Got an email yesterday from a college friend of mine. I haven't heard from him for a few years, and since then he's gotten married and just had his second daughter three weeks ago. His first daughter is 19 months old - almost the same age as mine - and she was born with Down Syndrome. He sent a photo of the whole family, and it just made me cry to look at it. I don't know if I can precisely describe what I was feeling. Sad, not so much because the child has a disability, but more because I know it must have been so, so hard for my friend and his wife to be faced with the prospect of raising a child with a disability. I was sad for the moment that they had to endure when they realized that none of this having-a-baby stuff was going to be the way they'd always imagined it. I also cried because I was so proud of my friend, sitting there with his beautiful family and so full of love and it all working out for him in spite of the intense challenges his family faces. And I suppose I wept a little out of guilt, too, for all the times I thought my situation wasn't perfect and got stressed out about it.

I would never not be a mom now. I am so addicted to this love (I know, I know . . . Robert Palmer got into my head just now, too - sorry) that I can't imagine living without it. Of course I get resentful sometimes that I can't just go to a movie or out to a restaurant or shopping for clothes by myself and take my time. And have things that are MINE and pretty and not stained or wet. But those are low moments, and luckily they are becoming a lot fewer and farther (further?) between. I think my situation now is just about perfect, stresses and worries and all. I'm sure my old college friend thinks his is, too.

in Portland . . .

Well . . . I guess I'm not a very good blogger so far. I've been remiss. Actually what I've been is busy, getting down to Portland with a car full of dogs and diapers to visit with my family for a week, and wrangling an 18 month-old on my own (Daddy is up in Seattle at work and Grammy and Grandpa both work full-time) - whew! I cannot imagine how single parents do it. Kudos to all of you who take this on alone, and may you be able to count on the village to lend you a hand.

My daughter is testing, testing testing me. She wants to get up on the chair and stand on it. She wants to take the sidewalk chalk and put it in her mouth. She wants to eat her book (seriously rip chunks off of it and chew them and swallow them). She wants to run with a stick down a hill. She wants to get down and walk BY HERSELF and not hold my hand. She wants to talk about her vagina with my parents' friends (thanks to my efforts to teach her the correct names of her body parts). She wants to drink my beer at a restaurant and will start shrieking when I offer her some "delicious juice" instead. Actually, I know she's not testing me - she's just trying to live her young life and figure things out and learn about cause and effect. And I am in a surprisingly good place with her right now. Now that she's talking we are having something of a dialogue, and she remembers what I say and says it back to me.

Right now we are talking about "sad" and "happy," and she's trying to understand. These are big concepts. I told her that Mr. Potato Head looked sad yesterday because he was laying down on the floor (where she had thrown him) face down with his eyes in his mouth hole and his tongue in his ear hole. I was just making mindless conversation, but she really picked up on the "sad" and she went over to Mr. Potato Head and pointed and said, "Sad!" Then she went over to the sleeping dog and pointed at her and said "Sad!" Good job, Mama. I can't just go tossing words around anymore, I see. Now she understands that people/creatures who are sleeping or in some kind of position of repose are sad, so I've got to try and figure out how to explain sad in a different way. I'm excited that we're beginning to talk about feelings now, though, so I don't have to use the word "Owie" all the time to get a message across. I found myself telling her the other day that if she didn't put her bottom down into her carseat (she was at the time arching her back and screaming as I was trying to get her into the car) it would give Mama an owie. Talk about your manipulation of language. But you know what? That worked.

I miss Portland very much, but I've lived in Seattle for two years now and it's becoming home to me more and more. Everyone always says Portland is a smaller Seattle, but I'm not exactly sure that's so. Portland is a more concerned Seattle, I think. People who live here are more invested somehow - more proactive about the future of where they live. Not to say that I haven't met plenty of Seattleites who love where they live - I have. I just think that Portlanders are more interested (and historically have been more interested) in creating the place that they love, and Seattleites have a beautiful city with some great things going on (and some not-so-great things), and they just love it, albeit a bit more passively. How's that? I'll think some more on this and get back to you. I'm a bit distracted right now since the baby just woke up from her nap and is crying for me.

I will say that I always appreciate the no sales tax aspect of P-Town and also the full-service gas stations. And you know what? Gas costs less here than in Seattle! What's up with that? Why do I need to get out of my car and fiddle with all of that and get my hands all nasty and pay more money on top of it?

BUT, Seattle has the foot ferry. It has Alki Beach and the Space Needle and a few more brown people than Portland, perhaps. That I like. And Seattle has my husband and my baby and a bunch of new friends and the life we are creating for ourselves there. I am attached to the city I grew up in, it's true. But I am more attached now to the nest we have built in Seattle, and to dreams of the future with my family there.

Intro

So here I am - daughter napping, morning sun shining down on me and a sleeping cat through my kitchen window - trying to think of what to write for my first post of my first blog. I'm trying not to get caught up in the potential momentousness of the occasion, trying not to imagine what people will THINK of me when they read the things I have to say. I'm trying to be cool and casual, like I'm completely used to the idea of posting my ideas about the world out into the world, for the world to see.

My husband - God bless 'im - told me that he wants to see me have an outlet for my writing, that I am a good writer and I have a voice, and that's why I should have a blog. Oops - I probably shouldn't have told you that. I should let you judge for yourself, right? Maybe blogging won't be the best thing for me, since my ability to determine what and what not to share has been a little bit skewed by having a child. There is a person in my life now who follows me into the bathroom for each use and watches my every move with great curiousity and concern (is it pee-pee or poo-poo that Mama's making?). My husband always tells me that I share too much with strangers. He says why don't you just tell them where you live and when you'll be out of town. I suppose I always want to let people into my life so that they'll feel more at ease with me somehow. So they'll identify more.

Why Mama's Purse? Well, I'm not really sure. I do want to clarify that I do NOT own the HERMES Birkin bag - not even a fake - so don't go thinking that I'm a great big bee-yotch right off the bat. I just happen to think that they're gorgeous bags. I think that if I could own any bag I wanted right now, it would be some sort of creamy-white Salvatore Ferragamo boxy number. Yum. You know, I haven't checked the Neiman Marcus website lately to put together my fantasy purse collection. I should do that, and get back to you. But Ferragamo is always one of my faves. I own one pair of the shoes - they're satin and I picked them up at a vintage shop years ago. They kill my feet and I can't wear them for more than about five minutes, but I hold onto them because they are so beautiful and just a classic shape. They're what a shoe should look like.

I am a Taurus. I don't go in for all the chains and animal prints and giant logos (usually). I prefer high-quality, sumptuous materials and design that does not go out of style. I wear a lot of black. I do not care for shorts or sporty sandals. Blech. I am what some people would call unadventurous when it comes to fashion. I prefer the term "well-advised."

My baby girl is fascinated with purses, and with my purse in particular. It is a simple black leather Coach, bucket style (about the fanciest thing I carry around these days), and she loves to carry it around, heaved over her shoulder, or dragged about in the crook of her little elbow. She has figured out how to unzip the zipper and pull out pens. "Pen!" she triumphantly yells each time she finds one of the Sanford Uni-Ball micros (oh yes, I am VERY particular about my pens, too). She is currently learning to put words together, and whenever she spies the purse, she gives me a big smile and says "Mama . . . PUHS!" For some reason, this almost always brings tears to my eyes. I think it's because she has identified something in particular that means "Mama" to her. It brings me back to that absolutely heavenly feeling when my mom would pick me up from daycare after work and gather me up in her arms and she would smell like Chloe perfume and Trident spearmint gum and brown leather (from her own old Coach purse) and sunshine. And I remember my heart just singing because I thought my mom was the most beautiful woman in the whole world. That's why.

I am really like most young women you know. I am fortunate enough to own a few luxury clothing and accessory items, and the rest of my wardrobe is generally from Old Navy, Costco, and the Banana Republic outlet stores. But I love to fantasize - to pick and choose what I'd buy in a fantasy life, if I was making the actual 140K annually or whatever they say that stay-at-home-moms are actually worth. I love to keep a running list of the order in which I'd buy the things, and change that order around constantly. And most of all, I love to use my creativity and think about how to get the most from what I do have. That's what I want to talk about. I also want to talk about people - people I love and people I hate (and try not to give anyone away), and why. I want to talk about raising my daughter, and (sorry, folks) to brag about her frequently. I just want to reflect here on this life so that I can remember how lucky I am to do so. Mama's Purse is fashion, it's female, it's love, and it's a few handy items you can't get through the day without. Cheers!