photo by Grace Groot. Madeleine and I (9 months pregnant).

Balance has always been a word that made my skin crawl. A kind of hokey, mumbo-jumbo approach to life lacking any root or grounding. When I would find myself drowning in a sea of school/work/relationships/sports, my mom would tell me I lacked balance. And it made me want to sock her in the nose. (I really do love her heaps and heaps.)

I know she meant well. She still does. But balance just isn’t my word. I’ve always loved to throw myself into things full tilt. Rowing. Boyfriends. Jesus. Faith. And it has often served me well.

Often. Not always.

And now I am a mother. And I have hit thirty. And I am coming around to this seven-letter-word. B-A-L-A-N-C-E.

For everything there is a season (Ecclesiastes.) And, like my dad said last week, “we need a balance of work, family and service (to the Church.)”

My awesome friend Meg tipped me off to a series on Balancing Work, Life and Motherhood. Though some of these women employ full-time nannies, many of them are quite normal — all pursuing creative work with children in tow.

I have been on the wet coast for five days now and the unexpectedly cool weather has been doing my eight-month-pregnant body good. I expect when I return to Toronto’s July humidity I will balloon something fierce. In the meantime I am enjoying much quality time with family and friends, lots of time at various petting zoos, and altogether too many americanos and plates of dessert. What a good holiday should be.

This is my first visit home since our move to Toronto and it is different than I would have expected. Instead of packing in trips to my favourite Vancouver enclaves I am wanting for quality time with people wherever I can get it. DQ in suburbia. Visits to my grandma in the hospital. Teeter-tottering in Queen’s Park.

I am fitting in some final article writing, interviews and key meetings before I return home and baby number two arrives. I have this (well founded) feeling like my life is going to (temporarily) end when baby boy shows up a month from now. It is amazing the productivity that comes with that kind of a deadline. In the past month and a half I have checked off some major writing to-dos, like stacks of poetry submissions, article pitches, contest/mentorship apps, and some other quieter projects. I promise to post a bunch of recent articles soon.

Vancouver (/Bowen Island,) I love you — ALL OF YOU, MY BEST FRIENDS, MY FAMILY – more than ever.

when

you

love

somebody

THIS MUCH

words

don’t

do you

justice

______________

I am cherishing these last days as just the two of us, being mindful of how our world will change when another little one makes his way into our world. There are new days ahead.

Our house is chaos, but we love it.

We love the stained glass, the hardwood floors, Madeleine’s aubergine room, and the piano room with the view of our winter-ravaged backyard. We love our neighbours who have lent us heaters and a hand while we went without heat our first week here (turned out all it was a dead battery in the thermostat, oops.) We love that the next door neighbours have teens keen to babysit and that I met a lovely lady named Reve whose sister wants to nanny part-time. I love that my midwife group is only a five minute drive away. I love that the kids go fishing in High Park and that there are fall fish runs in the nearby Humber River. I love that a hippy-(read: Vancouver)-looking mama told me that.

I am making lists, taking names. We bought a used Subaru and a sweet marigold couch straight out of the seventies for our little reading nook, for $40.

We are piecing it together, together.

(House-in-progress pictures to follow)

madeleine and her adorable cousin sloane

sometimes.

the enormity of my mama-role swallows my pea-mind whole and falls me to tears and I think of all the babies in the world who have never known their womb mothers, never seen their seed fathers, seen their faces a thousand times and never swam in the tsunami of their love. and I find myself ebbing salt streams, biting lower lip, peering at my daughter, whispering a gratitude so deep it’s like a chisel having its way with my ribcage. and i think of the other, the 19-week son/daughter swimming through his/her childhood and beg Heaven to show me how to bathe them in the world’s good Truth.

and today Nicole showed me that…

“since i’m here, committed to the death, it’s best if i distill the job down to essentials: my main goal as a parent is to help my kids make much of God. it’s as simple and impossible as that. college scholarships and trombone lessons and starting midfield are all icing on the cake, buttery but optional. if i can knead their hearts soft toward Him, i will have mothered well.”

photo above by crumpets and cakes

the blog goes silent. for months. and you wonder where your friend is. you wonder why your favourite blog has fallen quiet. i can tell you. she’s pregnant. unwillingly camped in a dry, barren desert we veterans call the creative badlands.

it happened at lovelydesign and at champagnewednesdays in their first few months. and it’s happened here. first with madeleine and now, again.

yes, i am expecting.

so here i sit at the kitchen table sipping a tumbler of flat gingerale while my one-year-old fills tupperware with oats by the handful.

(baby number two is due at the beginning of august.) :)

…almost. 

:::

It’s been a rough week. Madeleine and I were both hit with a terrible stomach flu following our delightful weekend in Victoria. Birthday festivity pictures to come. (English Inn Resort! Raw Canvas! Shopping in Vic!) And poetry. Oh yes.

Dear One,

I feel like I am in a holding pattern. Waiting for you. Waiting to see your face, smooth as milk. Your almond eyes, bright as the sunset, blue.

The heat is unbearable. I spend my days finding creative ways to escape swollen ankles, upset stomach, sweaty brow.

I wish we were together, you and I. Sitting by water’s edge. My feet dipped in the shore. You, nursing. I long to know you, my dear one. The longing calls out from the bowels, deep. I feel my womb, groaning, to birth you into the world. The thought of it calls me to tears.

Believe me Dear, I have all the love in the world for you. Your eyes will be my treasure, forever. I fear ever letting you go, ever letting the world reach out its blackened hands to touch you.

I imagine your tiny fingers curled, clasping my pinky. Your gentle eyes combing my face. Pure joy. I long to meet such innocence. To meet you, my dear one. Our angel.

We are reaching out our hands. Won’t you come to meet us?

Love Mama

– July 30, 2009

Your face is an orbit. Pursed lips, supple skin. Bright eyes, like moons. A constellation.

You are a little ship, a face like an ocean cresting. Raven hair and blue eyes the size of boulders. 

I swim in your sea from day’s break to day’s end. You are my life’s greatest treasure. Lying beside you these first days has felt like a rebirth. Your soul, your face, every inch of you speaks pure. Your loveliness outshines the rainbow that nestled itself outside our window yesterday. I would spend the rest of my days gazing at your face if the world, the Lord, would allow. Instead I will take my moments, store them in my heart like gold, and watch you grow, grow, grow up into heaven, out into the world.

We welcomed our little girl one week ago today. Madeleine Jacoba Hope.

Madeleine comes from the root ‘Magdalen’ meaning ‘High Tower.’ Therefore she is named after Mary Magdalene and also the wonderful writer, Madeleine L’Engle. Jacoba (pronounced Yacoba) is my grandmother’s middle name, common to the Dutch, which shares the same Hebrew root as my brother James’ name. Hope is a word that has particularly captured me this year (I wrote about it here.) Also, we felt the name appropriate due to to the amount of times we had to reach out to Jesus for hope during her labour and delivery. It was a long journey to meet our little girl. 

Madeleine weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz after 81 hours of labour, start to finish. Although we laboured almost entirely at home, she was delivered naturally by our midwives at Burnaby General Hospital in the wee hours of the morning. Mommy was too tired to go anymore without a little help (a small amount of IV Oxytocin.)

Our new life with Madeleine:

In the words of Madeleine L’Engle, one of our little girl’s namesakes: “Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.”

Our prayer is that our little one will tell the story of Christ through her beautiful, adventurous, and marvelous life.