This Morning (pictures don't get more current than this)

I was going to the bathroom this morning with O's help (he likes to hand me the toilet paper and flush for me when I'm done-- I just hope it's helping get the potty training idea in his head), when S woke up. Another thing besides using the toilet that o is very helpful with is distracting S when he wakes up and I'm busy. I heard O run into the nursery, flip on the light right above S's head and yell, "Hola!"

There was a bit more scuffling and then all went silent. Not a peep. I enjoyed the luxury of flushing the toilet on my own for once and then decided maybe I should check on them. Usually S manages to get out a muffled cry when O is loving him to death and I'd heard nary a muffle so I wasn't too worried. Then my slow mothering instincts kicked in and I realized they might just be too silent for a toddler and a baby. Always takes me a bit to think of things like that-- like the time O took a four hour nap when he was a few weeks old and I just enjoyed myself without a care in the world until one of my friends asked me if I was just freaking out, checking on him every few minutes to make sure he was ok. I kind of muttered a very sincere sounding but total lie of a "yes, of course" and then felt like a terrible mother because it hadn't even occurred to me to be worried. I know better now, but only a little better because I still stopped for a glass of water on the way to the nursery.

So I peaked around the corner in their room and found this:

Nothing to worry about here.

Oh, and a few more things to add to the post about O:

• If there's ever a big bite of food on his spoon, he has to have you hold it in front of him so he can say a very slow "Woooooowwwww" before he'll take a bite.
• He likes to say hola to the raisins in his oatmeal right before obliterating them.
• He thinks burps are very funny and goes around whacking everyone he loves on the back so they'll burp like S does when we whack him on the back. It's hard to explain to people, especially his little girlfriends, that he's hitting you out of love.

Clarification on "One of the Two"

Holly made a comment on my "One of Two" post that made me realize I should clarify and probably rescind some of the opinions expressed in that post. I sat back and had a good think about any specific examples I could find of friends whose blogs had turned into nothing but their children, and I couldn't think of any of my immediate friends. So I had to ask myself where this feeling came from and I realized it's from people I no longer really keep in touch with but just cyber stalk by clicking on links of friends of friends of friends, etc. I do have friends with blogs that do feature photos and information about their kids, but I always hear my friends' voices in their posts and so I've always loved them. The friends of friends of friends are really just cyber acquaintances and I never really cared too much about their kids anyways so they became an easy target for my ranting. Sorry about that.

I was thinking tonight as I cuddled with S, that the truth is I fell genuinely honored to know my friends' children and to hear about their lives-- not just because they are little mini extensions of my friends, but because they are all much better people than I am and they've only been doing this living thing for a few years. I didn't see what an honor it was to know them before because let's face it, I was a selfish person and was a bit bitter that no one would come visit us unless we had grandchildren to visit as well. Now I am still a selfish person but people have come to visit me and so I'm a bit less bitter and can see past myself and realize how amazing this whole family thing is.

The photos are just because who wants to read a blog post without photos and it seems a bit hypocritical to post more photos of my boys. In honor of the fact that we're catching up on Madmen, I give you our Madmen avatars. Comforting to see that Andrew looks like a terrorist in any era.

One of the Two

So I used to always get annoyed when my friends' blogs would turn into endless parades of photos of their children and stories of their children doing things that I mastered at least twenty years ago, if not thirty. And then I had a child. And I would still get annoyed, just a bit less. I still wanted to know more about what was going on with the friends I love but at least could share in the excitement of watching their children (who I love as well) grow. I kind of made a silent vow to not lose myself completely in post after post about the latest trick O mastered or developmental milestone S hit or child-oriented activity we did. But here I am, completely lost because let's face it-- I haven't learned much new in a while; I don't say the cutest things; and pictures of me just kind of depress me (do I really look like that?).

And the fact is we started this blog as a way to stay a bit more connected with everyone we're so far away from. There are a few grandparents included in that and a few other people who actually request more info about our children and not so much info about us. I mean, seriously, do you care that my eyebrows are growing in? That's the kind of stuff I have going on now.

All that said, the point of this post is to introduce you to O.

• He was 85cm, 11.2kg at his last appointment with Dr Hernandez, with whom he is getting braver and braver.
• He can get the most bright red diaper rash in the blink of an eye (or the few minutes before we change his caca nappy) but doesn't let that stop him from eating spicy foods. It should probably stop us from letting him.
• A couple weeks ago I counted about 25 words he knew but by now there are too many to count.
• He calls mandarins "juice" and can go through at least three whole ones in one go.
• He loves to lay on top of S to give him kisses but sometimes does it with his bum in S's face.
• He tries to climb the doorframe like Papa taught him but hasn't quite mastered the finer points of balance and grip.
• He goes completely nuts over his friend Martina's doll stroller and so we finally broke down and bought him his own for fear that he would wear hers to shreds.
• He can be amazingly still and silent while hiding in the curtains.
• One of his first words was "aweeee", which is his version of "put it away" and which makes me so proud.
• When he said "mommy" for the first time a few weeks ago, it seemed to be a real struggle for him and then surprised him when he got the whole word out. It kills me to hear it because he still manages to maintain this intonation of complete focus when getting out that last syllable.
• He spends a good amount of time each day sitting in his crib in the dark saying things like, "Mama, no. Papa, no. Cat, no. Nana, no...."
• When his biscuits break while he's holding them he lets out the most mournful "bwwoooookke" that it has more than once brought tears to my eyes.
• We have to hide leftover spaghetti noodles in the back of the fridge otherwise he opens it and begs to have one and then cries "bwwwoooookkee" when they invariably break.
• He must always be given biscuits in twos-- one for his eating hand and one for his holding hand.
• He counts to two but begins with a word that sounds more like "five".
• He gets very excited by tractors, trucks, buses, dogs, balls, coches (cars), and rhinos.
• He loves Barbapapa and goes through times when we must read it in French and in Spanish at least twice a day.
• Whenever he hears S stirring, he runs in the room and flips the light above S's crib on and yells, "Hola!"
• He doesn't seem phased at all by sucking on a lemon.
• When he concentrates on something, his lower lip starts protruding more and more.
• He loves to read and will go through the entire flat pulling out books and flipping through them like somewhere in there is the key to life itself if only he could find it.
• He can't quite understand why Mama would read magazines that don't have pictures of dogs or trucks or rhinos.
• He picks up Cat's brush and walks through the flat calling for her and then seems puzzled as to why she might avoid the boy with the thousands of tiny metal bristles calling her name.
• We can always tell when he spills something by the "uh-oh" he utters and perhaps him scampering to get his mop and bucket.

That's O. Soon I'll get a post up about S. And then, just so that I don't become one of those people, I'll put up a post about some of the things

I've been working on (warning, most are projects for the two).

P.S. We had one small victory in our quest for legality here.

Parent of Two

This last weekend in our latest attempt at improving our legal status here, Andrew went to visit Nate and Claudia in Cambridge. Andrew went. I did not, nor did either of our little darlings. That meant I got a little taste of the single parent/multiple children flavor of life. I thought I would be exhausted. I didn't know when or how things like showers would happen. I was looking forward to losing several pounds because of my lack of time and energy to actually eat. I figured I would be crashing into bed nightly as soon as the boys were down because I didn't have the energy to do anything else except for the pedicure I'd been hoping to get done. I had so many expectations for the weekend and felt more than a little trepidation-- although it should be noted I fully supported Andrew leaving and even felt like I pushed him into it a bit.

What happened and what didn't? Showers turned into baths taken while O "watched" Thomas the Tank Engine (I can't really say O watched the TV since his version of doing so is more like standing by the bathtub and making me play with plastic boats while shaving my legs but at least he wasn't hiding in the shower curtain while I tried to shower). I didn't really eat except for when friends graciously invited me over for lunch or I broke down and tried to fancy up some frozen pizza with a bottle of Perrier and arugula. I stayed up until 1, 2, and 3am in an effort to get a few things done. None of those things were a pedicure, however. And I think I had at least one moment every day of complete and utter breakdown-- but they were just moments.

But most of all what happened is I remembered how much I genuinely love my boys and how lucky I am to have a job that can completely exhaust me but also completely fulfill me. On one of the days I was in the kitchen cleaning while O w

as drawing. I heard him start to get frustrated and came in to see what was wrong. He was sitting with his paper on S's lap trying to push a marker into S's hand so they could draw together. After trying to explain that S couldn't draw yet, which O was not accepting as plausible, I placed the marker in S's hand and helped him do a few little scratches. It was one of those moments I wanted to melt into forever with my boys.

And as a bonus in this post-- here's a photo of S I took while trying to get him to wake up. Seriously took twenty of these with the flash right in his face and didn't even get so much as an eyebrow twitch.

Parents of Two

The other night I found myself walking very slowly up and down the street staring at the ground at about midnight. A man walked by me and gave me a funny look and I had a quick glimpse of who he probably thought I was-- drunk British tourist trying to find my way home. What I actually was was a mother of two searching for a lost dummy for her three month old. As I came home empty handed, I had one of those moments where I realize that somehow, somewhere between high school and here, I became a mother. I remember telling Andrew after S was born that it was so weird to me that my obituary would now read "mother of two". Morbid, but I find it fascinating.

I had another "I'm a mom?!?" moment the other day. This time instead of being surprised by it, I felt so genuinely happy and grateful for it. The other day I was sitting on the couch in the nursery with the boys. O was drinking his bedtime milk and sitting next to me and S was in my lap watching him. O very casually reached up and put his arm around S and sat there drinking his bottle and side hugging his brother. It was the most natural little gesture for him but it was one of those moments that I wanted to melt into for eternity. I've been reading a physics book about extra dimensions and I'm so grateful science backs up a belief that I hold and that I need to be true. I need to believe that time is not linear and that somewhere someplace moments like that still exist. I'm grateful for my belief in a God that exists and that loves His children and that with my beliefs there are also many many things I don't understand because then I can still believe that those moments are not lost to the past, but are held somewhere in the eternities waiting for me to visit them again.

A Word of Warning

I need to warn you that if you click on the link below, you are going to be confronted with a whole lot of photos. There are a few reasons for this that I feel like I need to explain out of fear that if I don't, I will be considered narcissistic or at the very least one of those people who thinks everyone in the world wants to see pictures of their children.

First, I have this whole system of organizing photos in which I copy all the best photos from each month into a separate folder so that I don't have to go through every photo searching for the one or two that I'd like to print. Then when I want to upload some photos to FB or Picasa, I can just do the whole folder without having to go back through all my photos just to find the good ones.

Second, at the very end of July I found myself with a new baby and a new camera, both of which I loved very much. Given the whole "new baby" part, I didn't quite get around to exploring the whole "new camera" part until August. This meant lots and lots of photos in August. And then lots and lots of photos in September. Having the new camera stolen slowed me down a bit, but the arrival of a second new camera ensured the photographic juices kept flowing.

Third, I am just way too obsessive compulsive to only post some photos from the "Best of August 2010" folder. I have to post them all. There are several minor variations on a theme but I couldn't choose which ones I liked best and always had a voice in the back of my head saying things like, "Maybe you'll want to print a couple versions of this scene later so you can hang a series of prints. Better just put all the shots in one folder." I like to think this is akin to Picasso's Las Meninas series of paintings. Anyone who has visited us and heeded our recommendation to see the Picasso museum knows what I'm talking about. For those who haven't-- Picasso did a whole series of different variations of his interpretation of Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas. Over and over, the three girls, the dog, the midget, the painter, just slightly different each time. These are my photos, minus the artistic genius.

Fourth, I am just way too obsessive compulsive to skip a month. I've already made some concessions in just posting the giant folder from August on Picasa and not submitting the FB world to the full version. Skipping the month altogether would just haunt me. I'm already a bit disturbed by the fact that I skipped August on FB by accident and have only been posting the latest albums in FB.

Finally, I know there are a few blog readers who are not regular FB users or even on FB at all or just forgot their FB password (Abram). For this reason I put the links in both places (I'm winking at you, Dad and Lauritz). And I have received requests for more photos but I absolutely do not think the world needs to see photos of my children. I love them and they are perfect to and for me, but you certainly don't have to agree. We can still be friends.

Without further ado, Los Meninos.

August 2010

September 2010, part 1

September 2010, part 2

Shave and a Haircut

An inner voice started whispering something about it being time for a haircut around the time O insisted on having his hair put up for dinner. It's always been a debate: go to the gym or stay home and cut O's hair. One option makes me feel healthy, the other just makes me feel anx

ious and itchy. Finally Friday night I managed to find energy enough to do both.

Haircuts have always been a bit of a struggle-- nothing epic, which means they're also nothing a bit of youtube can't handle. We brought up O's favourite video. You got it-- MahnaMahna (I've never felt comfortable with spelling it that way but whoever posted the video clip did). O is a bit obsessed. We had to put him on MahnaMahna detox after I came home from the hospital with S. O's sitter had let him watch it for about a half hour straight and it took us two weeks to get the high out of his system.

So we set up the laptop, set up youtube, and I fired up the beard trimmer. Nothing but class around here. Things went pretty well until Andrew asked me to trim up some longer hairs that hte clippers hadn't gotten around his face. He went to get the scissors for me to use but I figured I'd give it another pass with the trimmer. Problem was I'd forgotten that I had taken off the clipper guide to trim around O's ears and neck. I started to take a pass at the longer hairs with the trimmer but the look of horror on Andrew's face accompanied by a very loud, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING????" stopped me before I got too far.

Instant flashback to when I was cutting Lauritz's hair in high school and did the same thing. Fortunately for O, he just looks like he has a bit of early onset male pattern baldness-- on one side of his head. We blended it a bit and it doesn't look nearly as disastrous as Andrew's reaction would have led me to believe. Unfortunately for Lauritz, I'd started on the side of his head and just made him look like he had mange. I'm not sure how long it took for him to forgive me, if it's ever happened.

Here's O getting ready to do the big reveal.

Sneak peek.

Should I put a matching bald spot on the other side just to even things out?

Ah-hah!

Ever since this little guy came into my life, my mind has been going absolutely crazy with all kinds of projects I want to complete. I've started having to carry a notebook to bed every night because if I don't write down all the things I want to make and do, I keep myself up trying to remember them all. I've come to think of S as my unofficial muse and couldn't figure out what it was about him that has unleashed this force in me. Well, apparently it's all just biological. Andrew found an article that explains exactly what's been going on (click on the link in the previous sentence to read the article). It's a much less romantic explanation-- my brain is growing as opposed to my baby boy being some kind of inspiring angel to me.

I think I'm going to still hold on to a bit of the more romantic explanation. O's birth seemed to unleash this amazing capacity to love and S's gift seems to be this amazing desire to create. Best part-- I actually am completing some of the projects.

Marie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As I went to bed last night and made the "woe is me" list in my head, this rash wasn't even on there. Just remembered it this morning and figured it at least gave me a photo to put up with this post. I know I'm allergic to nickel but apparently I'm also allergic to very cheap 1 Euro acrylic scarves with pretty little butterflies on them. Next time I'll try one without butterflies.

So my day yesterday started going bad around about 12.01am. Ok, more like 12.45am when I crawled into the bed I'd made on the couch. I was feeling sick and didn't want to keep Andrew up so I made my home there for the night. I was so excited to be in bed so early and had high hopes for the night. That lasted about as long as it took for my dream to take a really really bad turn. At 3am I woke up freaked out and wanting my bed. Felt like a little kid as I took the frightening long walk down the hall in the dark to the safety of the parents' bed except this time I'm the parent.

So crawled into bed with Andrew and drifted off again, no problem, until 4am when S woke up screaming. He's normally good about sleep during the night so I indulged him and gave him some milk. Felt much less indulgent at 4.45am when he was refusing to go back to sleep and I was falling asleep holding him. Finally got him down and drifted back to sleep again for about ten minutes before some crazy guy started yelling for Diego to come outside now-- right outside each of our bedroom windows. I have no idea who Diego is but apparently he lives in our building because the crazy guy then decided to go and ring every single apartment's buzzer at least twice until Diego gave in and talked to him. About the second time the buzzer rang I was considering putting hate mail in Diego's mailbox if he didn't take care of this. Finally heard the lift go up and down, front door to building open, and shouting stopped. Got a good four hours of sleep before we had to be up.

And that was just the night. Won't bore you with details but the day involved having to stay home with two cranky kids in order to let workmen come in and out of our flat to work on our patio. That involved lots of ringing the doorbell right after either child had fallen asleep or started crying, lots of dust everywhere, and lots of just being in the house with no way of escaping to let everyone work off their bad vibes.

I was so tired, so cranky, and still recovering from being sick and just didn't have the resources to deal with things. We had to take S up to the pediatrician and couldn't leave until after 7pm. That meant we didn't get out of there until about 8.30pm and had to find food. Managed to just barely miss any bus that would be helpful, finally got some food and found the last open bakery of the night for some bread but by the time we got home, got boys to bed, and cleaned up enough to eat, S was awake again and it was 11.30pm. I gave up one eating and decided to just pump some milk for S and head to bed but was too stressed to get more than a drop. Which made me feel more stressed and made even less milk come out. Gave up and went to bed thinking about all the things that had made the day so absolutely rotten (did I mention I read an article about a woman miscarrying just to make sure to make myself cry).

My one consolation for the day was that I got into bed before 2am-- a major accomplishment lately-- but then I stayed awake reliving and working through everything in my mind. And here's the thing (I hate that I say that but somehow can't stop myself), as I lay there I realized that the boys and I have this symbiotic relationship in which all of that frustration and self pity I carried around all day just got sucked up and magnified in their tiny little bodies that are still trying to figure out this world. They don't know how or why they're feeling so awful and so they don't know how to communicate it and solve it. I can lay in bed and list everything that went wrong so that I can blog about it and ask anyone who reads it to feel sorry for me or to sympathise with me so that I can feel better. But poor O just feels unhappy and can't decide if he wants to drink his milk out of his sippy cup or out of his bottle because neither one takes away that icky feeling he's had all day. Poor S just can't sleep because no matter how much he cries or suckles, he can't seem to get the comfort he needs because he doesn't know that his mama just couldn't find it to give to him. At the end of the day as I lay there thinking about all the things that went wrong, I couldn't help but think about all my boys that need me to get over myself and make it right for them. Sorry for such a long post. Needed to work through it all. Thanks for listening.

See that fine looking piece of technology? Who wants one of those? I did. Who got one of those? I did. Who is absolutely terrified to take it out of the box and actually use it? I am. Most expensive piece of desk decoration we'll own. Right next to the most expensive bookend we'll ever own, formerly known as our iPod (it's spirit is gone but it's body remains to hold various notebooks upright and in their place on our desk).

A wonderful man at Andrew's work decided to work a bit of his Catalan charm with the mobile phone shopgirl that he thinks has a thing for him. Apparently she does because he managed to wrangle up free iPhone 4's for himself, me, and Andrew when his name is called on the list we were on. Mine came Friday. I was a bit too sick and stressed to be very excited but eventually after the wee ones were in bed, I opened it and touched it. Beautiful. I loved it. And then the warnings came. As I caressed it and thought of our possibilities together, Andrew started to tell me about every review he'd read and every horror story he'd found about people who dropped it from ankle height and had the glass shatter. And how even some cases were no good because a speck of dirt could get in between the case and the phone and start working scratches into the glass that will eventually shatter it. And so I figured maybe touching it wasn't the best idea.

So here it sits. On the desk, in the box. I came home today and the box lid was off and it made me quite nervous all afternoon. I kind of jokingly told Andrew he'd made me a bit paranoid and afraid to use it. Instead of reassuring me, he quickly came back with a very sincere, "You should be." When I tell my friends this, they laugh. But then I realized that none of my friends have two little kids under 2 years, with one that has an incessant need to see rhinos on his father's smartphone.

The apple website was no comfort. They have a little video about the iPhone that shows the glass being put through its stress tests. At one point they bend the glass to an angle that would be about the angle my grandmother could make when trying to bend to put on her shoes. Not an impressive angle for a piece of paper, but for glass it's good. The only problem is that it was being bent at about the speed my grandmother could go when trying to put on her shoes, not the speed with which a toddler who wants to see rhinos would grab it and drop it.

At about 4.30am this morning I got a text message on my old phone saying my iPhone was all activated and ready to go and my stress level for the day went seriously up as I contemplated parting with my old phone and riding off into the future with my beautiful, sleek, and oh-so-fragile iPhone 4.

Living in the Past

So yes, I have been terrible about posting photos and so everything I have to post is now terribly outdated. But I'm a bit obsessive compulsive and so before I post current photos I feel the need to catch up on past ones. You are under no obligation to look at or comment on the photos, although I always do appreciate it when you do.

March 2010

April 2010

May 2010

June 2010

July 2010

This is how our day is going...

How about yours? I was going to take a crasser route and mention how my life the past two days seems to revolve around s*** in the title to this post. Instead I took the much classier route of leaving it out of the title and just diving right into it in the actual post. Gastroenteritis has struck our home again. It started yesterday (I think) and has continued today with no mercy. Last night O had the biggest blowout I've ever seen and my tummy started feeling not so well. This morning when I thought things were easing up for both of us, S had his fun. Then O again. Then O burnt his finger. Then he screamed for an hour over our efforts to get him to wear a plaster. Add to this the fact that Andrew had one of those days at work when coming home to screaming and pooping O was preferable to sitting in his office. I just feel like it's s*** s*** s*** everywhere at the moment. Hopefully naps all around will fix it.

Don't want to end on a bad note, though, so here's a cute shot of the only one in the house not having a bad day despite the s*** his day had (S only poops once a week or so and getting that stuff out always puts him in a pretty good mood).

Andrew's Dreams Fulfilled

Andrew always said he wanted kids so they could do things lik

e walk on his back whenever he wanted or get things for him when he was too lazy to get up to get them himself. Kind of like the modern day equivalent of having kids to help run the farm. Today Oliver filled the measure of his creation. Didn't seem terribly satisfying for Andrew. And please excuse the bad photo-- O wasn't exactly stable up there.

Three posts in two days, with some comments to boot-- does this mean the blog has been revived? We'll see.

Hermanitos

So this afternoon I started uploading these photos and had to leave to go run a few errands before they were done and I had a chance to write a bit about them. I was just going to write about how O is such a good brother to S-- how O brings S his dummy when he cries, how he helped me do S's massage and lotions after his bath last night, how he brings him toys and books to read when S is sitting in his bouncy chair with nothing to do. But then I went out and had a very typically Spanish encounter.

As I stepped into the lift in a sports shop, an older woman asked me to hold the door and joined me and the two boys who were in their stroller. The woman noticed S in his little cave below O and of course had to comment on how I had two babies and she hadn't seen S. This is normal. I get checked out more with our double stroller than I ever do walking around when I'm all dressed up and looking very blonde (the guys in our neighborhood can't resist catcalling anyone with blonde hair).

So this woman is commenting on the two babies and she starts to tell O that she likes him better. I'm thinking she's just being funny and just prefers toddlers to infants and I kind of laugh with her a bit. She exits, I pick out my stuff, and then we somehow end up in the lift together again. This time she is much more insistent that she likes O more than S. She tells him over and over how handsome he is with his blonde hair and how much she prefers him to S. How he's more handsome and beautiful than S and then she turns to me and asks if O gets jealous of S.

Maybe she felt it her to duty to alleviate any jealousy of the new baby by telling O how much better he is. Maybe she had the best intentions-- I'll give her that. But the whole thing was just so typical of here. As soon as people notice there are two babies in the stroller, I am asked one thing without fail: "Is he jealous?" They're obsessed with jealousy here. They ask it more than they ask how old either baby is or what their names are. And I always get to respond with "No!"

Andrew was at the park once with O. S was nowhere around but O was playing with another little boy. The boy's mother was talking with Andrew and started telling Andrew how her son was jealous of O because of his handsome shock of blonde hair. He wasn't even two and had plenty of blonde hair of his own.

I guess the upside of this national obsession with jealousy is that it makes for more interesting soap operas and gossip magazine articles. But in our little home I'm very proud to proclaim that O has shown nothing but love towards his little brother and little brother just sits and stares and smiles back. Love my boys. All of my boys.

Just going to have fun with this

A friend of mine said that my blog inspired her to create her own blog and now her blog has inspired me to be better about my blog. I kind of felt like nobody was reading it and so I didn't need to post on it but now I realize that if nobody's reading it, I can post anything I want. I can blog about how I'm trying to grow out my eyebrows and it's really disgusting to see all those little hairs growing in every morning but rewarding to overcome the temptation to overpluck.

I can also post photos of silly things we do on Sunday afternoons. Just pop that SD card in, click a few things to post a few photos, and then write a rambling little post explaining what was going on. Worry about spelling mistakes? Not me. Worry about being witty or writing intelligently? Not here. So here are photos of Sunday afternoon. Andrew did this to O at O's bidding. Fun times around here-- no wit or intelligence required.

Sebastian Benson

Our Aryan brood has grown by one more, as the Benson Baby Machine continues to march across the world. Better watch out, Poland! (Nazi joke: check. But before I come off as anti-semitic, I have spent the last hour or so emailing every synagogue and Jewish community center in the greater Barcelona area looking for a mohel that works in August, so never let it be said that I don't have an open mind.)

Actually, Sebastian actually looks like he might be a little darker than Oliver (although Oliver looked pretty dark to me at this stage too) and has a chance of having brown eyes.

The little fella was due on Monday August 2, but the doctor kept telling us that he thought he was going to be early, and that when he did decide to come it was going to be fast. He was right on both counts. I came home for a late lunch last Thursday and was putting Oliver down for his nap at about 4 pm when Marie said she had what felt like a contraction. I told her to go lay down, relax, and to tell Baby he couldn't come until after her father arrived Friday morning. I figured labour with Oliver lasted about 24 hours, if she could get this one to wait just half that amount of time, we'd be in good shape.

Not a chance.

I left home and went to our other office to sort some things out, before returning to my office to try to put things in order in case I wasn't in the next day. The texts and phone calls from Marie were getting increasingly more frantic, so I ran out after getting as much done as I could, stopped by the store to pick up some supplies, and got home in time to see Marie well into the advances stages of labour. She was still hanging up laundry too, bless her heart. After I got there she spent the next half hour on various positions to alleviate the pain. Well mostly it was on all 4's, but just in various locations throughout the flat. I asked her if she had tried, you know, NOT having contractions. She was not amused.

When our (16-year-old) babysitter arrived, she remarked that seeing this was the best form of birth control she could have experienced. Shortly thereafter our doula (midwife) arrived, and we were off to the hospital. Marie spent the ride on her knees in the back seat, turned around racing the rear of the cab while the driver apologised for the rain and told her that she was strong and she was going to make it. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who heard him though.

Once we got there, they wheeled her away while I ran around trying to sign her in so she could get a room after baby was out. Scratch that...I actually gave up trying to sign in after about 5 minutes and spent the next 25 being lost and trying to find the delivery room. But find it I did, and 30 minutes later, BAM. Baby. Quick as you please, about 7:55 pm. 3.7 kg, 50 cm, almost identical to Oliver (Oliver was 3.5 kg). Marie's version of events differs slightly from mine, but the important thing is, at no point did I push the wrong button and spray toilet water all over the bathroom.

We ran out of the flat so fast we didn't even bring clothes for Sebastian, so I had to come back and get them after the birth and then head back up there. Public trans was running slow that time of night so it was about 2 hours by the time I made it back. Larry arrived Friday morning and a friend was nice enough to meet him at the airport and help him get to our flat. He has been great with Oliver, who has been suffering just a bit of separation anxiety, but he's getting better at letting us leave the room without losing it.

I already sent these around, but here are some pics. I'll add some more....you know. Eventually.

I'm even worse at blogging than you thought

I finally finished a post for January but because I started it a long time ago, it's showing up on the blog further down below the posts with videos. Don't know how to move it up. Sorry.

February

Oh yeah, just watch it happen-- I'm getting this blog caught up to less than six months ago.

February saw some happy times and some very stressful times. Happy times included a few more days in CA with a trip to the Exploratorium, always a treat. Got to celebrate Abram's birthday with him a little early and then flew with Dad out to visit Lauritz and Michelle and meet cousin Maggie.

That part was all good. Trouble started when the snows came and basically wreaked havoc on our plans. Maggie's blessing had to be canceled because nobody could get flights into the area, which meant as well that nobody could get flights out. Dad managed to make it home during a break in the weather but it took O and I an extra week to get out. Did not help that during that week he got croup and we had to take him to the ER at 1am. Lauritz was the kindest sweetest brother and drove us an hour there int he middle of a blizzard, stayed with us while O sat through two hours of breathing therapy, and then drove us home. While there Andrew found out my flight had been canceled which meant I got to come home and spend hours on the phone trying to get another one. Finally did but then O was sick-- croup turned into a sinus infection. Might have been a few more weather cancellations in there or something.

Finally got to the airport and had to wait at the gate for an hour because it started to snow again, then had to wait an hour on the plane to take off, then missed connecting flight home. Had to carry O, stroller, and carry-on bags up stairs at JFK after waiting in snow to get carry-on bags unloaded from plane. Got chest pains from being stressed, pregnant, and having to carry a s***load of stuff on my own. Managed to recover from chest pains and get in line to find out the next flight they had me on was the next day at night. Held it together long enough to ask for a hotel voucher because no way pregnant me and my one year old were sleeping in JFK all night. Made it to hotel after a few more chest pains and some very kind aid from a passing flight attendant. Was able to recover somewhat with the help of room service and a few sobbing sessions on the phone with Andrew and Dad.

Got on the flight the next day and had to wait three hours on the tarmac before take-off. Thank you to Lynn and Debbie (Andrew's boss and his wife who were on the same flight) managed to keep my sanity during the wait. O was an angel thanks to some angels who I am sure were speaking to him and letting him know I really needed help. That, and a couple doses of Triaminic and whatever else the dr gave us. Finally finally made it home to Andrew. Had missed Valentine's Day with him but nothing was sweeter than getting to be with him again. Don't think we even did anything the rest of the month other than just be happy to be together again. Photos here.

The boy likes himself some futbol

In honour of Barcelona holding onto their La Liga title (which looks pretty likely after Valladolid's own goal and Pedro finishing off Messi's assist), here's Oliver watching Barca get kicked out of the CL in what was possibly the worst match I've ever had the misfortune of seeing:

Teeny tiny television....but really great parenting.

Apologies

As it turns out, "the moderator" of our blog was supposed to approve all the comments before they could be posted. Said moderator wasn't aware that this duty existed, so I'm just now barely seeing all the comments from like July of last year. I'm so sorry for depriving you all of my pithy responses. And here I was thinking that no-one had ever even seen these posts. You've renewed my faith in technology and narcissism.

To make it up to you, here's a semi-recent video of Oliver doing his thing. If he wants to eat, he has to perform.

In the meantime, if you promise to keep making more comments, I promise to make fun of them.

January

Soooooo, January. O and I were lucky enough to get to spend the whole month in California with Dad and Abram. Andrew had to get back to work (sucker) but was able to stay around long enough to celebrate O's birthday and see him start to walk.

The big feature of the month was O's first birthday. Without any of his little friends around, he was stuck partying with his parents, Papa Petersen, and Uncle Abram. We started the festivities at the Randall Museum in San Francisco. Heard of it? Probably not unless you grew up in the city and loved spending Saturday afternoons in a room full of handicapped wildlife. The Randall is a little children's museum with a room full of rescued wildlife that can't be released back into the wild because of various handicaps. We always loved it for the ferrets that you could play with and the owls that were free to fly around the room. Downstairs is a model train room that really just makes you feel like you're in some train enthusiast's basement where he has slowly gone nuts over the years. As a kid you think it's great, as a parent you want to hug your child closer and protect him from the man grinning at you as he plays with his trains.

The rest of the party was pretty standard. Cake, some pretty sad decorations, and presents that took O a while to figure out. The cake was a mystery to O at first but once he caught the vision, it took hours to bring down that sugar high.

Other highlights of the month include getting to see the new Academy of Sciences building. I've been reading articles about it for months and while I was sad to see the old building go, I was curious what Mr. Renzo Piano could do with it. I was quite pleased and really really longed to live in SF again just to take O there every weekend. They kept all the best parts of the old building including the albino alligator and the taxidermy rooms, and upgraded everything else. I heart SF.

Also managed to hit up the MOMA, another absolute favorite of mine. Always come away feeling so inspired by modern art especially when I've started my trip with a stop at Zachary's. Muir Woods and Muir Beach. Zachary's again. SF Zoo followed by a trip to Pollyanna's. Shopping, walking and eating in Berkeley. These are a few of my favorite things (all of which we managed to do during our trip). Photos here.

December

Let's see... December. Does anything really happen then? I guess we did a few things, saw a few people, ate a little food, participated in some great American consumerism, and then tried to recover from it all.

Actually the real thing we had to recover from was our trip home. We had gone to the pediatrician and asked him for a sedative for O's flight-- he gave us valium. We figured we'd use that as a last resort but after getting only an hour of sleep before heading to the airport three hours before our flight in a vain effort to secure a bassinet for O, we gave in. Honestly all I remember from that flight is that by the time we landed in SLC we were explaining pitifully to everyone around us that we had given O valium but had been traveling for twenty-four hours and didn't know what else we could do. He was just squirming and fussing and slept I believe a total of on hour the whole trip. No no no fun. Found out later that valium just kind of lowers inhibitions but doesn't necessarily put babies to sleep. Basically O felt no qualms about letting his emotions all out.

But we made it home and got to enjoy time with family and friends. We stayed in Salt Lake for Christmas and then headed to St. George for some Benson Family Time. We were lucky enough to get Abram and Arin and Dad to Utah but missed Lauritz and Michelle-- they had some excuse about having a baby or something. I was quite grateful for the sacrifices everyone made to be there especially since it always seems that Christmas is the time to throw everyone we love in one place and then try to spend enough time with everyone with whom all you want to do is spend more and more time. There's something sadistic about it-- like putting a diabetic in a candy shop once a year.

St. George was fantastic because it let us focus on visiting with just one side of the family. There was hiking, nightly family fiestas, the big family photo, and of course, family germ sharing. New Year's Eve I came down with some really nasty cold. It stuck around until we got to California and broke down and had a doctor come out to the house. A house call-- yes, they still do that if you have our insurance. Did I mention that in order to get to Dad's we had to drive through Bakersfield? We stayed the night there and thankfully had to leave early enough in the morning that fog covered the whole city and we didn't have to see a thing.

Here are our best photos from December. Enjoy.

November

So, yes, we've been terrible about blogging and now I'm just doing a bunch of catch up writing. I've had a few people request more photos or at least updates on how our Christmas tour went and so I'm just going to do a couple of posts breaking down the past few months.

November was pretty mild. Started off the month by celebrating O's best friend's birthday and then we had our anniversary and Thanksgiving to celebrate. A friend of ours offered to watch O so we could go to dinner and celebrate our seven years together in peace. I was almost to the dessert course before I remembered that we had a little boy waiting for us-- it was just such bliss to eat a very nicely done steak with the luxury of time to actually chew instead of having to choke it down as fast as I can so that I'm free to entertain little O. Thank you, Fernanda and Andres.

And then there was our Thanksgiving feast. We celebrated it on Sunday with a few friends, a couple roasted chickens, and some turkey running around somewhere having been spared his fate on our table. Andrew did fantastic roasted chicken and, despite his doubts about my stuffing from scratch, actually acknowledged that it ended up being ok to not do Stovetop. Homemade spiced nuts, rolls, beans with fennel, and Michelle's pies topped the meal. It was odd how much fennel we ended up using this year. On a side note, Andrew was in charge of the camera and took precisely ten photos of the food (eight of them of the chickens, which did look beautiful) and five photos of O.

Here's a link to our best photos from November. I can't remember why but I didn't have a best photos of September album on Picasa so I put it up here-- if anyone still cares. I know I've published those photos before on FB but I think Dad is still having a hard time figuring out social networking so this link is for him.

Bag - Cat = Baby

I don't know who knows and who doesn't at this point so I thought I'd make a formal announcement. Our fantastic awesome blog probably isn't on anyone's regular rotation, and if it is I feel real bad since the last post was in September, so don't know who this will actually reach. But just thought I'd inform all interested parties that our family of three will be growing by 3.33% (give or take) in the beginning of August. It's a decision that may only be regarded as dangerously reckless, but we're rolling the dice that the difficult first couple of years will pay dividends as they grow up together.


But really, can you imagine any kid cuter than this?:




New baby has his/her work cut out for them. That's all I'm saying.