Vanilla

It's just past sunset, and five years ago today at exactly this time my brother-in-law died. I have no idea how to observe this moment. I spent the day simply, at home and with my children in the park. I resolved to enjoy the existence of this day, my existence, to notice and feel everything, to take nothing for granted. I walked around the baseball fields of Prospect Park while my two little ones fell asleep. I played with the kids in the fountains at the playground. I felt the humidity wrap my body. I noticed the pendulous clouds over treetops dense with peak of summer leaves. I didn't dwell on the specific memories of this day five years ago. It took me three years not to flinch physically when recalling my sister's voice on the other end of the phone. Now I mostly just miss Gary. I remember how much I wanted to sit on a porch with him on a hot summer night, drinking beer and laughing at the absurd enterprise that is parenthood. My eldest Duncan is five, so his age will always mark the number of years we live on without Gary. They never met. I wish I had a ritual or some other guide for this day. I'm too recently Jewish to know how to mark a loved one's yartzeit, though I'm grateful at least for a Hebrew word since our language lacks one. So, upon my sister's suggestion, I am eating vanilla ice cream, lifting my spoon to Gary.

Through a Lens Brightly

My last conversation with my grandfather was a production call. Picture me on my cellphone, pacing my garden in Venice, California, toddler on hip. Picture him (whom we called "Gar"), in his assisted living apartment in Essex, Connecticut. I briefed him on our 2 options: Cheap($600)= projecting the films at a wall to be videotaped and burned onto DVDs. Expensive ($2400)= a "telecine" transfer and shot-by-shot color-correction by a skilled technician. You know which one Oliver Stone would have picked. Gar would have no less for his version of history.

Gar was not a filmmaker. He made his long and successful career in insurance. But he was a notorious shutterbug and archivist. In retirement, he made an album for each year in the life of the family. The winter before he died, he asked me to help with a project. In selling their home to move into their assisted living apartment, my grandparents unearthed their disintegrating 8mm family movies. Would I help him transfer them to a more permanent format? I was finishing film school in LA and had contacts who could do the high-end transfer at a cut-rate.

Thus, with the Disney studios next door in the San Fernando Valley, do I owe my punk telecine operator Kevin for revealing the true magic of movies to me. My grandfather's first film dated to 1941, just a year after their marriage, and features my grandparents as newly weds visiting Hanover, New Hampshire for "Green Key Weekend" at Dartmouth College. It was faded and scratched, a visual distance to match the temporal. But in Kevin's skilled hands, my gorgeous 24-year old grandparents (younger that I was by this time) were suddenly bright and unmarred by time, walking the streets of what would become my own hometown. Smiling coquettishly to camera, my grandmother Memar's newlywed adoration for the camera operator made my own heart skip. In 6 hours of footage my grandfather himself appears in less than 30 minutes, and yet he is everywhere, deciding what will be framed and in what spirit... The family dressed to the nines for Easter. Kids running the waves of the Long Island sound. The Big One caught in Card Sound off Key Largo, Florida. Mule rides in the Grand Canyon. The last film was shot in 1964. Gar was in fact, if not in title, a filmmaker to rival Frank Capra. Through his hopeful eyes, it was indeed A Wonderful Life.

When my mother got wind of our project, she asked to throw our Davidson family movies into the batch for transfer. In contrast to my grandfather's footage, which I was eager to see, the prospect of my mother's made me anxious. Hers pick up in 1966 and end in 1974. In other words, I would have a glimpse into life B.D. and A.D. -- Before the Divorce and After the Divorce. If there were happy images B.D., I wouldn't trust them. If there were happy images after, I also wouldn't trust them. I wanted to see images of my father as a part of my household, since I was 14 months old when he left and had no memories, and I dreaded the prospect. Did anyone catch on film the moment our original family ended, which I understood to be when my mother received a letter from my father over Christmas 1970? I put the films in the telecine batch for transfer, but I let Kevin do those on his own.

If my grandfather was the family Shutterbug, I am the Shutterfly of my generation. I clog cyberspace with yet another photo or video of my kids. Duncan was not even a month old when I bought his first album, and I get itchy when my albums fall more than a year behind. My eye is always lusting for the picturesque frame, always editing. My husband thanks me for documenting our family's lives. Other relatives undoubtedly groan when "Shutterfly.com" cheerily announces that "Samantha has shared some pictures with you!" I am victim to the parental delusion that every single second (=frame) of your child's life is momentous and worthy of record. And what I can't catch on film, I write in their little books. Or blog about.

As I write this I am backing up 28 hours of video shot over 8 years, and I am racing against time. The electronics of my camera, once state-of-the-art for documentary filmmaking but now obsolete even for home videos, are nearly shot. In this footage, I am watching Jordy and me get married; our children are born and are growing up. Baby Duncan's hands wave in the air like a conductor's; Reeve jumps wildly in his bouncy chair; Tucker gets tossed in the air by his exuberant brothers. My pleasure in filming them is palpable in the images.

But I also notice that the shot often cuts out precisely when the fun and love turns to sadness. Tucker tires of the tossing and cries. Reeve and Duncan's game of chase ends up in a collision. In truth, my displaced attention through the eyepiece seems to precipitate -- or at least fails to ward off -- the meltdowns. When the hard things hit, the screen goes dark. It occurs to me that the dark gaps may contain the parts of the story we most need to understand.

The most important gap in my photographic record spans June to August, 2005. On June 25, 2005 my brother-in-law Gary Lehmann was killed by a drunk driver. I remember at the time feeling that it was inappropriate, even sacrilegious, to film anything, and it didn't seem necessary. Images and feelings from that summer are burned vividly in my memory. But now I wonder about my nephews Christopher and David and niece Katie, who were 8, 4 and 2. Will they wish I had kept the camera rolling?

Less than a year after their father died, Christopher and David came down with the chicken pocks. It was mud season in Binghamton, New York, which tries the spirit in the best of times. I did the only thing I could think of -- Home Video Therapy. I edited a special episode of "Sesame Street", re-titled Duncan Green Street, of goofy vignettes intended to make them laugh. My good-sport husband submitted to a time-lapse of sticker "chicken pocks" appearing and disappearing on his face. Baby Duncan in the bath turned into "The Creature in the Tub." The Lehmann kids make an appearance as a mariachi band from video shot earlier that winter in Arizona. The episode ends with a montage of all the cousins to a folk song -- "There's a dark and a troubled side of life... But there's a bright and a sunny side too!"

The other day my oldest, Duncan (now 5), wanted to clarify that the movies I make are "real" versus Scooby Doo and the Cyberchase, for example, which is "just a story." This led us to a discussion of "Duncan Green Street". Duncan was emphatic that they are real. I tried to reveal my hand in spinning the story a bit. He rejected the idea that this makes them in any way "just a story." Worthy ethical questions arise from my editing of my children's, nieces' and nephews' memories, not to mention questions about my own character and courage. But if I could make these kids laugh, ethics be damned.

By the time I looked at my mom's family movies, it was two years later. We had left California and lived in Brooklyn. I had begun a new feature screenplay about a couple with two kids fighting to save their marriage. I was aware of the intersections of art and life: Jordy and I now had two kids under age 3 and our marriage was strained. The photo record wouldn't reveal this fact; stunning photos from a family trip to Jones Beach on June 7, 2008 belie the fact that Jordy and I fought most of the car ride home, for example. As I sat at the Lonelyville Café one morning struggling to craft the courtship of my fictional couple in such a way as to plant the seeds of their relationship's demise, the bomb of awareness went off. Duncan was nearing 4, Reeve nearing 14 months. I was fast approaching the exact point in the life of my new family when my original family died. More than anything in my life, I was determined to give the story a different ending.

I decided to watch at last my mother's 8mm family movies as research for my script and for my life. It was impossible not to look only for clues in absolutely everything leading up to the end of 1970. Lots of Springer Spaniel puppies. My older sister as a newborn in my father's arms on a sunny July day. Stunning vistas of the Rockies. My mother and little Kristin feeding ducks. A few years later: Memar and Gar take my mom and Kristin to a zoo in Colorado. Then I appear in a crib. Kristin grabs a zipline and fearlessly flies across the back yard. My father smiles encouragingly at Kristin as he teaches her to ski in the driveway. I wish I could hear. I search my parents' faces. I search Kristin's. I find no clues, no foreshadowing. Baby me appears again in my crib; clothed, unclothed, rolling, on my tummy. I assume my mother is filming. I can feel her eyes on Little Me through the lens, craving these fleeting moments the way I crave my kids'. My father makes a goofy face at toddling me, then breaks into a big smile. The camera tells something very true but also feels as if it is trying very hard. Taking turns filming, my parents never appear in the frame together at the same time.

Suddenly it is Christmas, 1970. A Christmas tree hemmed with packages. In our pajamas, Kristin and I gorge on gifts. The camera follows us for several minutes. My father is gone from the frame. Our toy-drunk little selves are oblivious. But then suddenly he is there, helping us to blow up a punch-dummy toy. I am totally confused. How can this be? The story I remembered was that Mom, Kristin and I flew back to New York to be with my grandparents for Christmas while Dad stayed back in Colorado to work on his dissertation. Then my mother received the letter in the mail that it was over. But here we are together, sharing the most normal of American Christmases. Dad helps me get on a little ride-on toy. Kristin tries to make her new bicycle go.

Cut to: Easter. My hair is longer, my walk more steady. The wrapping paper is cleaned up. And he's gone. I am carrying a little Easter basket. Maybe I was looking for eggs? Now I am looking for those missing three months between the Birth, the Death, and the Resurrection.

My mother kept her wedding photos in the closet; I've never seen one at my dad's. My grandparents' houses were purged of images of my Other Parent by the time I was conscious. This always made me very sad in a child's inarticulate way. A lot of my own childhood must have been edited out in the process. But I got used to it. I assumed what had been erased was too painful to re-visit.

So I was wary of my mother's nostalgia in asking me to transfer these films; I felt she was never been able to accept fully that things happened as they needed to, whereas I had had to craft my own version of the tale that made the divorce inevitable. I was fearful of opening mine to question. But as I watched, I felt a growing strain. I was imposing the narrative of divorce over delicate images trying to reveal other things to me.

Through her lens, my mother lingers lovingly on my little waving hands -- exactly as I once lingered one morning in Los Angeles on Duncan's little hands. She captures a quizzical look on my face that could be my own son Reeve's. She zooms in on my little feet, a shot I could match cut with Tucker's just this winter. I get to see myself crawling across the grass, then attempting a first step. Her camera must have had an on-board spotlight, as it literally lights up its subject while the corners of the frame sink into shadow. As I am watching, I let down my guard. Whatever else was going on between my parents, she captured my father's loving eyes on Kristin as they watch a 4th of July parade together, and on little me as I deliver a present to him in his arm chair. I let myself begin to trust these tender moments as also true.

My grandfather's home movies can seem naive to suffering, but he was not. Gar's mother died suddenly when he was two years old. I imagine his first memories were of his grief-stricken father and his own grief, both for his mom and for any conscious memory of her. It is probably true that Gar's impulse to film his family in the cheeriest light was a sales pitch, even to himself. (After taking a good snapshot, he used to exclaim, "That one'll cost you a million bucks!") But it does not follow that what Gar filmed was a lie; rather, they reveal how he too enjoyed the parental delusion that his kids' (and grandkids') lives were momentous and worthy of record, come what may. So too for my mother. Perhaps she rolled camera in hopes that the film itself would hold the family together, but maybe she just responded to the poignant moments that are the gifts of parenthood without knowing how the story would unfold. It wasn't until I became a parent and looked through the other end of their lenses that I understood.

Now I am eternally thankful for my mother's few captured frames from a past that resists retrieval. I forgive the eternally hopeful eye for any fictional license taken in her efforts against what I imagine was a bleak emotional backdrop for my parents. My mother's determination not to leave our past on the editing room floor, whatever discomfort it may cause, gives evidence of the greatest force in the universe, more powerful than divorce or death: A parent's love.


Postscript

By some mysterious orchestration, my universe pulled back together two years ago when my father and step-mother moved back to the New Hampshire valley where both my mom and step-father and my in-laws live. From my boys' perspective, not only don't they travel between houses to see their parents, but they get six adoring grandparents in one place. This winter during a rowdy lunchtime visit of cousins and various grandparents I was captivated by a loving conversation my father was having with my 3-month-old Tucker. I framed them up and rolled camera. After our return to New York, I got an email inviting me to view my sister Kristin's "Kodak Gallery album." As I clicked through her photos, I came upon a mirror image of Dad and Tucker, with me in the background behind my video camera. We caught the same moment, or it caught us. The kids hold the camera now, and the dad stays in the picture -- illuminated by the bright reflection of sun on fresh February snow.

The Empty Nest

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I have always been suspicious of this holiday as another Hallmark invention (a la Valentine's Day) exploiting vaguely religious roots to monetize the guilt of unexpressed love. My suspicions were confirmed: After animated birds delivered Mother's Day cards in a dozen different languages in an e-card I received yesterday, a link offered "a brief history of the holiday." It was indeed a Roman festival to honor the mother goddess Cybele, which was later appropriated by early Christians to honor the Virgin Mary.

What does it mean that the first link in my google search for "Cybele roman goddess"leads me to www.teenwitch.com where, among other options, I can stop corporate blood libel and take action for witches rights? From this site I can catch up on my pagan shopping and, after a few private lessons in casting spells, etc., earn my certificate as a High Priestess of Cybele. My teen witch activist friends also teach me that the Vatican is built on top of the original temple to Cybele, also known as Gaia -- the deified Mother Earth.

This last part interests me. I'm not the first woman in the History of the West to notice how the Christian Church removed the feminine creative powers from the Holy Equation. Maybe if I were raised Catholic I'd have a relationship with the Virgin Mary, but even Mary is a "mother of God" as opposed to being God(dess) herself. The Holy Family consists of a Father, a Son, and a Holy Ghost. Many mothers I know report feeling like ghosts much of the time.

As a mother to 3 boys under age 5, I'm aware that their experience with women is pretty focused on me. I'm not a Freudian, but it makes sense that their attachment to me is both intense and ambivalent. Truth be told, I experience ambivalence on the other side. I have loved (obviously) having these babies; I delight in their bodies and minds; I am wired to respond to their sleeping, eating, and emotional rhythms. I take pride in anticipating their needs, whether for cheese sticks and oranges on the walk home from school or for an early bedtime, and I consider it a reward to watch them run happily in the woods lost in a fantasy of jungle exploration. But I get annoyed by the constant migration of matter in my house (how did the toothpaste end up in the kitchen sink? Why are their socks under every chair and table in the living room?). I get irritated when, for example:
...My body becomes a jungle gym or "fire pole".
...My freshly made bed ends up in a heap of covers and pillows ("But Mom! It's our fort!").
...I give in to requests to make "green eggs" that no one will eat thanks to, of course, their gross color.
...I ask a thousand and one times to get shoes on while feet remain stubbornly bare.
...Within seconds of the older boys falling asleep, baby Tucker wakes up.
...Duncan and Reeve must both possess the same toy boat at exactly the same time, and therefore chase each other screaming with claws bared.
...My efforts to be Casual Mom, i.e. allow them to paint in the basement without supervision, result in (gee!) Reeve's body in paint from head to toe.
...My refusal to rent Scooby Doo and the Cyberchase from the movie store for the umpteenth time gives grounds for a sit-in protest, i.e. two screaming boys sitting on the sidewalk refusing to move.
...Jordy's and my rare efforts to go on a date elicit tragic laments about our neglectful parenting from Duncan.
...I wonder whether my time-out from "work" will be penalized by the sputtering end of my barely begun filmmaking career (or any career for that matter).
And I get positively furious when Duncan or Reeve hurt the baby, intentionally or unintentionally. (Mama Tiger rage instincts, it seems, bypass my Homo Sapiens' "Positive Discipline" techniques.)

But in the middle of the other night, a chilling vision appeared. I was nursing Tucker and thinking forward to the long, loud hours after school/before dinner the next day when the Ghost of Mother Future visited me. One day these boys will no longer return to our house. No shoes to put away. No screaming matches to mediate. That inevitable quiet, foretold in this present 3am stillness, filled me with dread. The chaos of motherhood can feel unbearable until one contemplates the alternative. I can barely write this without my throat tightening.

I have never read my boys The Giving Tree. That book offends and grieves me. He comes back to her when he needs something from her. (Should we wonder that the tree is a "she"?) What does the tree get in return? She gets sat on! All that for the privilege of his ass on her back. Typical. This book not only conflicts with my coming-of-age politics, it offends my inchoate sense of environmental justice. Exploitation of Mothers = Exploitation of Mother Earth! High priestesses of Gaia/ Cybele, rise up! This is not the version of motherhood that I want to teach, so I guard the secret truth: I too would give my kids my apples, limbs and trunk even without a guarantee that they would come visit my stump.

So what is Mother's Day really about? To judge from the florist at the end of my street, it's about running out to buy Mom cut flowers on Sunday morning and a greeting card with a message written by an unpublished novelist in a cubicle at Hallmark. These are nice. (But involve maiming more plants.) Jordy and the boys gave me a very pretty necklace.

But my lingering question is, what do Moms really want on this day? Or at least, what do I want? I like holidays that act as reminders of actions we should often take -- remembering the dead, celebrating political freedom, giving thanks, the rebirth of hope, etc. Sadly, we can't even seem to remember for that single day, devolving as these holidays often do into ritual equations such as Independence = grilled burgers and beer, Hope = a new Wii. Rarely do they evoke the kinds of reflection that say, at its best, a good Passover seder demands. The engine of such reflection is imagination, putting oneself in someone else's shoes -- the fearful Israelite, the fighting Colonist, the starving Pilgrim, the Mother.

Yesterday by 11am, we wandered out to the sidewalk where the boys found all the neighborhood kids and their parents gathered with no particular plans for the day. The four mothers in the crowd had all surrendered our roles as Social Coordinators for the day. As a result, Mother's Day on Howard Place looked like a people adrift. (Truth be told, this masculine-inspired aimlessness resulted in delightful serendipitous play time for kids and parents alike.) The mothers struck up a discussion over whether Mother's Day meant we should "relish our roles as mother" by spending the entire day in the company of our children (the fathers thought this sounded good, which we promised to remind them of on Father's Day), or whether it meant we should be relieved of our motherly duties. And if so, what did that mean? Spa treatments? Lunch with our girlfriends?

What I want on Mother's Day is an indication that my family has taken the time to imagine my role and talk amongst themselves about what I give the family as the Mom and come up with some way to express their understanding. The problem with The Giving Tree is not only that the boy/man asks her to give again and again, it's that he takes her for granted. He never once pauses to imagine her as a being that exists for any reason other that serving his needs, or even how simply not to destroy her through his own taking. If Mother's Day hadn't been hijacked by Hallmark, maybe that boy would have learned to think about bringing the tree fertilizer. Or harvesting her apples in a sustainable way. Perhaps making a bench from one of her limbs instead of chopping the whole thing down. Moms, like trees, offer a lot more protective shade when they are left standing.

But like the tree, I felt mute to ask for what I wanted yesterday. By 3pm Jordy could tell I was tired and frustrated. Without a plan for the day, we all spent a lot of time waiting around the house trying to figure out what to do (never a good idea for us). Jordy's efforts to get the older boys out of the house to give me "peace and quiet" were well-intentioned, but most of the time they were out I was caring for the (awake) Baby Tucker -- not a chore, time I relish, but nonetheless, not a deviation from my regular days. Duncan had mentioned making dinner "for me," which reflects the assumption (rightly based in every day experience) that Mommy Makes Dinner, hence even feeding themselves was a gesture of kindness "to me," but Jordy, without whose help Duncan's ambitions wouldn't materialize, hadn't mentioned it, so I was unclear whether I should be getting dinner ready. When Jordy detected my exhaustion (up 5 times the night before)/restlessness/annoyance that no particular imaginative effort had been made about the day, he confronted me. "Tell me what you want," he asked.

The problem in answering his simple question was that the answer lay in what I wanted THEM to do, except the boys are 5 and 3 and hence depend on his leadership, so I really meant HIM. Jordy knew that and did not take it well. (Smacks of passive aggression. Felt yucky saying it too.) I am not his mother, but I wanted him to teach our boys how not to take me for granted, how to love me in ways beyond the function I serve to make their lives better/function. I wanted them to reflect on what I give that can go unnoticed in the flurry of daily life. I would have loved a gesture -- open to interpretation! -- that showed sympathy and understanding of how very much time I spend anticipating and attending to other people's needs. (I make a separate shopping trip to get the specific brands of cheese and cereal they all like!) In other words, I would have liked to have my needs anticipated, which of course, begins with imagining them.

I sound like a whiner. We don't like trees or women who complain about being under-appreciated. My mother gives my grandmother a hard time for insisting on Thank-You notes -- if that doesn't teach you not to demand appreciation, what will? And anyway, isn't the highest spiritual good to give without requiring acknowledgment? Or, more practically, can't I appreciate the daily tokens of acknowledgment my family gives me? My husband is adorable and extremely expressive of his love. He initiates the laundry when his underwear drawer is empty. He unloads the dishwasher without being asked. He reminds the boys to thank me for dinner. Duncan makes me a beaded necklace almost every Friday at school; Reeve runs into my arms at the end of the school day, "MOMMY!" Their desire for Mama-snuggles at bedtime and wake-up are actions speaking louder than words. (And in fairness and thanks to Jordy, he made a lovely spaghetti dinner, did all the dishes, walked the dog, and took out the trash.) Maybe the problem is the concentration of expectations into a single day. Why should we pressure ourselves to "fit it all in"? How contrived!

But again, I hear Rabbi so-and-so giving a midrash on such-and-such parsha about why we are bound to observe ritual days in the calendar: To remind us to direct our attention to things we need to do to keep ourselves morally or spiritually intact, usually involving either making good with people we love or with God. I am not ready to give up on Mother's Day as a meaningful day in the calendar. What will happen when the boys no longer need morning snuggles? Will they remember their old mama?

On my dog walk yesterday morning, I found a bird's nest that had fallen from a tree. I felt the mothers of my youth -- my mom, my step-mom, my aunt Sue-- exclaim, "Oo! Won't the children find that interesting!" as I picked it up and carried it home from Prospect Park. As my boys peered into it, I realized this was another woman's empty nest! Do those baby birds remember how carefully their mom sat on them in this nest? Do they appreciate how hard this bird mom and dad worked to construct this little home? I almost cried.

Duncan and Reeve snatched the nest from my hands and turned it into a crown, then a frisbee. Of course those baby birds don't remember. They are too busy making their own nests, finding worms, and juggling complicated brooding schedules. Maybe this is why Jordy forgot to send his mom a card. And maybe this is the greatest expression of love for one's mother: to undertake the making of your own nest, knowing the babies will fly away without calling (or even Skyping) as often as we'd like.

But next year, I won't wait. I won't even drop hints. Come Monday before Mother's Day, I'll ask flat out: So, guys, what's the plan for Mother's Day? And if they can't come up with anything, I'll help them imagine.

Now

The blazing sunshine is melting the remains of last week's blizzard. It is suddenly March 1st. At home I'm sure the sap is running. And I have three children.

I feel a bit like the pebble drawn back in a little boy's slingshot. Last December, time stretched forward without me, held as I was in the tightening grip of an expectant little hand. Then all at once, he let go and here we are, flying forward at a dizzying, exhilarating speed.

But there was a moment of complete Now as time inverted on that day, December 8th. To place it in the flow, I'd say it was sometime around 3:45pm, though time is beside the point. It was above, beyond, outside of the clock. It was a place, or space, as much as a moment, and it was something I felt I'd known before but had forgotten. Like chocolate, I can't recreate the taste through memory alone, but I can recall that it was blissful. I suspect I knew it when I myself was born. I want to recall it when the moment comes for me to die.

But I need to back up. On December 8th I woke up around 6am to find my underpants wet. It wasn't urine; it smelled salty and clean like the ocean. My hard belly was not yet contracting, but I knew it wouldn't be long before our little dude would be riding the rhythmic waves toward our shore.

At 6:54am (according to my iPhone), I texted Ali & Maria: "Looks like my sack is leaking & I am having stronger braxton hicks to early contractions so I think i will be calling soon!" Ali back: "It's a great day to have a baby!! i'll be here!"

The sun peaked into the kitchen as we went about our routines. Shrek cereal (aka Mini-wheats) for Reeve, coffee for me and Jordy before Raisin Bran, honey cereal (Cheerios) for Duncan, fishie nugget lunches for school. By 8 o'clock, the waves were gathering every 15-20 minutes or so, nothing I couldn't breathe, shower, or walk the dog through. So I suited Wiley up to escort Jordy and the boys to the bus. Jordy would drop Duncan at Chai Tots, then Reeve at escuela. I would take Wiley to the park. We would meet back home by 10am.

The park was stunning. Clear crisp sunshine through bare trees. After Wiley did his business on the path above the baseball fields, I called our midwife Joan, whom I expected to be overjoyed at the civil hour of my call. She sounded exhausted; in the background–someone else's child. My heart sank. Though she didn't say so, it seemed she was with another laboring woman. She asked me to call again as the contractions got closer together. I resolved not to worry. As Jordy would say, Joan is someone you'd want in the trenches with you. She would work it out.

Wiley and I joined the other dog walkers in the Great Meadow. When the contractions came, I would pause and breathe, enjoying the feeling of enacting a great secret in public. Wiley lollopped about, sniffed new friends, rolled happily in the crispy grass. As we made an extra loop around the duck pond, I turned my face to the sun through the stark tree limbs, and remembered our yoga song: "May the longtime sun, shine upon you... and the pure light within you, guide your way on." I imagined gathering this sunlight to bring home with me for what lay ahead. They were getting closer. Time to head back.

9:45 - 30 secs. Jordy and I must have arrived home by then, as this was the first in his diligent log of contraction onset and duration. 10:04 - ditto. 10:14 - ditto. 10:27 - 50 sec. 10:39 - 1:10 sec. 10:46 - 40 sec. 10:50 - 30 sec. 10:56 - 1:12 sec...

Between contractions, we wandered about a little giddy, unsure what to do with ourselves, feeling a bit like we were playing hooky on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. We went ahead and "bagged" our mattress. We discussed plans (A), (B), (C) and (D), depending on the timing of it all. I must have called Magdalena -- no text message on record. She would pick up Reeve at 12:30 as usual, then Duncan at 3, as usual. We texted our friend Cheri to ask if our kids could go to her house to play after school, depending. Should they be there at the moment of birth? Would my groaning worry them (even though Duncan had begun to explain to random third parties that, "My mom is going to sound like an animal at the zoo, because when you're having a baby, every time you yell it helps the baby come out")? Would Reeve need Mommy-ness?

11:29 - 1 min. 11:36 - 1:30. I remember putting my head on the dining room table and the kitchen counter, variously, as Jordy placed his hands firmly on my hips and exerted counter pressure. We got into an almost pleasant routine. 11:40 - 1 min (long tail). Jordy and I made lunch. I think he had a sandwich. I had leftover lasagna made by Duncan's friend Ava's mom Sunny. 11:48 - 1min. 11:55 - 1:10mins (more intense). 12:00 - 30 sec. 12:11 - 1:20mins. 12:15 - 1:05m. I was strangely fascinated to see what each one would be like, as each one was unique. At the hospital, a paper ticker would have graphed the contractions, but I could have drawn each one with greater accuracy -- the particular curves and spikes, the relative altitude of intensity. It turned out to be such a relief throughout this labor to focus inward to observe my "progress" rather than having intrusive internal "exams" and measurements (other than Joan's regular fetal heart rate checks) from technicians and devices.

Downstairs was beginning to feel like nothing but hardwood floors, metal chairs, and doorbells. I needed to retreat in my cocoon so I climbed the stairs with the feeling that I wouldn't descend them again until I had met our baby.

I found comfort on the birthing ball in the den. Knees on the floor, I draped my body over it, rolling. I played my iTunes birthing playlist softly on the computer. Sometime in here my cellphone rang: It was the plumber. Months earlier I had left him a message to call next time he was in the neighborhood to help with a loose sink leg in the bathroom. Of course it would be now! We let the call go, but then the house phone rang so Jordy took it. "Hey, Andrew... Actually, she's in labor... (What's that?) In labor -- we're about to have the baby. (WHAT! GET OUTTA HEYAH! GO HAVE FUN!)" This was our motto thereafter.

I moved to the bedroom for a while, riding the birthing ball on top of the bed while I stared out the window. Our neighbor's sweet gum tree had lost all but a few crimson leaves that blew in the bright air amidst the last of the hanging sweet gum balls ("soot gremlins," as Reeve calls them in reference to TOTORO when he collects them on the street). They held my gaze steady through a number of contractions as Jordy lovingly countered each one with a firm grip on my hips behind, then noted the contraction for the record. It was so quiet. Just a late fall day at home.

12:20 - 1:02mins. 12:26 - 1:20m. At 12:28 Maria texted: "Just in karate until 1:30p." Me back: "Great! Do you want to head over here between 3-4?" "Yes." 12:31 - 1:20m. 12:37 - 1:15pm. Somewhere in here, Joan called. She was on the sidewalk out front.

Joan and Jamie tiptoed in. Joan sat with me in the den, listening as much as watching, while Jamie set up their impressive kit -- from gauze to oxygen tank -- in our bedroom. Jordy presented the log to Joan, who smiled kindly. "I guess we don't need to keep this any more?" he surmised. She shook her head. The last entry was 12:42 - 1:20mins. Jordy brought coffee upstairs for Joan and Jamie; they had been with the other laboring woman since 5am, though she had not yet delivered. Joan had called in another midwife to stay with her, as the labor was very slow to sputtering, a VBAC. Not easy. Expected it to be long. Thought we would be done in plenty of time for her to go back. As Jordy and I tried to plan when to bring the boys home in relation to Baby's arrival, Joan said she guessed our baby could be here by 3-4 o'clock. Jordy couldn't believe it would be so soon. I tuned out the predictions, not wanting the pressure of estimated arrival times one way or the other. Always I felt aware that this would be my last labor and it felt so good to let it be what it would be.

Sometime between 1 and 2pm I decided to get in the bathtub. Jordy helped draw the water and we arranged the pillow I'd bought for the occasion. The aromatherapy candle went unlit but gave a subtle spicy smell. The rushes were getting stronger now, and my need to rest in between was greater. The warm water helped. When they came on, I lifted myself and put my head on a towel over the tub's side. They were growing more acute. Ali arrived, a gentle smile and warm eyes greeting me at the door. She whispered, "How you doing?" She took Jordy's place for sometime by my side -- don't know how long, can't really remember what we talked about. I just remember how quiet and gentle and comforting her presence was.

Then Jordy returned and I wanted to get out. He helped me put on the blue bathrobe that Gary Lehmann gave Kristin for Mother's Day before Katie was born. I wrapped my arms around Jordy's neck as a rush came on in the bathroom and hung from him, swaying, while he wrapped his arms around my lower back to give support. This felt very good. Throughout Jordy whispered words of encouragement -- that I was doing such a great job, that he would be here soon. Through the crack in the door I saw Joan come up the stairs. She poked her head in to ask if that one felt "pushy" -- my vocalization sounded different to her. That was Joan's Jedi moment. Yes, it was the first inkling of an urge to push. She monitored the fetal heart rate again as she did throughout. Steady at 115-120bpm, as he was throughout the whole pregnancy.

It must have been between 2 and 3pm now, and I wanted to go back to the den on the ball. The sun was behind us now and the room was bathed in gentle blue light. On my knees, gazing out at the wide blue sky, helped by the music, memories poured through me. As Annie Lenox sang, "What do you see, on the horizon? Why do the white gulls call?...And all will turn, to silver glass. A light on the water. All souls pass into the west..." I was brought back to Venice beach with baby Duncan, Jordy and mom on her 65th birthday, awestruck at the sunset over the Pacific before us, hearts heavy missing Gary. Sometime later: "Little darling, it's been a long hard lonely winter... Here comes the sun..." brought me back to the days after Reeve's birth, cozy early spring, toddler Duncan waving his hands with his Dad as they made "suns" rising over newborn son Reeve, that explosive first spring in New York after our long first winter without the California sun. I cried quietly at the improbable magnificence of being here.

Up to this point, the intensity had grown gradually, reaching a peak in the bathtub that was sustained now with each contraction. At some point, Jordy had to attend to something in the hallway; without his hands on my hips, I felt a flicker of panic. I called to him. He rushed to my haunches and it felt manageable again. When I felt my brow and shoulders tense, I imagined directing my breath into those places and could feel them let go. I drew on the images I'd stored up -- the full moon of December 1, the round open pendant of my necklace -- to imagine my cervix opening with each contraction. I talked to Baby, reassured him that there was nothing to fear, that we were all here to ease his passage and would greet him on the other side.

And that's when we reached escape velocity. It felt as if I rode a wave up and up and... Just didn't come down. There was no active pain, just a sense of my body, our bodies, in a firm hold, attaining orbit on our rubber birthing ball. Everything was round and open and quiet. Floating in space.

A midwife once referred to the moment before pushing as "the rock and the hard place," the scariest place Mama will go to on her journey, especially when she's given birth before and knows the fierceness that lies ahead. In my previous labors I had the irrational but tempting desire to stay right here, pregnant forever. This was the moment I specifically prepared for the third time around, the place I most wanted to go without fear...

Eyes open I saw bare trees dancing in an infinite blue sky. Eyes closed I saw colorful points of light suspended in darkness. It was so peaceful I thought the actual birth might never happen -- that I had prepared too well and had gone someplace so far beyond that we could never make our way back.

And it was just then that I felt a fullness in the birth canal and knew Baby's arrival was imminent.

I asked Jordy to ask Ali to call Magdalena. It was suddenly clear to me that I wanted the big boys with us. Jordy supported me standing again. Knowing now where the birth would happen, Joan and Jamie managed to transport the whole operation from our bedroom into the den, slipping a shower curtain under Jordy's and my feet with us hardly noticing. Wiley had stayed at my side all day, so I asked Joan if he could stay. Whatever we wanted. So Wiley kept his post on the couch.

I swayed with Jordy to the music, making infinity signs with my hips. He kept his hands always supporting my back as I rested my head on his chest, which felt so good. Over Jordy's shoulder, I noticed Maria in the corner with the video camera -- when did she slip in the room, that ninja girl? My groans rumbled from a deeper place in my body as Baby's head filled my lower body. I remember saying to Jordy, "I just want to open and let him go now."

Moments later, that's what happened, so quickly that I almost didn't get my underpants off in time. First came the SPLASH as my water broke and hit the shower curtain. We all laughed - amniotic fluid soaked Jordy's jeans! I asked for the boys and someone (Ali?) told me they were on their way, but I knew now I couldn't wait. Baby started to come down. Like a good quarterback Joan knelt down, ready to catch while Jordy remained standing to hold me up. Ali stood silently in the doorway. Maria was tucked in her corner. Joan encouraged me to slow down so as not to tear, but between my roars I said there was no way I could possibly slow this train now. I reached down between pushes and felt his warm hard head between my legs. Can you imagine? I still cannot. Incredible. Another push or two and out came his head. Joan carefully supported him. "Cord is clear." (Could he see my happy toes yet? At 37 weeks I had them painted bright red to be a cheerful welcome sign for him!) One more groan and out he slithered. 4:08pm, December 8, 2009. "You can reach down and hold your baby now," Joan said lifting him to my arms. The song playing at the moment of his birth was, by ridiculous chance, our prenatal yoga love song! May the longtime sun, shine upon you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on...

Tucker cried vigorously in my arms, instantly turning bright pink. His body was so beautiful and big -- we didn't need to scale to tell us he was bigger than his two brothers at birth. He blinked up at us, the soft twilight falling in the den still brighter than the world from which he had just arrived. Aunt Robin would later say it best -- he looked "familiar," but very much his own person. His crinkled brow gave him an air of seriousness, an age beyond his seconds of life. Joan wrapped his back with a receiving blanket my mother used to wrap me forty years ago. Jordy sat beside us and we embraced each other. I've never felt so close to another human being.

Moments later Duncan and Reeve arrived with Magdalena, who later told me they heard his first cry as they walked in the door downstairs. They had stopped off at Connecticut Muffin for a hot chocolate to await further instructions, then packed it up and came home as soon as they got word. Reeve came straight to our side. Duncan took in the situation, then joined us. It was a happy jumble of kids and baby and first efforts to breastfeed and dog. Ali and Magdalena then took the boys down to watch "Totoro" while I prepared to pass the after-birth. Duncan returned to see the placenta, which he had read about in a storybook about birth. Joan lifted the amniotic sack with her hands -- "This was the little tent where your brother lived for nine months." He was very interested in the strong rubbery umbilical cord.

My guardian angels delivered apples and pears sliced on a platter. Vitamin Water arrived by straw to my mouth. Night fell as we weighed him -- 8 pounds, 8 ounces -- and Joan checked all his parts. He smelled so good, earthy traces of vernix on his head. Joan put on his first diaper and a pair of zebra socks Aunt Robin had given Duncan as a baby. Jordy took him while Joan and Jamie gave me a few stitches in the bedroom and gave me a shower. Then, after a few instructions and plans for a follow-up visit, their gear all seemed to fly back into their bags, they opened their umbrellas, and like Mary Poppins, they disappeared with the wind. (I later learned they returned to their other laboring mom, who delivered the next morning at 5am.)

The guardian angels fed the big boys downstairs while Jordy and I made phone calls to family. Later Maria gave the boys a bath; I remember them all laughing -- what was she saying to them? In P.J.s with wet heads, we five gathered again on the couch in the den where Mama and Papa toasted with a Chimay Red beer (thank you, Leeanna Varga) while the big boys cooed over their new baby. At bedtime, Jordy took Tucker again so I could read the boys stories and we sang our goodnight songs. Another day in the life.

Once they were asleep I went to the kitchen where Ali and Maria had warmed the last of Sunny's lasagna for me. By 9 o'clock we said our goodbyes and they too flew away. When I went up to bed I found Maria had left a pitcher of water and a plate of fruit on my night stand. That night I drank and ate it all. I was so ecstatic I couldn't sleep a wink.

Today is April 28th, nearly five months later and two months since I began to record this story. Baby Tucker is napping in the crib. The cherry blossoms have nearly all fallen, the daffodils are long gone, and the leaves have returned to the sweet gum tree, gracing the sidewalk with shade as the sun gathers strength. Tucker smiles and giggles. On April 3 at 10 o'clock pm he flipped himself from back to tummy, a trick he now performs the instant you lay him anywhere. This week he discovered the jumpy seat where he can practice bipedalism and propel himself to thrilling heights. At his four-month appointment he shocked the pediatrician by "tripoding," sitting up -- a six-month milestone; we credit Duncan Green, Tucker's personal trainer. Reeve brings Tucker his little stuffed puppy dog "Douglas," which Tucker can now reach for and grab, and reads him "Dora" books. The babysitters affectionately call the Baby of Unusual Size "Baby Gordo" (chubby baby). The winter is a happy blur of snowstorms, visits from loved ones, trips to Arizona and New Hampshire, and Reeve's 3rd birthday party. Tucker and I find our way back to that timeless place when we sit quietly and nurse, but more often the lights of the universe stream past us in bright ribbons. We are back in Time. But everything is changed. Pieces of myself long broken are mended. I am grateful beyond measure for this little guy. Our family unit feels complete, as if the last passenger got on board and we are off...

A Few of the Ways This Pregnancy Has Changed Me

Since I'm still pregnant, I thought I'd take this moment to catalog just a few ways I've changed over these past 9 months.

(1) My main preoccupation these days is the Bloody Show. This isn't something out of "New Moon" (the teen vampire flick currently in theaters) but rather that hopeful little trace of blood-laced mucus that would indicate the onset of Labor sometime soon. This morning there was a hint of pink!

(2) Nine months ago I was a size 10 P (petite). Today I am a solid size 10 B (bulbous). Ditto for my bra size. As a consequence, Reeve, who gave up nursing last summer, has re-discovered my "mum-mums" as objects of curiosity. (I hope he doesn't re-discover a taste for Mama lattes once Baby shows up.)

(3) I've become an Oxytocin Devotee. My particular interest is the interaction and conflict between oxytocin (the love hormone) and adrenaline (the flight or fight hormone) during birth. I hadn't understood how the closely the cascade of birthing hormones follows the same sequence as the sexual response in women (isn't nature clever?), or how logical it is that an excess of fear hormones would counteract that process. How cool is it that the New York Times just reported on my favorite hormone?
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24angier.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=oxytocin&st=cse

(4) My carbon footprint has more than doubled. Just as the Obama administration lured consumers to buy gas-saving vehicles, Jordy and I traded our Toyota Prius (45 mpg) in for a Volvo XC70 (18 mpg). By the government's formula for tax off-sets, we should have paid a $16,000 penalty for the exchange.

(5) I have received a promotion. My title has been C.O.O. (Chief Operating Officer) & co-C.E.O. (Jordy was my co-Executive, along with his other designation as C.F.O.). This morning Jordy and Duncan discussed my contributions to the creation of this family, and while they gave Jordy credit for Conceptual Contributions, they agreed that I deserved the rank of C.M.O.(Chief Manufacturing Officer), along with my aforementioned titles. Compensation will be in stock options.

(6) I have become a practitioner of Kundalini Yoga, without a clue what cosmic forces I am engaging. What it looks like, among other things, is a bunch of pregnant women squatting together in a circle moving our Kegel muscles in harmony to a woman's airy voice singing "Sa-ta-nam!" which means something about honoring my truth and my inner wisdom, etc. At the end, when we hold our bellies and join the woman in singing, "May the long time sun shine upon you, all light surround you, all love surround you... And the pure light within you, guide your way on!" to our babies, I find tears streaming down my face. I don't ask a lot of questions.

(7) I have become a recluse. This is a relative term, given the general Green family tendency to extroversion, but for two weeks now it's fair to say I've not made a single play date. I find pick-ups and drop-offs at school, usually a nice brief encounter with other adults, to be socially taxing. My inner female animal tells me to walk the dog for hours on end in the park, then return home and curl up under a blanket. However, sine Baby didn't come as early as we thought he might, based on past experience, I'm finding that my self-imposed isolation is starting to make me weird. What to do now? Should I crawl out of my shell for a breather, even as each day brings D-day closer? Thank God for my dear friend Jeanne in Palo Alto, due 12 days after me, who has a knack for calling at the exact moment when I think I've gone over the edge. And to Ali and Maria, who keep closer tabs on me.

(8) I have joined the iTunes revolution. After resisting the whole thing, even mocking it, the idea of a "birthing" playlist hooked me and I'm a junky. I've cleared two bookshelves in the living room by filing our CDs in a binder. I digitized the ones I want to listen to. I, Samantha Jane, am "synching" my iPhone to my iTunes. I've started up "Smart Playlists." I've bought a battery-powered speaker set that can travel with me to whatever room I feel like laboring in. And at this moment, I am listening to "It's Raining Men," which I dowloaded easily at the iTunes store along with "May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You." My New Age playlist may do the trick, but I suspect the Weather Girls might give me the extra power I need to birth my third little man.

(9) The Good Girl has apparently given way to the Radical. I'm not sure when I drifted over the line, or who even drew the line. I was raised to believe women can birth babies, that it's a natural process that sometimes needs medical intervention. I gave birth to my first two in a hospital. I'm going to see if I can give birth to this guy at home. If we need to, we'll use the back-up of the hospitals nearby. Safe birth is the goal, and in my view, safety starts with my own preparation -- tackling my fears, or at least engaging them, so I don't set of the physiology of fear that comes with pain, as well as taking good care of myself physically and mentally these 9 months. It means lining up the right support, first and foremost my husband and our certified nurse midwife, then medical resources as needed, and wise women who've got my back. I've come to believe that the term "Home" Birth is most wisely taken as a metaphor. I care less where I give birth geographically than that I feel fully engaged in the doing of this. For me, anesthesia and continuous fetal monitors feel a bit like wiring up Tom Brady and sending him onto the field. If I get a serious body slam, I will be grateful for the support on the sidelines and will have no problem asking for their help. But I believe I'm the one who fundamentally has to do this thing, together with my little passenger.

(10) I have awakened to the cervical imagery that permeates the universe. I wear a necklace with a circular Polynesian nut pendant that is about 2 centimeters dilated. On December 1st the full moon rose over Prospect Park, a ripe, glowing, fully dilated cervix!

(11) I am learning how to live in the rubber time of the present moment. Day stretches after day, and here we are. Time to go check on the Bloody Show.

On the Run from the Piggie

I take it back. I am, or was, afraid of the swine flu, judging from my reflex to kick my husband not only out of the bedroom, but out of the house for a week. Lest I come off as the brute that I was, I need to back up and explain the circumstances.

Just before Halloween, my beloved husband flew to a resort in Palm Springs for the wedding of dear friends. Given that I was 35 weeks pregnant, it was Halloween weekend (the Brooklyn equivalent of Mardi Gras in New Orleans), and Duncan's 5th birthday, Jordy and I decided that I would stay home while he would represent us at the wedding. My mother intended to come to Brooklyn to help me with the kids and the multiple waves of festivities.

The Piggie first raised his head when my mother decided to cancel her Dartmouth coach bus reservation from New Hampshire to Manhattan. The Dartmouth College campus has been awash with swine flu; so, she reasoned, it probably wasn't a good idea to ride for five hours in closed quarters with a bunch of college students. She was awaiting knee surgery and feared the flu would set her surgery date back. By this logic, I asked, perhaps she should consider whether it was a good idea to visit on a weekend that involved two little kid birthday parties, not to mention the 400-500 vampires, Darth Vaders, mummies, and zombie brides we expected on our doorstep on Hallow's Eve? She slept on it, then awoke the next morning in appropriate epidemiological terror. Trip over. Score one for the Piggie.

The three days of Jordy's absence passed in a blur of sugar, spider webs, mummy wrappings, pumpkin innards, shrieking children, Chinese take-out, and musical chairs to the "Monster Mash." Jordy arrived Sunday morning after a red-eye flight, just in time to walk the dog before the arrival of the last and biggest wave: Duncan's twelve closest school friends, their siblings, their parents, and I believe even some grandparents. By two o'clock when the cake crumbs had settled, Jordy and Reeve collapsed on the couch downstairs. I drifted in and out of consciousness upstairs to the strains of "Viva, Mexico! Hey hey hey! Viva, turn up the radio!" while Duncan watched his new DVD, Scooby Doo and the Monster from Mexico. At bedtime, Jordy and I congratulated ourselves on pulling off the big weekend -- and germ-free, no less.

Monday morning, still exhausted from Saturday's lost night of sleep, Jordy went into the office to find a junior colleague "not feeling well" after a big Halloween weekend of drinking. By noon the junior colleague had gone home to sleep it off. By Tuesday the junior colleague had not returned to work.

Cross-cut: At school pick-up Tuesday, two other pregnant mothers and I commiserated about the daily New York Times coverage of pregnant women and swine flu. One nicely terrifying story told of a woman in Florida whose baby was removed by emergency c-section at 28 weeks while the mother was in the ICU; the baby had died, and the mother was hanging on by a thread. I had a vaccine shot scheduled for Friday, but our pediatrician had already run out of shots for the kids. One of the other pregnant moms had tracked down a clinic that had 500 doses. It was clear across Brooklyn, but would I like the contact information?

After school the next day I drove the kids an hour through coagulated rush-hour traffic to a clinic in Williamsburg. Orthodox Jewish mothers with far more -- and better behaved -- children watched my two boys tear around the waiting room as I filled out endless paper work. In the exam room, we only destroyed one blood pressure hose before the doctor appeared and gave the boys their shots. A tiny bead of clear liquid remained on Reeve's arm after the needle was withdrawn. Did he get the full dose? I wondered but decided not to ask. Did I need one? The doctor asked. No, I had an appointment at NYU on Friday with my own doctor. "See you in 30 days for the second dose, then!" the doctor said. Second dose? We have to go through this again?

On the drive home, weakened by traffic and children fighting in the back seat over whether to listen to Scooby Doo or MammaMia!, I let my petty angels whisper resentful thoughts. Three days at a resort in Palm Springs vs. three days of pregnant solo parenting in Brooklyn...?

Boiling the water for pasta, I prepared carefully how to express my condition to Jordy. He is not always sanguine when I reach Wits' End (a generous over-reaction on his part, like an allergy that makes him flare up in anger when I am discontented before being able to hear that it's not his fault). I was genuinely exhausted, but I knew the risk of letting resentment drive the conversation. I dispersed my petty angels and resolved to make a clean ask for help.

6:15. Jordy walked in the door. "Hi, Sweetie. I think I've hit the wall-" I began, but stopped. He looked wind-blown and flushed, as if he had run -- or been chased -- home. "I feel like crap," he said quietly.

My resolve vanished. A mob of petty angels rushed in. Was this a Man Cold? How dare he? In my moment of need, he turns up with a stuffy nose?

But I contained myself, and the chattering voices within, and encouraged him to take his temperature. 99 degrees. We carried on with dinner. He handled the bath and bedtime stories, while I did the dishes and walked the dog. He took out the trash. But by bedtime, he reported feeling worse. Since I hadn't had my shot, I asked if he would be willing to sleep in the TV room.

Thursday morning. I took the early shift with Reeve at six. When Jordy appeared in the kitchen doorway at seven o'clock, I had to admit, he looked bad. He was reading his iPhone and shaking his head. "Dylan tested positive for H1N1." Dylan, you might guess, is the aforementioned junior colleague.

"How do you feel?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"Like a train hit me," he said from the doorway. He took a step forward. I took a step back. He stopped.

The previous 15 hours played back in dizzying rewind: Shots. Effluence on Reeve's arm - did he get enough? "See you in 30 days for the second dose!" "No, thanks, I have an appointment at NYU with my own doctor on Friday." Duncan sharing Halloween candy with Jordy after dinner. Jordy giving baths and bedtime stories.

Vicious little piggies with wings were flying throughout our house! I knew my own body was defenseless. Would the boys' little bodies be able to hold?

"I don't know what to do," Jordy said, adrift.

A reptilian part of my brain took over. "I need you to go to your office apartment."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"But it take a week."

"I can't be the one to take care of you now."

"I understand. I'll just get some things together."

"Okay." He plodded up the stairs. "Oh, and Sweetie? While you are up there, can you open the windows of the TV room and put on the fan?"

Moments later, the boys and I waved through the window as he left. He waved back sadly. That would be the last we'd see of him for four days.

Score Two for the Piggie.

Thursday I filled a Tamiflu prescription my midwife had given me, "just in case," and began taking the prophylactic dosage. My doctor bumped me to the front of the line, so as soon as I dropped the kids at school I got on the subway to Manhattan where strangers seemed to cast swine-like shadows... Or was it I who was casting the shadow with a snout?

When I got to the doctor, I informed him proudly that I had already taken a Tamiflu pill that morning. He shook his head. "Then I'm not sure the shot will do you any good. Tamiflu changes the way your immune system reacts to the shot."

Panic. "But only the live denatured nasal spray, I believe?" I had read the pharmaceutical information cover to cover on the train. Had I misunderstood? I wanted to cry. He went to his computer. Eight long silent minutes while he double checked the medical literature. Not even NYU doctors, I realized, know everything about this flu.

At last he stood up. "Pull up your sleeve."

Every day I nearly worked up a fever watching the boys and myself for fever. It can take up to seven days for the immune system to build up the antibody reaction. We canceled all play dates. We said hello to neighbors from a distance. Although I took the kids to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday to avoid an even worse case of cabin fever, we spoke to no one and kept our distance, feeling safer among the Okapi animals than among other humans.

I discovered that one of the hardest side effects of plague is the isolation.

On Sunday we met Jordy in Prospect Park. I wanted to hug him. The boys wanted to climb on him. But we had decided on a no-touch visit. He had been free of fever for 12 hours but still felt like his muscles had been pulverized. Could he come home? He went back to the office for a nap, after which we would decide. By evening his fever had returned. Had we rushed it?

Jordy finally came home on Tuesday, six days after his first flush of fever and 36 hours after it had abated. I finished the 10-day course of Tamiflu four days later. So far, not a smidge of temperature.

I picture a Fellowship of the Antibodies, B-cells and T-cells, coursing through our four -- no, five -- little bodies, slaying evil micro-piggies left and right.

Score one, Green Beans.

My Run as a Mermaid

When I became a parent, I expected stinky diapers, tantrums, even - thanks to my sisters - a painful learning curve on breastfeeding. I didn't expect parenthood to give me my break as a Broadway star.

Most new parents share the experience of pushing air through rusty vocal chords, resurrecting the classics to ease a crying infant to sleep - "Twinkle Twinkle," "ABC," "Ba-Ba-Black-Sheep," eventually moving on to other tunes such as "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" or "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round." When those don't work, we rack our brains, dragging up Middle School choir tunes ("On Top of Old Smokey," anyone?) or "Jingle Bells" (the kid doesn't care that it's August - or that he's Jewish). Our oldest child, Duncan, was satisfied with whatever tunes we came up with, however in or out of tune they were, as long as we kept singing. We pulled out some Elvis ("Take my heart, take my whole life too") and Elton John ("How wonderful life is now you're in the world"), which seemed to capture our new reality as parents.

His younger brother, however, had more specific requirements.

It began one rainy weekend like any other when we rented a DVD from the movie store. Duncan had heard about a movie called "The Little Mermaid" from one of his friends at school. Duncan, who was 3 at the time, watched with rapt attention. We expected Reeve, who was 1, to watch for his usual span of five minutes, then wander off to unload the pots and pans from the cupboard or bang on his mini-piano. Not so. Reeve was transfixed.

Needless to say, we had to watch the movie as many times as possible before the midnight deadline at the movie store. Then, to put off the endless demands to rent it again, I had the great idea to buy the soundtrack. That way, I justified to myself, at least their little Disney-colonized imaginations would be exercised in conjuring the magical underwater world through the evocation of music. Of the ten hours driving from New York back and forth on our many trips to New Hampshire, at least five were spent looping mermaid Ariel's aria of longing, "Part of Your World". Desperate efforts by the parents to move on to another song -- or another CD? -- were met with roof-raising protests.

The season of The Little Mermaid corresponded with a major effort to get Reeve to sleep at night in his crib. He fought falling sleep like a tarpin fights the fishing line. His non-negotiable requirement before surrender: That I sing "Part of Your World," in its entirety.

At first I performed the task out of duty and desperation.

"Look at this stuff,
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl,
girl who has everything?

Look at this trove,
Treasures untold,
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you think, sure,
She's got everything?

I've got gadgets and gizmos a plenty,
I've got who-sits and whats-its galore,
You want thing-a-ma-bobs,
I got twenty,
But who cares? No big deal?
I want more......"

But soon I found something curious going on. As I watched Reeve's little eyes, wide open and fixed on the ceiling, I felt his longing for more. Could he already have figured out that the world is filled with useless gizmos and gadgets that distract us from what we really long for? What do I long for that I've lost track of?

"I want to be where the people are,
I want to see, want to see 'em dancing,
Strolling along on those, what's that word again?
Oh, feet...
Flipping your fins you don't get too far,
Legs are required for jumping, dancing,
Walking along on those, what's that word again?
Streets!"

Did I hear my little audience member sigh? My little wobbly walker just figuring out how to walk, jump, dance? My pre-verbal toddler longing for the power of words? The sincerity of his longing to be a part of this big human world, against his instinctual awareness of his limits, cracked my heart open.

"Up where they walk, up where they run,
Up where they stay all day in the sun,
Wandering free, wish I could be,
Part of that World!"

Childhood memories flooded me. Longing to be included in my older sister's Barbie games with her friends; longing to be one of the "big kids" allowed to go out to dinner at the Sail Loft with the cousins; longing to escape the chubby body that attracted Paul Appleton's taunts of "Miss Piggy" at the bus stop; longing to defy gravity by completing an axel jump on figure skates...

I was no longer a mother crouched on the carpet of her son's nursery. I was a mermaid, perched on a rock, singing from the depths of my soul.

"What would I give if I could live outta these waters?
What would it take to spend a day warm on the sand?
Betcha on land they understand that they don't reprimand their daughters!
Bright young women, sick of swimming,
Ready to Stand!"

Were those tears in my eyes as my mermaid self recalled all the dreams of my bright young woman self? To participate in the world? To lead a life that matters? To make art and tell stories that move people the way I was being moved by this song? My voice quivered now with emotion as the full import of the song penetrated and I wondered, did I ever Stand?

"I'm ready to know what the people know,
Asking my questions and get some answers,
What's a fire and why does it, what's the word, Burn?"

I was burning now. How many questions had I abandoned? Lost in the category of, "I don't have time" or "I'm too tired"? My voice soared with heart-felt emotion. A single spotlight held me in the darkness. My audience was spellbound by the power of the music, by the truth of my performance. Each note mattered. It must be exactly right. I was the voice of the universal desire that lives in each of our hearts, and which we must not let die!

"When's it my turn, wouldn't I love,
Love to explore the shore up above?"

Wait for it now. I took my time. I gave each word its deserved moment.

"Out of the sea, wish I could be,
Part of that world..."

The spotlight dimmed. I had so transported my audience they couldn't even muster applause.

I opened my eyes. My little audience looked at me through the bars of his crib, quiet, intent, and uttered a single word, "Again."

And so began my Broadway career. Digging into the depths of my soul, three performances a night, for months. Until one night, he didn't want it any more. And I realized, with a little sadness, that the show had closed.