Each Part Gets a Present

I'm in full-on nesting mode. I've been baking, cleaning out the pantry, cross-stitching Christmas ornaments, for crying out loud. This always happens to me at the outset of autumn, as I've mentioned, but this year it could be an enhanced effect due to the baby's imminent arrival. Anyway, I like it. :)

This week is a big birthday week. D and R were born on the same day, September 20, exactly 32 years and 10 minutes apart. We've already had one party and will have two more, plus a romantic (I hope) dinner for two. I've just finished wrapping the too-many gifts I bought, and writing in D's card. I know I overdid it, but when it comes to D I am just so bursting-full of love and gratitude that I want to give him everything in the world. And when it comes to R, I have a hard time prioritizing the various facets of him -- the budding fisherman, the instinctive engineer/builder, the boy who loves honeybees, the Batman . . . so I end up making sure each part gets a present. I am very sure that D will like most of his gifts -- there's one I'm a little uncertain about. After the fact, I'll let you know how it went.

Physically I am having a really good day, for some reason. Maybe it started with a night that I almost slept through. It was the least-disrupted sleep I've had in quite a while, and I woke feeling rested. I also felt strong, though. I walked around without the walker all morning -- the bathroom looks really empty when there's no walker in it; for a minute I couldn't figure out what was different about it. I did a long set of my physical therapy exercises, adding a few dumbbell exercises for my triceps (which are oddly weaker than the other arm muscles) and some swinging kicks to strengthen my hip flexors. With luck maybe I'll get a little muscle tone back before I have to start all over again with recovery from a C-section incision. Then, as I've already told Dave, no one is ever coming near me with a scalpel again, I don't care what parts of me start to fall apart. (It's one of my character flaws -- I resort to blustery, posturing stubbornness when I'm nervous. I just can't believe that I will have had 3 operations in the course of 10 months!) Anyway, today is a good day. I wore myself out with all that exercising, and I had to rest a bit, but I'm back digging around for my brother's home-baked bread recipe.

A couple of quick reviews: I like the new BBC sci-fi show called Torchwood, and also the new iteration of Doctor Who. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the BBC; I love the naivete of mediocre production values and I love a good accent. Torchwood takes place in Cardiff, of all places -- how can I resist? I've only seen one episode of Torchwood so far, and it lacks the intelligence of Doctor Who at its best, but the heroine, Gwen, is irresistible.

Because I know most of you don't give a flip about SF, Welsh or otherwise, I'll add that I'm loving two new books. One is called Full Catastrophe Living, by the well-known western meditation expert, Jon Kabat-Zinn. This is apparently the 15th anniversary edition of the book, which is sort of a substitute for the renowned course in stress reduction that K-Z pioneered at the University of Massachusetts. The course, which is 8 weeks long, includes breath-focused meditation, the "body scan" relaxation exercise, and some simple yoga. The book, like the course, is designed for anyone whose life could use some stress reduction (who couldn't?), whether because of chronic pain or illness, recovery from injury or surgery, addictions, or just that ubiquitous-but-deadly fight-or-flight response that never goes away in the modern world. I've had some personal experience with meditation before, but I had never managed to develop it into a long-lasting, daily practice. Ditto for yoga, although I enjoyed both activities and found them very effective. This time, I truly hope I can develop this discipline for myself (obviously I'm not really doing any yoga right now, with the mermaid objecting in my belly), because fundamentally I believe that I am only going to achieve real health and wholeness when I can tackle the mind-body thang.

The other book is The Nursing Mother's Companion, by Kathleen Huggins. I started reading another book on breastfeeding before I received this one as a gift (thanks, Ellen!) -- this one is much better! Less preachy, less crunchy, more specific, more detailed . . . I really like it. Maybe I can eventually meditate while breastfeeding. :)