playlist

*slow it down....coldplay
*falling slowly....once
*swept me away....avett brothers
alone....trampled by turtles
you belong to me....lumineers
everybody talks....neon trees
we are young....fun
some nights....fun
somebody that i used to know...gotye
this is from matilida...alt j
eet....regina specktor

Firsts

Clapping.
Holding things out for me to try.
Purposefully rubbing your eyes and nose and ears.
Mamamamamamamama... when you are mad.
Rolling to what you want.
Amaranth.
Carrots.
Watermelon.
 Halloween.

All in the last few weeks. 

Sleep

Dear Jonah,

This week you have started sleeping in your own room, in your own bed. I should now be sleeping soundly, with lot's of room to roll around and breathing space--instead I am holding my breath listening for yours from the other room.... waiting to hear a sigh, a breath, a movement. I lay there wondering if the blanket is over your head, if you are warm enough. I lay there half-way to mostly awake until you finally become restless and let out a small cry. Then I leap from bed and bring you to bed with me, so I can finally sleep soundly.

Last night I held you close and watched you as you fell back to sleep and I started to miss you already. I know someday, and someday soon, you will mostly sleep in your own room. You will be too big to cuddle in a perfect circle in my arms. I will love the new you, but I will miss our sleepless nights together. So many nights I wake up from a deep sleep and see your sweet face sleeping next to me. Somehow this wakes me all the way up, and I stare at you and smile. One night the moon was reflecting blue off your face. One night there was a huge lighting storm. Most nights you have your arm over your face or tucked under your chin, propping your face up. All nights I am filled with love for you. I remember the very first night I woke up next to your in the hospital room. I was overcome with love. My cup runneth-ed over. :). I thought of all we had already been through together in less than 24 hours. Pain and love like I had never known. I thought 'there has to be something. How could we possibly go through so much for nothing.'

Love you sleepy baby.

Tuk

Dear Jonah,

You love tuk right now. You reach for him, you are delighted by the way he jumps around. You want to pet him, you laugh when he licks you.

The other night when dad was delivering pizzas, I took the two of you on a walk to Brian and Alina's. You started to cry, so i picked you up. I was dragging Tuk and holding you with one arm, and pulling the stroller along with the other. It was quite the show. I was exhausted, but not mad or frustrated.

My heart actually sunk a little. I will miss these days of wrangling you all around while you are little. But i can't wait for the day when you and Tuk realize you are best friends.

Right now, right now.

Dear Jonah,

I am having moments realizing how much these moments mean right now. When I lie with you on the bed and sing and hold your hand, when you catch my eye from across the room, when you fall asleep in my arms... suddenly I remember you will only be a baby once. I will only be your mom while you're a baby once. One time. In my whole life. In your whole life. In all the span of human existence, I only get this time, one time. Right now. Sometimes dad holds you up and jokingly says "Stop. Stop growing! Stay just like this." Of course we want you to learn and grow and experience all the amazingness of life, but this is the most amazing my life has ever been. So each moment of this time is so precious to me. I will treasure these days, and the funny thing is, is that you will have no conscious memory of them. But your body will remember. Your wiring will remember. The more sweet I can make each moment, the more sweet your future moments will be with others. So each minute counts and is counting. I love you, Jonah baby... and I will love you still when you are Jonah boy, and Jonah man....

Now I know why I cry and why my dad cried every time we sing...
              Where are you going?...My little ones, precious ones,... Where are you going? My baby, my own....Turn around and your two, turn around and your four, turn around and your a big boy, going out moms back door... Where are you going? My little ones, precious ones, time like a memory.. Where did you go? Turn around, it's a week.... Turn around it's a year.... Turn around it's a memory turning into a tear...

The Curse... of exsisting.

Dear Jonah,
Josh Ritter's song The Curse, is a love song for sure--but with all its archetypal themes of the passing of time, birth, rebirth, and aging...it seems to be more of a love song between a mother and son. He opens his eyes, falls in love at first sight with the girl in the door way, what beautiful lines, heart full of life, after thousands of years what a face to wake up to. I remember falling in love with you-the first night after you were born, laying next to me swaddled like a mummy in a pink, blue, and white hospital blanket. Black hair. Mongolian eyes. Orion's hands. Oh. Love from the second they laid you on my stomach and you unraveled. Two cells that united and created a body of complex systems--a perfect blending that made you, a miracle like the dry fig of his heart that starts back to its beating. He holds back a sigh as she touches his arm, she dusts of the bed where to now he's been sleeping. Then we brought you home. I remember Todd lifting you up, showing you the outside world, our home that is now your home. She carries him home, in a beautiful boat, he watches the sea from a porthole in stowage. And you have been watching everything since that day, soaking it all up and learning. He can hear all she says, as she sits by his bed, and one day his lips answer her in her own language. It's true that the days quickly pass, he loves making her laugh, the first time he moves it's her hair that he touches. So many people love you, they come to see you and hold you, but at night you are with me. It is our psyche's that are so deeply connected, they cannot be severed...he is laid in a glass covered case... people crowd round to see him, but at night she comes round and the two wander down, the halls of the tomb that she calls a museum... No surprise tomb is spelled just like womb, a place of rest, a place of birth. Time will pass and somehow we will switch places. But he stops to rest, then less and less, then it's her that looks tired staying up asking questions. He learns how to read from the papers that she is writing about him, then he makes corrections. Cue trumpet solo. You will grow up..make it big... you will do great things and draw more attention in the prime of your life, more come to look, families from Iowa, Upper West-Siders... You will need me less and less. But you will miss me. Then one day it's too much, he decides to get up, then as chaos ensues he walks outside to find her. She's using a cane, and her face looks to pale. But she's happy to see him, as they walks he supports her.  We will reunite. Find ways to relate. Love each other. But it will be a little different this time, a little in reverse. Such reanimation, the two tour the nation, he gets out of limos, meets other women. He speaks of her fondly, their nights in the museum. But then I will get old and become, just one more rag now he's dragging behind him. All I can hope for at that point is that dad and I will always be with it enough to not be a burden--that until the day we die you can come home and we will give you old people candy and stuff from the garden. How strange that we live in this circular way. She stops going out, she just lies there in bed...Then her face starts to set, and her hands start to fold.. and one day the dry fig of her heart stops it's beating... And I hope you are by my side. And that it is as beautiful, tragic, painful, and miraculous as the day you born... She asks "are you cursed?" He says "I think that I'm cured." Then he kissed her and hoped that she'd forget that question...

 

Dear Jonah,

      We took you to a memorial of an old friend's wife that your dad used to work for. It was in Draper at a plot of land that the Audubon Society bought and is now a refuge for birds and animals. Tree Utah has planted thousands of trees there and your dad and uncle Tyler have both worked there. We used to go there all the time. It was an amazing experience to go back with you. We were greeted with a big hug from Keith, an 87 year old man who works at the plot and carries around an oxygen tank. He hugged us both together-- you were strapped on the front of me in the baby bjorn. We stood in a circle while Vaughn did a small memorial. He talked about the evening star and seven conscious realms in Buddhism and how we would plant seven trees with one in the middle where his wife's ashes would be laid. It was pretty cold for a night in May. The words, the place, and the cold made it quiet enough to fall into a place of reflection. I could hear your short breaths and feel them on my chest--a brand new life, new cells, new skin, new lungs. Across the circle I could hear the puffs of an oxygen tank--old life, wrinkled skin, worn out lungs. A breath, a puff. In the middle of the circle was Vaughn, the ashes of this wife running through his fingers and into the soil. Once full of life--bones, skin, breathing lungs--now lie covered in soil, nurturing new life.... like a hug in a baby bjorn.

A breath,
An ash,
The evening star,
A puff,
An owl,
A cosmic chart,
Some pain,
Some dirt,
Some hurried words,
Some friends,
Some loss,
Some trees for her,
A sigh,
A glance,
An eager face,
A memory,
A moment,
A rescued place,
A reminder,
An homage,
A feminine prayer,
A breath,
A puff,
A circle to share.
       --AM May, 2012

Dear Jonah,
       There are so many things we want to teach you... but it seems more like I am learning and refining when I try to teach you something or think about what I want you to learn. Like sometimes I want to yell at someone while we are driving, but then I remember I want you to learn forgiveness. Sometimes I want to complain about someone being annoying, then I remember I want you to learn tolerance. Sometimes I want to be selfish and not let anyone else hold you, but I want you to learn to love and share.

Your Uncle Brian posted this song on Facebook. It is one of our favorite songs. My one claim to fame in the Murdock family is bringing Mason Jennings to the mix. I hope you learn this from us....

There are so many people to learn from.

"Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life,
those the art of living well."
Aristotle

And now, and now, and now...

Dear Jonah,

       This first letter to you is kind of a growing one and evolving one... like you. I had a professor, Alan Koehn, who taught my mythology class on the trickster. He reminded us that each day we are someone new. He told us to remember that when we meet with clients that they are a new person each time they come. When we met for class once a month he would ask, "who are you this month?" And we would raise our hands and talk about who we were at that moment. He would say, "who are you now? and now? and now?" This couldn't be more true for you. You are so new and so changing. You are new when you close your eyes and then someone else when you wake up. You are new when you cry, new when you eat. I want to track you and capture who you are now and now and now... And so this post will keep growing as I add pictures every few days of who you are now.