Effing Daylight Savings

Remember last week when I was rhapsodizing about the dawn's earlier light, and walking the crunchy nature trail, and spring, blah blah blah? Well, daylight savings has come, and with it, the cold pitch dark of my morning walk returns. On the return route today (all sidewalk), just past the cheery harbinger of seasonal change, the camelia bush, the world's slowest construction crew (seriously, Naomi, Jim, and I could work together and get their 15 week "intersection improvement" done in a couple of weekends. Naomi could be the flagger, flipping her sign from Slow to Stop and smoking four packs a day like the pros all seem to...) had erected some barriers around 7-10 feet of re-poured sidewalk. Instead of crossing the street, I walked in the road around the barriers, and in the daylight savings pitch darkness, stepped into a giant hole, which caused me to "spring forward" onto my face. Awesome.

After scrambling out of the way of an oncoming car (so much for the reflective vest) and walking another fifteen yards down the sidewalk, I realized that my right ankle and left knee were hurting really bad. That was also the length of time it took for me to realize that I had fallen
right onto my stomach on the curb. And that although in my logical mind I know that little Fetus Khooler is traveling, basically, encased in a waterbed, and probably didn't even wake up (after her long night of poking me), I was slipping into a crazy panic that I had just ruined her with my careless early morning dog walking.

I fell once during my first pregnancy too. I was walking out of work, down a snowy path that was
of course completely iced up. I didn't even realize what was happening until I hit the ground, full out on my back. I lay there a moment, got up carefully, evaluated myself as uninjured, continued walking to my car, got inside, and promptly lost my shit. I remember calling Jim, crying, saying, What if I ruined the baby? His calming response (and immediate phoning of the midwives, finding out where to take me for some soothing fetal monitoring) was the best thing, because it gave me a glimpse into the near future, where labor and delivery lurked, where I would be all out of my head and not in control of the situation, and where I now knew there would be someone with a level head who would take care of things. Not that I didn't trust that before, but the test run was nice.

This morning, after the pain and panic set in, I found a little wall to sit on. I was still about a half mile from home, and of course had not brought my cell phone along. Even if I could successfully flag down a car with a driver who did have a phone, was I going to have Jim wake up Naomi and throw her in the car seat so they could drive half a mile to pick me up? That was what gave me renewed vigor, frankly, the thought of the display of cheerful fun I would feel compelled to enact when sleepy Naomi, in her jammies, encountered her mommy on the street corner, all teary and covered with construction dirt. So instead I limped along and indulged my right to a melodramatic homecoming. Jim was suitably concerned, though he tried to attach a little ice pack to my ankle with the raggedy t-shirt he uses to wipe up the floor after the dog slobbers water on it. When I demurred he told me I would never make it in battle or something like that. Note to self: bring some ace bandages into battle. Also, into our linen closet.

So, I got cleaned up, called the midwife's office for an early appointment, and took Naomi to school. In the flurry of concern from her teachers (brought on by my pathetic limp), I completely forgot to reassure them that her lunch contained NOT the strictly forbidden peanut butter and jelly, but rather, soy butter and jelly (now we need a soy substitute for peanut butter? Really, people, Mr. Peanut is not an animal. He is .... what? A legume? And kind of a dandy.) I headed to the midwife's office, where, after the requisite weigh in (sigh) and cup-peeing, a student helper located little Khooler's heartbeat on the first try. The midwife told me that although the baby was almost certainly totally OK, she was going to send me across the street to the hospital for another ultrasound. Whee. My third one. This baby is getting more in-utero camera time than Suri Cruise.

The ultrasound was fine, of course. The technician was nice, told me what it's like to have your
second kid when your first one is still a little tyke (summarized as "you get through it"). Then a doctor, I guess, came in, and started in on how it's super duper rare for them to see any kind of placental damage or abruption, which is what they're looking for, from a simple fall, and really you would only find that from a high speed car collision, but that with the medical environment being what it is, of course they are going to take a look anyway. You don't have any bleeding, right? Or Fluid leaking? he said. Huh? As though I had come to the ER straight from the street corner, in my reflective vest and dirt, demanding an ultrasound and hours of fetal monitoring, rather than being sent here by my duly diligent midwife. I am not hysterical with fear over here, Doctor Whoever You Are! But thanks for stopping by.

Anyway, wiped off all the ultrasound goo, limped off to work. Stupid Daylight Savings time, is all I'm saying.

Spring!

I have been intending for a long time to write a post about the little signs of spring that are emerging in the last few weeks. The first sign to catch my eye was an apparent bloom on a camelia bush along my pitch dark early morning walk route. I try to stick to the main drag close to our house because it is slightly better lit than the neighborhood streets. So every morning (OK, maybe three or four mornings a week), Luna in her leash and I in my fabulous reflective vest tromp up to the main intersection, turn around, and tromp back home. On the way we pass a lot of wood fencing, one excitedly barking dog (who inspires another), and a camelia bush, which started to bloom a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure I was really seeing blooms, because it really was dark on these walks. But now the bush next to our driveway, too, is covered with dramatic hot-pink flowers. Delightful!

The other, even more welcome sign of spring is that for the last week, when I leave on my walks, it is just barely light enough for me to abandon the sidewalk of the main drag and head into the nature trail. Our house is about a quarter of a mile from a long hiking trail that supposedly can take hardier walkers than myself all the way from Lake Sammamish to Lake Washington. One of the two legs of the trail that we can easily reach winds through a little patch of beautiful northwest woods and a kind of marshy grassland, past a few farm fields and a little stand that sells vegetables and gorgeous big bouquets of dahlias in the summer, and down to a medium-sized lake with houses all around and a healthy range of birds and occasional muskrats or otters or something to gawk at (I've seen a kingfisher, a pileated woodpecker, some kind of quail, lots of neat cormorants and duck varieties). The other leg leads through a blueberry farm, in the midst of which is a pretty pond, also with ducks and the occasional heron. We have been going the way of the blueberry the last few mornings, because it is much more open- a boon to the pre-dawn paranoiacs like myself. (What am I afraid of? Thugs, a little, but also...coyotes. Luna is probably too big for a coyote to try to eat, but why tempt a greedy one? There is also a sign that says to watch out for bears and panthers...heh.)

It's not a long walk- probably about a mile and a half from our house to the main road that borders the farm and back. But it is so much nicer than walking up the main road- so much more interesting for Luna to sniff, so many birds warming up their daytime voices. The trail is gravel, and my shoes make a satisfying crunch with every step. The moon is just past full now, and hangs low in the sky the last few mornings, behind light, misty clouds. The same clouds, on the opposite side of the sky, turn pink as the light grows. The most beautiful part this morning was the mist on the perfectly still pond. I could find a star, or a planet, more likely, reflected through the mist off the pond's smooth surface.

I always feel good when I take a walk in the morning, but the last week, the walks have brought me more joy than usual. I know when early Daylight Savings begins this weekend, my just barely light nature hikes are going to have to revert back to the pitch dark city street stroll. But I won't have to wait long for the light to return. Hooray! I love the transition to a new season. Spring here is long and damp and crazy with blooms and greenery, and leads to the warm, clear blue season of eating out on the patio and wandering around the botanical gardens. Also waiting for us, at the end of spring, is a new family member, who hopefully will enjoy eating outside and whatever else we come up with to do to celebrate summer. (Have I told you it's a girl? Poor Jim, now hopelessly outnumbered.) Spring is still a ways off for some of you, so I send you a big bunch of camelia blossoms and my best wishes for some sunny days in the meantime.