This one goes to eleven

Eleven weeks, that is.  That's how old Ella-Anne became on Tuesday.  And as I browse back through the blog of three years ago to see what parallel experiences we had with Alex, I can only observe this:  We have been bestowed with two very easygoing infants.  If anything, Ella-Anne is even more low-key than Alex was at that age.  They're both beautiful little girls, they both slept through the night, and their fussy times were pretty well limited to an hour at night (Alex's was from six to seven p.m.; Ella-Anne's is usually from eight to nine or so).  No colic, general happiness -- can't ask for much more than that.

On another subject.  One of our friends (no names) posted this on Facebook earlier this week:

"A Mother is supposed to do everything with LOVE . . . but I am not sure if cleaning the dirty cooler on Friday night to bring the juice boxes to the soccer game can be done with love . . . how about changing a poopy diaper for the 5th time in a day?  Scrubbing the oodles of toothpaste out of the sink?  The definition of LOVE sure changes after you have children."

This made me think more than a little bit.  Poets and philosophers have been trying to define "love" for thousands of years, without any particular universal or agreed-upon success.  But I wonder if this doesn't really capture the essence of "love" -- the willingness to do (just about) anything for another person, especially when that other person can't do for themselves. 

Strangely enough, the first thing this made me think about was not my own daughters' poopy diapers -- though those do come to mind several times a day.  (Well, they don't exactly come "to mind" -- maybe "to butt."  But I digress.)  No, what this post made me think about was my own Mother and Father, and in particular the way my Dad cared for my Mother toward the end of her life.  As my Mother's brain tumors, the ones that would take her life seven months later, progressed, she lost the use of her legs.  When the weakness of her legs got beyond the point where she could use a walker to move about the house, and she was effectively confined to her bed, my father purchased a portable hospital toilet.  Despite the fact that he was approaching 80 at the time and had a biventricular pacemaker and defibrillator in his chest, he would pick up my Mother from her bed and place her on this portable toilet multiple times a day.  He told no one that he was doing this -- and particularly not me, because I was just astonished when I visited home in May 2003, after several months' absence, and saw this going on.  (To protect my Dad's health, and to ensure that Mom was cared for in the best way possible, we moved her to a nursing facility shortly thereafter, though my Dad would never have allowed that on his own motion.)

What I witnessed there, though, was about the purest expression of love that I can imagine. And as I think about that today, over six years later, it is a good reminder to me about what love is, and that I can always be a better Dad, and a better husband, than I am now. 

It's not the stuff of romance novels, but all of it -- changing diapers, scrubbing coolers, going to work every day, or silently caring for another -- it is love. 

Pictures from an exhibition

Pictures from last weekend's trip to Kansas City, and this week's Hallowe'en decorating.  There's a reason there's a spider hanging from the doorway of my home office, and it's not because the cleaning people did a lousy job this week.

Alex is a GOOD witch:

Alex holding her baby sister.  One is smiling, one is demonstrating abject fear -- you match the girl to the description:

Nana and the girls:

Ella-Anne making eyes at Papa:

Sometimes, only a Papa hug can cure the blues:

"Nana, baba.  Baba, Nana."

A few blurry pictures

Ella-Anne comes to visit Daddy's office:

When she comes to my office, Alex is mesmerized by watching "I'm Only a Bill" on YouTube -- she can see the U.S. Capitol from my window, and she always says, "Is that where the Bill lives?"

Ella-Anne just before bedtime:

A close-up of Ella-Anne's jammies.  I'm trying to teach her, as I did with Alex, to answer the question "What is that squirrel saying?" with "He's saying 'Don't touch my nuts!'"

"Tot Pocket!"  Ella-Anne wrapped up in the Miracle Blanket (the giant dessicated foot underneath her is mine):

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

Friday through Sunday, we spent a too-quick weekend in Kansas City, Missouri and Lawrence, Kansas for Jane's 20th college reunion.  The trip also allowed Alex to see -- and Ella-Anne to meet -- her cousins Libby, Megan, and Johnny, her Uncle John and Aunt Pam, and her Aunt Katie and Katie's boyfriend Daryl.  Nana and Papa also made the three-hour drive from Wichita (which Uncle John calls "The 'Ta," and others refer to as "Doo-Dah" -- I know not why).  Herewith, some observations.

1.  While it probably seemed like a good idea at one point in time to get a tent on the hilside of the KU stadium for the class of 1989 reunion, I'll bet no one thought it would be 38 degrees with a wind so strong that it caused the kickers to miss the first three extra points of the game.  It was go[sh]-da[rn]ed cold out there.

2.  It's not possible that it's been 20 years since my wife graduated from college.  She looks young and spectacular.  So do her friends.

3.  While there were a lot of great moments from the weekend, one stood out.  In the refrigerated tent, we met one of Jane's classmates, Steve, and his partner Francois.  Steve had not seen Jane for 20 years, and upon meeting me he told me what a hero my wife is.  To wit:  When they were in school, both of them served on an "AIDS task force," sponsored by the KU Student Senate, which made available "safe sex kits" -- which included condoms.  In the mid-1980s, this was a brave act indeed, particularly for a sorority member who also taught Sunday School at her local Catholic church.  Well, Jane's leadership with the AIDS task force caused her to be fired from her job as a Sunday school teacher, and resulted in a sermon being preached from that same church's pulpit -- with Jane and her parents all in attendance -- excoriating certain "student leaders" for their involvement in handing out condoms. I've always known that my bride is a woman of grace, nobility, and conviction, but it was awfully nice to hear that coming from Steve himself.  Besides, Steve and Francois are great guys -- they live in Boston these days -- and I hope we'll get to see a lot more of them now that Steve and Jane have reconnected.  Alex and Ella-Anne should hear from people other than their Daddy what an astounding woman they have as a mother.

4.  While we were all partying with the class of 1989 -- and I use the term "partying" very loosely, since I had a total of one beer and one mixed drink over the course of the weekend -- Nana and Papa took charge of our daughters.  On Saturday, they went over to John and Pam's house where, it was reported, Ella-Anne's little butt never touched the floor, because someone or another was holding her ALL THE TIME.

5.  At dinner on Saturday night, at John and Pam's house, we celebrated Papa's and John's birthdays and (as noted earlier) met Kate's boyfriend Daryl.  (Daryl had it easy -- I met the Hutchinson family at Libby's baptism, meaning that I met EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE FAMILY AT ONCE.)  At one point, Daryl -- who has spent a lot of time, including college time, in Texas -- was telling us about how it was a very popular thing to attend prison rodeos, where the prisoners would compete to pull a bag of cash off of the horns of a steer.  (I saw this once in the movie "Stir Crazy" with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.)  I was particularly proud of my response to Daryl:  "Katie's told us a lot about you, but she neglected to mention that you had done hard time."  I'm sure he looks forward to seeing me again.

"Sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius."

Soren Kierkegaard said it, and if he is correct, Ella-Anne is going to be the next Einstein.  With the help of the miracle blanket, of course.

Let's take a look at the tale of the tape:

Wednesday night, October 7 (last night):  To bed at 9 p.m., awake at 7:45 a.m. (10+ hours)
Tuesday night, October 6:  To bed at 9:30 p.m., awake at 7:00 a.m. (9.5 hours)
Monday night, October 5:  To bed at 9:00 p.m., awake after 7:00 a.m. (10+ hours)
Sunday night, October 4:  To bed at 9:45 p.m., awake at almost 8:00 a.m. (10+ hours)

This is a very good thing.  It is keeping her Daddy, aged though he is, sufficiently sane that he can hold down a job and be a generally cheerful parent. 

I know, I know.  We've been very lucky.  Alex was a sleeper.  Ella-Anne is a sleeper.  We haven't had the drama of colic, or fighting sleep, or general fussiness that some of our fellow enlistees in the Parent Army have had.  We're just grateful, not bragging. 

We're off to Kansas this weekend for Jane's 20th college reunion (she graduated at age 9, by the way -- just check her current photos) and some Nana, Papa, aunt, uncle, and cousin time.  More from the road.

Life is a Driveway

And, with apologies to Tom Cochrane, Alex wants to ride it all night long.  (To the point that she has awakened in the middle of the night the last two nights, crying in her sleep, "I want to go to the driveway!")

Number two's number two, and number one's number one (tricycle)

I'm not one of those dads who likes to brag that "I've never changed a diaper."  As I've written before, I find there to be something of a communion -- and I mean that quite seriously-- when I change one of Alex's, and I've never tried to shunt off the poopy diapers to Jane.  So how is it possible that today was the first time I changed one of Ella-Anne's poopy diapers?  Almost a full month with her, and this was the first one?

Just call me "Mr. Lucky."

But my luck ran out today.  Just as Jane and Alex were about to swing by the house to pick the two of us up for a lunch out, I detected the "formulaic" scent of an infant poop.  So I got her onto the changing table, opened up the envelope, and announced, "And the Oscar goes to . . . ."

As it turned out, my luck wasn't the only thing that ran out today.  A whole lot of poop also ran out.  Out the top of the back of the diaper, and onto the back of the inside of her cute little outfit.  Apparently, Ella-Anne had saved up a really good one -- a wardrobe-changing one -- for Daddy's first poopy diaper change.

I had forgotten what sorts of poop infants who eat only formula have.  They're not human.  They're some sort of foreign green alien substance.  Soylent Green, I think I'll call it. 

It was a big day for Alex, too.  (No, not in the poop department.)  This morning, she and I went out to Toys 'R' Us and purchased her first tricycle.  A pink Disney Princess tricycle.  With a pink Disney Princess bicycle helmet.  Though we almost had a meltdown at the checkout when I wouldn't allow her to add a Tinker Bell umbrella to our purchase, we survived that and made it home.  Well, Alex had been waiting all of her life for a tricycle; she just didn't know it until today.  She rode that sucker up and down our driveway in the morning, and again in the afternoon when we returned from lunch.  She was so tired that when it was bedtime, she came into my home office, threw her arms around my neck, and said, "Thank you for the tricycle, Daddy."

I said, "You're welcome.  I love you, little bug."  And Alex gave her standard response:  "To the moon and back."  (In case you don't know the origin of that, it's here.)  Se went to bed without any audible fuss, and at 8:35, she is out like a light.

Finally, speaking of "out like a light," Ella-Anne has been a champion sleeper the last two nights.  Thursday night -- down at 9 p.m., and up for the first time at 5 a.m.  That's eight straight hours if you're scoring at home.  (Or even if you're alone.)  Last night -- down at 10:20 p.m. and not up until after 7 a.m.  And that's over eight and a half hours.  At nine weeks old.

Say it with me.  "w-w-w-dot-Miracle Blanket-dot-com."  Order it here.  We do not get kickbacks, but we should.