my husband is my most favorite person.

today is his birthday.

last year on this very day, on his day of birth, 

on a day we should celebrate,

we found out our baby was deaf.

in that moment, 

it felt like someone killed something inside of us.

or stole something from us.

we didn't know that it would be ok - that our daughter would be ok - that we would be ok.

i remember sitting in the livingroom, 

on matt's birthday night.

matt sat holding our two week old little m, 

bouncing her on our exercise ball 

(because that is the only way she would calm down), 

crying. 

really crying.

i remember saying through my tears, 

"i cant do this. i really can't do this. 

i don't even know how to be a mom of a baby that doesn't have anything wrong!"

we had no idea what life was about to look like.

it was a pretty sucky birthday.

here we are a year later...

i love this man on sucky days and on perfect ones.

i love that in those first days, when i would say those words in the secret of our home, 

"i can't do this! i can't be m's mom! i'm not strong enough"

that he would listen, hug me + send me back to spend time with our baby

because he knew that being with her would bring me out of my dark place.

i love that he is the same person behind closed doors that he is in public.

i love that he embraces me as an artist, even when i am full of fear, excuses or insecurity.

i love that he listens to my stories, 

even though i ramble needlessly and lose my train of thought.

i love that he believes in community.

i love that he has the biggest stack of books on his "to read" pile ever 

and still gets new books every chance he gets.

i love that he is always trying to live out his faith, 

even if he winds up with more questions along the way.

i love that he bakes the best chocolate chip cookies i have ever had.

i love that we will never be the couple that finishes each others sentences, 

but that he still usually knows what i am thinking when i don't say a single word.

i love that he is such a natural and nurturing dad.

i love that he puts up with me, even though i am a handful.

happy birthday to you, matthew thomas.

here's to a better birthday this time around.

i couldn't be me

without

you.

(also)

it's spring. 

well, it has been for a while now, 

but thought i'd mix the layout up a bit.

enjoy the brighter colors 

xo,

me

{one}

on easter day, april 12th,

this little monkey turned one!

i can hardly believe it's been an entire year. 

what a full year:

bursting with such joy and sorrow and discovery, 

all mixed and mingled together.

but the joy wins out, every time.

just like the good overcomes the hard.

grandma made a cake!

{little m attacked it}

maybe the rest of us did too.

(can you blame us? my mom is a super amazingly great baker)

{dear sweet m,

you are a joy-bringer. 

you have taught me how to see and hear and feel new things. 

we love having you in our family.

i am so glad that you can hear me say that i love you.

because i do.

love, 

your mommy}

you can do anything for a month.

you can do anything for a month.

that, i am sad to say, has been my mantra these past few weeks. i guess it's better than when i would tell myself, "you can do anything for a year" when i was 22, and teaching in a crazy combo 4/5 classroom with an emergency credential, no textbooks, and 35 kids. (but that's another story.)

so, you may wonder where i have been these past few weeks. well, sometimes life just doesn't look the way you had planned it. {i think i've learned that over and over this past year, as if the 33 years leading up to this past year hadn't already taught me that.}

i am knee deep in the detritus of my parents' divorce. that is to say, that i have been helping my mom clean out, pack up, and move everything out of the house. (and when i say pack up and move, i mean everything, from the 20 year old nordic track to my sibling's elementary school report cards.) the euclid house is 100 years old, and big, and has a lot of issues. so the past few weeks have entailed scraping wallpaper (really old and stuck on wallpaper covering every freaking inch of wallspace including closets), fixing walls, painting, tearing out bathroom fixtures, rewiring the electricity, filling a dumpster, hunting for ancient bathroom tile, priming, sanding, painting, hammering, running to home depot and salvage stores, organizing volunteers, and on and on. it's a big job, and i know i mentioned it in my sole post last week. it's a big job that keeps getting bigger, because well, the house is 100 years old. it's such a big job that, honestly, it is hard to explain. 

i have been living and breathing getting this house finished and ready to sell, and the rest of my life has stopped momentarily. last week matt's mom came up and was on little m duty all week. she did an amazing job, since i was working at the house from 8 every morning until at least midnight every night. now we are back to our routine of little m taking her naps and getting put down to sleep in a pack n' play until we are done working around midnight and we scoop her up, put her in the carseat, and bring her home to her crib. 

and yet, there is still so much to do. so. much. it overwhelms me if i think about it for too long. there is no way to sustain this pace of life for long, but we don't really have a choice. there are moments when i am working that i grieve the loss of my parents' marriage, the loss of the good memories that that house holds, the loss of who my dad was to me. some days i am just really sad, realizing that all of these hours of labor are leading up to a finality. my parents are getting divorced. i haven't talked to my dad since october. at times my heart feels like an open wound. this isn't the way i thought life would go. 

at the same time, there is something healing about the physical act of laboring, repairing, renovating this house. there is something healing about all of our friends who have come to labor alongside us, in a physical and tangible act of love for my mom. some of our friends don't even really know my mom, but they have come anyway, sacrificing multiple days or a few hours to muck through this mess with us. 

it is humbling. 

it is these acts of grace of the people in our life that remind me that i can do anything for a month. this season will pass - the house will become a home for someone else, our family will mend, and soon i will get to play with my daughter, cook meals with my husband, make art, spend saturday morning at the farmer's market, catch up with friends, go on long walks, bake, finally get back to my blog, return to my life.

for now, i work. 

splish splash

kids get dirty. 

so when we visited our friends kim and jeremy a few weeks ago, our dirty kids took a bath.

small, medium, and large.

(my daughter looks like she has been laying out with the hawaiian tropic slathered on)

sweet faced eli and amos share their tub.

how is it that roro hates bath time when she is all by herself, 

but loves it when i throw her in the tub with two other kids?

(little m isn't quite sure how to handle water in her eyes)

love it.

my little rockstar

(so close to walking!)

you may have noticed that i took a bit of a hiatus from the blog...

life has been full.

matt and i have been scrambling, helping my mom get the house my parents' lived in 

packed up, cleaned out, and ready to sell. 

to say that it is a big job would be an understatement.

to say that it is our full time job right now (in addition to matt's already full time job)

would be an understatement.

to say that it is overwhelming would be an understatement.

in the meantime, our poor little m has had quite the weird life. 

most days she naps and goes to sleep at the house while i am working there, and then late at night we pull her heavy, sleeping body out of the pack n' play, put her in the carseat, drive home, and then put her back down again in her crib. she has rotated through multiple babysitters - kind friends who have offered to watch her so i can get work done, which means meals and naps in all sorts of locations. 

and yet, my flexible daughter still rocks.

she is joyful, silly, able to sleep pretty much anywhere, 

and willing to go to most anyone who will play with her.

soon we will have a day where she gets two naps in her own crib, play at the park or visit one of her little friends, walk to peets and get a treat, or do absolutely nothing all day but play on the floor, eat in her own chair in our kitchen, and then sleep in her crib on schedule.

soon.

for now, 

i am thankful that she puts up with the craziness.

dear blog,

i miss you.

um, more to follow. i promise.

yours truly,

susannah

{the stories we tell}

i have been going through all of the things in my parent's former house the past few weeks, dividing things equally into "mom" and "dad" boxes. it is surreal to be shuffling through the most mundane items- mugs, measuring cups, our childhood toys, knick-knacks, and  be reminded of our lifetime as a family, of countless moments that all add up to comprise one's life, and one's personal history. there is a strangeness to the fact that these inanimate objects are essentially worthless and could be thrown out without anyone specifically remembering that they are absent, and that simultaneously one glance at these same inanimate objects sparks years of meaning and memory just because they were a part of one family's daily life. 

and then a few days ago, matt and i received news that a very special elderly woman in our lives, jamie, had passed away. i cried when i got the email; jamie had such a regular, ordinary life on paper, but she was an amazing woman. this cleaning of a home, this passing of a dear soul, it has made me think a lot about the measure of one's life.

about ten years ago, i lived with jamie and her husband al for a summer in their place in southern california; then i would also stay there every month when i went down to visit matt. he and his roommate brian lived about 2 blocks from jamie and al. i had my own key, and because i was young and in love with matt, i would wake up early, go work out at the y, spend most of the day with matt (i helped run an art camp for the summer with matt and brian), and then return late at night to my little room at al and jamie's, which was decorated with kitschy stuffed clowns and lamps with red lightbulbs. 

that season was a wonderful one for me, not just because i was young and in love, but also because it was as if jamie and al were my grandparents. we would pick all of the fruit off of their trees: plums, pluots, figs, and make jam. we would watch the shows jag, law and order and the news together. they would tell me stories of all of the people in the photos on their family room wall. stories of their meeting on a train in the midwest. stories of the foster children they raised. of the biological children they raised. stories of canning and cooking in oklahoma growing up. stories of going to powwows (al is part native american.) stories of jamie's youth growing up in oakland: going to oakland high, walking with her sister through trestle glen, raising money for the golden gate bridge to be built by wearing maroon silk shirts to school, living off of grand avenue- just blocks from the house i am now packing up. jamie would cook: texas toast, chicken and dumplings, casseroles, and always try to feed me seconds and thirds. we would play mexican train, long lines of dominos stretching across the family room table.

here was this regular woman, in her 70's at the time, who had a lifetime of amazing stories. she was the inspiration for the public art grant i did in the city of oakland called "stories we tell", because i wanted people to hear the stories that women like jamie carry - stories that disappear unless we take the time to listen to them. our society is so quick to separate us all out into age categories, and the older, wiser members of us get pushed to the side and ignored. in the grand scheme of the world, i realize that most outside of her closest family members will even realize that jamie perry is absent. but her life, her stories, her marriage, her kindness, have made me a better woman. i hope my life is as long and as rich in generosity as hers was.

(listen to each other's stories)

oh, i still ♥ fabio, even if he ignored our table

so, even though i've been remiss in blogging about my love for top chef, it is no secret that i ♥ project runway and top chef. it is no stretch when i love to cook...and those two shows remind me of art school, that they are the perfect reality show equation. of course, i don't have a tv, so i have to hunt it down and find where it has been illegally posted on sites like youtube. tricky wicky, i know. well, last week we got to hang out with our friends jeff and jenny, who also love top chef. we happened to adore the top chef contestant fabio, much like most of america. (who can resist his pithy sound bites and swoony italian accent? not i.) jeff had tried to get us reservations at fabio's southern california restaurant, but they were booked for 8-10 weeks. jeff decided to email the restaurant in the hopes that fabio would read it and hook us up with a table. so guess who calls jeff! yes, fabio himself (or a really good impersonator, which is entirely possible & would be a brilliant business move...)! jeff had told fabio that we had had a difficult year, and that as parents of babies, we'd love a night out. suddenly we had a dinner reservation! we were soooo excited.the restaurant is in this random strip mall in moorpark, next to a baskin robbins. but there is a cute vespa parked outside, to transport you to florence. one vespa doesn't quite do the trick when you are staring at a large nondescript parking lot, but it's a nice touch. we waited for a while for our table, while all the moorpark singletons mingled and tossed their highlighted locks. it was pretty much the scene, apparently; at least if you counted all the single ladies showing off their manicured fingers, glossy lips, and come hither glances. 

finally we got to sit at our table...

we spotted fabio, 

and his lookalike (who works there too) once we got inside.

jeff & jenny, who are wholly responsible for us getting to eat at cafe firenze.

we started out with a super delish caprese salad. 

they put a slice of parmagiano in between the basil, mozarella, and tomato; 

unexpected and super good. 

we also had a kind of standard green salad with poached pears, 

carmelized walnuts, & blue cheese. 

lamb shank & gorgonzola gnocchi with sauteed mushrooms. 

the gnocchi were little pillows of love. 

they were perfection. oh my deliciousness.

 i dream of these now on a nightly basis.

jeff brought along some veeeeery nice bottles of vino.

yay for good food and good friends!

grilled sausages over mashed potatoes and sauteed veggies. jenny picked this yummy number.

behold the power of the best ravioli i have ever experienced in my life.

butternut squash & ricotta ravioli in a sage & cream sauce. 

seriously, i would drive to moorpark just for these - 

they were sweet, savory, amazing.

for all of you meat lovers, a close-up of the lamb shank situation. 

(sporting a limb of rosemary as garnish)

this was my least favorite of the evening; 

it was ok, but not quite as epic as the other entrees: 

pasta with pancetta & some sort of sauteed greens. 

eh, i was happy with the ravioli and gnocchi, but this was just so-so.

so, we caught glimpses of fabio schmoozing it up at other tables, 

but by the time we were done eating and wanting to say hello, 

he had supposedly headed home for the night. 

oh well, we had fun chatting with each other.

a toast to friends, and to discovering new restaurants thanks to reality tv.

how do you top such a great meal?

not with baskin robbins (although it was our initial plan)...

you sing old hits from the 90's at the top of your lungs all the way home. 

it was just that perfect.

ps. fabio, you missed out!

my daughter's moves

little m's target: adorable younger (by 4 months) man, henry david.

she makes her move and beckons for henry to come play with her.
henry is woo-ed by her boldness & crawls towards m

henry make sit all the way across the room to sidle up to little m, 

where they share the toy box 

(which everyone knows means true love)

{today is a good day to feel the grass between your toes}

sometimes

sometimes my heart is sad when i realize how much my daughter is in appointments. i know it is just a season, and that soon she will rarely visit doctors and audiologists and speech therapists. soon she'll just get to be a kid. i have to say that the people we have encountered in so many different offices are absolutely wonderful; it is as much of a joy as it can be to go to our pediatrician, or labs, or specialists, or school. there are some incredible individuals working in the world of hearing loss, and for that gift i am so grateful. 

i keep saying to myself and others, "soon it will all slow down. not so many appointments..." but somehow they keep coming. this week is a perfect example, as we have had appointments all morning wednesday, today, and tomorrow. i put my poor girl into her car seat at 8 am, and then two appointments later, we pulled back into our driveway at 1:41 pm. almost 6 hours in medical offices or in the car. one of her appointments included a blood draw, and she was 3 hours past her nap, so she screamed her little heart out while i pinned her squirming body down on the table. (crunch went my heart)

in the midst of it all, she is so flexible and charming. i am grateful. so thankful for her joy even when the day is long and the schedule is ever-changing.

home is where the mess is

as you can see, little m has been car-bound. don't be mislead by this cute picture - she spent a better part of the drive hoem form san diego not pleased. and when i say not pleased, i am referring to a sort of unhappiness that = the constant & blood curdling screams that she uttered throughout the night the first three months of her life. not fun. but in this picture, she posed. such a faker, my daughter.

we are home from our trip to so cal, and well, the house is a disaster, so in order to be, you know, responsible and all that, i am going to clean up and put away all of our stuff while little m sleeps. i'll be honest, i'd rather be blogging, because our trip was just so great: great friends, great meals, great art, great weather & great study leave for matt. 

just so you know, one of my very least enjoyable things in the whole world is unpacking after a trip. it's sort of like putting away folded laundry. granted, i feel so much better when i'm done, but there are about 4,657 things i'd prefer to do first.

ok, i'm off to be a non-procrastinator.

coming home

we're headed home from so cal! 

after a long but beneficial week of study leave for matt where he read, met with former professors, and dialogued about issues he's struggling with, and little m and i mostly played with a dash of work thrown in, we get back to oakland today. it was good for both of our souls, but not so fabulous for little m's sleep schedule. she's a mess. oh well, it was worth it.

happy monday!

oh, i heart you, springtime, yes i do

matt's mom always has the most amazing garden going on.

i love ranunculus- they are my favorites, and her backyard is chock full of them right now.

i love them so much that i was not pleased 

when someone cut a bunch of my pretty ranunculus 

in my front yard two years ago. 

(did you read that? 

they cut, 

not just ripped out, 

but took the premeditated energy, 

to cut the flowers in my yard?) 

it just happened to be mother's day. 

maybe it was a coincidence, but here's my theory:

i think someone had forgotten to get flowers, 

so they stole my perfectly blooming, joyous reminders of spring. 

i still haven't moved on, as you can see.

so pretty.

{love, love, love}

pretty much perfect.

they are like a little pint sized version of springtime. 

or maybe tablespoon sized version, 

because a pint sized ranuncula would be pretty massive.

speaking of food...

...and matt enjoying it, we've made a few yummy meals lately. 

last monday, on our way to southern california, we stopped at matt's parents for the night. matt has been hankering to make a full meal out of one of his newest cookbooks (purchased for him by his lovely and generous wife), david tanis' a platter of figs, so we decided to make his parents dinner. 

little m was not too pleased with her dinner of peas,

despite the tag team efforts of the grandparents.

matt's mom made a super delish spinach & cheese tart, with yummy puff pastry enclosing the oozy cheese in buttery flakiness. i ate waaaay too much of that appetizer, because it was just that good. (i took a picture but it didn't turn out so well, so you can rely on your powers of imagination and picture the goodness in your mind.) matt followed up with braised beef and rutabaga mashed potatoes; the meat was incredibly tender and the flavor, perfect.

we finished the meal with roasted apples-

sometimes the most simple thing 

is the best thing. 

it's kind of that way in life, too, i think.

our little foodie

(someone likes food as much as her daddy)

matt's signature move is to clap when a meal is epic. 

guess who started clapping in joy mid-bite the other day? 

yup, this little munchkin.

wish you were here...

matt is on study leave this week, so we are in pasadena, where we lived while matt finished grad school. we'd only been married one year, and we lived in a tiny little 450 square foot cottage. the shutters were pink. we'd eat meals at the end of the day in a dining nook that was smaller than many people's walk in closets. in the morning, we would run or walk along the bungalow lined streets, and at night, i'd paint out in our little garage. our place was one of four identical cottages, all lined up next to each other. it feels surreal to be back here, and i'm suddenly reminded of some of the things that make pasadena, well, so pasadena:

• the food. matt's stomach really likes pasadena. the hat for a pastrami burger, rick's for a sourdough cheeseburger, fries and iced tea, lucky boy for a breakfast burrito, la estrellita for nachos...(i'm partial to zankou chicken & the massive salads at green street restaurant-hello, yum.)
  
• the flock of noisy green parrots. i'd totally forgotten about these very loud, very active in the morning birds until first thing tuesday morning.
• the random shopping carts strewn everywhere in the city. shopping cart, anyone?
  
• the really wide, tree-lined streets. when we lived here the ghetto bird flew over our house every night, so we weren't exactly living in an upscale area, but our street was still wide and green. love.
  
• the rose bowl. so fun to walk around - it kind of reminds me of walking around lake merritt in oakland. except there's no water. or annoying fowl to trip over.
  
• the houses, which range from teeny cottage to cool restored bungalow to palatial mansion. pasadena is such a walkable city, and there are so many pretty houses to ogle...which reminds me of just how much matt and i walked when we lived here - even in the not so great areas of town it feels walkable.
• the traveling grocery stores. there are these nondescript delivery looking vans painted all white; once they pull over and roll up the back door, they become mobile mini marts. i walked by one yesterday that was chock full of items for sale: housewares, food, produce, random stuff, all neatly organized and lining the truck's insides from floor to ceiling. that's exactly what i need parked outside of my house when i run out of sugar in the middle of making cookies.
• the super great (and why don't they have these at all intersections besides chinatown and pasadena) crosswalks where you can cross diagonally as well as just through the traditional crosswalk? love it. you feel a little rebellious even though you are law abiding in your street crossing.
• vroman's bookstore. i freaking love that bookstore. little m and i walked down there yesterday for a little quality time, and from the look on her face as she pulled books by the handful from the shelves and dumped them on the floor, i think little m likes vroman's as much as i do. bonus: i spotted one of my papyrus cards that i hadn't seen in stores yet, so if you need to thank the administrative professional in your life, have i got the card for you!

ah, pasadena. it's good to be back, if ever so briefly.

finally

so, we all have our flaws: mine include enjoying diet coke, reading celebrity trash magazines in line at the grocery store, avoiding washing silverware, putting away laundry (love to fold it; hate to put it away), being the worst call-er back-er ever, and watching lame tv. of course, you know all of this if you've read my profile, because much to matt's chagrin, i am very upfront about it. don't get me wrong-i am also a woman of substance, but i have been known to dabble in the fluffy world of pop culture.

i've watched grey's anatomy since the first season. that feels like a long time ago. one of my friends was recovering from a bone marrow transplant and we'd sit together in the treatment room, huddled over her laptop, sharing a single set of earbuds and watching the latest episode that her husbnad had burned onto a dvd for us. she was being treated at a teaching hospital, so it felt only fitting that we would watch mcdreamy, meredith, and the clan living their pretend and love-drama-issues filled lives at seattle grace. it was a good distraction, and back then, it was a good show (even if it was/is basically a soap opera)

for some insane reason i keep watching it - usually when i am up at night working on freelance stuff and matt and little m have long ago gone to bed. this season has been ridiculous, but i've soldiered on, hoping that any episode now it would get good again.

it finally did- last week and this week were actually good episodes. the only reason i am even stooping to mention that i watch crappy tv on my blog is that i loved one of the lines from last nights episode:

people are better than no people.

in other words - we're human beings; we need each other. and we need to be there for each other. we are not meant to trudge through life alone. and we are also not meant to be so absorbed in our own crap that we don't show up when the people in our lives need us.

thanks for being my people. people are better than no people; i've gotten through a bad year much due to my people. (you're way better than drinking a diet coke and reading us weekly all by myself.)

storytime

we are in so cal this week; matt is on study leave which means play time for little m and i (with moments of work scattered in!) we stopped at matt's parents on the way down and i loved this shot of grandpa tom and m reading together. i love how intense my kiddo is. (don't know where she gets that from...)

(happy birth day to you(r ears))

(chalk on pavement by sophie, elodie, jonas, ashlynn & joaquin)

on sunday we had a hearing day of birth party for little m! her actual first birthday is on easter, but in some ways celebrating her new ability to access sound (especially after such a long road) seemed more important.

there was a definite chance of rain and our place was too teeny to contain all of the well wishers joining us, so i was a bit-ok, very- nervous. and then on sunday morning, after some brief showers the sun poked through the clouds until the blue gradually overcame the grey. first thing in the morning, when i was still at home and he was at the church already, matt called me just to say, "the sun is out!"

it was a wonderful celebration of little m's cochlear implants getting hooked up and turned on. i was kind of overwhelmed with gratitude at how many people came to join us in such a historic and special moment in our family. i felt supported and loved beyond measure, both for matt and i but also for little m- something never to be taken for granted. people from all parts of our life came to hang out, eat and drink. i loved it.

it was a pretty great afternoon: we hired the pupusa lady from down the street to come and make pupusas for everyone, braved the sunny but windy back yard, chowed on yummy latin fare, and enjoyed delish sweet treats at the end. (my one disappointment was that my blueberry pies did not set right- they were more like blueberry soup in a crust. sigh.) the big kids (i.e. older than little m but younger than say, 7 yrs old) decided to spend the afternoon decorating the entire perimeter of our house with amazing chalk drawings. what could be better than to walk outside and have the party continue with these beautiful drawings under foot? 

it was a wonderful celebration, and i am so grateful that the people in our life get how huge this moment is for us...pretty special.

 i can only imagine what little m will be able to hear and say a year from now! maybe she'll be tagging along after the chalk drawers, trying to keep up.

home.

sometimes you get the gift of sitting with friends, talking about everything and nothing, sharing the day, the sunshine, lingering over meals, doing the dishes together, walking together through quiet neighborhoods, life.

and even though you are miles from where you usually lay your head, you are home.

i'm thankful-that's exactly the kind of week i'm having.

little m is getting used to having her "ears" on! 

it is still a major hassle to actually get them on in the first place, and takes a whole lot of time and energy and a mini meltdown (on both our parts as well as hers...) but once they are on she just goes on with life as usual-like here where she is trying to get her dad's attention (it worked of course!)

a confession

matt says i always take over the whole bed when we are sleeping.

i think he's being dramatic and has a hard time telling where the half of the bed is 

when it's dark.

matt says i always steal the covers.

but, no, i insist; that is SO in your imagination! 

and then....

i made the bed the other day (not i novel thing, i promise), 

when i spotted his side of the bed covers, barely covering the mattress:

versus my side of the bed covers: long, almost touching the floor, 

and obviously unevenly distributed in favor of (gasp) 

me!

so i confess. 

i guess i am a blanket thief. 

i take it all back. 

not that i plan on doing things differently at all;

but i can at least be penitent in my thievery.