The dawn of 2011 saw me preparing to meet my new baby girl. I was given a beautiful blessingway (and attended several others during the year). Then, I gave birth to her magical, tiny self on January 19. As the year passed, she got bigger and bigger and bigger:
Three Month a-Baby!
Six Months
Eightmonthababy!
Nine Months
Ten Months Old!
Elevenmonthababy!
We took lots of pictures to try to chronicle the sweet, perfect texture of our lives with her in it. I continued to make lots of birth art. I also published several of my originally-in-print articles in blog post format:
Birth Lessons from a Chicken
Nursing Johnny Depp
The Rhythm of Our Lives
The Value of Sharing Story
Listening Well Enough
Mindful Mama: Presence and Perfectionism in Parenting
Listening to my baby…even when we disagreed!
Planning for Postpartum
The Spot
I made slight revisions to the two posts that consistently get a high number of hits each week and didn’t make any changes to the post about good foods to eat during labor that continues to top my blog’s personal charts:
How do I know I’m really in labor?
In-Utero Practice Breathing
Good Foods to Eat in Labor
In addition to some of my articles-turned-posts, several new posts that I wrote in 2011 received a lot of attention, thanks to Facebook shares, and a guest post about alcohol and breastfeeding was enormously popular for the two weeks between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
I just want to grind my corn!
Affordable Fetal Model
Active Birth in the Hospital
Guest Post: Alcohol and Breastmilk
My final post of 2011 also received quite a few hits via Facebook in the last few days, but has not received any comments on the post itself (only FB!):
I spoke my truth in several other posts that I felt pleased with, but that did not get a lot of airtime via other sites:
What Really Scares Me: Social Attitudes Towards Women
Asking the right questions…
“You’ll Miss This…”
Surrender?
Birthing the Mother-Writer (or: Playing My Music, or: Postpartum Feelings, Part 1)
Milk, Money, & Madness
The “Almost Died…” Remark
Fatherbaby
The Ragged Self
I also started to write a little about homeschooling.
I feel like I spent a lot of 2011 in a writer’s prayer—trying to tell about it—trying to preserve in time these high, sweet, clear, delicious, beautiful notes that composed my year with my new baby.
