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So yes, I have been terrible about posting photos and so everything I have to post is now terribly outdated.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.