There are times when I wonder if I will ever communicate with others and find the time to express myself like I used to. And then I wonder why I feel the need to do so. And then I wonder why I think that my communicating will make the world a better or more interesting place. And then I wonder if this is because I was an only child, made to feel unique in a world that really does not see me that way. And then I wonder if this is a good or a bad thing. And then I wonder if I am doing all the right things to strike some perfect balance of self-respect and self-deprecation in my own child. And then I google it. And then I discover that there are as many opinions on this as there are varying theories on child training, and then my head explodes and I go take a nap. Or I try to. This depends on whether my own “little emperor” deems it time to nap himself, because if not, there will be no nap for his mother, just more of the constant rotation of feeding him, changing his pants, and keeping him from killing himself or destroying property.

In the last eight months, my wee darling has changed from a giggling, wobbly baby, lurching into his first steps, to a toddler, running around with his shoes on the wrong feet, intent on the sole purpose of his existence- destruction. Be it property, serenity, or schedule, all must be destroyed. He does this mostly with the supreme happiness found only by those fulfilling perfectly their life’s purpose- giggles and shrieks, little ditties and tunes, words we sometimes recognize and sometimes not.  Today, it was throwing fruit. Expensive fruit, I might add. Oranges and avocados. Off the table, they bounced and rolled across the floor. Then all gathered back onto the table to repeat. Then chagrin when this most amazing game was discovered and shut down. Then it was the lampshade. How can one best fit a bike helmet inside a lampshade? And better yet, what could one do with a bike helmet covered by a lampshade?

I find myself raising a little mechanic, in spite of my idealistic ideas of crushing gender role expectations and showing him that both sexes can be nurturers, both sexes can be mechanical, and that no color, toy, or occupation is specifically “girly”. He does hug his stuffed animals, but it appears he does so more when the dog is observing and salivating over the toy, waiting to grab it and cover it in doggy slobber and dirt. As in, nobody even had to teach him to antagonize and try to incite jealousy. He played with a borrowed doll with a poked-out eye this weekend, and spent the evening trying to poke out the other eye. However, he also observed the use of wrenches and pliers before he could walk, and now every bolt needs a tool, and when bolt and tool are both available, he knows exactly what to do. Every moving part is a challenge to study and figure out why it moves the way it does. Movement, or even the suggestion of it, is mesmerizing- even in the most crudely drawn of his cardboard books, he finds the pages with basic representations of trucks, loaders, trains or cars, and insists we read those pages over and over.

To add to the utter uselessness of trying to redirect these tendencies to something more nurturing is his lack of concern over bumps, bruises, and things that make other kids cry. Falling off a rocking horse and bumping his head is cause for a sober two seconds of rubbing the bumped spot, a grin and giggle because it must have been hilarious, seeing him go all upside down like that, and a climb right back on, to apply the lesson we just learned in balance or the need to hold on more tightly. We as his parents feel somewhat responsible for this, since one of the few intentional parenting decisions we made was the one to never run to him for bumps unless he asked us to by crying- in which case we never delayed, but picked him up immediately for kisses and cuddles. We are not sure if it was this decision or his personality (isn’t that always the big question?) that has made getting hurt such a non-issue, but it honestly seems like knowing he will be picked up every time and have to endure kisses and cuddles over cry-worthy bumps and scrapes has him stopping to consider, before crying, whether he has the time or patience to deal with such an interruption to his play.

The other conscious decision we made as parents was the controversial one to allow him to make all decisions about his own independence. His dad and I spent ten years before the wee one existed having grown-up movie nights, uninterrupted sleep, cuddles and privacy. Our delayed decision to have kids was based on wanting to be completely prepared to spend these few, short, most formative years sacrificing our own luxuries to create an environment for our child that would never feel less than safe or secure. As a result, we have thrown out the books that proclaim a bed shared with kids makes for an unhappy marriage, that forcing toddlers into independence is the only way to make them responsible adults, that forcing them to cry themselves to sleep, limiting their dependence on others, is a good thing and the only way to create jaded adults prepared to face a cruel world. And again, the big question is, does this style of parenting create a calm, self-reliant personality, or does a calm, self-reliant personality thrive with this sort of parenting? We do know that we have a child who is not afraid of anything that we have yet discovered. A bit wary of strangers, but fiercely independent. One by one, he is making those decisions. He is deciding to fall asleep without being rocked or nursed, knowing that if he needs help relaxing, it will be available. He is choosing his own bed over ours, at least for part of the night. He has never been a very “clingy” kid, except for when he is sick or tired. I only hope this creates the sort of independent teenager those who have gone before us claim it will- one not so easily convinced by peers to become a hormone-fueled, drunken idiot. But time will tell.

This parenting thing is such a learn-as-you-go endeavor. We don’t have the answers. We don’t claim to. But when I think about the sort of person I want my child to be as an adult, I think, empathetic. Kind. Resourceful. Self assured. I do not think, obedient. I only think, respectful. Because there is a difference. Respect means choosing to do something wanted by someone else out of a wish to choose the long term, greater peace over a short term personal victory in conflict. And this is not a toddler sort of concept. So my biggest question at the moment is how to gently bring a small, undeveloped brain only just able to grasp simple mechanical and relational concepts to understand obedience that is in their best interest, and parental authority in spite of the fact that said parent so highly values personal independence and decision making processes, if not agreeing with the final decision. So far, it has been a simple process of reading each situation and trying to understand it from his point of view, and tailoring a response. However, he has not yet reached the full strength of personality that I expect to see in his 2’s and 3’s, and he still has a stronger desire to please than to destroy or misbehave. So again, I can only hope the answers will be there when I need them, because I’ll be danged if I have any now.

As far as newsy updates, our life is back in limbo. This time, our housing is secure for as long as we need it, but B’s manure-spreading business, which treated us so well for the first year, began to fail in its second and third year. The manure simply became less available, and due to a monopoly on the source by a company that uses it to make compost. Our agreement with this company was that a household-budget sustaining amount of raw manure would be available, and I guess technically it was available, but when the price was raised beyond what farmers were willing to pay, we found ourselves without a steady income, which dwindled to an income that was closer to nonexistent. Meanwhile, the payments on equipment continued to be expected by the bank (funny how that works) and repairs on his truck left B spending what money he managed to make on just keeping the equipment running and ready, should the opportunity for work arise. So, one day back in May, he pulled his truck and loader into the shop one last time, fixed everything he knew was wrong with them, and spread the word that they were for sale. He did not expect much interest, given his luck with finding work for them, but they sold within a month. And suddenly, there we sat. No job. No optimistic waiting for the phone to ring and for everything to turn around. No income. A nice little (and when I say little, I am not being modest- it really is quite small- enough to live on frugally for about a year, or maybe make a down payment on a house or a business, if the price is right) nest egg that we had made on the sale of the equipment.

Bobby had a job prospect in Nebraska, selling compost for my cousin (in a big family, everyone’s your cousin, right? The exact family relationship is hard to recite) that started in August, leaving us the months of June and July to wonder what might become of us. In order to take his mind off the fear that he may not actually turn out to be a salesman, B suggested we hit the road for somewhere. We tossed around ideas of exotic locations, and far away ones, but in the end, we decided to use the money we would have spent on hotels and airline tickets, and spend it on a travel trailer we could park in some high mountain location the next two months, and then park in Nebraska to live in once his job started.

Which is what we did. We searched classifieds and listings frantically for a week, and located a camper we thought we might like in Central Kansas. Turned out we hated it, it had been heavily smoked in, but another one on the lot caught our eye and we bought it. Like we do everything- make a decision, act on decision with dizzying speed. We brought it home, filled it with bikes and gear, and left for Colorado.

We had to come home for two weeks somewhere in there to sheetrock the basement, a project that had been back-burnered and which B’s dad was finally available for the farm to hire to help us with. Then it was back to Colorado for more sun-soaked afternoons on bikes. I went from no riding in Kansas to over 150 miles a week in Colorado, keeping both road and mountain bike hot and trying to reclaim a fitness level in weeks that it had taken me years to attain when I lived there. I volunteered at the Firecracker 50 over the 4th of July in Breckenridge, a 50 mile mountain bike race that I spent the day both wishing I could be riding in, and almost glad I wasn't, seeing the exhaustion on the faces of the contestants. It was enough that I commuted there by bike every day over Swan Mountain, flying down Swan Mountain road at 35 mph, low over my handlebars, feeling supremly alive and in the moment.

After several weeks of adjusting to the altitude, I was starting to feel confident that I could even enter a race- not to win, of course. Just to remember that racing feeling and maybe finish within sight of the back of the would-have-been last place finisher.

The day before I wanted to register to race the shortest leg of the Breck 100, I began to suspect something was awry. I felt a bit off. In a disturbingly familiar way. I rode my bike to Wal Mart in Frisco and got a sympathetic “good luck” from the gal who sold me the pregnancy test, and I rode home and peed on it. Studied it in several different lights, and decided there might be a shadow of a line. Took another the next day (always buy these things in two-packs, gals) and yep, there it was. So instead of registering for a race, I loaded up D in his bike trailer and pulled him to High Country Health Care, where they informed me I was not, in fact, pregnant. I convinced them to dig the test back out of the trash and look again. Ah, but I was. There was the line, after all. All of which had to be confirmed if I was going to get on supplemental progesterone, which seems to be a key requirement if I am going to stay pregnant.

As I rode home from the clinic, between calls to my fertility clinic in Omaha and trying to track down a compounding pharmacy at 4pm on a Friday, I finally had time to process what this actually meant. Was I okay with it? B seemed a bit shell-shocked, but rallied quickly. We had been rather laissez-faire about birth control, after having played roulette more and more irresponsibly in the last eight months, hating the effects of hormonal birth control, so we had been just winging it by reading my cycles every month to decide when was "safe" and when was not. We had almost decided maybe we didn’t need it at all, and wondered if trying to prevent another pregnancy was biting the hand, considering how hard it was to make our precious little D (although it was nothing by true fertility warrior's standards) and how hard it might be to make another baby. We knew we wanted two kids eventually, just hadn’t planned on it happening when the timing was so much less than ideal. But we both have said that we would so much rather have a happy, if untimely, accident next time than have to live through another year and a half of two-week-waits, every month another negative result, the few positive results short lived, the loss felt more deeply for how deeply it was wanted.

So it was hard to process our emotions about it all when a few days later I miscarried, in spite of the too little, too late progesterone. There was a bit of relief, a bit of guilt over feeling relief, a bit of sadness over the loss of something we had only just learned we had, a bit of apprehension over what this meant- obviously I am still somewhat reproductively challenged. We had hoped that one successful pregnancy would change that. What sort of long, heartbreaking process would making our second baby require?  

The following day we moved camp up to Crested Butte. I was running a high fever, shivering and demanding the air conditioning be left off and the vehicle be rendered a sauna, the miscarriage-induced pain and crashing hormones were doing a number on my mood, but we still lurched through a rocky, relationship testing setting-up of camp and told each other that we were here to have fun, so darn it, we were going to.

And we tried. I even treated myself to an hour of yoga beside the stream in a damp, emerald patch of grass, followed by a cocktail by the fire, feeling guiltily happy because cocktails by the fire were one of the many things I would not be abe to enjoy if I were still pregnant. We plotted the next day's bike rides, which proved difficult since we had no data coverage and we were still reying on online maps. But due to my fever having turned into a racking cough and nasty cold, it really didn’t get fun until I felt better a few days later, by which time we had we moved camp out of Cement Creek canyon and up to the Oh-Be-Joyful area, a wide open, high valley along the Slate River with majestic views of high peaks and a cascading stream below the flat (and free!) spot we set up camp. There, we unloaded our bikes and set out to explore.

Luck was with me, because on my first big ride, at the top of the 401 trail, an essential Crested Butte ride through high alpine meadows armpit-deep in wildflowers, while enjoying the view and catching my breath from the relatively short but steep climb, I struck up a conversation with Mark from Boulder. After answering a few questions about what to expect on the descent, he offered to allow me to keep him in sight, lest I miss a turn. We rode down, lost each other close to the bottom, and B was waiting for me in the town of Gothic when I finished. That evening we went to Mt Crested Butte to allow B to take advantage of the free Friday night bike haul, in which he was spared the climbing part of riding the mountain’s trails and transported to the top via chairlift. I walked over to stand in line with him, and the person beside him in line happened to be Mark from Boulder. Recognition and introductions followed, then B and Markfromboulder made several runs together. This turned into an invitation to come back to Markfromboulder’s condo, and use his shower in exchange for beer.  

It turned out to be a really great chance meeting. Not only did we get several more days of free showers out of the deal, I got to follow him on Reno/Flag/Bear/Deadman’s loop, a convoluted, 18 mile trail system in the middle of a complete cellphone dead zone. I had given up on being able to ride this highly recommended, classic Crested Butte ride, since I would have had to do it on my own with no way to call for help if it was needed. And it did not disappoint. Every climb was grueling, but every descent was unique in its challenges and completely exhilarating.

We stayed in our fabulous campsite along Slate River as long as Forest Service camping guidelines allowed- 14 days. Then, wondering if we were making a mistake leaving such a wonderful place, we packed up again and hit the road for Steamboat Springs. We had an incredibly relaxing afternoon soaking in the Crystal River in Penny Hot Springs, the bubble of hot water that pours into the Crystal River outside of Carbondale. We moved a few rocks to allow more cold water than normal to fill our little pool so that D could play without overheating, and watched him as he threw rocks into the swift, cold water moving past a few feet away, played with his rubber ducky toy bobbing on the water, found “special” pebbles to line up on mama’s tummy to keep for later.

We never got out our bikes, at least not for legitimate rides, again. Steamboat Lake was a daily affair of hiking down to our little “swimming beach”, the only spot where the trail dipped down close to the water and a small patch of sand washed up, letting D and Andy splash, floating in the waves from boat wakes with lake slime between our toes. This was also our daily bath. One develops new standards of clean when one is camping.

We did accomplish our one big goal at Steamboat, which was a day at Strawberry Park Hot Springs. The most wonderful hot springs in our admittedly limited experience of hot springs. Cascading natural-stone-walled pools, each with a bit more of the cold stream mixed in so each pool is progressively cooler, with the bottom one being just the right temperature for spending all day in. Again, with a toddler, we worried about overheating him, so we traded off, one of us in the cool pool with him, one soaking up rays and geothermal heat in the hotter pool just over the stone wall.

We spent the last two days of our vacation in Denver in the rain, an anticlimactic end to our sun-soaked, color- washed  six week mountain odyssey.

As we were walking through a soggy Denver cityscape, B suddenly asked me how long it had been since I had had the miscarriage. Should we be worried yet about maybe trying to not get me pregnant again? I had, in fact, been asking myself this very question, trying to process my mixture of relief and loss, wondering if we should be trying, not trying, or just not-not trying. In the past, it has taken about six months to get pregnant again after a miscarriage, so it wasn’t a question I felt needed answered right away, but still, as that monthly two-day fertile window approached, I wondered why B wasn’t freaking out, and in typical female fashion, began trying to read meaning into his complete lack of concern. And decided that, for this month anyway, so soon after a miscarriage when I typically am even less fertile than normal, I should just not even bring it up. So when he suddenly realized that we were past the time when we should have been worried about it, and pessimistically, if playfully, aimed a kick at my backside, proclaiming me already pregnant again, I could do nothing but shrug and act a bit clueless. Which, although I doubted I could possibly be pregnant, I still tried to read- did he sound hopeful? Was I imagining it?

Well, as they say, the rest is history. Since August first, we have been doing a lot of traveling back and forth between Kansas and Nebraska. It is far too early to tell if his contacts up there will turn into sales eventually, so far he is just meeting farmers and introducing them to a product many have never heard of before. Knowing farmers, it will be a long time before they are actually willing to pay real dollars to try this product. We are trying to stay optimistic, but realistic. After a quick foray into the Kearney, Nebraska real estate market, we decided to wait until the job is secure before we find a place to live there. Renting is apparently not an option, because nobody in Kearney will rent to a family with a 65 lb Golden Retriever. (Did you really just suggest that we “get rid” of Andy- our spastic, frustrating, endearing, galactically clumsy, toxically gassy galoot who has shared our bedroom, often our bed, every road trip, adventure, and defining moment of our lives in the last six and a half years? Clearly, we can no longer be friends.) So we are hoping for a mild winter, since our camper is a three season camper- designed for nippy autumn nights more than deep arctic chill. In the meantime, I bounce back and forth over the four hour stretch of road that separates us- home to care for garden and feed and reassure our fearless watchcat, Marvin, a week of allowing D and his grandparents to reconnect, then back to Nebraska for another period of time living in much closer quarters with a rambunctious 20 month old, helping his neat-freak father constantly try to stay ahead of the messes that can happen when a family shares a 29 ft long space, and trying not to stumble too many times over the previously mentioned gassy galoot of a dog, who takes up a surprising amount of space, not to mention fresh air, when he is stretched out luxuriously in the company of his most adored humans.

And yes, as it turns out, I can get pregnant again right after a miscarriage. This one started out so much stronger than any other pregnancy I have experienced. I felt sick immediately, and I’m not an easy vomiter (I am almost jealous of those who are- they can just expel the contents of their churning stomach and feel better momentarily) so I have had to weather this constant nausea. At almost 11 weeks, it is starting to lift, which is a big relief- last time, I had the luxury, all but a few weeks, of letting the food aversions rage and just simply not eating. But this time if I get even slightly hungry, nausea hits, so in spite of aversions to almost every even slightly healthy food I can think of, I have been eating constantly, forcing down dry toast that is suddenly revolting, small pieces of obligatory fruit that is full of crisp, sweetly tart, horrifying flavor (just can’t manage to wrap my mind around the overwhelming flavor cacophony that is vegetables enough to engage in the intimate process of ingesting them, with all that horrifying tasting and experiencing the texture and actual swallowing that goes along with it), cheese that tastes of rot, and meat that tastes far too chickeny or beefy to actually be appetizing. My doctor shook her head at my three pound weight gain in three weeks. I shook my head too, and shrugged. What can I say? It’s not like I wanted to eat it. If only sweet breads and oatmeal cookies didn’t make my blood sugar jump for joy, creating almost instant calm in my stomach, it would be easy to follow those early pregnancy diet guidelines.

But for all of that, my progesterone is higher than my last pregnancy, the baby’s heartbeat is higher, and it is measuring more closely to my known conception date. I feel like this is a more healthy pregnancy than D’s was. I am still supplementing hormones, but almost wonder if this time, I might not need to. And we are processing that sometimes, pregnancies create babies. Newborns. In addition to toddlers who will be two years and three months when the new baby is born. We are glad that we don’t have to deal with this until April. We hope. I am already giving this one pep talks about staying in there until full term. I would love to give birth to a baby who knows how to do things like nurse and, oh, breathe without occasional worrying interruptions. Plus, March is only five and a half months away. Just no. In spite of being excited about meeting this newest wee one, and this undeservedly easy pregnancy, I need that extra month. Life is just too complicated right now, living in two places. We need time to let the chips fall and assess where we are at before we add a tiny, helpless human to this mix. 

I often wonder what our lives would be like if our scare with recurrent miscarriage had become a permanent thing without an answer. I would like to just go ahead and offend every parent out there who thinks kids are essential to happiness and say that, after I had finished fighting it, gone through the process of grief, and accepted that kids weren’t going to happen for us, I think we would have had a really great life. It would have been different than the one we have now, yes. But not worse. For one thing, I would be working, taking the pressure off B to be the sole provider for a family of four plus dog. We would have so many more options, because we would be able to be more resourceful, and therefore, more locations would be open for us to live, or just stay for a time. My days now are filled with the absolute sunshine of a happy little boy in a golden time of his development, his little voice echoing in my ears even when he is asleep, his beautiful, dark-lashed, ice-blue eyes meeting mine in unquestioning trust, his soft skin brushing mine when we nap snuggled together, the way he melts when I pick him up, feeling perfectly safe with his mama. All of the new discoveries and new connections that make me feel as triumphant as he does, watching the incredible process of a small mind that knew nothing about anything a year and a half ago, and now has so much information stored, just waiting to be accessed at the right time to make the most astounding new discoveries. All the endless wonder of everyday things has me seeing the world in ways as fresh and new as his own observations. 

But. I could also be happy with adult time, finding witty turns of phrase with friends and coworkers, coming home to an exuberant dog that I actually had the energy to take for a run. I could be fit, and B and I could use that bit of extra income we used to have on fun experiences together, and our happiness would not come from merely not knowing what we were missing. I just want to throw that out there. In a world in which infertility seems to be becoming more and more of a thing, especially for the people who have made the decision to wait until they were emotionally and financially prepared to have a child, it is okay to view a childless life as one that is not in some way broken. Even a life spent childless by choice is not a selfish or a narrow-minded one. It is one that is able to be lived, in many ways, larger. Instead of seeing the world represented in the differences between two pebbles and a child’s fascination with things like shadows and frogs and basic mechanical concepts, they get to actually, you know, see the world. Like the Taj Mahal and northern lights and Mt Kilimanjaro and the Sahara.  And it is these people who bring new ideas and a reminder that the world is bigger than the backyard sandbox to the parents at home who barely remember what it was like to simply put on their shoes and walk out their front door, meet friends, and go on grown-up adventures.