Midwest Home
excerpt
I am an accidental Midwesterner. It started with the Places Rated
Almanac, the essentials crammed into my '92 Toyota Corolla, and
nothing waiting for me in Minneapolis - the training bra of big cities. My
parents, however, were undone for reasons I couldn't yet comprehend.
Didn't they understand this move was temporary?
I had no intention when I arrived, an economic refugee from Maine, to
fritter away a decade in the land of 10,000 lakes. My plan was simple,
an in&out guerilla operation. Get some work experience, some city
savvy and then return to the land with more trees than people and more
people than living wage jobs...
one of the lucky ones.
Minnesota Monthly
excerpt
July 4th, Independence Day, has me thinking about all of the dependants
of our active military now shouldering home life alone. I know a little
something about that, but just a little. My husband is a deployed
American solider. More accurately, he is ‘deployed-light,’ my invented
term for Jason’s Homeland Security mission. Attached to the 148th
Fighter Wing in Duluth, Minnesota, he secures the F-16 jets that
scramble above the Upper Midwest. A good 150 miles away from our
home, this job didn’t even exist in a pre-911 world.
It’s a really good gig; “no sand in the boots,” as they say. On most
weekends he’s able to come home and yet, shamed by all my
advantages: I struggle. It is unseemly to complain when my solider is not
in Baghdad or Fallujah, but instead stationed in Minnesota’s port town.
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Minnesota Monthly
excerpt
The media recently confirmed a trend that I have been quietly observing.
Minnesotan families, who have long been the most avid consumer of
minivans, are making the most of that extra space with an additional car
seat. Third babies are hot and as the New York Times said it: three is the
new two.
My oldest is a baby fanatic. And not even two years old, she took me by the
hand to admire a tiny newborn; and in front of the mother tersely
whispered, “take it.” It was time to have our second child, if only to avoid
the felonies.
My husband, Jason, started the third baby lobby immediately after Milo’s
arrival. Fresh from a pregnancy that saw no glow, I stalled. Now 16 months
have past and suddenly it is a live question again and one not easily
answered. Two children are expected by this society, almost an edict. One
child is lonely; two is company and three – well? Does baby three make
for a forlorn middle child reading ‘birth order theory’ in his dark basement
bedroom?
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Blue Water Sailing and Public Radio
excerpt
When the National Guard summoned my husband to a port
town, I made him promise not to buy a boat. For a litany of
reasons the timing was poor: our children are very small, our
budget too stretched but mostly it was safety concerns. I
reminded Jason that just because he reads sailing magazines
and took that lesson two years ago didn’t mean he was ready to
own a boat on Lake Superior.
“Remember, Honey, how you took the boom in the face?” I
reminded him. “And you chipped your front tooth… and nearly
fell in the water?” It wasn’t the prospect of cosmetic dentistry that
alarmed me; I just didn’t want us to end up in a Gordon Lightfoot
song...
Lucie performed her "Benevolent
Wife" essay on MRP's All Things
Considered in May 2005.
One Family Working Through a Failure to Thrive Diagnosis
Hip Mama's & MamaCoaster Zine - copyright free
Attending well-baby check-ups was the highlight of the early
months with my infant daughter. There she occupied her place in
the Sun --the exact middle of the height/weight charts -- and as a
stay-at-home parent, it was my stellar employee review.
This kind of validation is rarely received from the non-verbal and
the incontinent, but here at the doctor’s office Baby Abbie was
celestially backlit and I was basking in the glow. All the rigors of
what has been termed “Attachment Parenting” and “New
Momism” --reviving traditional ways such as wearing one’s baby
in a sling for the first nine months, extending nursing well into the
toddler years and co-sleeping as a family -- was demanding, but
paying off.
Until it didn’t.
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