The Rest

I do think about things besides you. That's probably a surprise to you (and anyone else who might be reading this), but it's true. It's impossible to focus so relentlessly on just one thing, and I do have other thoughts that shift in and out of my mind. The problem is that, to me, everything other than you is hopelessly banal for the most part, and to other people, everything you is hopelessly banal for the most part. Therein, as Dharma says, squats the toad. So I spend a lot of time keeping my own counsel.

And reading. I thumb my nose at everyone who told me that I wouldn't read again after you were born. I read less, certainly, mostly just because I'm bone-tired when I hit bed at night and can barely keep my eyes open. (And because indulging in bouts of insomnia that allow me to read until 4 a.m. are dangerous.) I've read 20+ books since you were born, and I'm not quite back to my average of 4-5 books a month, but I'm getting there. Since September, I've read, among other things:

Packing for Mars
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Silent on the Moor
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
The Lace Reader
Motherless Mothers
Room
Freckles and The Girl of the Limberlost (favorites of your grandma's)
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
Matterhorn
Fingersmith

And, of course, I work. In the months since you've arrived, your father (and I) curated an exhibition at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio and wrote an exhibition catalogue on Ohio decorative arts. And organized a Midwestern decorative arts conference. And lectured several places, including the Hudson, Ohio public library and the Oglebay Antiques Show. I've written newsletter articles about everything from Waterford crystal to William Henry Harrison, Christmas ornaments to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

I've taken care of Elvis, our very sick cat; lost 40 pounds; started making homemade vegetable stock; planted nine tomato plants, three peonies, and some rhubarb; knitted socks and dishcloths; shopped for Christmas and birthdays; signed us up for a CSA membership and discovered the joys of garlic scapes; and helped your father assemble an Oldenburg wardrobe. This is how you're going to be a year old soon and I find myself wondering where the time went....