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If Adrienne and I get Ian in March (a possiblity,but not too probable) it will have been exactly one year since we started the process of adoption. Though longer than any human gestation period I've ever heard of, 12 months is really not that long a time. (Our social worker at Holt, by the way, was wonderful at walking us through the whole—at times very confusing—process.)
But the experience didn't begin to feel entirely real until the other day when we finally got our assignment and, soon after that, the pictures of our boy. That's understandable, I guess, because when people become parents in the usual way, they get to experience the whole pregnancy; get to watch the mother-to-be's belly grow; can even find out, if they choose, whether the baby will be a boy or a girl. They also get to experience the birth, which, depending on whom you ask, is either a miracle and a joy to behold...or the most sadistic torture ever conceived (no pun intended) for the human body to be put through.
(The truth is...it's both. You read it here first. Tell a friend.)
The process, for those folks, is incremental, culminating in the birth of the baby. Adrienne and I didn't have all those milestones. We became parents on November 19, 1999...and we didn't even know it until January! Even the paperwork wasn't incremental: there was a raft of it a while ago, then nothing for months, then a lot more, then nothing, and now a whole lot more. So it could only be seen as incremental in the same way that severe climatological traumas can be seen as incremental: months of blue skies and occasional rain then WHAM!—a hurricane; more blue skies, sunshine, maybe a bit of cold...WHAM!—a blizzard. In other words, the very opposite of incremental: let's call it uncremental. (You read the word here first. Tell a friend. But do it incrementally.) Others will associate the months before the arrival of their child with the mother's growing belly, the baby's first kicks and movements inside, and the ineluctable culmination: the actual birth. We will associate the months before the arrival of Ian with writer's cramp.
All the above is not meant as a lament. (It would be a waste of your tears, Argentina, to cry for me the way I feel now, because I've never felt happier.) The fact that we did not experience those usual milestones firsthand before we learned of the birth of our baby has made the reality of the existence of our son more intense for us. Even though we knew the assignment was coming soon, it was, when it did come, still an incredibly, joltingly, indescribably ecstatic moment. Our baby was born. He's a boy. He is Excellent and Brilliant.
It was as though that hurricane just stopped, that blizzard just ended...and Ian was the blue skies we knew in our heads was coming afterwards, but now, having seen him, we knew it in our hearts. And now we know there will always be blue skies because there will always be Ian.
There aren't many things in this life that could make me happy to have been obliged to fill out mounds of paperwork, but Ian is one. And we haven't even seen him in the flesh yet!
A disclaimer: It's probably presumptuous of me to have attempted to describe how people who have been through pregnancy and childbirth might feel about the experience, since I myself have never been through it (not to mention the fact that there almost certainly is no "how people feel", since I'm sure each experience is unique), but it really wasn't my intent to capture what others may or may not have felt—just what Adrienne and I felt. I failed at that, too, because I find myself unable to bring forth the words that would do the experience justice. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I've given birth to a lot of words in my time. Ian has not, as you can see, left me at a loss for words...just at a loss for the right words, the ones that could even begin to approximate how Adrienne and I feel.
January 10, 2000. Today, Adrienne and I went to the bank to have notarized the multiple copies of the millions of forms we had to fill out. We had spent a whole night a few days ago filling them out then putting stickies on 'em to remind us which ones had to be notarized, which ones had to be sent where, how many copies had to be sent...the whole (those of you who are not parents will have to pardon my use, here, of a highly technical term that you won't possibly be able to grasp) magilla. But we agree: that's ok. Each step brings Ian a little closer to home.
The woman who notarized our forms was very friendly, very congratulatory. We showed her our picture of Ian. Adrienne, the people-person who hates to be called a people-person, knew, in her typically peopley-personable way, exactly what was going on with our bank—where they were scheduled to open new branches and when; which ones would be closer to—and therefore an easier commute for—the woman who was our notary; how far north the bank was planning to expand, etc. And Adrienne proceeded to engage in a dialog on these topics with our notary-person for a good fifteen minutes (while we were all filling out the forms, so rest assured, the meeting remained the very model of efficient time-management as well as people-personish schmoozing).
I say "dialog" because, even though I was there, I didn't join in, largely because I knew nothing about any of this stuff. As you can see by references to "our notary person" and "the woman who notarized our forms", I can't even remember the name of, um, our notar-dame (my new word for "female notary public"; it is my hope to teach my readers a new bogus vocabulary word with each journal entry (for the record: a male notary="noto-rooterman"))—even though the meeting took place a mere couple of hours ago. Of course it didn't take me all of that time to forget her name—I'm pretty sure I forgot it even before I was out of the bank. I'd like to be able to say that's a record time for me, but it'd be a lie. At a family function, I once greeted an aunt of mine with a "hello" accompanied by a big hug and kiss, only to find out that I was not related to the little old lady I'd accosted and that I had just, technically, become a masher. No charges were pressed, however.
I am not proud of this less than-people-personly aspect of my personality, but I see no point in denying that I have it. Would that it weren't so. This is not the first (nor, I'm sure, will it be the last) time that I've had to sit and wallow in my ignorance and lack of social skills while Adrienne garrulously talks to someone we've both just met about something other than the weather! And I thought meeting new people was exactly why God invented weather-talk...(followed, a few years thereafter, by the Weather Channel): so strangers'd all have something to say to each other—at least for two minutes or so. But no, this type of talk, mere weather-talk—which I could handle, I really could!—is not good enough for my personne du peuple wife. Well, it's a good thing one of us has this skill, even if that person is for some inexplicable reason in deep denial about having it. After all, there are no bad people-persons...only bad weather.
I was watching VH1 the other night and they were doing a special about John Lennon, one of my heroes. Near the end of the special, they played a bit of the song "Beautiful Boy".
Close your eyes, have no fear, the monster's gone, he's on the run
And your daddy's here
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyBeautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyBefore you go to sleep, say a little prayer
Everyday, in every way it's getting better and better
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyBeautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyOut on the ocean, sailing away
I can hardly wait to see you come of age
But I guess we'll both just have to be patient!
Cos it's a long way to go! A hard row to hoe! Yes it's a long way to go
But in the meantime....Before you cross the street take my hand
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyBeautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyBefore you go to sleep, say a little prayer
Everyday, in every way it's getting better and better
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful boyDarling, darling, darling
Darling Sean.
I consider myself to be a ruthless enemy of cheap sentimentality...but, at the same time, an easy mark for genuine sentiment. Knowing that John was killed a few months after this song was released, that he never got to see his beautiful boy "come of age", makes it impossible for me to hear this song or even read the lyrics without feeling my eyes well up. Adrienne and I both want to see our beautiful boy come of age no matter what road he takes in life. We want to enjoy every day we have with him as though it were the last because we are keenly aware—songs like John's Beautiful Boy as well as personal experience forever remind us—that this day might well be that last day. We do not dwell on this in a morbid way—quite the contrary: we will consider every day we're there to chase that monster away, every street we cross while holding Ian's hand, every night we watch Ian fall asleep to be a uniquely irreplaceable gift, another beautiful day spent with our beautiful boy.
1/12/00. In my first journal entry, as you may remember, I made a lame apology for presuming to describe how parents who have actually been through nine months of pregnancy must feel. A friend—who will remain nameless (well, pseudonymous, anyway: for the sake of this entry, let's call him "Preg Gennell"...yes, that'll do, no one will ever figure out the cipher I've used to encrypt his (or her! it could be a her!) name) ...but, a friend, as I was saying, who has been through the whole 9 month thing e-mailed me to say the following*:
*{This being a family site, certain passages from the original e-mail have been, uh, toned down (in the sense that that have been wholly excised...yeah, that sense of "toned down"). I will indicate all excisions with ellipses (...). If it helps, Greg—I mean, Preg!—don't think of this as having your writing redacted: think of it as having it bowdlerized, if that eases the hurt. But it couldn't be helped, what with all yer references to naughtybits and the like. Ya smut-peddler, ya. I may hafta tell Ian to skip this entry altogether...}
Tom:
You have missed this much fun:
- Having odd people show up at the hospital asking to see the baby, which you are wildly enthusiastic about showing to anybody but you have no idea five minutes later exactly who that person was, even if you've known them for years and/or they shoved unsolicited wads of cash in your hands.
- When secondary people show up late and look at your wife's stomach size and ask when the baby is due, even though the baby was born 12 hours ago and your wife is keenly aware of the fact that her stomach didn't automatically flatten out.
- [...]
- Odd ladies at the grocery stores who feel they were set here on earth to do nothing but ogle new borns. This they do with no shame, and you feel odd later that you didn't mind.
- Endless fussing by parents, relations, in-laws and anyone else with even the slightest familiar claim who wants to "let you rest" and seizes said baby you were in no way tired of holding and procedes to gush and goo at it in a way you wish they wouldn't.
- [...]
- You will not be as acquainted with the wee hours and the effects of loss of sleep.
- Phone calls will not fill your first home hours with kindly, altruistic salespeople who read the birth notices nonstop and are there to advise and fullfill your every baby need and point out that only completely new baby furniture will save you from the mighty embarassment of being perceived as having a borrowed baby because people have turned over skads of unused baby stuff instead of you surpassing the third world debt avoiding the taint of untouched stuff. [I'm sure this one made sense to Preg when he wrote it.—ed.]
- Finding undefined organic matter running down your back as the new-born makes fun cooing and giggling noises while you stare at tv and pat it on the back and wonder when the last time was that they showed reruns of Harry O.
- You have skillfully navigated around post-partum depression, which in this writer's experience lead to my being accused of indifference to the possibility of immediate impending nuclear holocaust , total all-out, toe-to-toe nuculer war with the Russkis.
Adrienne: it would probably be best to afix a dribble bib to Tom, and add increasing seditives to his food [Mmmmmm...sedatives—ed]. It helped me. One night when I was reporter and was covering a township meeting, a phone rang in a closed off area and nobody could reach it. It rang and rang and I began jiggling my right leg until I couldn't humanly stay seated. It was [...]'s due date and I was supposed to be on call. I dashed out of the meeting and drove to a phone booth and called home. Busy! I panicked and raced home expecting to find either suitcases out in the hall and a screaming wife berating me for my uncaring attitude, or a note saying she'd been hauled off and was having the baby pronto. Instead, I burst through the door to discover her sitting on the couch looking blase, watching tv and blabbing to one of her buddies. She was amused. I was having a stroke. I believe her water broke at 2:00 am either that night or the next. And then she sat in the hospital for 27 hours, running up bills and waiting for the baby to start sliding out. Some fun.
The alert reader—WAKE UP THE RESTA YA!!—may have noticed that certain of the points that our pseudonymous correspondent brought up are not unique to the 9 months of pregnancy and the couple of months thereafter. To take just one example, Ian may be upwards of 6 months old by the time we get him, but I have faith he'll still be full of all sorts of oozing, undefined organic matter. (I'm 39, and I still am.) To take another example: we will be accepting unsolicited wads of proffered cash from friends and strangers alike up to the time Ian goes to college and beyond. That's one experience we would not mind sharing. [Personal checks are good, too, if we know you. But we ABSOLUTELY DO NOT accept Visa. Well...Adrienne might...] To take yet another example—and this is the last, I swear!—as long as there's cable, there will always be reruns of Harry O...
Last night, I attended a vigil in New York city for Lori Berenson, a young American woman who is being held prisoner under horrendous conditions in a Peruvian jail. Lori is guilty of nothing other than a concern for her fellow human beings, especially those who are suffering and in need through neglect and oppression. That is not merely my opinion: international groups as diverse as the Organization of American States, Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have concluded that Peru has no right to keep Lori prisoner and that her fundamental human and civil rights have been and continue to be egregiously violated. (Rather than conform to recognized international standards of justice and human rights, the Peruvian government has reacted by withdrawing from at least one international organization whose judgment against it the Peruvians are obliged, by treaty, to respect and abide by.) But Lori's ordeal is better summarized at the Free Lori! site, which I encourage everyone to visit.
I am here more concerned with the ordeal of her parents, Rhoda and Mark Berenson. When I arrived at the vigil, I was early and I got to meet Lori's parents for the first time. Almost immediately I asked Mark, "How can you stand it?"
Lori has been wrongfully imprisoned for over four years now—last night marked the fourth anniversary of the day Lori was sentenced by members of a hooded tribunal while a hooded soldier held a gun to her head. I was amazed to see that Mark and Rhoda were not both hysterical basketcases. Though I'm sure sometimes they are, it gradually dawned on me that Lori's courage did not spring up in a vacuum: she got it from her family. And while it may be tempting for the Berensons to give in to despair, that kind of self-indulgence will not succeed in getting their daughter released. Rhoda and Mark have acted: they have organized and lobbied to have pressure applied to the Peruvian government to make Peru's president Fujimori honor Peru's obligation to observe at least minimal standards of human rights and due process. When the Peruvian government decides to do so, Lori will be free.
Rather than give in to despair, the Berensons did exactly what their daughter would do and has done in the past. In fact, it is for this very reason—for standing up for the rights of others—that Lori has had to endure her years-long ordeal.
I have been saying to my friends who are already parents that I finally get it: now that Ian is on the way, I finally feel what it is they have been feeling and talking about since becoming parents. I no longer have to try to reason my way there by analogy: how might it feel as a parent if such-and-such a thing were to happen to my child. I don't have to wonder what it would feel like: I just think it, and now I know. I didn't even realize that I didn't know before, but it is true what all you parents have been saying and that I wasn't quite getting: you won't really understand until you become a parent. I have a hard time imagining that these feelings of awe and responsibility could grow any greater, but I bet they will as soon as I first hold my son in my arms; at that point, I will be looking back at my present self and thinking And you thought you had it back then! Not by half! But even so, even though, despite my present claims, I probably still don't get it fully even if I think I do, Ian has already increased my ability to empathize and to love a thousand-fold; he is already making me a better person.
I mean no disrespect to the Berensons when I note that I cannot say that the suffering that has befallen them is the worst that could befall a parent, because I have witnessed—firsthand and close up and on two separate occasions—what the loss of a child does to a father and a mother. I will say that when I weep for the Berensons, I do so now with a deeper (though by no means full) understanding of what they must be feeling—just as when I now recall the death of my own brother and sister, I cry anew with a parent's understanding of what that pain must be like for my own father and mother.
In the future, Ian Francis, I will be telling you of your uncle, my brother Frank, in whose memory you have been named. When you get to know what your Uncle Frank was like, you will be proud of your middle name.
T'other day—in layman's terms, "yesterday"; in absolute non-Beatle-song-title terms, "Wednesday, January 19, 2000 of the Common Era (AD)"—a very weird and portentous thing happened to Adrienne. Those of you who are acquainted with Adrienne presumably know that January 19 is her birthday. (Those of you who are not acquainted with Adrienne are presumably ignorant of this biographical factoid, and that is why she accepts birthday gifts year round. She does not discriminate against people she does not know.) Anyroad, Adrienne was working at the North County Branch of the Hunterdon County Library, minding her own business, not bothering anyone, not engaged in any subversive activities (at least none she'll cop to), when someone brings in a box o' children's books as a donation to the library.
Adrienne being the resident "Youth Services" librarian (we don't say "children's librarian" anymore for fear of alienating the powerful AASDAF (American Association of Single-Digit-Aged Foax) and their even more powerful lobbying branch, the so-called "Children's Crusaders"—I mean "Youth"! "Youth Crusaders!—these are the guys, if you'll recall your history, who brought down Nixon in '74 then grew up to vote for him as a write in candidate for President in the late '80s)...so, anyroad, Adrienne being the YS librarian, it fell to her to go through this box of donated kiddie books. So as she's sitting in the "Child's Office" (actual sign on the Youth Services office at the North County Branch. I'm not making this up, nor, for that matter, is Dave Barry. Don't believe me? Check it out when you're in the area. Be sure to stop in and say "hi" to the 5' 8" child; I'd tell you how much the "Child" weighs, too, but I fear she'd immediately come home and punch me very hard in my liver) going through the books, she comes across, at the very bottom of the box, a Children's—sorry, I mean "Youth"—Bible, of the sort a parent might give to a child. It was old and tattered-looking and wasn't really appropriate for the collection, so A (my affectionate diminutive for the spouse whose name is stubbornly resistant to any other diminutive more than one letter long—I have not yet decided whether to called my similarly affectionate-diminutive-resistantly named son Ian "I", since that's the first letter of his name, or "E", since that's how it's pronounced. Log on now at www.nbc.microsoft.theworldismine.com and cast your vote now for "I" or "E"!)...so anyroad A decides without even opening it to put it in the freebie box. But then for some reason, she decides to open it.
Inside it said: "Copyright 1972, God"! Wait! It gets weirder and portentous-er!
Though weird, that's not the weird part I was talking about. On the next page it sez (note my sudden shift to the present tense to denote the immediacy of this ever-present moment and to throw into sharper relief my grammanarchism, my own invention of anarchic grammar, aka, "bad grammar"—hope it catches on):
To: Adrienne
From: Aunt Joy with love
(copyright) 1973, God, God Publishing Co, a Wholy (and Holy) Owned Subsidiary of Time-Warner-AOL-CNN-Microsoft-Disney
Except for that last part, which is totally bogus, this is exactly what it says (roughly). So, as those of you who are quicker on the draw than others have probably already surmised (and those of you who read the Cliff's Notes version of my web journal first cos you think my entries too long-winded or otherwise objectionable already know)...this was Adrienne's own Bible given her in 1973 by her Aunt Joy. To emphasize the weirdness, let me say that again in underlined and bolded text: this was Adrienne's own Bible.
I should correct what I said earlier when I wrote that it was the type of Bible that a parent might give to a child. What I should have said was it is the type of Bible that an Aunt might give to a niece and that a parent might, for some reason, later sell off at a garage sale for, like, maybe a dime, or a quarter tops. So, you see, Hillary was right: it does take a village. The aunt's role, to give the Bible; the parents' role (most important), to sell it off with the used kitchen utensils and old lawnmower motors; and the stranger's role, to accidentally give it back. (My role: to split an infinitive in that last sentence.)
This genuinely freaked Adrienne out, to the point that she was running around saying, "I'm freaked out, man!" But it's nice to have the Bible back, and it'll make a nice story for Ian to tell when he grows up and sells it at his own garage sale. Son, with this story behind you, don't take less than a buck!
We keep telling people that "this is our last hurrah" before Ian gets here...as though we were going to stop enjoying ourselves, stop all vacations, until he goes away to college. But Matty and Sue's boy, Caelin, has been with them for over a year, and, far as I can tell, he hasn't slowed them down one bit. In fact, they've just made him part of the fun. He's coming with us on the cruise and he'll be a blast, just as he's been on every vacation we've been on with him since his birth. This is what we want to do with Ian: make him part of the fun. The vacation spots may change a bit now that we have a little boy (actually, they already have with Caelin), but I see no reason to curtail the fun. Now, maybe Sioux-zee and Matty have been able to keep the same pace only through superhuman effort—maybe it's not the kinda thing everyone (especially matter as inert as I am) can do. But I've seen Matty in a bathing suit, and if that's the body of a superhero then DC comics has been lying through their teeth all these years!
In truth, we can't wait to see Matt, Sue and Caelin. They live in Atlanta (they too are a wholly (though not holy) owned subsidiary of Time-Warner-AOL-CNN-Microsoft-Disney since they both work for CNN) so we only get to see them every few months. Last time we saw them, Caelin was not quite a toddler; you can see from more recent pictures that in the meantime he has already become—without so much as a by-your-leave—a little boy, despite Adrienne's explicit instructions to him not to do any growing up while we were away. (According to Matty, whose code of journalistic ethics requires him to utter only truth, Caelin can already say the name of his new best friend, but he pronounces it "Inn!")
This reminds me that my boy, who turned 2 months old yesterday, is changing every single day, and Adrienne and I still have not seen him in the flesh. This makes us even more anxious to have him with us...
Well, as I alluded to in an earlier entry, Adrienne and I did go on our cruise vacation with Caelin, Sue and Matt and we had a great time. Sue and Matt—but especially Matt—were both more than happy to let me get some diaper-changing practice in. I'm now practically an expert; and I think Caelin, at 17 months old, is prolly far more squirmy than Ian will be when we get him. So I figure if I could handle Caelin, Ian will be a snap!
Famous last words.
Caelin can talk up a storm. His favorite things to say (in no particular order):
What Caelin did not know—and this is inexcusable, so I quickly remedied it—is that when you push the nose of any little boy or girl, it goes "Beeeeep!" In fact, Caelin's name for me is "Beeeep". (And sometimes Daddy.) I also taught him how to make fake eating sounds accompanied by a fake belch at the end. Fortunately, he does not call me "Burrrrrp!" (Though I've been called worse.)
Adrienne has curly hair so Caelin calls her "People-person"...Just Kidding! He calls her "Cuh-Lee".
He missed us when he got home, and we've already spoken with him on the phone two times since the trip ended on January 31. I'm glad he's Ian's best friend.
I'd much rather see Ian hanging out with Caelin than with that other crowd of 17-month-old hoods.
The trip was supposed to end January 30—and this was the only bummer of the whole deal—but they have this annual event, which was being held in Atlanta this year...maybe you've heard of it? It's called the Super Dish or Plate? Or something? Bowl, maybe? Well, it was in Hotlanta this year and because of it, we almost didn't get a flight from Miami to Atlanta. (The Big Boys—Delta, American, Continental, Joe's Air—were bumping all the Air Tran flights into Atlanta. At least, that's our unsubstantiated theory.) But we finally got a flight in.
After a few hours' wait in Turnertown, we boarded a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia. But...a couple minutes before takeoff, the flight was canceled because it was snowing heavily in Philadelphia. The flight was canceled at around 6pm and there was supposed to be another Air Tran flight to Philly at 9:30 that night. But, Adrienne and I reasoned, if flights were being canceled now, and the snow was just starting, it stands to reason the later flights would be canceled, too. (This feat of deductive reasoning was empirically proved valid the next day at 8am when we saw all the people who had been re-booked onto the 9:30pm flight waking up from a good night's sleep on the terminal floor.) We figured, let's book a flight for the next day.
This was the biggest bummer of the trip, but those of you who have been paying attention can prolly figger out why it wasn't a total bummer...That's right: Caelin, Sue and Matt live in Hotlanta, so we had a place to stay. (Otherwise, we'd have been as desperate as all the others to get on that 9:30pm flight.) Sooooo...we got to spend another night with Caelin, who showed us all of his Elmo toys, and even called his Mickey Mouse toy "Elmo". (This is the kind of denial I can get behind.)
All of this leaves two (2) mysteries unsolved:
Thank the powers that be that this is a leap year or there would have been only one entry during the entire month of February! (Because, ya see, today's the 29th!)
Speaking of leap years & babies, Adrienne and I attended the birthday party for a little girl, who, though 4 years old, was celebrating her first birthday! How could this seeming paradox be true? you ask. (If you are actually asking this after all the clues provided above, I regret to inform you, Dear Reader, that you are an idiot.)
Yes, that's right—to bring those of you who are still pondering the above conundrum up to speed, Bailey, the little girl in question, was a leap year baby, born on February 29; or, as they say in the land where the wild Brit still runs free, 29 February. Lucky for Bailey 2000 is a leap year century—not all are, you know; only the ones divisible by 400. (Yes, Regis, that's my final answer. No, wait, it's not: Lose Kathy Lee for good—that's my final answer. Rege, you're a big talent—we're talkin' Gabby Hayes-big! She's just dragging you down, bubbala!)
Imagine having to wait eight years for your first birthday! Which she'd have to do, if this were 1900 or 2100! I tried to convince Bailey that this was her first birthday, but she was having none of it.
No, I'm 4, quoth she.
I didn't say you weren't, I said; but this is still your first birthday—see the difference?
No, I'm 4.
But your birthday, 29 February [I got all fake Brit on her, here, just to throw her, put her off her game—no way I was losing this debate to a one-year-old!], only happens once every four years! [I didn't even get into the century thing, though I intend to at her second birthday when she turns 8.] So this is your first birthday!
No, I'm 4. [Stomps away.]
I think I won on points, though a TKO woulda been more gratifying.
But I didn't convince her because Bailey is very headstrong—so headstrong, in fact, that during birthday musical chairs, somebody had to keep sneaking a chair back into the game so that the birthday girl wouldn't lose and have a nice birthday meltdown. In fact, as the game got nearer the end, and there were fewer and fewer kids left in the game (who, by definition—having made it this far without anyone cheating on theirbehalf—were pretty good at the game and had their eyes on the prize (whatever it was)) you couldn't rightly use the word "sneak": a better term would be blatant cheating, where the adult nearest the seatless Bailey would grab a (formerly retired) chair and say: "Here, Bailey, here's an open chair; let me just" picking the kid up here "Uhnn!, help you into it..."
Yes, that's right, we were all engaged in a vast conspiracy to deny some 4-year-old his or her rightful victory.
Adrienne sez Bailey is so headstrong and competitive because she's a first-born. Adrienne believes in the burgeoning science known as birth-order science. Why, it's even more scientifically rigorous than phrenology or palmistry, if such is possible! That's why there are so many government grants for birth-order scientists—you really do want to encourage this kind of growth in our collective knowledge. Why even right now, as you read this, birth-order scientists are laboring to explain why it is that some first-borns—who are by definition headstrong and competitive—are neither competitive nor headstrong. (Roughly half of them, I'd guess.) And why some middle children and last-borns (these are the only three categories of children recognized in birth-order science—kids that don't naturally fit into one of them—like, say, me, the 6th of seven—are arbitrarily jammed into one of the three categories based on the scientifically valid process know as "whim"), who by definition are not headstrong and competitive, unquestionably are. Again, roughly half of them. But these facts don't disprove birth-order science, because without a doubt, there are some first-borns who are competitive and headstrong, like, e.g., Bailey. So if birth-order science is a crock, explain that, smartypants! Ya can't, can ya? See? That's because you're a typical (pick one):
Personally, I know that all behaviour stems from each person's unique mixture of bodily humours—ya see, ya got your phlegmatic types, who, because of their excess phlegm, should never really be allowed to spit on sidewalks...etc.
Now, you ask, what does all this have to do with Ian?
It passes the time till he gets here.
It should be noted that the foax at the library where Adrienne and I work gave us both showers. Not a shower—showers. Last night, Da Goils from North County, which is what they like to be called, gave Adrienne a shower. Last week, The Main Branch Fighting First-Borns (Official Headquarters team Name) gave us both a shower. At both events, Adrienne & I were, as it were, "showered" with "gifts", most, strangely enough, "baby-sized" gifts. ("Baby-size" is not a Birth-Order Science-recognized category. They consider discussions of "baby-sizes" to be mere quackery.)
We thank them all heartily, especially for their stringent recognition of the of Prime Directive: Disney Sucks.
...End of Transmission...[the clutch seems to be on its last legs, too...and would it kill you to have the brakes looked at?...]
The e-mail I sent out announcing the second February update to this page said, in full, "Be There". At least two people thought this poor choice of words on my part meant that Ian was on his way, and that I had neglected to say where and when. My bad. All I meant was "Be here, at this here web site, where I intend to bash Kathy Lee and birth order science to while away the time." I should have made that more explicit.
Just so you know, the next update (this here one don't count) will be announced with an e-mail that sez "Hot Sex!!! XXXX! Positively Adults Only!!!" so that those of you using filters won't be able to access it.
It should be noted that we have been getting medical updates on Ian every month. The latest came yesterday. He's 6.3kg (by my calculations, that 13.86 lbs); he's (quoting here) "cute", and has the not atypical "Mongolian spot" on his little back. He's growing nicely. Everything else is within normal range: his reflexes, belly response, etc. That's all we know.