EXTREMELY BELATED HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Did you ever get tired of grandparents telling you how wonderful it is?  Well, I’ve joined their side now.  And “wonderful” is actually an understatement.  Also, one of the best parts of my world is that The Professor and I live near NDM.

In reality, the proximity has turned into a real boon.  Iltflinthills has to pass a PRAXIS test in a subject she has not yet taken in order to keep her teaching job for next year . . . maybe.  IMO tends NDM during the day, so the baby gets to stay at home and not be exposed to all the germs that kids bring to daycare, and takes classes at night after Iltflinthills returns home from work.  So, the new parents are not seeing much of each other lately.  I remember how impossible it was for me to study for my Finnish class at home when I had a newborn and toddler.  (We solved that problem by adding an hour each class day for me to do my next assignments and study at the college before I picked up the children at the babysitter.)

So, in order to help in what little way I can, I go over to babysit for a couple of hours each evening.  That way Iltflinthills can study while I tend to NDM.  I just love that boy!  I was afraid his dirty diapers would nauseate me, but apparently love conquers all.  The best part of all this babysitting is that I think NDM recognizes me as being familiar.  He seems to like me to sing to him, so I have requested Marisol, who has a beautiful voice, not to sing to NDM over her spring break; I don’t want him developing any musical standards!

The only part about the babysitting I do not like is driving home through all the construction in the dark.  But, Iltflinthills is quite diligent about using her study time efficiently, even though it just about kills her after being away from NDM all day.  Also, she needs to study daily to put all that information into her long-term memory. 

I’m really proud of what good parents IMO and Iltflinthills are.  They seem to be much more relaxed than I was, which probably helps NDM be the happy little guy he is most of the time.

In other catch-up news, The Professor and I are taking a lay sermon-preparing course at church.  I hate public speaking, so this course is going to be way outside of my comfort zone.  However, I didn’t take the class in previous years because I hadn’t a clue about what I wanted to say.  I still don’t know what I’ll say, but when I signed up, I knew that my topic would be immigration. 

And, speaking of immigration, let me congratulate IMO on being granted his green card yesterday.  IMO’s plans include becoming a citizen as soon as possible.  I think you have to be courageous to move to another country and transfer your primary loyalty to it.

The retaining wall in our back yard started to crumble more and more.  It was built out of the limestone rocks excavated from the site when our house was originally built; the freeze-thaw of Missouri winters took their toll.  The new wall is a huge construction project, but the landscape company promises that it will last our lifetimes, which I hope means that we will live for years and not weeks.  I have been longing for a new, smaller car, but that seems to have been put into the wall, so I will just have to be grateful to have the old car and a house that probably will not tumble down the hill now.

In quilting news, I am piecing the quilt top for my niece’s graduation present.  There is about a 50-50 chance that I will finish on time, but that is the story of my life. 

HAVE A MERRY AND SAFE CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

This morning I received my Dtap immunization.  Now Iltflinthills and IMO will feel better about letting me near NDM.

Unsurprisingly, the grocery store would have been a madhouse, except the employees and customers all seemed to be endowed with a great deal of holiday goodwill.  I have to go cook and bake now.  Dinner is at our house tomorrow.

NDM is gaining weight!  His pediatrician and the hospital nurses were concerned last week because his birth weight of six pounds, one ounce didn’t give him much wiggle room.  NDM’s weight was five pounds, eleven ounces when he left the hospital last Saturday, so we were all worried about our tiny little boy.

But, good news!  When Iltflinthills and IMO took NDM to the pediatrician for his weigh-in on Tuesday, NDM weighed five pounds, thirteen ounces.  And, Iltflinthills just telephoned us to let us know that this morning NDM weighed six pounds, four ounces.  So, apparently he is on the right track.  Now NDM just has to avoid overdoing it like his maternal grandparents.

(Note:  apparently pediatricians now have the babies come in to be weighed during the first week to make sure the babies are getting enough to eat.  Back in the Dark Ages when I was having children, it would have been a big help with fussy eater Marisol to have done that.  She was still losing weight at her first checkup at four weeks!)

Iltflinthills was going to wait the four weeks to give NDM a pacifier as per the lactation expert’s advice.  However, NDM seems to have a strong need to suck.  So, he has a pacifier already and holds onto it strongly.  Hopefully this will give Iltflinthills a chance to catch up on some of her sleep.

I’M A GRANDMA!

Thursday, December 11, 2008 was a major day in my family’s life.  At 7:07 p.m., NDM arrived, weighing 6 pounds, 0.6 ounces and stretching a whole 19 inches long.

Iltflinthills and IMO do not want any photographs of the new baby posted on the Internet, so devoted readers will just have to imagine how beautiful my grandson is with his definitively brown eyes and oodles of black hair.  The entire family agrees that NDM is just wonderful.

Mother and baby are doing fine now, but they and Father are quite tired.  Iltflinthills had an extra painful labor because it was induced; I think she was quite wise to save her strength for the end by finally agreeing to an epidural.  About two hours after NDM’s birth, Iltflinthills began bleeding severely.  After several anxious hours, the hospital staff finally controlled the bleeding, but none of her family slept much that first night.  In fact, I ended up spending the night at the hospital because I just could not leave until I knew for sure she was going to be all right.

Yesterday the new family returned home.  Iltflinthills and IMO found out how long it takes to do even simple travel with a newborn.  Now they are trying to manage without much sleep.

I am trying to help them out for the next couple of weeks by fixing them their main meal of the day.  When Marisol was born, people in our church brought us dinner every night for two weeks and THAT was the best baby gift ever as far as I am concerned.

After church today, I cooked dinner at the baby’s house.  Iltflinthills, IMO, IMO’s father, Marisol, Tremor3258, and I all enjoyed being together.  The Professor missed this Sunday’s meal because he was one of the chaperones at a church youth group lock-in last night; consequently, he really, really needed to return home at noontime to get some sleep.

It is truly amazing how long adults can just stare at a sleeping newborn. 

I love having a grandson.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARISOL!

After lunch, The Professor, Marisol, and I plan to visit a local winery to celebrate her legality.  I hope the winery’s dry wines are as advertised because I do not really care to taste the sweet wines.

This evening we’re probably going somewhere like Chipotle, which Marisol loves, to eat dinner before going to the Unicorn Theatre to see The Women of Brewster Place.  The Professor and I have semi-season tickets and, luckily, we were able to obtain another ticket for Marisol.  So, we’ll have something like a celebration today.

The family was going to eat at our favorite restaurant on the Plaza tomorrow night for Marisol’s birthday, but we have had to postpone that.  Iltflinthills’s obstetrician is concerned about our grandson, so he most likely will be born tomorrow.  I hope everything goes well for everybody.  We have been waiting for this little boy for a long time and are anxious to meet him.

This is so minor in the great scheme of life, but Marisol is disappointed that her nephew will miss being born on her birthday by one day.  I, however, think they’ll both end up being happier not sharing their birthday, especially with all the seasonal competition from Christmas.

No doubt I will have more to add later.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

And the Thanksgiving Crunch Begins!

Marisol returns home tonight!  She must have the sweetest college roommate ever because this girl not only takes Marisol home to the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area for an overnight when the roommate goes home but her family also drives Marisol to the airport the next day.  At the very least, I hope Marisol helps out while she’s there.

Cleaning has begun.    My lower back hurts from all the bending.  I probably waited too long before starting but hopefully the house will be presentable for Thanksgiving dinner for eight on Thursday.  Tomorrow I expect to spend the day baking and cooking.

NDM is still head down after turning a couple of weeks ago.  Iltflinthills, IMO, The Professor, and I are so thankful.  I’m very aware that it is my baby who is having a baby.

Well, time to start being productive!

The Crucible

Last Friday night The Professor, Tremor3258, and I went to the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s (MET’s) opening night production of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller back in the 1950s.  The play was ostensibly about the Salem witch trials in 1692 but was also about McCarthyism.  Nowadays The Crucible is also unforeseeably about the post-Patriot Act era.

Ordinarily I am irritated if a play changes historical facts.  However, Arthur Miller’s minor changes, mostly involving the ages of some of the characters and the introduction of an unprovable motivation, only add to, rather than detract from, the play.  Bob Paisley (readers will need to click on the link to Artists), who also brilliantly played Werner Heisenberg in the MET’s production of Copenhagen last spring, was mesmerizing as farmer John Proctor in The Crucible.  The rest of the cast deserves praise, too.  Some of the characters were so hateful (as Arthur Miller intended) that I just wanted to leap up on stage and throttle them.  (I didn’t.)  By the end of The Crucible, I was crying and couldn’t stop the tears.  (It wasn’t even one of the days I used Restasis®, so I can only attribute my reaction to the performance.)  The MET certainly put on a marvelous performance of a classic American play.

One note about the theater itself.  It is in an old midtown Kansas City storefront of nonexistence elegance and furnished with unwanted castoffs.  The audience sits in old church pews.  This is probably the coolest (as in 1960s slang) theater that I have ever been in.  Clearly the MET is a labor of love.

The Professor, Tremor3258 (when he wasn’t handling computer problems from work), and I sat in the front row.  At the beginning of the second act, the action moved in front of the stage.  I had to uncross my legs because I was afraid I might accidently kick one of the actors.  Now that is an intimate theater!

I honestly believe that Friday’s night combination of the play and the actors’ interpretation of the characters was the finest dramatic performance I have ever seen.  I hope that any devoted readers in the Kansas City area seize the opportunity to see the MET’s performance of The Crucible.

13.9 g/dL!

Today I actually had a good, although not entirely novel, idea.  Do you think donating blood in October or November (since you can give blood only once every eight weeks) for Veterans Day would be a good way to honor the people who risk so much to serve our country?  Compared to what the members of U.S. armed forces sacrifice, donating blood is no inconvenience.  (Yes, that’s a double negative, but I’m using it for effect.)

I am not a veteran.  If anyone who is a veteran actually reads this, what do you think about the idea of giving blood for Veterans Day?

By the way, this afternoon my hemoglobin was 13.9 g/dL, which is well above the 12.5 g/dL minimum level.  Iron pills really help my anemia.  Also, last September I had to have my blood retested because one of us eleven donors for one baby turned out not to be negative for the CMG virus.  However, it wasn’t me!  Through entirely a fluke of genetics and my unbelievably not catching a disease, my blood can still be given to babies.  For some reason, that inordinately pleases me.

HAPPY VETERANS DAY TOMORROW!

I was surprised to realize it has been a week since I last posted.  Where did all my good resolution go?  However, I have finished piecing and pinning two Christmas tree skirts and completed N?M’s Christmas stocking.

Last Monday night I attended another one of Barbara Brackman’s fascinating lectures on early 1800 quilts.  Saturday I spent at a class working on a quilted Advent calendar.  It’s a long way from finished, but The Professor actually complimented it sincerely when he saw it.  (Usually I have to request quilting compliments rather blatantly.)

Yesterday was another, unseasonably beautiful day. 

Tremor3258 still had a sore throat, so he skipped church.  Iltflinthills had a slight cold but taught her R.E. class at 9:30 a.m.  The Professor helped with the Youth Group at 11:00 a.m.

While IMO, Iltflinthills, and I were sitting outside waiting for The Professor to finish so that we could go to Winstead’s for lunch, we were able to visit with several different people.  (Since I can’t go to coffee hour on account of my asthma, this was a real treat for me.)

Some of us ended up having a discussion about racism in America, including several people who were able to provide the point of view of some non-whites.  Usually this would be the kind of conversation I would be excluded from, but since IMO has made our family racially diverse, I felt like part of the group.  I learned a lot just from listening, but I could also contribute.

Since IMO joined the family and the odds are that N?M will have skin much browner than mine, I no longer hate racism just from an intellectual point of view.  I feel strong anger when IMO has faced discrimination and really think about how wonderful it would be if N?M never knew anything about racial prejudice.  I fear that that is too optimistic.  But, selfishly, now that my family is affected, I want to try to help and change attitudes so, to paraphrase someone much wiser than I, that people are not judged by their phenotype but by whether they are a good person or not.

Maybe I’m getting too political for a Xanga.  However, politics have really affected my family this summer and fall, so a great deal of what I’ve been thinking about lately involves politics.  And, now, I’ll probably write about my views more and lose what small readership that I might have.  Still, this is my forum, and if I can’t write my honest opinions, then it’s not worth much at all.