that might explain the fever

So I was at ECFE class today, and I happened to stick my finger into Daniel's mouth by accident, and I discovered his first tooth! It's on the bottom front right. It must have just broken through this morning or overnight. I'm so excited; these little firsts just thrill me more than I ever expected!

seven months old ... already

It just seems like yesterday that we were celebrating Daniel's six-month birthday, and before I can get used to it, another month has gone by. (Suddenly the Pixie's lyric is running in my head: "If the devil is six, then God is seven." Which is appropos to ... nothing.)

Anyway. I've also been thinking this week that it was about a year ago that we had our big ultrasound and found out that we were having a boy! We started calling him Daniel right away, but only in private. It was hard to keep his name a secret for the next five months, but we didn't slip. We hadn't made a final decision on a girl's name, but we knew early on that we'd name a boy Daniel. It's a name we both love ... strong, classic and biblical, and it's common in Ireland, even though it's traditionally a Hebrew name. We didn't decide on Joseph (the name of my great-grandfather and my brother) as his middle name until later, though. We tested out a couple of options, including Connor, after the Connor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula in western Ireland, where we once climbed rocks and enjoyed an amazing view. I'm glad we stuck with Joseph, though.

Daniel's fever, which started Wednesday, stuck around until yesterday, and we were beginning to wonder if we should get it checked out. But then it went away, as mysteriously as it came. He never had any symptoms of whatever infection his body was fighting, although we think it might have been a stomach bug of some kind, based on our powers of diaper-changing deduction. When Steve and I took his temperature last night (under his armpit) and saw it read normal, we threw our arms around each other and practically danced across the bedroom: We survived his first illness and didn't freak out! Yay us!

It's been a good weekend all around. The weather is warm, and Steve and I have been able to get in some good walks with Daniel in the stroller, which is really the most time we have together to just talk and dream and have something resembling a date. And we even managed to grab some good opportunities for ... um, sexytime, as Borat would say, and that's no small feat considering that Daniel is in our bed when he's asleep and doesn't like being left alone for too long when he's awake. I guess the stars were smiling upon us. :) (And no, don't read that last sentence literally.)

Last night we drove to Rochester to have dinner with a fraternity brother of Steve's and his wife (who works for the Mayo Clinic, which is why they live in Rochester). They had their second daughter three weeks after Daniel was born, and they announced last night that she is pregnant again! That would mean she got pregnant four months post-partum, which I find amazing. (So do they!) On the drive home, Steve and I had a discussion we've been having a lot lately: Do we want to have another baby? Would we be happy having just Daniel? Would Daniel be happy with no brothers or sisters, or should we give him a sibling or two? We really do go back and forth about this. And if we do have another baby, will we adopt a little girl from China, like we'd talked about doing before he was conceived? Or will I get pregnant again on my own, or even by accident? If that happened, I would welcome another baby with delight. But if I can't, do we have the energy to revisit the topsy-turvy rollercoaster of fertility treatments? These questions have been on our minds a lot lately, and I don't think we have any answers.

in homage to e. e. cummings

in Just-
spring and the tulips are
pushing
their purplegreen stalks through

winter debris and mulch

and danielandi go
walking in stroller and
toohot teal
fleece and it's
spring

when buds are studded

up and down
tree limbs
about to burst
into green
and stephen grills outside

hamburgers and smokeycheese and

it's
spring
and
our
baby is hot

witha
fever
and we

don't
know
why

and he's up!

One day he's still teetering, lurching, not quite balanced enough to hold the position without me supporting him (kind of like my passés on half point). The next morning (this morning), somehow, a lightbulb goes on in his muscle memory, and he's nailed it, holding it together all by himself, a little shakily, but bringing himself back to center when he wobbles. I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures to e-mail to Steve at work: "Look what our son is doing!" Every new milestone is cool, but this one is extra cool because now he has a whole new dimension to discover. I can't wait to see what he does with it.

maternity leave is over

All of a sudden, my life has become so busy. A glance at my calendar finds Liturgy Committee meetings, a two-day lector workshop, lector commitments on Sundays, ballet class twice a week, Early Childhood and Family Education class, get-together with some of the moms from that class, another get-together with some other moms at the end of the month, a leadership dinner at church, two articles to write for the paper, a couple of days going in to the paper to help with deadline while Steve stays home with Daniel, dinner with friends in Rochester, haircut, meeting with custom window decorator from J.C. Penney (!!), Lenten evening prayer services, and so on and so on. And that's on top of my "full-time" job of being Daniel's mom.

What I marvel at is the fact that I am able to keep pace with all the stuff on my plate. I doubt I'd have had the energy for all this a month ago, and definitely not three months ago. If I'd gone ahead with my plans to go back to work after my maternity leave ended, I would have started on March 5. Even without an in-office job to return to, it still feels like my life has kicked back into full speed. Crazy.

digging out

We got about a foot and a half of snow last week, possibly the most I've seen at one time since I moved here. For those of you who haven't been to Minnesota in the wintertime, here is what that looks like.

movie talk

It's snowing hard outside, and there's no way I'm going to drive in it, walk in it, or push a stroller through it; so Daniel and I are staying inside all afternoon. I just got finished watching Gideon's Daughter, a BBC movie starring Bill Nighy (who played the aging rock star in Love Actually), Emily Blunt (who played the British assistant in The Devil Wears Prada) and Miranda Richardson. It was so good. I'm very glad it won some Golden Globes or I probably would not have heard about it.

I'm glad Steve and I had a chance to see The Queen last Saturday night, too. Not only was it nice to go out on a date together, but it was a fantastic movie, and I was glad we saw it before the Academy Awards. Helen Mirren's Oscar was well deserved.

Both movies took place in England and included footage from the week Princess Diana died. I love unexpected synchronicities like that. I was surprised at how strongly and emotionally I reacted to the dramatization of her death in The Queen. I knew what was going to happen, and I'd read descriptions of her final moments countless times, but I had never actually seen it reenacted on film. It was as if I was reliving the news for the first time since it happened, kind of like watching United 93 last summer and being faced with the final moments of the passengers on that plane. Wierd, huh?

In other Oscar musings, I thought The Departed was as good a choice as any for best picture, and I was happy for Martin Scorcese, that he finally got his award. Steve and I saw The Departed a few weekends ago on DVD, and while it was gripping and well-acted (and has given me a new appreciation for Leo DiCaprio) — inarguably well done, it was also very violent, and parts of it really disturbed me. I thought the movie could have been equally effective (even better) if some of that violence had been played down a bit. Why do directors think it's necessary to show everything so graphically? A little mystery goes a long way, as Hitchcock proved. But that's just me. Who am I to tell Martin Scorcese how to do his job?

And I was glad to see Little Miss Sunshine get a couple of awards. I thought it was absolutely delightful, and it brought back memories of my family's vacations in our 1960s-era Volkswagen van! We never drove across country with a broken clutch, though.

Next on my must-see list: Pan's Labyrinth. (Although I think Netflix is sending us For Your Consideration for the weekend. Christopher Guest's latest ... should be good, too.)