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.