This morning, excited about the prospect of setting out to get a cup of coffee and begin an organized and relatively productive day, I put my computer and charger in my bag and then looked around our home office for a notebook I could use to jot down some ideas and lists. Sometimes the old pen-to-paper deal adds a nice, familiar feel to the daily routine. So I found one of those classic composition books with a mottled cover that had a bunch of blank pages and figured that would work perfectly. I flipped to the front to see what I might have used it for in the past and was overjoyed to find the date 7/16/08 scribbled at the top, followed by the words, "childbirth classes." Childbirth classes! How I'd loved that little enclave of expectant parents...meeting every week to go over the details of bringing our children into the world.

In a bit of a rush but curious to see what I'd taken from that first meeting, I glanced down the page and found that I'd written our instructor's name, her phone number and email address, and then, a few lines down (separate from the rest, as though to mark its importance), one lone statement to kick off my education, that I think really embodies the complex physical and emotional experience of having a baby:

"Practice squatting."