New West Network

My Page: Jennifer Savage

Column: Savagemama

With the any-day-now anticipation of the birth of our second baby, I wrote a letter to my daughter, my first born, my so-far one and only:

My Sweet Eliza June,

Tonight you fell asleep with your hand under my cheek. We lay there together as you wiggled yourself still. I watched the curve of your nose, the thin line of your lips. I tried to memorize your tiny face in the early summer light as your eyelids grew heavy.

You are my girl. [more]

Column: Savagemama

When I was pregnant with Eliza I couldn’t write a word. I could barely manage more than a few-sentence email. I thought if I started typing, I might never stop. This last month I’ve been feeling the same way with this pregnancy. One word and I keep thinking the dam holding back a tsunami of emotion will break, the stitching holding me together will come unraveled. If I start to type I'd have to tell you about...
[more]

Column: Savagemama

A few months ago, before a new baby was in the picture, Seth and I took Eliza for a walk down the dirt road we live on and I nearly had what my mother would call a conniption.

“I work from home,” I told Seth, “and I’m not going to be able to keep my job for long if I don’t get organized. I live in my car and I have stacks of papers everywhere. I can’t find anything. Eliza plays in my file box, she taps my keyboard with her drum mallet. I am at capacity for what I can do without having a place to write, to work. I can’t take on anymore assignments like this.”

I was at a fever pitch. I told him that some days, while Eliza is sleeping in the car seat, I cruise around town looking for a Wi-Fi hotspot where I can get a signal from the driver’s seat. I find a parking place, put the car in park, push my seat back and work or write until she wakes up and we have to keep moving. I am flexible but I’m not superhuman. If we are going to make this live-in-the-rural-West-work-for-ourselves thing work I needed a change. [more]

Column: Savagemama

These past two weeks Seth and his dad have been giving our little farmhouse a serious upgrade. Two rooms to which we’ve always kept the doors closed are becoming a part of our house with pocket doors, paint and electrical outlets that work. Our spare bedroom is turning into a kids’ room with cornflower blue walls, an insulated floor and heater. Our laundry room has a shiny tile floor to replace the painted concrete that’s been there for God only knows how long and a cold water line that does more than drip.

And tomorrow, America’s favorite home improvement box store will deliver our new washer and dryer. Our lives have officially shifted but no one could be happier about the Maytag than me. [more]

Column: Savagemama

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted a column. I’ve not disappeared, I’ve just been watching a remodel unfold in our house. EJ is getting a new room (or getting a room I should say) and Seth’s dad is here for two weeks to help with putting up walls, installing heaters and basically turning our guest room into a kid friendly place.

So since Seth is working all day only to come home and work all night, I thought it time to list off the top ten reasons I love my man today. Here goes: [more]

Savagemama: Notes From a Pregnant Mama

Eliza has discovered her business, her girl parts, her vagina. She “washes” herself in the bathtub which I’m pretty sure is a thinly veiled excuse to rub the bar of soap between her legs. She wants to wipe herself and walks around with her hands down her pants. I’m not really sure what, if anything, to do about this. Our doctor asked me at our 18-month visit if I had any questions about masturbation.

“Don’t we worry about that when she’s, like, eight?” I said.

“Some people worry about it now, when they are discovering themselves,” she said.

I walked away confused. Then, not two weeks later, Eliza’s “downtown” became a fascinating place to her and I understood why the doctor had asked me about it.

I’m chalking it up to curiosity, making sure not to make her feel shameful and getting used to her walking around with her arm – up to her elbow -- in her diaper.

Savagemama: Notes From a Pregnant Mama

The poet Nikki Giovanni has tattoo that says Thug Life on her wrist. She got it as a tribute to Tupac Shakur after he was gunned down. This black woman who has to be in her sixties did not know him, she says, but thought he spoke the truth. She says if she has the choice to be with the thugs or with the ones trying to bring them down, she’d rather be with the thugs. If she had the choice to be the “one swinging from the tree” or the ones looking up at him, she’d rather be the one in the tree. She says she rather be Matthew Sheppard than the ones who beat him.

Hearing the words, tears streamed down my cheeks.

She says if the choice to be with the "ones running or the ones chasing," she'd rather be with the ones running.

Read her poem dedicated to Tupac here

Column: Savagemama

Two mornings ago I woke up to Eliza saying, “Hey!” She was sitting beside me, staring down at me. I’m not sure how many times she said this before I woke up but after seeing me awake, she smiled.

“Hey!” I said as I sat up. I ran my hand through her curls, then because I’ve been waking up really congested these days, scratched my nose with the back of my other hand. I felt something hard and pointed and when I pulled my hand away I saw my nose ring had fallen out. A tiny L-shaped piece of metal, the thing was prone to stick out but it rarely came out by accident or otherwise because it was such a pain to get back in. I sat looking at it in my hand and instead of putting back in the hole in my nose I put on the shelf next to my bed. I scooped Eliza up and headed down to make breakfast.

But leaving the nose ring out doesn't mean I've lost my edge. [more]

Savagemama: Notes From a Pregnant Mama

The other night I had a dream I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. Fear shot through me as though I was 17 years old. I woke in the early morning to the sweet it-was-only-a-dream realization that often accompanies nightmares. Then as I lay there I had a heart-stopping moment of the truly awake. It wasn’t just a dream. We are having another baby. I sat up, heart pounding, terrified.

Savagemama: Notes From a Pregnant Mama

It happens every February and every year it takes me by surprise. When we are at our grayest, slushiest, muddiest here in western Montana and I’m ready to move far, far away, the calves in my neighbor’s pasture start dropping. A few at first, they appear as slick black spots on an otherwise drab landscape. Mama cows lick their bottoms and faces clean and munch on afterbirth right outside our kitchen window. Then the eagles come and circle the pasture for a bite of that afterbirth. After a week or so the pasture is teetering with calves just finding their legs and birds hopping around in the hay behind them. Even though these births are timed perfectly by my neighbor rancher and somewhere along the way these cows have been trained to birth according to his plans, it’s still the first sign in my world that spring is coming. Come June these calves will have fattened up a bit and they will inevitably break through our fences to eat our hay, tromp on our flowers. But this year I’ll have another baby of my own to look after and probably won’t pay these calves that I’m so fascinated with now that much attention.