road trip!

2:00 a.m.: f*&!ing alarm goes off.

2:01 a.m.: mairin begins her new song: “no, i don’t like my room. no, i don’t like my room. la la la.”

2:15 a.m.: coffee is brewed, showers have been taken.

2:27 a.m.: mairin adds a verse to her song: “no, i don’t like room. MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! no, i don’t like my room. la la MOMMY! la.”

3:15 a.m.: car is packed, eamon has eaten, mairin finally agrees to go on the big adventure.

5:00 a.m. mairin opens her eyes wide, stretches, announces her back hurts, promptly falls back asleep.

7:00 a.m.: repeat.

8:00 a.m.: one more time, with feeling. shannon turns to see if mairin needs help. mairin throws up.

8:12 a.m.: family pulls into truck stop, where mairin announces to everyone that she has thrown up on her jammies.

8:36 a.m.: now-clean family pulls back onto the highway.

9:03 a.m.: still-clean family pulls into a mcdonalds in west virginia.

9:04 a.m.: carole walks in, nursing eamon underneath a blanket.

9:04 a.m.: four old toothless men, sitting together at a table, stare. follow carole and the nursing baby with their eyes. crane their necks.

9:05 a.m.: carole, mairin and eamon head to playground. men stare.

9:06 a.m.: shannon brings breakfast. has forgotten straws. carole goes back to get them. baby is no longer nursing. men still stare.

9:07 a.m.: carole points out to shannon that men are staring. thinks it’s creepy. shannon reminds her they’re in west virginia.

9:12 a.m.: carole takes eamon to change his diaper. at back of mcdonalds, table of four older (but toothed) women watch her. stare. follow her with their eyes. crane their necks.

9:17 a.m.: carole returns. points out to shannon that women are staring. even shannon thinks this is strange.

9:23 a.m.: family exits mcdonalds. both tables of west virginians stare. follow the whole family with their eyes. crane their necks.

9:24 a.m.: shannon determines the only answer to strange west virginian behavior is that they think we are celebrities. decides he is brad pitt.

9:50 a.m.: family gratefully leaves west virginia behind.

12:30 p.m.: family arrives at destination. MARYLAND! COUSINS! strangeness of west virginia experience falls away as mairin and eamon are affectionately devoured by cousins.

1:30 p.m.: mairin goes to the playground with her cousins, where she promptly takes charge (and shows off her new coat).

exhaustion (mostly carole’s) takes over until the next morning, when the cousin love continues:

isabelle and eamon

isabelle, eamon, sophie, gaby, mairin

eamon and luis

eamon and luis's finger

hey! what's that? over there?

eamon likes roadtripping

tagged

thanks, dd, for giving us work during a week when we were going to slink away, unnoticed, from all things bloggy.

so the meme: open your 6th photo folder; open the 6th photo in that folder; post it and the story about it.  here goes:

this is eamon shannon smith on his ninth day of life, sleeping on our (unmade) bed.

as for the story? well, there’s not much to tell. it’s a sleeping baby.

or there’s a lot to tell, but it’s taken us the whole damn blog to tell it. feel free to review the archives if you’ve forgotten any of the essentials.

(too lazy? here’s the cliff’s notes version: dead sister. live sister. dead sister. final pregnancy. SICK SICK SICK. holy bejeezus, twins. in past tense. thank heavens this little girl remains strong and healthy. WHAT? THAT’S A PENIS? rethink whole relationship to existence. eat lots of ice cream. nope, it’s still a penis. wait four more exhausting months where nothing much happens, if you discount the drama in our heads. september 9, 2008: heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s gus!)

when mairin was an infant i spent all day, every day, for at least 8 weeks, taking pictures of her sleeping. maybe that’s an exaggeration, since those of you who knew mairin back then knew she RARELY SLEPT. nonetheless we somehow we have boatloads of her chubby mug snoozing away. i thought it would only be fair to have, if not equal numbers of photos of the little man (as mairin has taken to calling him), but at least a few that are decent.

for photogs like me, it takes hundreds of snaps to get one or two that are decent. this is obviously not one of the better shots. sure it’s cute and all, but his makeup artist was out that day and the baby-bedhead updo is not his best look. but here’s the other thing about taking oodles of shots: i can rarely bring myself to delete any of them. i *usually* delete those that are out of focus (unless i’m having one of those days when i think i might do something, you know, artsy with them one day), but i tend to be quick and sloppy in the storage department, opting to save them all now and sort through them all later. (thus we have a desktop with close to 10,000 pix on it, causing said desktop to crash any time you try anything fancy, like playing freecell while you wait and wait and wait for firefox to load.) one day it will be later and i will be organized; our computer will no longer crash; and rainbows will shine in the sky and bluebirds will sit, singing, on my shoulder. (i actually just typed “bluebirds will shit, singing on my shoulder,” which may turn out to be true as well.)

so there you have it: the story of the baby, and the story of the picture.

you’re it:

squab

fatcyclist (or his proxy)

vamplita

alexis (to help you with nablopomo)

maybe it’s just the hat

mairin in chariot, november 2006

mairin and eamon in chariot, november 2008

i look at them both often (duh), and i almost never think they look alike. and then, this.

fill in your own narrative(s)

eamon took his first road trip to see his uncle rocco talk at ohio state:

the chariot returns! (hey, auntie kate, notice the hat?)

long-limbed baby:

see (a little bit) more here

no, hang on a sec, i’ve almost got it….

you know those hateful, “hey, cute-mama-to-be, here’s how marvelous you should be feeling now in week ‘x’ of your pregnancy?” bits that i ranted about months ago? turns out they don’t end just because i’m no longer pregnant. seems some poor sap has figured out that new mothers are desperate for information (okay, so what if we are?) and that we’ll turn anywhere for it (i’m taking umbrage at that one) and will believe anything (don’t even get me started).

today, as welcome to week 9 of my baby’s life (okay, i remember enough to know that that’s wrong by a week) i received an email giving me advice about how to remember things.

seems the first thing you have to do is figure out whether the memory you are seeking is procedural or declarative. if it’s procedural, well then, accessing the memory is easy: just start doing the thing that you’re trying to remember. but if it’s declarative, then you have to determine whether it is episodic-declarative or semantic-declarative. if the former, then just remember a bit and the whole memory will come flooding back; if the latter, well, wait! there is no answer for how to get at your semantic memories. just your procedural ones, or your episodic ones, or your declarative ones. is that a typo? should the article say “semantic” where it says “declarative”? or, wait, did i even understand that right in the first place? or are all my semantic memories gone forever down the operating-room drain?

next time i’m stressed because i can’t remember something, i could take this advice:

Don’t worry too much if you can’t remember something because, ironically, stress can cause you to forget! Stay calm and logically work out what kind memory you are seeking.

instead, i’m going to be grateful that i have at least promptly forgotten how it is i’m supposed to remember.

mairin among the garlic eaters

scene: a small reception room on a midwestern state university campus. the room is set up with round tables, and at the tables are seated  70 or so people from the french & italian department. they chatter to each other in variously-sophisticated italian, raving about the talk they just heard about the meanings and garlic-ographies of italian-american foodways. some are finishing plates of lasagne and bread. others are starting on plates of tiramisu.

a slightly-built man enters, stage right. impeccably dressed, he glides toward the front of the room to stand by the piano. his accompanist enters. the man proves to be a skilled tenor, and proceeds to serenade the crowd with four operatic selections, including Figaro’s aria from Il Barbiere di Siviglia, which goes something like this:

Largo al factotum della citta.
Largo! La la la la la la la LA!

Presto a bottega che l’alba e gia.
Presto! La la la la la la la LA!

Ah, che bel vivere, che bel piacere (che bel piacere)
per un barbiere di qualita! (di qualita!)

Ah, bravo Figaro!
Bravo, bravissimo!
Bravo! La la la la la la la LA!

Fortunatissimo per verita!
Bravo!
La la la la la la la LA!
Fortunatissimo per verita!
Fortunatissimo per verita!
La la la la, la la la la, la la la la la la la LA!

Pronto a far tutto, la notte e il giorno
sempre d’intorno in giro sta.
Miglior cuccagna per un barbiere,
vita piu nobile, no, non si da.
La la la la la la la la la la la la la!

Rasori e pettini
lancette e forbici,
al mio comando
tutto qui sta.
Rasori e pettini
lancette e forbici,
al mio comando
tutto qui sta.

V’e la risorsa,
poi, de mestiere
colla donnetta… col cavaliere…
colla donnetta… la la li la la la la la
col cavaliere… la la li la la la la la la la LA!!!

Ah, che bel vivere, che bel piacere (che bel piacere)
per un barbiere di qualita! (di qualita!)

Tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono,
donne, ragazzi, vecchi, fanciulle:

Qua la parruca… Presto la barba…
Qua la sanguigna… Presto il biglietto…

Tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono,
tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono,
Qua la parruca, presto la barba, presto il biglietto, ehi!

Figaro… Figaro… Figaro… Figaro…Figaro…
Figaro… Figaro… Figaro… Figaro…Figaro!!!

Ahime, (ahime) che furia!
Ahime, che folla!
Uno alla volta,
per carita! (per carita! per carita!)
Uno alla volta, uno alla volta,
uno alla volta, per carita!
Figaro! Son qua.
Ehi, Figaro! Son qua.

Figaro qua, Figaro la, Figaro qua, Figaro la,
Figaro su, Figaro giu, Figaro su, Figaro giu.

Pronto prontissimo son come il fumine:
sono il factotum della citta.
(della citta, della citta, della citta, della citta)

(pause….)

(pause, while tenor pulls himself a little taller and smiles at the audience)

(pause….)

HI MOMMY!

Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo;
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo;
a te fortuna (a te fortuna, a te fortuna) non manchera.
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo;
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo;
a te fortuna (a te fortuna, a te fortuna) non manchera.
Sono il factotum della citta,
Sono il factotum della citta,
della citta, della citta,
Della citta!!!
La la la la la la la la la!

at least she waited until near the end.

i am a heel

way back in the day when i was nervously roly-poly (as opposed to now, when i am merely frustratedly roly-poly-ish) i reserved a spot for eamon at mairin’s playschool. the waiting list is longish for newbies, and so when i asked for a start date of 12/1/08 i was told i could certainly start him 1/1/09, and that they would try to get him in december 1st. i got copies of all the requisite paperwork, promptly misplaced it all, and went on my merry way.

after eamon arrived we pulled mairin out a few days a week so that she could be home with her brother and me. this cut our costs some, but more importantly gave us some long-missed together-time, which has coincided with mairin’s developmental “i hate/love my daddy (and everyone else who is not my mommy)” stage, leaving us all a bit ragged.  witness the bright red, 3″ long scratches shannon is sporting on his forehead from when mairin “tickled” him.  that’s right: mairin DRAWS BLOOD when she tickles.

aside from the bloodiness of family bonding time, our togetherness (and our decrease in daycare costs) have prompted us to revisit the whole “what do we do with these kids now that we’ve had them”  question.  it isn’t really an option for one of us to stay home full time right now, so we’ve settled on the tried-and-true academic family lifestyle. (no, not the one where one of us lives on the east coast and the other lives in BFE nowhere and we fly home on weekends until one of us collapses from nervous exhaustion and the other fails to get tenure — although all of that sounds a little easier than sitting through YET ANOTHER DINNER WITH MAIRIN), but the one where the parents juggle their schedules so that one of them can always be home with the kids. okay, we can’t swing the “always,” but we’re swinging a pretty decent percentage, which has enabled us to get someone to come to the house on a part-time basis to pour milk down e’s throat and listen to mairin’s glorious monologues.

so it’s a done deal: we have interviewed our new “nanny,” checked her references, and offered her the job. she has accepted.

hence my heel-ness

i knew this two weekends ago, but didn’t say anything to the playschool folks. i didn’t say anything because, well, honestly, i was hedging my bets. and i’m a huge chicken, and somehow telling them we didn’t need ANY spots after all, even after they had kicked out some unsuspecting infant found eamon a spot for 12/1, seemed somehow beyond my emotional capacity.

and yet during this time — the time of interviews and reference-checking and being chicken and hedging my bets — i continued to bring eamon with me when i dropped off mairin. which is how i learned how popular my kids are. one morning, after we had formalized arrangements with the new nanny, mairin’s a.m. teacher, miss donna, pulled me aside and asked when eamon would be starting. i told her 12/1. yes, that’s right. i lied. baldly, boldly, and outright. and i didn’t even feel badly about it.

and then.

miss donna told me that she is with the infants in the afternoons, and has been for 14 years, and is so very excited that mairin’s little brother is starting at the playschool that she made a request and pulled some strings and cut some deals so that eamon would be her charge once he starts. (“and when will that be? oh, december first? that’s so great! that’s so soon!”)  turns out she loves our family. thinks mairin is divine. thinks eamon (whom she sees every time i drop off mairin) is just so cute. was very happy to get to spend time with both of them.

all this — all this love, all this outpouring of affection for the child she knows and the child she can’t wait to get to know better — and i stand there sprouting horns and a tail before her very eyes.  i should have told her then that eamon wasn’t starting. but i didn’t.

i have felt guilty about this every waking moment since. so, yesterday morning i told her the truth: that i’m pulling both kids and having them stay home. she asked me if she could give me her phone number so that she can babysit them. i think she was on the verge of tears.

i thought about this all day yesterday and it seemed so very sweet. but now that i’ve written it out i’m wondering if it’s a bit creepy.

either way, i’m still a heel.

yeah, i’m here, too.

so i just scrolled through a bunch of posts on this blog to figure out the last time yours truly authored a post, and was appalled to discover that it’s been one and a half months – 3/4 of tiny eamon’s life.

sigh.

the truth is, though, i don’t feel like i have a lot to add. at least, not that’s funny, or whimsical, or just plain lighthearted like a parent should be after welcoming a healthhy, grinning newborn. actually, if i’m honest, i feel pretty overwhelmed by the whole thing, and writing about it (i fear) will just sound like i’m complaining, or inadequate, or not taking the right pleasure in the Things That Count. heck, i don’t even know what “the whole thing” that i’m overwhelmed by is. sometimes i figure it’s just the growing pains of having two kids — what i’ve heard described as having to switch from zone defense (2 parents, one kid) to man-to-man. it makes a difference for your relationship, for geting daily stuff done, for simple conversation. then, other times, i think “the whole thing” is the long odyssey of bringing these two little children into the world, and their two sisters whom they (and we) will never meet much less play with, and the fact of this odyssey ending and being happy about that but also feeling this sense of vertigo that the one thing that’s been driving my life for 5 years has suddenly changed and now you have to — what? move on? redefine? be happy? and then i think “the whole thing” is making me feel just little too uncertain, and damnit i don’t have time to feel uncertain i’ve got two kids and the economy’s in the tank and and and …

you see? not pretty. so i’ve just been leaving the blogging in funnier, more capable hands.

my kid kicks a**

i have two concerns about working from home: “working” and “home” — two words which, when used togeter, make perfect sense to most academic types, and yet are rendered near meaningless once “home” includes kidlets. (insert long rant about those old-school advisors who tell their female graduate students just to write their dissertations “while the baby is napping.” good god.)

to wit (about home and work, not the dissertation, which i NEVER would have completed had i children at the time, so a BIG SHOUT OUT to you, squab): i am back at work part-time, and it’s ok for all of it to be from home. okay, that is, by my boss. not so ok in terms of efficacy. (mine.) for example, i have 3 one-hour-long conference calls today, but i learned yesterday (the hard way) that my cell phone is no longer up to the arduous work as staying ON for three hours. so i have scratched the “home” bit for today and have come in to campus for the calls. but i have brought a bit of home with me: the li’l mister mister.

and can i just say? he’s sitting next to me, diapered, fed, and swaddled, staring at the speaker-phone activated telephone. and damn if the kid isn’t cooing. cooing. during a conversation about strategic planning.

oh shit. he just smiled at me. this kid is da bomb.

manners from heaven

“shannon, did –”

     “mommy, i need ergo?”
     “no, honey, you don’t need to sit in the ergo right now. we’re eating dinner.”

“so shannon, did–”

     “mommy, i’m eating dinner?”
 
     “well, honey, you were eating dinner. now you’re standing looking out the window at leo’s house. are you done with dinner?” 

     “no mommy.”

     “then please sit down at your blue table and finish your dinner.”

     “okay, mommy.”

“so, um, shannon, i was thinki—”

     “mommy, i’m sitting on my bottom?” 

     “yes, honey, you’re sitting on your bottom. thank you for sitting down to eat your dinner.”

     “you’re welcome, mommy. i’m eating my dinner now, mommy.”

“okay, shannon, i wanted to tell y—”

     “mommy, baby’s too little! baby’s too little for dinner!”

     “yes, honey, baby’s too little for dinner.”

     “baby drinks milk!”

     “yes sweetie, baby drinks milk.”

     “baby needs milk now! on other side!”

     “no, honey, baby is sleeping right now.”

     “baby wake up mommy?”

     “no, honey, let’s let the baby sleep. now it’s time for you to finish your dinner.”

     “mommy i’m sitting on my bottom!”

     “good job, toots. please finish your chicken now.”

“um, okay, shan, i really want to kn—”

     “mommy? mommy? mommy?”

     “honey, i need a minute to ask daddy a question. can you wait just a minute?”

     “no mommy. i’m sitting on my bottom! baby is sleeping! baby drinks milk on the other side! baby is too little! baby is too little for dinner! i see leo’s house! leo is inside! i go outside to play with leo? i’m sitting on my bottom! i need ergo now! mommy!”

     “hey, mairin? i really need to talk to daddy for just a minute. why don’t you eat two bites of chicken and then after that you and i can talk, okay?”

     “okay mommy.”
     (stuffs two pieces of chicken in her mouth.)
     “hmphe mhumphy, ahh ghou omphhtrz nhoouw?”

     “mairin, do you talk this much at school?”

mairin chews and swallows.

     “no mommy. only at home.”