I demand Halloween pictures.

We'd love to see what Blau/Soule Generation Y is dressing up as today ... upload your photos somewheres and post the links here!

Happy Halloween!

Anticipation

We have somewhere between 8 and 13-ish weeks until Mango makes his big entrance, and with each passing day we become more and more curious about what he’ll look like and what kind of personality he’ll have. The idea that we’ll have a son is mind-blowing---someone calling us Mom and Dad---a genetic mixture of me and Jim. The idea that there’s a baby in there is hard enough to wrap my mind around even when I feel him moving around constantly.
Jim and I did some “nesting” this weekend. We made the place a little cozier by moving the furniture around, putting a throw rug on the floor and putting up some artwork. The cats, of course, had to explore the new set up.

We also got Mango some more little white onesies. Shouldn’t they make these in darker colors so the stains don’t show up so easily? Earlier, we were holding up the tiny clothes and imagining a little body filling them out. I’m so excited for us to meet Mango and for us to be a family. That’s going to be so cool.
Right now, I’m starting to feel pretty uncomfortable physically and less able to fight off cravings for ice cream and Cheese Doodles.

Luckily, we have only been able to find the crunchy Cheese Doodles and not the puffy ones, which I like more. However, Ben and Jerry’s is plentiful and my downfall this week was Banana Split (banana and strawberry ice creams with walnuts, fudge chunks, and a fudge swirl). YUM!
My back hurts, I’m having a hard time bending over and getting out of bed, and I have one of the more classic pregnancy symptoms that I won’t get into here (but anyone who’s been pregnant probably knows what I’m talking about). I’ve also gained 30 pounds.
But once we see that little baby's face, it will all have been worth it. For now, we’ll just continue being crazy cat people.

Speaking of the cats, Partial, the diabetic cat, is doing much better since we started testing his urine and giving him insulin shots twice a day. He's like a kitten again and we're glad we could repay him for giving us so much cat love all these years (even if he did ruin our trip to Florence in 2001).

The Belly

Though it may be a little difficult to tell what it is at first, the picture on the right shows a bodily protrusion which houses a brand new human. Commonplace, yet difficult to believe.



Following the implicit advice of research suggesting that babies can hear and distinguish voices in the third trimester, I have been reading to The Belly from what I feel sure is its occupant's favorite book, Go, Dog, Go!. Sizzles, the Valentine's Bear, has been helping me with some of the more difficult words.


(Once again, it may be difficult to tell, but the curved, shadowy object on the left is The Belly.)

Children and animals

The big events of the past couple of weeks have been that our friends Evelin and Shannon came back from Houston to visit, and one of our cats got very sick. This is the same cat, Partial, who became temporarily partially paralyzed in 2001 and ruined our Christmas. Thanks, Partial ... just kidding; who could be mad at the cute little beast?


... not Leila, that's for sure. She was very gentle with the poor ailing beast, patting him softly -- not pulling his tail (she's never tried to do that) or pushing his bunghole (she has done that once, under the mistaking impression that it was a button that would cause him to light up and sing "Old MacDonald").


Over the past month, he had become very listless, developed really bad dandruff, and had started drinking a lot of water. That sounds like me as a teenager (except I drank a lot of Cherry Coke, not water) ... but when this happens to a cat, it means it has diabetes, which, unlike adolescence, you can't just wait out; it needs to be treated.

We finally took him to the vet, who told us that Partial was probably only a couple of weeks away from death if he didn't get treatment. So we allowed the vet -- the inestimable Dr. Roy Appel -- to keep him for four days, putting him on intravenous insulin and antibiotics (for an associated bladder infection).

When Partial returned home, he was rejuvenated: more animated and playful than he had been in months. He seemed years younger, and his fur -- often a good indicator of a mammal's health -- which had become matted and dull, was once again sleek and silky. That's the good news; the bad news is that we must inject him with insulin twice a day, probably for the rest of his life. It's worth it, though; for almost no cost, he has amused and comforted us for almost eight years, so we feel that we owe him.

It's nice to know that he'll be around for a few more years at least, so that Mango can get to know him. As the poet Christopher Smart once pointed out, a pet is "an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon" -- and perhaps also to learn that there is a wider world than than the world of humans.

And here's another photograph to prove that it works: Leila practicing benevolence upon a kind and clever German Shepherd whom she recently met.

The Adventures Of MangoBear

Once upon a time, a cute little bear wearing a weird pumpkin-fetish costume appeared on our doorstep.


He tried out Greta's Snoogle,


and sat on Iggy Pop.


And he decided to make his home on the shelf just below Iggy, because he liked the little shoes on that shelf.

Dog lovin', death-defyin', and Liz-Phair-listenin'

"Greta/Mango" (as I have come to think of them) and I spent Columbus Day weekend hanging with the Foleys in beautiful Otego, NY. We romped with their doggies (gently with Maya, as she has an injured ankle), ate delicious food, and enjoyed one another's company.


On Sunday, we crashed Hartwick College's Alumni Day celebration at their beautifulPine Lake Environmental Campus. We had come to check out their famous Strawbale House, and happened upon a demo of their Challenge Education program -- a "ropes course", which involved various feats of tree-climbing and wire-walking, designed to be challenging and scary-feeling, yet quite safe. That's me in the picture on the right, navigating my way between two trees while being belayed from the ground by no less than three cheerful young hippies.

Driving back through the gorgeous, autumn-bedecked Catskills, Greta & I listened to some CDs that she had burned, in alphabetical order, from my iTunes collection (which led to some jarring juxtapositions, such as Barry White followed by the Beatles). When we got to the Ls, this song grabbed me ... I hadn't listened to it in years, and it jumped out at me for obvious reasons. I recalled that, back in my halcyon days in the Pioneer Valley, my favorite line from this song was: "I'm gonna tell my son to be a prophet of mistakes, because / For every truth, there are half a million lies." As I gazed out the passenger window at cows, red barns, and mountain streams, two questions bounced around in my head:

- What the hell happened to Liz Phair? Ten years ago, she could write something as unsettling and idiosyncratic as:
          Once you've left a lonely rage on its own it grows
          And dynamite stuffed in a mailbox doesn't smoke until it blows
          And oh, all the tears
          In four tiny years
          Now look at me, I'm frightening my friends.
... now her music is as sweet, nauseating, and nutrition-free as a McDonald's milkshake. She's like Paul McCartney after the Beatles' breakup, except she didn't lose Lennon, she lost herself.

- What do I want to teach Mango? I like "for every truth, there are half a million lies" ... I also like what young Daniel has learned, as Julie informed us today:
    ---
    Just when my sadness and anger was getting to me...we went to Danny's
    parent-teacher conference, and his teacher showed us an assignment
    he was given to write about what he would do if he had a Magic Wand.

    First, he would "get rid of McDonalds, Burger King, Jack-in-Box and the
    rest of the Axis of Evil." Then he would give "migrant farm workers,
    employees of WalMart and all homeless people better lives." Next
    he would "kick the Bush Administration out." After all that, he
    would "get an awesome surfboard and go surfing in Mexico."

    LOL. That's my boy!
    ---

... and then I also recalled what Fran had written to us recently:
    ---
    ... with a prayer that he will
    indeed be to his own self true; with courage, integrity, humor (read
    Pogo to him early on); a strong sense of justice (and the strength
    to work for that on every front). ... Above all that, as I
    always have hoped for my children: may he be happy
   and know true love.
    ---

After these weighty thoughts, I'll close with a couple more Foley-dog pictures as a palate-cleanser. Just because they're so damn cute.

Farewell to Dr. Wong, hello to loot

Last weekend, we crossed the wide Hudson to see That Squiffy Baby ... and the Lamberts showered us with Baby Stuff: a breast pump (it doesn't seem to work on me; I must be doing something wrong). a bottle sterilizer, a bassinet, a baby tub, &c., &c., &c. Thank you, Lamberts!! You are the coolest ... and I would say that even if Dave weren't in a dirty-country-music band.

The day after, we saw our beloved Dr. Wong, who gave us one last ultrasound (Mango was playing air drums and moshing) before gently breaking the news that we were switching to Valeriana's care. Greta got a little teary afterwards, but she'll be seeing him again post-partum for her regular girly-parts checkups, so we are comforted by the fact that he'll get to meet our little sprog.



Is it just me, or do breast pumps bear a striking resemblance to those obnoxious air horns that jerkweeds bring to sporting events?