the evening visit to the hospital. I can't jam everything I have to do into three hours; I just can't. Eating, working, a nap, and an awful lot of time spent expressing milk doesn't physically fit into three hours.

7. I unpacked four of the five remaining boxes in my office this morning. The last one is in the corner under the shelves, so it's out of the way. The cello is finally out and in its stand, too.

8. When we arrived at the hospital this morning Liam had just had his bath, and he was lying quietly with his eyes wide open, looking at us. Usually he has rather sleepy eyes, but today he was quiet and alert. He kept trying to pull his blanket over to suckle on the edge of it, and if that didn't work he tried his hand, and then his IV plug. It will be interesting to see what he tries to do when I hold him tonight. And when the nurse fed him, she let me reach into the isolette to prop him up and burp him. (Not that there was a lot of air to come up; he's being fed through a tube, after all.) Plenty of hands-on time; I love it. I want more, of course, but overstimulating the little thing is not a good idea. He's officially minus two months old today.

9. Lunch must now happen. (Luanna's meatloaf! Yay!)

In Praise of Lu

When I got to the Random Colour meeting on Tuesday night, Luanna was waiting with a bag of food.

Seriously. There was meatloaf and spaghetti sauce. And I thought, well, that's nice -- unnecessary but nice, because it's not like the baby's at home running us off our feet, after all.

But in the past two days they've come in awfully handy, because HRH either comes home and we have twenty minutes before we head off to the hospital, or I dash out before dinner to pick him up and we do that hospital thing, and we don't get home until long after the dinner hour, already tired. It's nice to just pop something into the oven.

Let me tell you, Luanna makes the most amazing meatloaf we have ever tasted. It's tender and moist and has what must be handfuls of delicious herbs flavouring it. And you can't have a single crumb, because it's all ours.

Thursday

Liam gained almost two ounces yesterday!

And this time last week, I was in the hospital because of serious premature contractions. It feels like forever ago.

A parcel from my parents arrived today, with a book on preterm infants (already on chapter three!) and little treats for Liam and I. The congratulatory cards from family have begun to arrive as well, this first one with a cheque which will make a significant dent in baby costs. We went out with HRH's parents last night and they paid for his change table/dresser as well as putting almost half down on the crib, which was a lovely gift. I think putting the new baby furniture together will be HRH's way of celebrating Father's Day. And I'm all for it; I love the baby's room, but it will feel more baby-like with the crib. Of course, I'll be writing all weekend, except for when he needs another set of hands, but I think he'll do just fine. We've finalised the room's paint colours too (Debbie Travis' new paint collection is simply loverly) and everything's coming together quite well.

The Wicca proofs arrived at the publisher's in time for them to include my edits, hurrah! On the other hand, my read-through of the green witch book still isn't finished, although I'm heartened by what's there at the moment. There's one chapter so far that has an intro and nothing else, so I think that's what I'll think about today, and draw up a detailed outline. It's on the four seasons, and I want to have meditations for each one as well as suggestions for connecting to the seasonal tides depending on where you live. Come to think of it, the chapter just before it is missing the required meditations too. If all I do for the next little while is create meditations, I'm going to keep putting myself to sleep. That's nice for the rest factor, but not so good when I need to be writing.

Sometime during my hospital stay, I began to enjoy drinking milk again. They gave me a little 200 ml carton with each meal, and I drank every single one. Now I'm drinking two or three glasses a day at home, too. I went off milk for about ten years because of the taste, preferring to get my calcium from yummy stuff like cheese and ice cream. But the milk thing isn't so bad, now. Evidently the chemical shifts in my own body have prompted changes in my food habits as well.

And they still haven't paved our road. You know, the one whose edges and sidewalks they tore up before the move? They ground up the remainig asphalt the day I went into hospital, and it still hasn't been paved. It's a gigantic mud puddle, and has been closed to traffic for three days now. Soon would be nice, so I can park in my own driveway during the day instead of on the next street over. They keep making it seem like they're about to do it by sending the little steam roller up and down, but then they do nothing to keep it flat.

Right. Back to the green witch MS in the living room, notebook by my side and pen in hand.

Sleepy Now

Must nap. Going cross-eyed from reading the green witch MS that I printed out yesterday.

Before I do, however, I can direct people who are craving more pictures of and info regarding Liam to the Newt page, which was set up way back when and kept private for only a handful of people to check. This page served as an update for family from the first OB/GYN appointment and ultrasound onwards.

It also links to what I called the Newt Chronicles, the private journal posts about how the pregnancy was progressing. If you feel like reading them, they're all public now.

And please, people: his name is not Willie, Bill, or any sort of diminuative like that. He is called Liam. The End. Please use his name, not a code or initals or anything else you think is cute. Certain people have been authorized to use fists and violent action if you are overheard using anything other than the chosen nickname. And no, we aren't telling you who they are. Live in fear.

Off to lie down now.

Daily Liam Content

It was hard to drag myself out of bed this morning after last night's lateish Random Colour meeting, and even harder to do the milk thing. I got to the hospital feeling a bit cloudy. But then the sun broke through those clouds and I was suddenly very much awake, because we discovered Liam lying there without his oxygen tube: they'd removed it sometime between when we left last night and midnight, and he'd been breathing completely on his own for over twelve hours. Not only that, but he was being transferred from neonatal ICU to intermediate care. And he was being fed completely with my own breastmilk, and he was keeping it all down, unlike the blend of breast and formula milk they'd been giving him earlier. And on top of that, we got to take him out and cuddle him en kangourou for the very first time.

When they told me what was about to happen and directed me to go change out of my sweater, I locked myself in the bathroom and proceeded to cry. Every time I see him, all I want to do is take him out and hold him: I crave that closeness. So to walk in and hear that not only is he breathing without aid, but he's being transferred and I was being given the opportunity to do what I've been desperately wanting to do since he was born, really sort of nudged me over the edge.

So I sat down in the rocker, and our nurse Julie took him out of the incubator and tucked him against my chest, upright between my breasts, and we tucked my gown around him and his little flannel blanket too. His heart calmed down, and his breathing steadied even more; I could feel him relaxing into me, and his little fists making slight kittenish kneading movements, and his lips making little suckling motions against my skin, and my own heart nearly burst.

I held my baby for nearly a half hour, and HRH sat next to us and wiped away the tears that kept welling up in my eyes. That lovely little hat he's wearing was put on him by the nurse to keep him warm while he was out of the incubator; I have no idea if it's his now, or if it's part of the unit's standard supply of baby wear, but it looks very much like someone knit it with a lot of love: it even has a tiny knobbly thing sewn on the front like a bow. It looks remarkably like the little things my own grandmother used to make for the neonatal ICU at the Vancouver hospital while she volunteered there, and in fact would match the little boots she knit for Liam perfectly. It's much too big for him at the moment, as you can see from the photo (it was folded up almost in half!), but it serves its purpose. The hat is now perched amusingly in the incubator on what used to be the clip that held the respirator tubes in place, and looks very jaunty.

Julie took our very first family portrait for us:

We get to kangaroo him every day, because it strengthens the infant's confidence and feeling of security, among other things (it also allows the parents an opportunity to further bond with the baby, for example, and to relive some of the stress of separation on both sides). Tomorrow will be HRH's turn, and I'll have the chance to watch my husband and my baby cuddle together, and gently dab away his own tears.

Then Liam was packed up into his incubator again and all the transfer paperwork was signed. Julie took him across the unit to intermediate care, where he was parked in a room with four other babies and two or three nurses. He's still hooked up to a monitor, but not the same kind of big graph monitor with alarms he was connected to in the neonatal ICU; this one has a digital numerical display instead. It was a bit disconcerting to see him go from being the biggest baby in the ward to the smallest, but he'll keep growing and getting stronger, and in no time at all he won't look so tiny.

He's four days old, and we've had two milestones today already. All we hope for is every day to be a little better. To receive a gift like this is beyond what we could have expected.

More Gushing and Book Geekery

I was told on Sunday that out of the 35 copies of the spellcraft book placed out on the shelves of the local metaphysical bookstore last Tuesday, only 4 copies remained. I presume that those too have been sold by now.

I think I have every right to be thrilled about that kind of sell-through. The shop will have to reorder, after a huge initial shipment, and it's only been a week.

And it's official: the solitary Wicca book I finished proofing in hospital doesn't suck. In fact, a lot of it is really good. There are a couple of chapters that I think are too sketchy, but really, they're the type of subjects that each require at least a book-length work to explore them thoroughly, so I'm all right with that.

And I've tried to read it, but I can't seem to see what sort of shape the green witch manuscript is in. I think I'm going to have to print it out in order to read it and internalise it, which I don't really want to do because it will use so much paper. I need to plug into it quickly, though. What with the move, then Wicca proofs eating up a week originally alloted to green witch work, and then that sudden case of baby thing stealing another week from the schedule, I'm really running a tight deadline for a July 1 delivery of this manuscript.

Social Update

Again, because people have begun to inquire, I'm disseminating the info here:

The Housewarming: is off, folks. Sorry. We'll do an afternoon open house after Liam comes home, how's that? You can see the new place and the new baby at the same time.

The Shower: if you were on the invitation list (and although we'd have loved to have everyone there, we had to keep numbers low), know that yes, it's still on!

The July 1 Concert: is still on, but I will not be playing in it.

Any other social event I was to be involved in over the next month is on a case-by-case basis, depending on when it is and how I'm feeling.

As you were!

Later: Oh, crap; I have a birthday coming up too. This is ridiculous.

More Liam Info, Because You've Asked

We saw Liam this morning, and he's gained an ounce in a day! He's pretty much back at his birth weight now, after losing a handful of grams in the first couple of days. He was off the oxygen tube when we got there, because he'd just had his bath, and we watched him breathe really well on his own.

His eyes are so beautiful. They're the usual cobalt blue that babies are born with, but to see him turn his head and focus on us, and peer at us when we talk to him fill my heart to overflowing. The colour of his hair is very close to HRH's own hair colour, although like the eyes, that will undoubtedly change.

He has the most adorable little sneezing attacks that make me laugh. I shouldn't laugh, but it's so cute. And he's still irritated with the breathing tube, grabbing it with one hand or another and trying to pull it out. Again, we just have to laugh: we know it's uncomfortable, but to see him crinkle up his little face and try to yank it away is so amusing. We unwrap his little hand from the tube and pull it away gently, tease him by saying that it's his own fault for being so impatient to be with us, and tell him that the tube is there to help train his lungs and chest muscles to get stronger so that he will be able to breathe all on his own.

He didn't keep his milk blend down at his midnight feeding, nor the water they tried to give him at four this morning, but hey, give the kid a break: he's three days old and still really new at the whole breathing/eating thing. He was supposed to be cheerfully absorbing nutrients through me for another nine weeks, after all. The fact that he can eat and breathe with such success on his own at all is impressive.

I know you're all anxious to meet him, and we'd love to bring him home, but the reality of the situation is that most preterm infants stay in hospital almost to their original projected week of birth, which makes a lot of sense. As soon as he no longer needs the intensely specialised care that Ste-Justine's Hospital provides for preterm infants, then he'll be transferred to LaSalle, the hospital we were originally working with, until he's able to come home. There are a number of factors which will determine the transfer and eventual release, such as how well he eats, his improvement in breathing and processing of food, weight gain, significant reduction in apnea, and so forth. Until then, don't worry, we'll keep mentioning how he's doing so you're all up to date. Don't expect me to talk about Liam exclusively, however; just as my pregnancy wasn't a main topic of my journal entries, neither will he be. But this is a good method of getting news out there instead of calling people or answering the phone endlessly, telling people the same thing over and over when I need the time to rest or eat or work.

Speaking of eating and working... away I go. For those who have been wondering about the Wicca proofs, I finished them up in hospital (not like there was much else to do when I wasn't delivering a baby!), and they were FedExed back to the publisher this morning. They should arrive in time to slip into the system and have my changes included. (Apparently one of the things I said to the doctor who admitted me after my transfer on Thursday was, "I can't have a baby -- I have two deadlines before the end of June!")

In Praise of Jen

Let it be known that Jen Zouak is a saint and a savior, and deserves fulsome praise for her generosity. I called her for info on a pressing (and in my case, essential) piece of mothering equipment, since she'd given me a recommendation months ago, and she ended up saying, "Look, why don't you just borrow mine? I'm not really using it any more, and I have a backup just in case."

So we went out right after dinner and picked it up. Not only did she save us about four hundred dollars on that bit of equipment, she also lent us a sterilization unit for when we'll eventually be using bottles.

Thank you, Jen. You're wonderful.

Introducing...

Liam was born on June 11 at 2.31 AM after a very short and intense labour and delivery. He was born at 31 weeks, which is nine weeks earlier than we expected. Every single doctor we've spoken with has told us that the reasons for premature labour are unknown, but whatever the cause, Liam has been wowing doctors and nurses with his size and weight (45 cm and 3 lbs 14 oz at birth), and the maturity of his lungs (apparently not many 31-week infants arrive expressing themselves vocally as he did).

Liam is currently in the neo-natal intensive care unit of the hospital, in the caring and capable hands of a terrific team of specialists. He's begun to eat, and his breathing is being supported by an oxygen tube to help further train his lungs.

We'd like to thank everyone who's offered us support since I went into the hospital on Thursday morning. Your good wishes and prayers are certainly among the reasons why I'm in as good health as I am, why HRH isn't insane, and why Liam is as stable as he is.

We would, however, ask that you be very patient with us over the next while. Not only have we just gone through a rather strenuous ordeal, we're leading double lives at work/home and at the hospital until Liam is strong enough to come home with us. If you call or write, chances are good we won't be getting back to you for some time. It's nothing personal; it's a matter of having the time and needing rest. If we need help or advice, rest assured that we will come to you. We need a lot of alone time right now, and grounded people around us. Please don't panic; dealing with the fears of others doesn't do much for our own reserves of energy. (And really, why should you panic when we're not?)

Again, please let us stress that both mother and baby (and father) are doing just fine; in fact, mother and baby have suitably impressed the hospital staff with their resilience and strength since the moment they were transferred into specialised care.

Liam is a very special person to us, and we're looking forward to a day when we can introduce him to you all.

Sentimental Moment

I just finished proofreading the Wiccaning ritual that I wrote for this book, and I'm all choked up and misty-eyed.

Good grief.

Galley Status

I've proofed eight full chapters of the Wicca galleys now, and I'm pleased to say that I don't hate it. In fact, I don't recognise most of it, and this surprises me not at all, as I was so overloaded with work during those two months that all I really remember of it is gritting my teeth and producing word count. So far, nothing has made me cringe, or roll my eyes, or want to weep. There are a few places where I wish I could have gone into more detail, and I'm sure some readers will be snarky and say the same thing, but there just wasn't time. Too, there was almost 10K cut out of the book, so some of that detail was originally there but has been lost due to space constraints.

Some chapters are weaker than others. For example, the chapter on sabbats and esbats adds absolutely nothing to the body of work already out there. On the other hand, the chapters on enriching ritual and designing rituals are really decent.

Now on to rites of passage, and the chapter on writing invocations etc (which I'm sure will be one of my favourites). I think that's all there will be time to proof before I have to leave for an appointment. I wanted to courier these back late this afternoon, but I don't think that's going to happen; I'll end up FedExing them tomorrow afternoon instead, overnight to meet the Friday deadline. I'm having trouble focusing for long periods of time, and I'm just so not in the mood to read material on Wicca at the moment, even if it is my own material on Wicca.

How Appropriate

Well, look at that: there's an online version of the article I wrote on responsible cyberscholarship for the Midsummer issue of Wyntergreene.

My Biggest Fan

HRH called when he got to work to tell me that he's really enjoying my book.

He got a bit misty when he read the acknowledgements in the store yesterday, and grinned a lot when he saw that in the kitchen magic section there was a spell with his name in it based on the special coffee I make for him. But to hear him say that he'd started reading it from the beginning, and that he understood it, and that he liked it meant a lot to me. Sure, he knows all this stuff; he's co-taught bits of it with me. But I have that nasty habit of reading what I've written and thinking that I'm stating the obvious, because I know all this already (duh). So to know that what I'm saying gets through to a reader who self-defines as "not the word guy", and that it makes sense, and that it's written in an enjoyable and accessible style is important to me.

And, oddly enough, when he said, "I know I'm kind of biased," I said, "No, no you're not." HRH doesn't read a lot of this kind of stuff. Yes, he teaches it, but he draws from an experiential pool of knowledge; he's not a researcher. So I do value his opinion about it. Possibly more so because he chose to read it on his own, instead of as a result of me handing it to him and saying, "Can you read this and let me know what you think?"

When we walked into the store together yesterday, there were a handful of copies of my book on the new releases shelf, right above the new issue of WynterGreene, which just so happens to feature a colour cover done by HRH in one of his computer animation programs. And the journal was right next to the copies of Hobbes' book You Don't Know Jack, the cover and interior illustrations of which are also done by HRH. "Look," he said. "It's our own little corner, with all our work on display."

Indeed.

I hope I never lose that feeling of pride when I see our work on a shelf somewhere. And seeing work by both of us in such close proximity made me even more proud.

In Which She Flutters Embarrassingly About Her First Published Book

Roo made a loverly, loverly display of my books at the bookstore. There's a two by three foot cardboard standee of the cover in front of the display, too, which means they actually made publicity materials to market it! (I'm a book business geek, okay?) And the store printed out a sign to fasten to the top corner of the pancarte which said that this was the first book ever written by a store employee, and that they were proud to carry it, and congratulations to me. (I think that plus the pancarte was the thing that affected me the most.)

The cover looks fantastic -- matte, all the colours of the brown crinkled leather-effect turned out marvelously well, and (get this!) they didn't do the standard final trim on the vertical edge of the pages, so they're soft and uneven, like an old book, which matches the design of the cover beautifully. It looks better than I ever could have dreamed!

That was all I needed to see, really, because I know what it looks like inside; I edited the full proofs, after all. But HRH picked it up and started thumbing through it, and I saw that the pages were a lovely soft cream colour, not a glaring slick white.

And then HRH laid it on the counter in front of Scarlet and said, "I'll take it."

"Don't do that," I said. "We'll wait for my author's copies."

"No," he said, "I want to buy it."

And then I realised that he really did want to buy it, partially because there's something remarkably thrilling about buying a book by someone you know personally, partially because he was just bursting with pride, and partially because he wants to show it off to people. Besides, we have no idea when my copies will come in. And I was so touched.

By far the oddest thing, however, was Roo and Scarlet pushing copies of the book across the counter to me with a pen to sign them with huge proud smiles on their faces. Blade did the same thing later. (And, as he points out in his earlier comment, "The important author lady scribbled in my book and ran away just like a real important author person does when approached by funny looking fanboys!") I've been asked to come back in over the next couple of days to sit down and sign what's in stock, which feels a little awkward, but having done the book retailer thing for over a decade, I know how cooled out people get when they buy a signed book.

More geekery: I checked the spellcraft book's page view stats over at Witchvox, and discovered that I'm right behind Chris Penczak's Witch's Shield, and a couple of books ahead of Silver's latest book. This tickled me, because I know both of them personally, and because both those books are pretty good. I feel like I'm in wonderful company because they're biggish names with several published works, and because they're good people, too, which also makes me feel good by association.

I woke up in a rather flat mood, but reading all the notes and messages both here and in my in-box from people offering their congratulations have cheered me up a lot. Thank you, everyone.

Finally, We Can Announce With Pride:

I just got off the phone with Roo.

Power Spellcraft for Life: The Art of Crafting and Casting for Positive Change has arrived at last on the shelves of Montreal's local metaphysical store.

My very first published book is now officially available for in-person purchase.

I think I would be a lot more excited if I didn't have two-thirds of another book to finish proofing today and send back.

I do have to go out to the post office today, and there just so happens to be one a couple of doors down from the bookstore. Since I haven't received my author's copies yet, and I've never seen the actual bound book, I may swing by this afternoon to hold one in my hands and get a bit choked up. Yes, perhaps that's what I'll do; pick up HRH at the end of his day, go to the post office downtown, then the bookstore, and then Ikea.

It May Work For You Too

Here's one of the ways I deal with this nasty humidity:

I close the windows in the morning once the air coming in begins to be just hot instead of a cooling breeze. Then I turn a couple of the ceiling fans on to circulate what cool air is inside. If there's direct sunlight coming in a window, I close the curtain or blind.

Voila: Cooler air is trapped indoors, and is moved around by the fans. No warm air gets in to heat it up. I open the curtains or blinds once the sun's low enough that it's not streaming in and baking the place, and I open the windows themselves once the day's humidity and heat has dissipated somewhat.

On And On

The boxes of books are all gone. Half my books are up on shelves. And I'm on chapter 6 of the Wicca proofs. Go me!

Irony

I'm using my proofs and unpacking as breaks from each other. I edit for a bit; then I unpack for a bit; then I go back and edit for a bit.

We installed the shelves in the bookcases this morning. HRH brought up piles and piles of book boxes, finding my six missing office boxes along the way. There are now maybe a quarter (or a sixth, I can't decide) of my books in the living room. (I found ai731's copy of The Bone People so I can read it! Hurrah!)

I can't do anything with the office boxes. Why? Because we need to hit Ikea first to buy a second six-foot end bit to extend the current Ivar shelf unit that I have, which is what we've decided to do instead of building the two shorter units, stacking them on top of one another, and fastening them with brackets.

::headdesk::

Tomorrow night. Ikea, tomorrow night.

The maple tree is in the midst of dropping its propeller-like seeds, and when today's east wind kicks up it blows them right against the front of the house. The cats lining the patio doors that lead onto the front balcony alternately flee in terror from the attack, or get tremendously excited and try to catch them through the screen door.

It Says So Right Here

Solitary Wicca For Life, page 58:

Allowing yourself to relax can be a remarkably challenging act.

And on the same page:

It's all too easy to doubt what you're doing.

I know what I'm talking about.

The Holy Zone

Every once in a while as I edit my proofs, I come across a turn of phrase that makes me stop and blink. Sometimes the blink means "What on earth was I thinking?" but sometimes the blink is in appreciation of how I expressed a thought.

So far in Chapter Three of these galleys, my blink has been at this phrase:

Therefore, a circle's primary purpose in Wicca is not to defend us from evil, but to separate us from everyday surroundings and place us within a holy zone closer to the gods.

A holy zone. I have never, ever heard a circle referred to in that way before. In fact, I have no recollection of using the phrase at any time, either in class as I teach or even when I wrote this book. (Mind you, I don't remember much about writing this book. It's mostly a blur.) Despite this, and despite the oddness of the phrase, it strikes me as a decent analogy. Not pretty, but decent.

Rain And Plants And Other Stuff

It has finally begun to rain, glory be. Right on schedule, of course, since HRH drenched all our new plants and flowers yesterday with our new garden hose. I thought I saw faint lightning at around fourish, and heard very quiet thunder around fiveish. The weather bureau's been promising thunderstorms for two days now, with no return. I would like it to rain and rain and rain today. I shall be very put out if this gentle beginning trails away without ever reaching a Storm of Any Substance. I want my thunderstorm.

New plants? Yes, there was a trip to the garden centre yesterday morning, and the acquisition of many bags of black earth, and several flats of pansies, cosmos, wave petunias, alyssum, and various herbs. No vegetables other than peppers, alas; we must seek them elsewhere. Coven became cheerfully involved in the preparation of the vegetable bed for those peppers and the future peas, beans, onions, potatoes, and so forth, for this constituted that the beginning of our harvest ritual. Gods, it's so good to actually have the land and garden beds to do this!

Coven was basically touching base and enjoying each others' company yesterday, which was nice on one hand and regrettable on the other. I would have liked to have had something more substantial happen, as we missed last meeting due to that move thing. The revised plan for the meeting included planting vegetables we'd use in our harvest feast, but since we didn't find anything other than the pepper plants, that plan was unfortunately scuttled. (We did plant wildflower and nicotina seeds instead, which means we'll have pretty things on the altar for offerings in the future, but it wasn't the same.) Originally this meeting called for a dark moon ritual, but we have no area here where we can hold circle yet, and in fact we're still mystified as to where we're going to put a permanent altar, let alone do ritual at all. I know I'll have a small permanent wall altar in my office, but it's nowhere big enough for a full coven rit. We also know we'll have a small shelf altar somewhere in the living room, but thanks to my inability to move boxes we're not as unpacked as I'd like us to be, and so we haven't found the altar boxes yet to locate the deity statues and the hearthstone. We'll likely end up pushing back chairs and chesterfield in order to set up a temporary full altar in the living room for coven circles, and there's nothing wrong with that; it's just that I've been spoiled by having a permanent full altar in a room large enough for full coven rituals over the past seven years.

So we made plans, and talked about lessons and various things, and they heartily approve of the new place. They're the first guest-type people who have come over, so the response was nice to have. The next meeting is the solstice ritual, so we have two weeks to find the altar boxes. Since the living room is now painted, and I can put a serious dent in the pile of boxes left downstairs, we should find them quite easily by then, along with the missing office boxes and bedroom boxes too.

Still Impressing Ourselves

"We so rock," announced our drummer, "and I should know." She should; she is The Rocking Thing, after all. Random Colour just gets better and better.

ai731 and I now both have amplifiers. The local independent music shop loves us. While this may be due to the combined amount of money we spent, I prefer to think that it has to do with our sparkling personalities. I finally have my Yorkville AM 100, and she has the Yorkville AM 50, which makes her guitar sound even more fantastic. (It has a magic button in the middle where if you press it, everything goes even sweeter.) Gods help us, we bought matching amps. This amused us. And we had ever so much fun playing about with them at rehearsal. We can hear each other clearly! All four instruments are balanced! The sound is lush and full! I'm quite looking forward to Monday night's meeting when we add our vocalist into the mix and hear how the entire ensemble now sounds.

HRH did indeed paint the living room while I was gone. He also put up a new fan, vacuumed and mopped, cleaned the deck table and chairs with bleach, connected the hose, and watered the plants in the back and side gardens. I'm terribly impressed.

Messing About Saturday Morning

The fridge is plugged in, operational, and has been wedged into the fridge space. HRH raised the bottom of the over-fridge cabinet by removing the doors, gently applying a hammer in key places to raise the bottom of the cabinet, and then rehanging the doors. We have food in the fridge, after a remarkably gleeful grocery spree. We are very happy.

The first chapter of the Wicca book is fragmented and feels vaguely incoherent when I read through it. Of course, it's kind of meant to be a quick refresher on basic themes for someone who already knows about this stuff, but the superficiality still makes me uncomfortable. I know I'm deeply critical of my own work. Still, I was quite relieved to hit the second chapter, which actually begins doing what the book professes to do -- namely, pulls apart stuff people do just because they've been told to do it, and looks at the whys and the individual steps associated with each.

Amp shopping with ai731 at noon (yes, it's her turn to mess about with cords and loud stuff, and I will buy mine today if it's in stock, hurrah!), then band practice. And then lovely salmon steaks for dinner with rice, perhaps with some of that peach mead we discovered when we moved. Rumour has it HRH is painting the living room today, too.

Grr

So because they had to turn the fridge on its side and lift it over the back railing of the deck (due to the iron emergency staircase leading down from the second storey), we have to allow the fridge to stand upright for even longer than usual before plugging it in.

And, although the measurements of the body of the fridge itself fit the space in the kitchen, the addition of freaking wheels to the bottom raises it just slightly, thereby creating a couple of millimeters of interference between the top of the fridge and the bottom of the cabinets. Wheels. I'm sure they're useful when you move it, but how often do you move a fridge? Argh! So it's currently in the middle of the kitchen, unplugged and silent.

I think we may have to borrow HRH's dad's sander and, erm, slenderise the bottom shelf of the above-fridge cabinets. Just enough so that the damn unit slips into the space designed for it. If you look closely, you can see that someone else has previously raised that bottom shelf an inch or so, likely due to the same issue. Or maybe we'll do that again.

This is more than enough character-building for one week, thanks.

Voila #2

The fridge is here! The fridge is here! The truck just pulled up!

True Love

HRH has just pulled out the lawn mower and started it. He's now mowing his very own lawn for the very first time.

I can feel the waves of bliss and manly pride all the way up here.

Voila #1

The FedEx truck just delivered the box of galley proofs, and I'm already in a wonderful mood. It looks very pretty. I'm not totally sold on the use of Old English as a font for the titles, as it looks terribly formal, but the overall design is good.

Mind you, as soon as I spread it out I did try to delete the first sentence of the introduction because it made no sense. Then I realised that was because I'd begun with a rhetorical question and the punctuation was wrong. So. A simple swap of semi-colons for commas, and we're set to go.

I managed to give myself a long shallow paper cut along the underside of my left forearm while applying the bulldog clips to keep the proofs together. The After Eight chocolate bar I bought yesterday makes up for that annoyance, however. They've gone and changed them, which may explain why I couldn't find one for a couple of months. Now, instead of just smooth mint chocolate, they're little sections of dark chocolate filled with mint fondant. Very all right in my books. Just the thing to accompany the initial plunge into a marathon of galley-proofing.

Now that I have my galleys, and I can work in my office with the curtains up on my brand-new rod, I would like my fridge, please. I don't know if I can do this without cold Coke.

Am Terribly Pathetic

Every time I hear a largish vehicle slowing down outside, I jump out of my desk chair and peer out the window. It could be the FedEx van! It could be the truck with my fridge in it!

Alas, as our street is still in the midst of repaving chaos, every vehicle slows down as it passes, both large and small.

I'm never going to get any work done at this rate.

I Dream Of Cold Drinks...

Today, our fridge arrives. Tonight, there will be ice cream, and ice cubes, and cold drinks, and food that we can prepare when we feel like it.

When does this fridge arrive? We do not know. Deliveries begin at 8.00 AM and continue until they're done. HRH has decided to stay and work at home until it shows up, for which I am decidedly thankful. The cats were playing with the vertical blinds last night and kept waking me up, and so now I'm trying to not fall back into the crankiness that plagued me late yesterday afternoon. It also means I can escape if I want to. There is little that I hate so much as the feeling that I'm trapped in my own home waiting for someone else to show up at some undefined moment, and I can't even leave for a breath of fresh air or to walk out to explore the local depanneur. Particularly since in recent history, the waiting-at-home-for-tradespeople business usually resulted in them showing up at the very end of the day or even days late.

HRH's meeting was cancelled last night so he took me out for supper, which would have been much more enjoyable if we hadn't had to battle through an hour of traffic to get to the West Island. Still, we had a lovely drive along the canal road and then the river road, and there was iced tea at the other end. With real ice.

I think what's frustrating me more than anything else these days is the fact that I feel pretty useless. I have to wait for HRH to be home to find things, lift things, move things, paint things. I was so proud that I'd gone out and picked up the curtain rod, a new shower head, the stain, and all those sorts of things: I was doing something that needed to be done. And then I couldn't do a damned thing with them once I got them home. I'm very, very bad at relying on other people; I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of "if you want it done (at all, but preferably right), then do it yourself", as well as being abysmal at admitting that I need help for anything. (I am improving in that department, however, much to the chagrin of people whose events and activities I've dropped for the sake of sanity.) So these things which are making me cranky are probably improving my character somehow.

I think we'll descend into the garage today and I'll open boxes down there. That way I can say, "We need this one upstairs" and HRH will carry the right ones up, rather than me discovering up here that they're not the ones I need and then the boxes sitting in the way until HRH can bring them back downstairs.

And hmm, the FedEx delivery ought to show up today as well. (It had better show up today, or I'll have only a couple of days to do the proofs before they have to be back in Boston.)

In Which She Gets Aggressive About Others Using Her Power Tools

After figuring out how to get the professional vertical blinds down, I discovered that I needed my drill to set the screws of the new rod supports, because I don't have the torque or correct angle required to do it by hand with a screwdriver.

Is my drill with my toolbox? No, of course not.

Fine. I can use my awl and my hammer instead.

Is my awl in my toolbox? No, of course not. But the hammer's there.

Is HRH's toolbox (which has apparently swallowed all of my tools) anywhere in sight?

No. Of course not. It must still be downstairs in the sea of boxes piled far over my head in the depths of the garage. You know, the piles I can't get to?

So the vertical blinds are now lying on the living room floor, because there's nowhere else for them to go. The new rod and supports are lying here on the floor of my office, along with the curtains and the new clamp rings, because I can't do anything with them.

It's vaguely tempting to go out again to buy myself another drill, and hide it in my office. That way I'll always have it when I need it. Perhaps I'll restock my toolbox with screwdrivers, levels, and awls and hide that as well, because all of them have also mysteriously gone AWOL, presumably into HRH's toolbox. And maybe I'll mark my name on each and every one of them, just in case my stash is discovered and "borrowed" one by one again.

Fine. So I gritted my teeth and walked away from this particular half-finished project, because there was nothing else I could do. I decided to unpack the boxes HRH brought up this morning instead.

Every single box except one is useless to me. I might as well seal them up again, because they have to go right back into storage until winter.

Even deep breaths don't help. I'm just angry and frustrated in general now.

And I can't even pour a cold drink.

Needless to say, I'm no longer in the mood to work on a happy cheerful book about being in harmony with your surroundings.

Grrrrr.

Unexpected

Wow -- they're FedExing the proofs of the Solitary Wicca book to me today, and they need them back by next Friday.

The speed with which this book is going through the publishing process repeatedly stuns me. I wrote it during January and February; we did an intensive five-part edit throughout March; we did a tech read and quick edit in April; the galleys are on their way to me now in June for the final read-through. Then it's three months till it's published in September.

Gah. Even thinking about it makes me tired.

Gods, I hope I like it when I read it.

I Have

1. I have stain for my office bookshelves.

2. I have a new curtain rod and clamp rings for my beautiful pale green office curtains, which just so happen to be family heirlooms hand-woven by my maternal grandfather.

3. I have a new reference book for the green witch project to inspire me. I stopped by the metaphysical book shop to see long-lost friends like Roo, and the store cats. My spellcraft book still hasn't arrived. Nor has my box of author's copies. Roo gave me a lovely, lovely little housewarming gift of magic beans. Terribly apropos.

4. While I was there, I bought myself an Office-Warming Gift. (No, not the original, an 8 x 10" print.)

5. I got myself a new cool blue summer dress, a new t-shirt, and a summer skirt, each and every one of them on sale, plus an extra discount with a coupon I had. Muah-hah-hah. Now I have summer clothes that fit.

Now I intend to hang those curtains, which entails taking down the much-disliked vertical blinds and the mountings with a screwdriver. Then I will hit the green witch book for the first time in two weeks, because I'm in the mood. Huzzah!

Like Everything Else Lately -- Where Has The Time Gone?

Random Colour's been practicing for about seven weeks now, and our mini-teaser-debut happens in nine days. I think the general feeling among the band is one of "eep!" and "we need more time!", but it's soundly offset by pride in how we've arranged the songs and how we have come together from nothing to something in such a short time.

We're only playing three songs as an opening act for Invisible, the guys' band who inspired the girls' band. It's a great way to get our feet wet before programming an entire show by ourselves in the early fall. (Maybe we'll let the guys open for us then? Turnabout's fair play, after all.)

The guys play their own style which may be based in punk, or may be based in something else... they're rather undefinable beyond their catch-phrase of "There is no loud" (and I suspect they like it that way). It's their show, really; Random Colour may be more of a curiosity than anything else. Once we've played, we'll be stashing instruments and kicking back to enjoy the main attraction ourselves.

Invisible's first performance was in a private home and the guest list was extremely abbreviated by necessity. This time the gig's taking place in a larger performance space designed to handle a larger group of people, so it's open to personal friends of someone in one of the bands. If you're one of those friends, and interested in experiencing an evening of very eclectic music played by the enthusiastic amateurs with whom you're acquainted, the details are:

When:
Saturday, June 11th
The doors open at 7:30pm, and curtain goes up at 8pm.

Where:
The Paradox (located in the Point St.Charles YMCA; email me for the address)

There is no cover charge; the bands have paid for the rental themselves in order to host this thing for their friends. If you want something to eat or drink, bring it yourself. We certainly will be.

And as a footnote to band-related stuff, a representative of each band have conjointly just signed a lease for a shared practice space. Hurrah! I'm sure ai731 is somewhat relieved at the opportunity to reclaim her living room from the pile of amps and the drum kit, but also slightly disappointed at the idea of traveling further than down her stairs to rehearsal.

This gig has been dubbed The Thing We Cannot See Past, which amuses me because my July 1 concert has always been my personal Thing I Cannot See Past around this time of year. It still is; so much so that I keep forgetting that Random Colour's gigging next Saturday because I'm obsessing about oh-my-gods-the-Tchaikovsky. Once the July 1 concert (which I will publicise in a week or so, as usual) is over, then I suddenly remember that I have a birthday soon afterwards. Don't even ask what I'm doing this year; there are three invitational-type things I'm hosting/central to that have to happen first. I may take this year off entirely, as I did a couple of years ago, although this would be in self-defence whereas the last birthday cancellation was due to everyone I knew being out of town.

Meet Summer

Today's projected high was 24 degrees Celsius. We have hit 27. And all my loose summer dresses are still in a box downstairs.

I am so looking forward to my fridge. Room temperature drinks are boring. Even though it's remarkably cool in here (all hail that cross-breeze HRH discovered by opening the front and back windows!) I will so appreciate having ice cubes and chilled water again.

30 Weeks

My baby is bored.

This is the only explanation I have for the 24-hours of solid movement. Sure, it increases and decreases, but he's always moving. He's restless. Yes, okay, he's a living thing, and I know of no living thing that is completely immobile. But the sheer amount of movement is stunning.

So is his increasing strength. It really is odd to suddenly lose your breath because he's punched or kicked straight out, little heel or elbow or fist tenting my abdomen in a queer, slightly disturbing sight. When he shifts position, it's a huge production. He's starting to kick Maggie when she curls up against my abdomen and chest at night. He knows she's there, but she's oblivious to him. (Enjoy it while it lasts, Maggie-cat. Come August, you won't be able to ignore him any more.)

Riding in the car is becoming more and more of a challenge. He loved the plane, but the car makes him cranky. I think it's because of the deep bucket seats in the station wagon. Mind you, he's spent an awful lot of time in it recently, so I can understand why his patience grows shorter and shorter each time we drive.

There are times he's moving so much that I have to put down what I'm holding and brace myself, not because I'll fall over or anything, but because it's so alien. In a couple of weeks he'll have grown to a point where he'll move less simply because he won't have the room to throw himself around as he's doing now.

In the meantime, things are still good. The doctor says I'm still at the peak of health. My appetite is good, there's no pain, and I'm sleeping well in general. I've enjoyed pregnancy up to this point; now I'm looking forward to the next two months of room-decorating and nesting and final preparation.

Victory!

Done! I have finished the editorial read-through, a general overview memo has been written, and all has been sent off!

Now I can turn to the green witch book again. Except I find myself in an odd position. You see, I have all my office boxes here courtesy of HRH (theoretically, at least -- ha ha ha), and I have shelves to set up. This may sound ideal, but for the fact that I want to finally stain this set of unfinished shelves (after six years in one case, so it's rather overdue), and the office still needs to be painted. If I unpack, I'll just have to undo it all in a couple of weeks. If I don't unpack, I'll go stir crazy trying to work in here.

It's not a happy position for my brain to be in. Logic and HRH dictate that unpacking and moving things later will be fine. That extra energy required of me when I'm trying to bring a book to a close and can't move, lift, or bend like I want to seems like a pointless waste.

Yes, I create my own trouble. This is simply one of the many reasons why I refuse to enter into other peoples' dramas.

Grr.

9.40 update: I was right: there are about four boxes of office books missing. Possibly (and more likely) five. I do have my current notebooks and green witch-specific reference books here, though, and they're on the shelf set up right next to my desk. All my desk stuff like pens and disks and calendar are also now out. Have I mentioned how wonderful it is to have an office, with its own shelves and so forth, instead of merely a desk in the dining room?

New House Sounds And Smells

Falling asleep at eleven at night to the dusky smell of lilacs coming in through the bedroom window. I must cherish this deeply as it's only to last another few days.

Waking up at four in the morning to the sounds of screeching birds and squirrels. Oh, there are gently twittering birdies too, who lull one back to drowse in bed, until the screeching bird lets loose again.

Finding cats in odd places. Everyone seems to be testing various rooms and perches for The Best Spot Ever.

Odd echoes that I'm not yet used to. These will vanish as boxes are further unpacked and stuff goes up on walls. In the meantime, things that happen in one room sound like they're coming from another room entirely.

No love for the plug-in cooler that is currently serving as our fridge substitute, as the AC adaptor makes a really irritating loud buzz that can be heard in every single room. Much love, however, for my 1974 Kenmore stove, which used to be our family stove until my parents replaced it about three years ago. It's still going strong. Boiled a perfectly good kettle of water yesterday, and heated that quiche, too.

Two bowls of fresh strawberries that absolutely must be eaten today. Usually we try to make these last as long as possible, but these were on sale and with no fridge to store them, that means we can -- may, must -- eat our fill of lovely fresh-smelling sweetness for breakfast.