American in Spain

Well, we finally had our first incidence of one of my children making the other cry with pain. To be honest, I was surprised that it was the little guy that initiated what every prognosticator of sibling relationships assures me will be at least a dozen year conflict. Let the record forever show that “He started it!” Although it wouldn’t take much of a baby lawyer to throw charges of premeditation into doubt. He was only 16 days old.

My infant son was looking so adorable on his changing mat, which his sister got plenty of use out of, and I had the idea of having her lie down with her head next to his, for a cute sibling photo shoot. I only got one good photo before things turned ugly.
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As expected, we had some pretty enormous change in the state of the offspring this month. They’ve doubled in number!! Our son, Ian, was born as healthy and robust as I’ve ever seen a newborn. He doesn’t seem too pleased, however, to be outside, and very much prefers to be pressed up against his mother as he is accustomed. The little bugger has an absolutely voracious appetite, often draining both his mother’s breasts and still wanting more, which we supplement with formula.
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Somewhere around her second trimester, my wife calculated that if she could hold out until her due date of April 25th, then her maternity leave would butt right up against a five day weekend in August, created by a national holiday and a local holiday and a puente. We had a minor scare a fortnight early, but she made it…right up to midnight on April 25th, when her labor began. She let me sleep an hour from 12:30 to 1:30 before waking me and telling me to go downstairs and clean up some dishes and crumbs from dinner the night before to make the house tidy for our guest who we were about to call.
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We had a lovely visit this weekend from my second cousin, once removed, and her husband. My parents and I visited their house, in Cupertino, California, once twenty years ago, and the last time I saw them was about twelve years ago at a family reunion at my grandparents’ house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But for all intents and purposes, they were strangers to me. So much so that when we visited San Francisco 2.5 years ago, they never occurred to me when thinking of people I knew in the Bay Area to visit. Although we share some genes (and a Jean, as her namesake and Aunt Jean was my maternal grandmother), what they really were to me were internet friends. I got to know Jeanie after she friended me on Facebook shortly after we dissed her on our San Francisco trip, and we’ve grown to quite like each other over the past couple of years. Their visit was going to be another data point my “meeting people you only know over the internet” experiment…
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Looking back, there haven’t been that many new developments this month. Nora did turn four years old, which was important. Her writing has improved to the point where she can write her name every time without problems. My parents have been visiting for a week now and the forced use of English is good for Nora, although it certainly doesn’t seem to be causing her any extra stress or difficulty. She’s off from school now for eleven days of Spring Break.
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We are considerably less stressed/terrified about the impending birth of our son than we were about our daughter, four long years ago. For instance, for Nora, we had the crib bought and put together a full three months before its first use, and this time we haven’t even considered bringing it down from the attic yet. The baby car seat and stroller attachments are still stored in my in-laws’ attic as well. I don’t even think we’ve bought a single item of baby clothing yet.
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For five weeks, we tracked every day on a calendar to know when it would be Nora’s birthday. Also on the calendar was the arrival of my parents for their fortnight Easter visit. Nora was pretty excited about turning four, although she didn’t really comprehend that she would be receiving presents. Even on the day, I had to remind her that it was time to open presents. Her Spanish grandparents and aunt came to visit for her birthday, so she had all her most immediate blood relatives with her.
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One of the most enjoyable parts about parenting for me is being surprised by my child; expecting her to react one way or favor one thing, and seeing her preference clearly buck my expectations. Take, for example, toys. She’s got dolls and stuffed animals and cars and computers and costumes, some of which are very elaborate. But, contrary to what I would’ve expected, none of them are her most favorite possessions. She really loves playing with small pieces of plastic, items that she can hold firmly in her fist and carry in her pocket, like a tube of Chapstick™ or a piece of plastic shrapnel that broke off her mother’s hairbrush.
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Nora has always had a bit of anxiety associated with bedtime. When she was sleeping in her crib and could speak enough to request it, she demanded that I hold her hand, through the crib bars, as she fell asleep. Trying to escape from someone’s grasp and sneak out of the pitch black room as they slowly lose consciousness is an interesting game. I would’ve preferred to do more parental negotiating in this area, my wife’s schedule means that she has to get up very early in the morning, so I often had to do whatever kept her quiet. I did, however, manage over the course of months to only promise to sit down outside her door as she fell asleep, allowing for smoother getaways.
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The Christmas after Nora was born, I used iPhoto’s nice calendar designing functionality to make a calendar of photos of Nora from throughout the year. I knew at the time that I was indenturing myself to providing a calendar every year in the foreseeable future, and sure enough, the expectation was there, and I have been meeting it. When it came time to make the 2013 calendar, I realized that I didn’t have many photos of the entire family together, so I vowed to take some. I set up the tripod on a January day when we were relatively dressed up and took some photos. I thought I’d share them with you here.
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