Rob still has a few weeks of paternity leave left so last month we booked a hotel for a random three-night stay in Asheville. We hadn’t been in years, and when we did go it was only for one night, so we really didn’t get to spend much time exploring. We also have friends there now which was an added bonus.

We have been laying pretty low since March of 2020, and we really don’t travel much unless we can drive and stay in an Airbnb and get takeout the whole time, so this actually felt like a breath of fresh air and a bit of normalcy that we desperately needed. Asheville is great about COVID precautions and they have a very well-enforced mask mandate that people seem to actually want to follow, so we felt comfortable to stay in a hotel and eat out at a few places (everywhere we went had lots of outdoor seating and really seemed to prioritize that whenever possible). I definitely recommend it, especially if you’re traveling with kids who aren’t vaccinated yet!

I hope to get back for another visit this winter, but until then, here are the details of our autumn trip to Asheville:

WHERE WE STAYED:

Hotel Indigo downtown had some suites available so we grabbed one—whenever we used to stay at a hotel with Sophie when she was younger we would often just put her travel crib in the bathroom so she could have complete darkness as well as a bit of separation from me and Rob who, surprisingly, don’t go to bed at 7:30 PM. But now we have the SlumberPod and a little travel cot for her since it’s what she’s used to, and we put that in the living area and Gideon in the travel crib in the bedroom, which had blackout curtains. Traveling with kids is a puzzle sometimes but I think we’ve figured it out pretty well.

Hotel Indigo is downtown and walkable to tons of shops and restaurants, so it was great to not have to load everyone in the car every time we wanted to go do something. Last time we went to Asheville we stayed in an Airbnb and had quite a drive to downtown. The hotel itself wasn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be, but having a little extra space and the location definitely made a huge difference. We also had such a gorgeous view!

FOOD/BEER/COFFEE/ETC:

Wicked Weed is a great brewery/restaurant combo and the perfect spot to grab a beer and some snacks or an early dinner. They did have a limited menu due to being short staffed, but the food there is seriously delicious. We the chips and dip and their Buffalo wings, which were amazing. They also have a kids menu so Sophie had a grilled cheese and fries.

We walked to Trade and Lore at least once a day for coffee. They currently have a window where you order and pick up, or you can order online and they’ll have it ready for you when you arrive. The coffee is great and they have plenty of outside seating.

All Day Darling is, well, a darling little place that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We went for an early dinner and a cocktail with friends who live in the neighborhood.

We ordered takeout from Shanghai Dumpling House one night after the kids were in bed and it was awesome. I’m sure it’s even better at the restaurant but the dumplings were great (especially with a bottle of bubbly that we brought with us from home).

Rob had one of the best burgers of his life at Haywood Common and I thoroughly enjoyed a kimchi Bloody Mary. The salads are great, the fries are amazing, truly everything on the menu sounded great and it was hard to choose.

Wedge Brewing Co. (the location at Wedge Studios) was a funky spot where we met our All Day Darling friends for a beer before walking to All Souls Pizza for a dreamy dinner of wine and pizza with tons of space for kids to run around.

THINGS TO DO:

We got gardens & grounds tickets at The Biltmore and it was kind of expensive but definitely a good outside activity if you like walking. Make sure you leave your stroller behind though, that was a rookie mistake on our part.

CURIO toy store is very cute and a certain almost-4-year-old insisted that we give it a look. Lots of books and interesting toys; we left with some magnetic dinosaurs.

Next time: I had every intention of stopping in Malaprop’s Bookstore but we ran out of time.

Out of the way but worth it: About an hour from Asheville is Pretty Place Chapel at YMCA Camp Greenville and I can’t recommend it enough. Get there early and make sure to check the website before you leave because the public viewing schedule changes without notice.

That’s about it! If you have Asheville recommendations please let me know, I’d love to add them to my list for next time.

I’ve been writing online since 2008 or so, which is actually a little mind-boggling to me. I used to share without inhibition in a way that I’m almost embarrassed by now; and a day without sitting down to write at least a sentence or two felt incomplete. Granted, I had a lot more time back then, but with the help of nap schedules and a morning babysitter a few times a week, I can once again visualize the old version of myself, who makes time to sit down with a cup of coffee and put her thoughts into words.

The other day, Gideon went down for his last nap of the afternoon while Sophie kept herself busy in a corner of the playroom and I took a deep breath—in the chaos of our first week of sleep training I had almost forgotten that on the other side is a lot more time to spend at your desk, or to light a candle and clean the kitchen while a pot of soup simmers on the stove, or to make some tea and watch an episode of Mad Men while both kids are resting.

If you’ve read here long enough, you know of my love affair with a book called Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. One of my creative writing professors in college used it for our workshops and it really stuck with me—it’s perfect when you have time but no inspiration, which is where I currently find myself.

So here are a few prompts, from my trusty and well-worn copy of Old Friend from Far Away, just like the old days, in case you could also use a little creative nudge. I used to put due dates on them but I think I know better than to set myself up for failure that way, especially before I’ve even started. But then again the thing about writing and creativity in general is that the more you do it, the easier and more natural it becomes. Let’s start with five.

• What about a time you slept outside? (OFFA, 36)

• Tell me about how a relationship ended. (OFFA, 37)

• What can you give up knowing? (OFFA, 168)

• Where is the hottest place you’ve ever been? (OFFA, 249)

• Where did you always want to go but didn’t? (OFFA, 262)

See you again soon.

Almost every single thing about my pregnancy with Gideon was the exact opposite as it was with Sophie, so there was a part of me that wondered if that would be the case for my labor and delivery experience as well, and that turned out to be completely true.

For a few days we thought he might be transverse and I thought “well a scheduled c-section would certainly be the opposite of a long, hard labor and 4 hours of pushing,” but once we had an ultrasound at 36 weeks and saw that he was actually head-down, I started to hope that the “opposite” experience would actually end up just being a quick and relatively easy delivery.

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I went to my 39 week appointment on a Friday and my blood pressure was slightly elevated—not enough to need to do anything, but enough that the doctor sent me down to triage at Labor & Delivery so they could monitor me for a few hours. I was completely beside myself, trying not to cry and feeling totally overwhelmed that I hadn’t said a proper goodbye to Sophie before bringing a sibling home to her. After a few hours, the doctor on call said he wasn’t super concerned about my blood pressure but rescheduled my 40 week checkup for the upcoming Monday so they could check again and make a plan from there if it was still high.

My brother had been working from our house for almost a week by this point so that he could be there to watch Sophie when it was time to go to the hospital, so that was one less thing to worry about, but as soon as I got home I booked Ender a stay at the doggie hotel for the following week. We finished packing our hospital bag, I wrote out Sophie’s schedule and cut up some veggies for her snacks, and basically prepared to be admitted for real on the 24th after my appointment.

Luckily my blood pressure hadn’t gone up any more, but because my due date was approaching and it was still higher than it should have been, we decided to schedule an induction for Wednesday the 26th. When I was pregnant with Sophie, the thought of being induced would have totally freaked me out, but I practically jumped for joy to have something on the books and know exactly when we were going to be at the hospital this time.

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The night before our appointment, Rob and I put Sophie to bed and tried not to get too emotional about the fact that it was our last time doing her bedtime routine just the three of us. We told her we’d be gone for a few days and be back with her little brother and that Sean would be there to take care of her, and she seemed fine and even excited about it all. We had to be at the hospital at 7:00 AM so I tried to go to bed early, excited to be completing my last night of terrible pregnancy heartburn.

For weeks we had been working on a list of names we liked and we just couldn’t settle on one. We had Sophie’s name settled by the week of her birth, but for some reason we felt like we needed to meet this guy before we named him. We had three potential first names and one middle name and I joked that maybe we would just let one of the nurses decide. I fell asleep wondering what this baby would be like, who he might resemble, and feeling so excited to be meeting him so soon.

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The next morning I took a shower and threw up! This baby had me nauseated for 40 full weeks and I had actually joked about possibly being sick up until the day he was born. We made coffees to go and said goodbye to my brother and drove through McDonald’s for a quick breakfast. I was feeling really nervous but calm and pretty confident about everything—my biggest goal for labor was to just be more present this time. With Sophie, I was so exhausted by the time I even got to the hospital that I feel like I barely remember a lot of it. I also wanted to get an epidural much, much earlier this time and not be so scared of that procedure, so it felt good to let the nurses know that when they asked me what my plans were for pain management.

By 8:30 AM we had started the Pitocin! I was already 2 centimeters when they admitted me and having a few contractions here and there, but nothing major. Every 30 minutes the nurse would come in and up the dosage, and after a couple of hours I was definitely starting to feel contractions that were strong enough that I needed to stop what I was doing and breathe through them. I wasn’t super uncomfortable yet, so I didn’t think I needed to get an epidural, but I was extremely mindful of how quickly things could change and didn’t want to end up wishing I had gotten it sooner.

Around 11:30 AM the doctor came in, checked me again, and broke my water. I was still only 2 centimeters but she said that once my water broke things would probably start to progress faster. Another hour or two passed and I was having contractions every 4-5 minutes and they were definitely getting more intense and painful. I was hoping to be more dilated than 2 centimeters when I got my epidural, so the nurse checked me again and said I was at about 4, which seemed good enough to me.

We called for the anesthesiologist and he showed up around 2:00. I was way more aware of my surroundings that during my first labor and delivery, so I definitely felt more than I remember from my first epidural, but just like the first time it really wasn’t anything to be too scared of. Within 20 minutes, I was feeling so much relief and didn’t realize how much pain I had been in. We relaxed for a while.

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The nurses and my OB kept reminding me that second babies tend to come much faster, so to be sure to tell them if I felt like I had to go to the bathroom because it could be time to push. My nurse probably thought I was a nut because I kept telling her I had to pee—she put a catheter in but there wasn’t really anything there. I was probably around 6-7 centimeters when they had me lie on my side with the peanut ball between my knees for at least 30 minutes. After another 45 minutes or an hour (around 3:30 PM), I was starting to feel really intense contractions, and I was surprised by how painful they were even after the epidural. I was at 9 centimeters by this point, and I must have stayed there for an hour. The contractions started getting really intense—my whole body would shake and I felt like I didn’t have any control over anything. The nurse kept checking me because I was actively trying not to push, but I was still at 9 centimeters. She told me he was moving down but my cervix wasn’t fully dilated yet. It was intense and painful, but he was doing a lot of the work for me.

Finally the nurse called my doctor and said I had been actively trying not to push and that I was so close to 10 centimeters. She came in at 5:00 PM and while they got set up she told me to do a “practice push” at the next contraction. It was such a relief to be able to finally work with the contractions, and after my first one she said “okay he’s crowning, you’ve got this!” I held my breath and pushed two or three more times, and he was born at 5:04 PM.

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He was 8 pounds 3 ounces and 21 inches long, a little heavier than his sister but just as tall. We must have stared at him for an hour or two before we finally settled on his name. He wasn’t a Theo, or a Liam—he was Gideon, and he completed our family in an instant.

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.