Birthrights of Many Kinds

My mom was raised Methodist and my dad Jewish. When they had kids, my mom's mom (Grand Nana) said, "I don't care what you raise them, just raise them something." This was actually remarkably open of Grand Nana, a woman born in 1916 in southern Virginia, who to this day sometimes says things so not politically correct that all her children and grandchildren wince at the same time. My parents went with no religion until I (the older child) was in fourth grade. My brother and I had been attending a Quaker school (Religious Society of Friends) since Pre-K and my parents finally decided to take the leap and become Quaker, my father's comment being that it was the only non-organized religion he had encountered and that worked for him. My brother informed his first grade teacher that he was "signing up to be Quaker." This was actually fairly accurate, as we each were given the right to choose whether we thought this was the right choice for us. Quakers sit in silent worship, believing that God speaks directly to each person and there is no need for the intercession of a priest or minister.

Emily was raised Catholic. She was passionate about her Catholicism, the way she is passionate about pretty much everything in her life. She memorized the prayers, the psalms, the ritual. She very much wanted to be a priest when she grew up. She says that this was clearly the beginning of the end for her as a Catholic. She continued to become more disillusioned with the church over the years. When we met in high school, I began taking her to meeting (what Quakers call church). By college, she had chosen to be a convinced Quaker. I love that instead of "converting" to Quakerism, one is "convinced". Before we were married under the care of Brook.lyn Meet.ing, I transferred my membership and she became a member. X, as the son of two members in good standing of the Religious Society of Friends, is what is called a "birthright Quaker". The first in either of our families.

I have very little understanding of the Catholic ritual, so Emily tends to explain bits of it when we attend services. Today, at Great Aunt C.'s funeral, we sat in the sound proofed children's room in the church (an interesting invention, allowing babies to have fits and not bother the other parishioners) and Emily told X, "Look, honey, now the priest in going to do magic." And to our birthright Quaker son, I think that must be what the Catholic service looks like, magic. A man in a robe sings and waves his hand and waves smoke making machines in the air and informs people he has changed water to wine and bread to flesh. But Catholicism is X's heritage, just as much as Judaism is, so I had better start learning about it, so I can help teach our son his past so that it can inform his future.

You Show Up

We are away from home. For the second time in two weeks, we have driven upstate to be with members of Emily's family. Two weeks ago, we drove up to visit her Great Aunt C., who had been doing poorly. The day we went up, Em's mom called and told us that she had gone to the hospital, so we visited her for two days in the hospital before going home. The hospital staff let X onto the critical care ward, which they probably shouldn't have done, but we greatly appreciated them letting us bring him to visit. He cheered up Great Aunt C., who told Emily that he was beautiful and looked smart (the highest compliment).

Sadly, we are back this weekend to attend Great Aunt C.'s wake and funeral. She died early on Wednesday morning. We rented a car from the same garage and are staying at the same motor lodge (10 rooms down) but life is very different. She was a great lady, so smart and opinionated and passionate. I only knew her a few years, but I miss her a great deal. She and her husband didn't have children, so she was very close to her sister's children, especially Emily's mother. Grandma (Emily's mom) was able to be with her this past few days, which I hope was a comfort, although it was very hard for Grandma.

X doesn't understand what it going on, but brings a smile to everyone's face when he enters the room, which is a very good service he is providing. He slept for about half the wake this afternoon and was then quite content to have Grandpa carry him around the funeral home (which his Great Grandpa used to own) and discuss everything they saw. He has gotten to meet the last of his great aunts and uncles whom he had not yet met, which has been nice. We have tossed his schedule to the wind in the evenings, because it is really impossible to walk away from family early enough to start bedtime at an hour when everyone else is just starting to eat dinner. He is coping admirably and we will get back on the bedtime schedule horse when we get home on Sunday.

Everyone keeps saying how wonderful and thoughtful we are for coming to visit Great Aunt C. as often as we did (which really wasn't that often, just twice in the last year). And Emily and I just keep saying, "But that's just what you do. You show up." I really hope this is a lesson that X learns from us. When it's family (blood or chosen), you show up. It's an over four hour drive and we're broke and renting a car costs a lot, but that isn't the point. You show up.

Strange Goo.gle Searches

This past February, when I was in the middle of my first nursing crisis, I wrote a post about my lovely mother-in-law and her helpfulness in calming me down and sending me off in the right direction in order to address the supply problem I was having. Without even thinking about it, I called this post "Grand.ma and Bo.obs" except without the dots. This became relevant last night, when I checked out the report from Goo.gle Ana.lytics for the first time in many months and discovered that, in one form or another, "Grand.ma Bo.obs" was the most common Goo.gle search that lead someone to our blog. Two hundred and fifty-two times, random people searched for what I can only assume was slightly bizarre po.rn and found our blog instead. I think I'm going to go change the title of that blog post now.

Hark, There Be Wild Things

Emily informed me a few minutes ago that I should write about the movie we went to see this afternoon. So, here I am, writing about the movie we went to see this afternoon. I'm a very obedient wife!

Uncle very kindly took the baby for the afternoon, so we could have some time to regain the parts of our sanity lost over the last week of sick, cranky baby. We took a long walk, lay down in the park on our coats and stared at the sky (well, I stared at the sky, she read Foucault) and went to see "Where the Wild Things Are".

First off, it is not a kids movie, it is a movie about childhood. I really don't think I would take a child much younger than late elementary, early middle school to this movie. It has lots of scary bits. However, I highly recommend it to the older set. It is beautifully made and so well written. To be fair, I've had a bit of a love affair with Dave Eggers since I read "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", so I was prepared to like the writing. I don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it yet, so I will just say it is definitely worth your time to go see it. Emily reflected at the end on the poor PA who had to vacuum the muppets during the shoot. I reflected on how I viewed it differently as a parent than I think I would have before X was born.

One Year Molar for the WIN!

And just to make life interesting, Emily called down the hall this morning while changing his diaper. Guess who just had their first one year molar break through during the night? The poor baby, his entire head hurts.

We have an answer (well actually two answers)

X was running a fever of 102 when we checked this morning, so we were off to the pediatrician again for the second sick visit this week. We waited 45 minutes to be seen, but as soon as they took his temp and it was 102.6, everyone was very helpful. We were given tylenol to give him (which made me a bit anxious as it was 20 minutes early and he's on both tylenol and ibuprofen, but oh well). The nurse tried to give it to us in a suppository, and we were like, "we are not putting anything up his butt that we don't have too, please can we have the liquid", and she gave us the liquid in a cup, and we had to ask for a syringe, because our twelve month old is seriously not going to drink medicine from a cup, even if he is the best baby ever at taking his meds.

Then we saw our doctor, without even seeing the resident first. And it was so great that we got to see Dr. A, because for the first time all week, X didn't scream the entire time he was being examined. He was quiet and let her poke him and check his ears without even turning his head away and even gave her a tentative smile. I love our pediatrician, she makes my sick baby smile. She smiled as soon as she checked his first ear and said, "We have an answer" and then checked his second ear and said, "Actually we have two answers." Yup, poor X has a raging double ear infection. Poor baby. He is now on anti-biotics and should be feeling better in the next day or two. Thank heavens for an answer that doesn't involve the word flu.

Baby continues to be ill

We are slogging through. He remains feverish, whiny, clearly in pain. We'll head to the doctor tomorrow if he hasn't improved. I really hadn't realized on a practical level how pleasant and lovely it is to have a well child until the last two weeks. No one is getting enough sleep and everyone is cranky. To remind us all that there is a happy, smiley baby in there somewhere, here is X on a happier day: