rebel without a shoe (or, how to question authority)

ok, ok, i know it's been a long while, but i was busy. write 2 papers a week for four months and then see how much time you have!

anyways, quite a bit has happened since last we spoke. emmi is now running around like crazy: climbing, jumping, and squeezing through any obstacle in such a way, it would make even the best catburgler jealous. she has also learned to test her limits. this is both an annoyance and a source of pride to me. i am proud that she questions authority; the only problem is that *i* am the authority. i am convinced that she knowingly does this, too. just before she does something, let's say, shake the side table with the lamp on it, as i'm saying no to her, she will look at me as if to say, 'i'm gonna do it anyway, beotch!' and then look me right in the eye and smirk at me! then when i get up to stop her, she runs away giggling like an effin' hyena! she has also invented several interesting ways to remove her shoes and socks. and then there's the touching. if it isn't nailed on, strapped in, glued to or otherwise attached, she will grab it. i know my father is looking down on me laughing his ass off every time i tell emmi to stop touching things she is not supposed to touch.

emmi is very much into the baby talk now as well. she can say a few words and even some simple sentences, but for the most part it's gibberish and sounds, although i wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that she was speaking mandarin chinese.

then there is the big news: emmi is going to be a big sister! yup, due almost exactly 2 years apart from emmi. we are doing the same thing as the first time around - we won't know if it's a boy or girl until it's on this side of the uterus.

she's gonna be a great big sister, but i can see this conversation taking place:

'ok kid, let's get a few things straight…rule #1: i'm in charge. rule #2: don't forget rule #1.'

'gagaga…'

'ok. glad we're on the same page.'

then they will both find their way into the cupboard and re-decorate the kitchen using flour, sugar, and chef boyardee cans.

stop laughing at me, dad.

sippycup part 2 (or, how to skip a few steps)

so emmi is nearing 14 months old, and we decided it's time to retire the bottle. since last we spoke on the topic, emmi was not having any of this sippycup nonsense. so we then spent a small fortune on what seemed to be every single type, brand, model and size of sippycup ever made. finally, we had a breakthrough, using...a damn juice box. seems emmi prefers straws to sippycups, and took to the little juicebox straws like an old pro. so we went digging into our plethora of cups and found that we had 2 straw-based sippycups that she actually started using! hallelujah!

not so fast.

apparently, if it is in a sippycup, it better be juice, because milk is not an option. she takes one sip, makes a face, then pushes it away like we just offered her a cupful of blech. but you put that milk in a bottle and she gulps it down like a frat boy to beer.

after about 3 days of this milk strike, another breakthrough. if she doesn't drink from the sippycup, doesn't drink from the straw, and mommy and daddy do not cave and bring back the bottle, what's next? at this point, my lovely wife has an epiphany:

yup. do not pass go, do not collect $200, go right to drinking straight from the cup.

i should make her reimburse us for the 593 sippycups now collecting dust once she has an allowance.

caldo verde (or, how to bridge the past and the future)

emmi had soup for lunch the other day. it was an ordinary day, and it wasn't the first time she's had soup, but it was significant. the soup she had was caldo verde, a portuguese soup made from collard greens. again, not out of the ordinary, i have been eating it all my life. but this batch was different.

as i've said before, my dad died the same week we found out kathy was pregnant, so she will never ever get to meet her grandfather. he loved cooking, and as kathy can tell you, i've picked up a lot of his mannerisms in the kitchen. as a function of having a wife, three kids, a mother-in-law, and whomever of our friends who happened to be over for dinner that night, he was fond of making huge batches of stuff and freezing them: chili, spaghetti sauce, etc. and caldo verde. a few months ago, i had found a batch in the freezer that he made before he died and had given to me. the night before, we decided to have it for dinner, i knew what it was and what it represented, but it didn't occur to me until the next day when i said i'd give some to emmi for lunch that it really hit me: here she is, eating something made for her by her grandfather. i'm not really too big on the sentimental stuff, but this kinda just felt like a big deal to me. it was something of my dad's that he created that i can share with her. it kinda makes me feel like he is a part of her life, even though he isn't here.

emmi ate it and loved it. and so did i.

birth day (or, how to never forget)

as of 10:53 pm tonight, emmi has been on this side of the world for a whole year now. it still amazes me how much i remember from that day. as we know, i am more than a little scatterbrained, and i'm usually hazy on details not 10 minutes after the fact. the roller coaster actually started the night before around 1am when kathy said something i will never forget: 'ok. either i just peed myself, or my water broke...'

the contractions started around 2am, and me being the nerd i am, has to punch the 'start/stop' button on the handydandy contraction timing iphone app. folks, when apple says 'there's an app for that', they really effin' mean it. but i digress.

our first step is to labor a few hours at home, then go to the doctor's office. the act of walking into the office from the car was a 10 minute process. walk a few steps, contraction, breathe, massage, breathe....aaaand we're clear! once there, the doctor takes one looks and says, 'oh yeah, we're having a baby today.' ok, on to the hospital!

upon arriving at the maternity floor, we discovered that all the rooms were full, and that we would have to wait until a room opened up. this is where i learned the most valuable lesson of having a child: no matter how well and thoroughly you plan, something will always throw it off in some way. we had an entire plan of playing relaxing music, kathy quietly meditating, possibly even laboring in the shower to ease the pains. instead, for the first few hours, poor kathy is laying in a bed in the c-section recovery area, complete with a fresh-out-of-surgery mommy (as well as all the things that go with post-c-section), nurses constantly walking in and out, and a husband with a gallon-sized red bull in his hand constantly asking 'are you ok?'

finally a room opens up, so they roll kathy into her new private room. it's been close to 12 hours of labor, and by this time, she is getting tired and she decides to get an epidural, not so much to ease the pain of the delivery, really just to take the edge off so she can rest. it is this time that i go to get the most non-offensive smelling lunch i can find.

after a few more hours, it's time to push!!! and push!! and push! and push. and. push. my beautiful wife pushed for 3. effin. hours. there was a point the doctors and nurses left and i was the only one in there with her! after the threat of a c-section, to which kathy replied 'i have not been here pushing for 3 hours to have a c-section!', finally a little 6 lb. 13 oz. peanut made her debut.

we did not know she was a her. we didn't find out in advance if the baby was going to be a boy or girl. there are so few true happy surprises in life, and we took this chance to do it the old fashioned way - we'll know when it gets here.

only problem was, now that she was here, we still didn't know. the doctor, forgetting we didn't know in advance, turned to start cleaning up, and as it is laying on kathy's belly, the umbilical cord was covering up the telltale parts. and i was not about to go lifting it up like a kid peeking under the covers. kathy asked, 'what is it?' i said, 'i don't know!' i turned to the doctor, and he was almost out in the hallway! i had to chase him and get him back to lift up the cord to see what was (or as it turned out, wasn't) there. as i turned and got close to kathy and excitedly said to her, 'it's a girl! it's a girl!' she looked up and said, 'what??' her pregnancy hunch was that it was going to be a boy. i honestly had no clue; as long as it came out with 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 arms, 2 legs and 1 head, i was happy. they cleaned her off, i cut the umbilical cord, (it feels very similar to cutting raw calamari) and then there she was, emmi delfina.

as i held emmi in my arms for the first time, i couldn't help but be amazed how alert she was. her eyes darted back, forth, up, down, and all around as if to say, 'hoooly crap where the hell am i? that was really freakin' trippy...'

a whole year later, it is still exciting, and scary as hell, to say the phrase, 'i have a daughter.' as she gets older, i'm looking forward to doing lots of things with her, but i'm not rushing. she took long enough to come out, i may as well follow her example and take my time and just enjoy being with her.

happy birthday beautiful baby. daddy loves you.

two small steps, one giant leap (or, how to beam with pride)

it wasn't much, but it was a lot.

emmi took her first unassisted steps tonight, in full view of me, kathy, and her godparents who happened to be on a video chat at the time. for a few weeks she's been doing a tippytoe-goosestep looking walk when holding someone's hands, and even more recently taking steps with holding just one hand, as well as cruising around any and every piece of furniture in the living room that will support her, and some that won't support her; in those cases she usually ends up on her butt with a 'wtf??' face. she has even been standing up on her own, and when she does, you can see that she is trying to figure out what should happen next.

but tonight was different. in what could be described as looking like a drunken stumble, emmi took two unassisted steps from her stand up piano to the sofa. not really believing what we just saw, we guided her back and she did it again! she knew she had done something great, because she was as excited as a squirrel in a room full of acorns.

we were excited, too. how could you not be? here's this little peanut, two days away from her first birthday, having this seminal moment in which she begins to truly take control of her own destiny. we take for granted our ability to walk, but for emmi (and all babies) it is literally a leap of faith.

well, tonight those first two steps were her leap. and nothing is gonna stop her now.