We have become
those people. The people with the baby. The people who other passengers pray won't sit next to them. And when we did, our neighbours subtly shook their heads, plugged themselves into
iPods and prayed again for small mercies.
I tried to reach out to these people and told them that she will probably be good but to feel free to curse at me the way i always wanted to do when
someone's baby was screaming through the whole flight. Nobody took me up on it. I think they were now more afraid of me that Schuyler's impending lung power.
Fortunately, Schuyler was nonplussed by the airborne experience and scarcely offered anything above a "coo". So now we are in Vermont for Schuyler's first trip to the green mountain state to meet her maternal grandparents. We arrived at Annie and
Flip's house and then Schuyler unleashed all the pent up
lung power she'd be restraining from both flights in an almighty screaming session for a half hour or so despite
Neville Chamberlain sized attempts at appeasement on our part. She calmed and played with a new toy Flip and Annie got her ("it has a light show!") for the rest of the evening. We blame the jet lag. An hour time difference is seven in dog years. And she is about the size of a small dog. Anyway, she slept through the night and we're all ready for vacation.
Being smarter than the current president, we thought we would make Schuyler's path to the presidency easier by sorting out her "Consular Report of Birth" so she won't run into the same problems as Sen. McCain. This is essentially another birth certificate that the US gov issues to state that she is American by birth.
Studies have shown that sleep deprivation will drive a person to do some strange things. This, perhaps, is not a typical reaction. Who knew a trip to the hardware store could be so much fun?
Schuyler has taken "baby fat" to a whole new level with her recent Michelin Man look. She's working on toning in her new activity centre (which is apparently much more stimulating than the walls and closets she has had to stare at for entertainment in the past). It's much better than her starving baby look of her first couple of weeks of life.
There are many great and wonderful things about having Mum and Dad back on the island but one of the best is moments like this. She's one lucky girl. And Schuyler is pretty lucky too.
I always thought i was being a little bit naive when i got Magic and announced that he was our training ground for kids. i thought there was probably an unfathomable gulf between owning a puppy and caring for a newborn. And i was half right. Owning a dog definitely prepares you for the quasi-constant responsibility, getting up in the middle of the night to tend to them and also a lot of conversations that involve the word "poop". Dogs don't indulge your narcissism, don't learn to smile and laugh and are more resilient when you drop them. Plus you can lock them in your home all day and nobody calls the cops. But one unexpected way in which they are similar to kids is bath time. They pretend to hate it initially with a minor protest and then spend the rest of the time enjoying the attention and trying to slurp the water.
During Schuyler's first swim last week we decided to put some of our newfound baby erudition into practice by testing the dive reflex wherein very young babies will automatically hold their breath when taken underwater. Afterwards, i felt like maybe it was possibly a stupid thing to do. Research reveals that this is a pretty common thing done in Germany. And Germans have never led us astray in the past, so i feel comforted.
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