AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following was written under the influence of oxycodone and sleep deprivation, sadly more of the latter than the former. Therefore I deny any responsibility for it. – The Mgmt
Oh, we are bad parents. It has taken the birth of another baby to get our butts off the couch (ok, they’re still on the couch) to write an update to Alita’s blog. Erik said we’ve spent more time reading to and playing with Alita than blogging, so that means we’re actually good parents, but bad bloggers. It’s a trade-off to which we’re willing to subject Al’s followers.
First, please welcome Al’s little sister Mira to the world. She was born 8 days ahead of schedule, rather than 10, so we already know she’s a lazy little thing. That said, she has been busier packing on the weight- I gained a mere 35 pounds instead of 40 this pregnancy, yet Mira weighs a full pound more than Alita did. With the same 20-inch frame and 3-inch feet. Unlike her sister’s birth mug she does not look like she’s been in a bar fight; she has very symmetrical features topped by a thick thatch of dark, possibly curly hair (vernix acts like mousse, don’t you know- we won’t know for sure until all her styling products have been washed out). So far Mira is proving to be, well, a pretty regular infant. She’s cute, she is extremely nearsighted, and she cries when she’s hungry or poopy or suffers the injustice of being poked with a giant spear in her heel. She was much quicker than Alita to figure out breastfeeding, as if she knows she was born into the reign of a tyrant (big sister) whom she will have to fight for every last morsel, toy and ounce of parental approval.
She is not named after Mira Sorvino, though Mighty Aphrodite is the only Woody Allen movie I’ve ever seen that did not make me want to stick forks in my eyes. Rather, our initial plan for a name was Miri, which means “caress” in Tahitian. We honeymooned on Tahiti’s island of Moorea, and when Erik googled “Tahitian place names,” the following website appeared: http://www.magicmoorea.com/tahitian_names/honeymoorean.shtml
I will not spoil the surprise- check it out and you’ll see why we thought this was A. hilarious and B. a sign from the internet gods that our baby’s name was preordained. We switched to Mira, which means “ocean” in Hindi and “bringer of chaos” in parentese, because otherwise she will spend her entire life explaining to people on the telephone that her name is not Mary and having to spell it over and over. We may still use Miri as a nickname, but hopefully we’ll avoid incurring her future wrath every time she makes a restaurant reservation (instead, we’ll incur her wrath by more traditional means, namely dressing and acting like complete idiots whenever her friends are around). There is also a star named Mira out there, which is cool because it moves much faster than most Red Giants and it has a comet-like tail. See NASA image here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/15aug_mira/
So we have one child named in honor of a special patch of firmament, and another whose name was literally written in the stars. Could we get any more obnoxious? They will think not.
Now, a whirlwind tour of Alita’s last 9 months:
Al is not as serious as when she was an infant. She giggles, & she tells jokes of a sort. When told not to put her fingers in her cup, for example, she will repeat “don’t put your fingers in the cup!” Then she will look out the window, smile and say “don’t put the… bird in the cup! Don’t put the… fence in the cup!” and grin. She also knows some phrases are inherently funny coming from her. The latest: “how crazy is that?” E.g., “there’s a ‘P’ on that sign. How crazy is that?” Along those lines, she “sings” the entire alphabet song (‘m pretty sure she’s tone deaf), recognizes all the letters (if they’re capitals), and counts to 16, though she sometimes leaves out 14.
She has no fashion sense, but strong opinions. “I don’t want these pants! I want the green pants!” she insists. “But honey, the green pants don’t go with this outfit,” Erik explains. “I don’t want the out-fit. I want the green pants,” she says. Fine. Sometimes she speaks as though she is falling off a cliff. She will say “I want some water.” Then, she will repeat it, dragging out the word “water” with a long, fading sound: “I want some waaaaaaaa-dur.”
She has just started to really play by herself. She has little people figures, and she will sit with them for long stretches, babbling little conversations, and narrating what they’re doing. “And then Bob goes on the stairs. And Nina goes on the stairs. ‘I’m on the stairs Bob,’ and Nina wants to get in the bus. Where’s the bus?” and so on. She likes to play with the little play-doh stuff, that she calls plasticene. Actually, since she can’t really make the “L” sound, she calls is pwasticene. Her favorite thing to make is a wau-wee-pop by smashing a ball of the stuff into a disc and putting it on a toothpick (yup, we freely admit to allowing our child to play with sharp, pointy [albeit small] sticks. We are hush-hush about the scissors). If you say you want to eat it, she reminds you that it’s “ownwee a pwetend wau-wee-pop.”
Our wonderful nanny Nadia is still working with us, and she and Al are very close. She’s teaching Al Russian, and to love chocolate- well, actually her husband Kostas is teaching her to love chocolate, and boy does she love Kostas. In retaliation we are using Craisins as a toilet training reward, and we’re pretty sure that any day now she’ll figure out which set of grownups really love her more. Regarding potty training, she is in no hurry and frankly neither are we- I can’t stand the thought of all the Princess “big girl” underpants I will be forced to buy. It is common knowledge that this little cabal of bejeweled harlots has cornered the market on such necessary childhood items as underwear, socks, toothpaste and cell-phone holder attachments to pimp the high-end stroller ride. I could shake my tiny fist at the storm of gender brainwashing by buying Thomas the Train items, but I know this would come back to haunt me in the form of extreme girlie identification later in life, or an irrational fear of rail travel. So I will submit, but I will draw little mustaches on every damn one of them with a laundry pen.
That will have to suffice for now. We will post more photos and whatnot (such as Mira’s yet-to-be-agreed-upon middle name) later on maternity/paternity leave.
