It always rains in England

May 11, 2011

Or so we thought. This is a photo of Ben prior to our wild adventure across the ocean for him to meet his Great-Grandad, who is 96 (and maybe, coincidentally, to watch the royal wedding live in the Motherland!). How could I resist this completely unnecessary raincoat at Value Village? I dare any of you to resist it! Suffice it to say we scored the balmiest and sunniest April in recorded history in the UK. I even got a light sunburn. It was global warming at its best. Spring was in a full riot of color and Ben was positively gobsmacked by seeing trees with leaves! He watched them swaying in the wind both with the fervor of a World Cup fan and the romance of a poet. He lay in the grass looking up, miniature daisies crowning his sweet head. Heaven. The little bugger also learned more about the powerful instrument in his throat, much to our amusement and bewilderment. A constant string of happy chatter accompanied our daily doings, with a particularly cute gurgling sound accompanied by an inwardly curled lower lip. Since everything has its shadow, our precious little baby also learned to HOWL when he wants something (let’s remember he is a quarter Italian and a quarter Russian and has started teething). Holy cannoli, he goes from 0-60 in 3 seconds flat! And, as many of us can appreciate, a boob in the mouth (if anything; not vodka) was his only solace for such a cry. I often felt so helpless. I can occasionally calm him down with a variety of tricks (mainly patience, determination, bouncing on the exercise ball and making this weird motorboat noise with my lips), but it helps if Ben can’t see or hear A. Poor A is more stuck at home than ever before! Or at least, she can’t be without him for too long in case of a sudden tear-tsunami. I hesitate to use that destructive nature metaphor which has so ravaged our friends in Japan. Sometimes though, this new cry of his feels like a force of nature, coming out of the blue and ripping through our house with wave after wave of noise. I actually ran home from work to help A deal with a particularly potent session yesterday.

Anyway, we count our blessings that Ben was so good on the plane (boob was always available). He also completely seduced Grandad. I think the feelings were mutual. We can’t believe he’s 4 months old on May 17th. Every day is so different, every favorite onesie is getting outgrown to be replaced with new favorites, and now we are officially retiring the bassinet. Today. With no immediately implementable back-up plan. It just crept up on us! He’s been wiggling out of rather tight swaddles, and then flaying his arms around smacking the basket-woven sides of his bassinet. He’s also too long for it. In England he slept in a foamie-lined dresser drawer on the floor. Hmm…

E