Dreams

I realize I probably don't have everyone reading this on our email list, so here are some pix we've been sending around:

One Month Old!
http://gallery.me.com/missionpictures#100227

17 Days Old!
http://gallery.me.com/missionpictures#100219

Today, Cati and I were driving along and the local public radio station replayed Martin Luther King's "I have a dream..." speech, as it's the anniversary of the March on Washington. Once he started talking about all our children holding hands and little children growing up in a world where they can go anywhere without seeing signs saying "Whites Only" tears starting welling up in my eyes. I was glad I had my sunglasses on, but then Cati's hand reached up from the backseat and touched me on the back, and I thought she was just consoling me. But a minute later, I could hear her sniffing and crying too. She said "We're not all the way there yet!" And he hit the end of the speech with that amazing cascade of words:

"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

And we both started crying and I had to pull over. It's amazing how much power those words carry when you're a parent. I couldn't even look at Haraldur without getting teary-eyed again. What have we done to make this world better, to carry that dream forward? We decided right then and there in the car to do more this year to make sure Haraldur grows up in a world that Dr. King died for, one that, in Cati's words, "We are not all the way there yet."
Here's where I got choked up:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

I have always assumed my child would be judged by who they truly are, it's so hard to imagine what it would feel like to look at a face like his and know that his future would be defined by the one thing he got from me that he could do nothing about.

All smiles

We have liftoff! The corners of HC's mouth and eyes are beginning to come up on a regular basis. Things what make my little man smile: French (oui oui oui!), showers (but definitely not baths), silly daddy, horse lips, possibly sometimes his best friend/nemesis, Mr. Purple elephant.

This is not a smile, but I know some grandparents who'd be sad about a post w/out pix.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hankie

Ok, this is that uncomfortable part of every ceremony when the guy gets up in front of family and friends and tries to make a speech about how great and supportive everyone's been and how much it means except he keeps getting choked up and stopping for awkward silences and giggling inappropriately and going on weird, emotional tangents. At first, everyone's moved, some even dab a tear from their eye, but there's also dinner waiting to be plated, drinks to be emptied and dancing to be done. Eventually there's a restlessness as the poor guy mumbles on, completely overcome by the pool of love surrounding him.

Everytime I think about all of the messages and acts aimed towards us from the moment Cati got pregnant to now, I become that guy. Everything from sweet emails to my brother dismantling our house and bringing it to the hospital so we could have traces of the homebirth we'd planned, they accumulate around our heads like constellations, ones we'll sit out back in the grass and point out to Haraldur some day. "See that one, the one that looks like a giant cake? That's the apple cake that our brand new friend Trevor brought us two days after you were born. And that one over there, the one that looks like a speeding car? That's Grandma and Grandpas racing all the way down from Portland and Colorado to meet you after you were born. Right next to it is an empty laundry hamper, the one we could never get filled because Nonna lived with us for the first week like an invisible cleaning angel. And see those stars all piled together, like a mound of gifts? Those are the wonderful gifts and insights brought to us by recent and not-so-recent mothers. And that circle of women holding hands? The midwives and doulas and nurses and doctors who lowered you from Cati on a pillow of light."

I don't think I've ever felt so well loved in my whole life. Right now I have Haraldur in a wrap, snuggled up against my chest with two crossing soft panels enrobing him to me while I write this, and I feel myself and Cati and him supported in the same manner. In the host of many reasons to have such a miraculous and beautiful and sweet child, one I didn't expect was that it quickly flashed a light on the true hearts that surround us, far more than we had any right to believe in. Haraldur has changed our lives in wondrous ways, and so have all of you. It's a scary thing having a child, but having everyone be here like this has made it seem like the easiest thing in the world, like jumping out of an airplane and knowing the birds will never let you fall.

Ok, dinner is served. Thank you.

We Live in a Haze of Beauty

Today we had a really sweet naming ceremony for Haraldur, something we'd been thinking about for a long time but never solidified. With all the grandparents in town for what might be the only time in a while, we suddenly felt the urgency to do something and wrote up a ceremony basically the same morning (with months of brainstorming to inform it). Cati has been pushing for an official christening, and I'm somewhat uncomfortable with churches, so we were trying to come up with a compromise. We did the same kind of inventing for our wedding, and I really loved how we navigated that, so we mushed together various traditions and added our own twists. We had a few little ceremonies and then had all the grandparents say a few words to Haraldur to send him on his new life. Every one of 'em just about cried or had to stop for being choked up, which made me think this hobbled together secular/spiritual/religious ceremony had hit the mark. In fact, everyone (including me) got choked up while speaking except Cati, who cried while everyone else was speaking. No one knew what to expect, including us, which made the surprise of the emotion even sweeter.

Then Cati and Haraldur and I spent the rest of the day in the bedroom cooing and nudging and ogling and staring and crying and smiling and touching and holding. Many more days like this and I'm afraid I'll lose my skin and dissolve into the clouds. Which would be ok, as long as I could still be around to embrace that little one.

mama love from Arne Johnson on Vimeo.

No more belly

I'm happy to report today that there will no more pictures of Cati's belly. The belly you will mostly see now is that of Haraldur Collus Johnson, born at 11:26am on July 24, 2010. 7lbs, 10 ozs. There is much to say about the amazingness of Cati and her spurning conventional wisdom and having a baby her way (I kept wanting to shout "We're not even supposed to be here!" and chest bump someone, but it wasn't really a macho kinda atmosphere), but I'll save that for a day when I've had more sleep. Suffice it to say, it was an incredible experience that has shaped our souls differently from here on after.

For now, a few pictures will tell some of the story...

Not yet borned, but close!

2 Minutes old

Happy Parents at 4 Minutes Old

10 Minutes Old

30 Minutes Old, Already Latched on and Hungry

1 Hour Old, Being Weighed

7 Hours Old, Dressed to Leave the Hospital

10 Hours Old and Home

Goodnight darlin' boy...

Due Day

Our due day has come in a squall of various waters. Cati both started and ended the day with tears, and there were some fluids that we thought might be her water breaking, but extremely slowly! We had an exciting morning, thinking that one way or the other we might be near meeting our little one. But the midwife tested and not only assured us it wasn't amniotic fluid, but reminded us that we don't want Cati's water breaking without labor (thus dampening our excitement in two different ways). The reason you don't wish it, is because you then have a short window before you have to induce (72 hours). Not at all like the movies where the woman suddenly wets herself onstage while accepting an award then rushes out to a taxi cab and proceeds to give birth in the backseat. Real water breaking can come in trickles, gushes and floods, and may just mean you have a day of labor ahead of you.

The first trickles for Cati are actually coming from her eyes...A couple days ago we heard a great birth story about a homebirth from some new and immediately dear friends, and the mom mentioned she was very weepy just before she went into labor. Well, if tears was babies, we'd have ourselves a mess of them today! I really do think Cati's pretty close now, though...Spork has been kicking like crazy, rolling and punching and diving deeper into her pelvis. There's a palpable feel in the air that this baby is ready to come out, but just hasn't figured out where the hormonal switch is yet. If he/she is anything like his/her dad, the switch is sitting right in front of his/her face, while he/she looks wildly everywhere else except right there. Maybe that's why Cati keeps crying, because Spork is accidentally hitting all of her hormonal switches instead.

I could be completely wrong, never having had a child before, but there's that electricity in the air like just before a thunderstorm (and certainly there's been some initial rains). I know you Georgia peeps know what I'm talking about!

Or maybe it's what animals sense just before an earthquake. Potentiality is heavy in the air.

I feel ready, and I sometimes find myself talking a red streak to others about how ready "we" are and how "we" feel this or that and then look over at Cati and see she's nodding politely but without conviction and wonder if she's thinking "Who's this 'we' you're talking about, white man?" It's really an intense feeling to know I'll be there to help her however I can, but ultimately she's doing the heroic work. In that birth story we heard recently, momma decided she didn't want to be touched or for anyone to even stand close to her for a good portion of labor, so her husband's good training in helping with pain and whatnot hung from his tool-belt like a broken hammer. He, of course, did many other important things, but it was a good reminder that ultimately Cati is running this show. And those of you who know me well know that that is going to be a challenge for me! And it may be a challenge for Cati to demand what she needs too, but I have a lot more confidence in her...

I want to just be a river that flows into whatever pools she needs me in. If I was a praying man, that's what I would ask for the strength for.

Sunday Street Picture

Some requests for pictures of me and Arne, in addition to Spork/Belly, have inspired me to add this to the blog. They closed streets near our house this past Sunday for bikers, walkers, rollerskaters and hoola hoopers. Arne and I had some friends over to watch the World Cup match (Orange for Holland!) and then took a Sunday Promenade down the middle of the usually very busy 24th street. Our friend Nadine took a few lovely pictures which she doctored with a filter that makes them look very 70s and very cool!