The Hunger Games

This book is enough to put a marriage on pause. Baleen, ignoring the question I asked her around 8.32 on Sunday night

For nine months Baleen fretted about what was to come and prepared furiously, narrowly focusing on the only subject that interested her, babies. Her reading selection was as limited as an MIT grad student's, though differing in subject and, perhaps, the number of citations, but just barely.

Books and blogs and websites on babies was all she read. First, for the care of that gestating little human, then for it's first few months. Nothing else interested her, not The New Yorker, NPR or even good 'ol Timmy Egan for more than a few chapters.

Then along came The Hunger Games. $5.01 on Amazon, the price of two iced teas at Martha's Brothers, for six or seven hours of pure pleasure. The Dragon Boss and I figure we'll have Baleen's full attention in another few days. That is, unless she puts down Book 1 not to pick up The Dragon Boss, but Book 2.

Grandparents

The Dragon Boss doesn't have grandparents. He has Gigi, Marmee, PaPa and, as of today, Babu and Nyanya. That's not New England speak for grandma and grandpa, as you might expect from those who might give The Dragon Boss his first lobstah, but Swahili. Naturally.

They all chose their own names with varying amounts of forethought. It wasn't like when Baleen showed up at the Social Security Office a few weeks our wedding looking to change her last name. When they asked, And what will be your middle name, she panicked for a second. Everything up 'til then she had thought about: invitations, the dress, the food, the location, the band, the marriage certificate, but not her middle name.

But not these grandparents. They thought ahead. After all, they'll be the names that any of the The Dragon Boss' siblings and cousins will call Gigi, et al. Which means that around 2042, I just might be Grandpa B.

Just East of Allentown

Lorna's arrived from the hard streets of Easton, PA, birthplace of Larry Holmes and yes, Crayola, but most importantly, the National Canal Museum. The Dragon Boss might look a little like his father and a little like his mother, but I'm thinking he's got he's father's love for infrastructure.

Topical love that is. He doesn't actually want to build the canal or sit behind a comptuer working out load bearing weights with 3D CAD designs, he just wants to go to the place where man decided he could mould the Earth to his liking and read about the people who thought that way.

That's why he's being extra nice to Lorna right now. She makes it easy, of course, but he's also thinking, There just might be a visit to Easton in my future.

First Meal

After 5 weeks and 3 days, we cooked our first dinner. Actually, Baleen cooked it. I just ate it. For every night before that we'd had somebody else cook us dinner, usually a relative, either Gigi, Grizzly or Wood Duck, and twice a restaurant chef, once for take-out, the other time at an outdoor table with The Dragon Boss asleep in the stroller.

We still haven't dug into the casseroles and soups that Baleen made a few weeks before The Dragon Boss arrived. The grandparents have kept us well stocked, as have a few supremely generous dinners from friends.

One came a few weeks ago from Baleen's friend Michelle, the second came last Thursday from soon to be wed (then come the children) Lisa & Noah, and on Friday, Asprilla, he of the Push until you Puke commands near the top of Hawk Hill, brought over a complete dinner even though he spends most every second not at work or on the bike chasing around a 2-year old and a 6 month old. Good things come in three, they say. Just don't expect a set of twins 9 months from now, Dragon Boss.

Elders

Gigi, Marmee and Papa have chosen their names and visited the Dragon Boss. They changed diapers, went on walks with us, cooked countless meals and generally bit their lip when we'd say something like, We need to put Whit to sleep now.

They've all departed saddened at the thought that tomorrow, they won't get to pick up their grandson, but happy to have spent the time with him that they did. There's one more visit next week from Jamie and Lorna, then Baleen and I might make our first dinner in over four weeks.

There's also some names to choose as Jamie and Lorna are, right now, Jamie and Lorna. Everybody else has chosen a nickname, just like Wood Duck's parents were Pop and Mama Edie to me, which leaves the traditional names wide open. Jamie may choose Grandpa, but he's also threatening to wait up to a year or two as little Whit won't be able to talk for another twelve months or so, he says. Maybe then he'll decide, unless The Dragon Boss comes up something on his own before then.

Gladiator

Pa Pa's back in Virginia, hopefully procuring the manly leather sandals, short shorts and chest armor that he promised in response to The Dragon Boss' Easter outfit.

You see, with Shrimp Jr's last minute visit, Papa and I were outnumbered in the apartment, two adult men to three, and while The Dragon Boss couldn't say No, I don't want to wear that dress with bunnies on it, he could express his displeasure in othe ways, which he did, first by throwing up on it, then by frowning whenever we took a picture of him in it.

Well done, young son. Now just wait for those short shorts that Pa Pa has promised and let's hope they're not Lederhosen.

The Voice

Baleen and I watched most of the number one rated show in American tonight, The Voice. I know what you're thinking, live TV? How? Well, it's a natural progression. Just like Baleen and me, we met, we married, moved in together, then along came The Dragon Boss.

This time it was, we got a bigger apartment, we bought a TV, then, a few months after that, Grizzly bought us an antenna from Radio Shack. Now we can watch commercials just like it was 1996 and Baleen can show up at work the next day talking about the TV she saw last night and not have to wait the few days until it appeared on HuluPlus. Except she doesn't go to work right now, it's just Baleen and the Dragon Boss most every hour. 

But what's really worth celebrating, far more than real time TV, is Baleen's first run today. That's not just the first run in 4 weeks and 3 days, it's the first run in about 9 months. 3 miles on a warm day in San Francisco on the same day that 4,300 runners in her hometown chose to sit this one out, even if they were to go 23.2 miles further. 

Boys, Boys, Boys

It's raining men in 2012. Let's count, in order of appearance: The Dragon Boss, Leroy (born to another Leory, just up the hill, and competing with Coop for the fieriest hair in the city), and Cooper. There's the child of unknown gender to come from the former GSB First Lady in June and AuHK's boy a few months after that.

AC might raise her infant hand and say, Hey, what about me, but a few things disqualify her from this biased survey, like having an older sister, which not only means that she might not ever wear a new piece of clothing, but that she's not quite fawned over like these other first-borns, and also that she lives in Minnesota, which is more foreign than Canada, not according to laws or presidential candidates, but by visits from me (Canada: 15, Minnesota: 0).

Then there's the newest boy, Renzo Bernard Rocca, or RBR IV for short. IV because he's another Bernard, maybe the fourth over the generations, and because he's the fourth child in that family. 12,000 diapers down, 4,000 more to go. No word yet on whether the Roccas are working on V.

Reading

Eight days after (big) little Whit arrived, I read for pleasure for the first time in his life. For the eight days before that, it had been nothing more than a little Bloomberg, NYT, and checking the English soccer scores, a sleep deprived brain unable to concentrate on much other than stats, financial or sporty.

But that 8th day, a Saturday, felt a little different. There was the beginning of a routine: eat, burp, sleep, and even if it was far from the three hour cycle that we aim for, it was something like that. So while The Dragon Boss slept, that left Baleen and me with the tiniest bit of free time.

Because it was within arm's reach and because it was part of a cleaning up effort, flipping through the magazine to see if there was a must read before recycling it, I chose this month's National Geographic article on a K-2 ascent. Normally, I don't read all the articles in National Geographic, despite thinking fondly of It's a Wonderful Life each time it arrives, and I rarely read any mountain climbing articles. When all the big peaks have been climbed in multiple ways from multiple approaches, another article doesn't interest this armchair climber. But this K-2 story caught my eye, probably because of the personal aspect, the Austrian mountaineering couple, the wife who didn't turn back and the husband who wanted her to, and because I'd just ordered In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods, the disastrous mountaineering story before Into Thin Air became that. Let's just hope The Dragon Boss gets his thrills from 9,000 foot peaks, not 9,000 meters.

Abigail's Aunt

They've come from all over to visit the Dragon Boss: Boston, Virginia, Austin, and, this weekend, Rancho Los Feliz. That's where you'd want to live in LA if your work was near there or if you had an electric car to let you on the HOV lanes, something that our southern neighbors tell is harder to come by than a good script. 

As Shrimp Jr found out, you can't very well spend every second starting at the Dragon Boss, unless you want to equal his one ounce a day weight gain in pounds and never make it out of your pajamas, so Abigail's aunt and uncle threw in a book party launch on their visit. It made everybody happy. Baleen and I got to act like urbanites again, putting on clothes that we checked out in the mirror, and Grizzly and Wood Duck got to babysit for a couple hours.

Two hours later, just as Abigail's aunt and uncle were headed to an enviable dinner with friends whom Baleen hadn't seen in months, Baleen practically ran to our car. Two hours away was the longest she'd ever spent from the Dragon Boss and while it definitely was a few minutes too long, it might have been two hours too long for her.

Visitors

The Dragon Boss met his aunt, Shrimp Jr, for the first time yesterday. Like others before her, she arrived bearing gifts, one of which she made him put on right then and there. The Dragon Boss wanted to speak up and say, Oh, man, it's not like I make you put on shirts when I send them to you or make you drink a beer the second I give you a koozy, but there's no use protesting, you're going to stuff this shirt over my face whether I cry out or not.

Instead, he said, I'll withold my smile from you. It's only been displayed once, and those who study my kind say it wasn't actually a smile, as newborns can't smile, but those are the same people who said newborns might pretend they don't like swaddles when they really do.

I did and I don't. I smiled for my dad when he held me sideways in the hospital and I like it when my mom leaves me enough room in my swaddle to break out my right arm so I look like I'm wearing what Will Ferrell would wear were he a Roman senator, a fleece toga with one arm free to wave about to support my oratory - or to try and stuff all my fingers in my mouth.

Chain of Command

Baleen got mastitis two nights ago. It's not what it sounds like, a madness for clipper ships, but an inflammation of the breast. Our language is clinical around here. I went back to work, she took the night shift by herself, then carried on conversations with Grizzly and Wood Duck the next day without getting a nap, and boom, the lump appeared.

Actually, it wasn't a boom, more of an achy complaint. We got the iPhone out, looked at symptoms (feverish, hot then cold, headache), got the Dragon Boss' first aid kit, and took her temperature. 99.9.  She made it through one more night on her own (she kicked me out, lovingly, with her toes turned in) and the Dragon Boss helped her out, only waking once during the night for a feeding. Hello, wise son.

The next morning, the five of us had a staff meeting. We established a chain of command. Baleen, in her weakened state, was still the field general. Her orders were to not be disturbed unless the Dragon Boss needed maternal attention or a feeding. Wood Duck would tend to her grandchild and Grizzly would procure the day's supplies, primarily fresh bagels, toilet paper, and an antenna for the TV. When I got home on Tuesday night, after getting a good long nap in during both the morning and the afternoon, Baleen was back down to 99.2. Hot bananas.

Routine

I got seven and a half hours of sleep last night. I could have had more, Baleen and the Dragon Boss turned out the light in their bedroom at 9pm, and I probably should have, following the advice of our good doctor to sleep when he sleeps, but given the opportunity to do whatever I wanted for the first time in two weeks, as long as that whatever happened within the walls of our apartment, I chose to read for ninety minutes.

I felt a little guilty as the sole recipient of the ultimate new parent luxury: sleep. Baleen insisted I sleep on the day bed in Whit's room as today is my first day back at work and I agreed, but it still felt odd. Not quite like we were on the Titanic with only one seat left on the lifeboat and Baleen and looked at me with Whit in her arms and said, You take it; more like I was the child of hardworking peasants who scrimp and save and keep their son from working in the fields like they have so he can study, putting every extra penny away to pay for college and a better life.

I still felt guilty when I woke up at 6am laying in bed and answering emails for a bit until Baleen and Whit skipped into the room just before 7am, the best wake-up call a man could have.