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L. will be 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow. We're expecting the baby boy to arrive pretty much any day now. We have an appointment with a nurse at the hospital on Thursday. Our doula will be away in Maine until Thursday, so we're hoping to hold out until then. Of course, there is apparently a tax advantage to having the baby this week, as opposed to ( Read more... )

Before heading up to Canada, we had bought little A. a Personal Floatation Device. We were looking for something that was a little more swimming-oriented, but didn't find anything her size. But we brought the PFD up with us, excited about the prospect of taking her out on the water ( Read more... )

A. turned one today. She's having a "two-grandma day" to celebrate. My mom flew in yesterday and she and A. came down with D. and I to Springfield. L. made a little poster for her room with a picture of A. saying "I'm one today," but I haven't done anything like that. But I did get to go have lunch with A. and spoon her spoonfuls of turkey-corn ( Read more... )

I watched the inaugural in the little coffee shop in the D'Amour Library at WNEC today. Luckily, it was between classes for me. First, I wandered down to the Bear's Den in the lower level of the cafeteria. They had projection screens set up down there and they appeared to be giving out free food, but I didn't see a good place to sit, so I went to ( Read more... )

All up and down the aisles of Trinity church, the enormous chorus guru was leading children in a line, singing a Yiddish folk song. It was Nick Page and the Children's Chorus of Springfield, yesterday afternoon, in a community sing event. It was a lot of fun. Page led the group in a variety of sing-a-longs. He was a very big man, and he had an ( Read more... )

We were standing in line for coffee at Rao's in Amherst. A. was a star. A lot of people noticed her, with her salmon-pink hat and yellow Ecuadorian sweater. There was a toddler who came up and pointed. "Yeah, that's a baby," her mom said. The toddler started grabbing for A.'s spoon. I smiled and the mom was good about pulling the toddler away and ( Read more... )

I took A. to the doctor this morning for her nine month appointment and she weighed 6.8 kg or about 15 pounds, which puts her very close to being "on the chart" for weight. She measured 26.6 inches long and I forget what the head measurement was. But things looked good. When we got home, she feasted on warm cereal and apricot-pear puree with an ( Read more... )

Spent the day grading papers. Got depressingly few done. I had my students write about this David Brooks column in the New York Times, "The Revolt of the Nihilists." It was my "text wrestling" essay. It perhaps wasn't the easiest piece of writing to grapple with for my students. Brooks wrote on deadline in the middle of the economic crisis and didn ( Read more... )

L. and I were recalling yesterday, as we were walking with a friend, how A. was born on the day of the primary election in Massachusetts. It was not only Mardi Gras, but also Super Tuesday. L. was telling the story about how, after her water broke at one in the morning, I had told her that I wanted to make sure I got to the polls to vote that day. ( Read more... )