Ikea

We are becoming Ikea people.

We long held out, not so much in the deliberate sense, like I held out for years from reading the Harry Potter series; we just didn't go. Friends would ask us: "Have you been to Ikea yet?" and we would say, "No, we haven't gotten out there yet. One of these days..." Of course, in those new-baby-without-a-car-to-take-him-places days, we didn't go anywhere we didn't have to go. It was a narrow cycle of grocery stores, doctor's appointments and the occasional visit to dear friends. Ikea seemed a long ways off, and what money did we have to spend there, anyway?

Well, we have been there now, and it is, I must say, pretty sweet. The prices are excellent (although there are certainly some prices I could not begin to sneeze at) and the quality seems pretty good (coming as it is from dirty Swedes). My wife and I agree that much of the Ikea "look" is not our "look"; we hanker more for classicism rather than contemporary Euro styling in our home. So I don't think we will be setting up any big Ikea items in our pad anytime soon. But for useful everyday things, the verdict is simple: we love Ikea!

Cod: Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

What a fine little book. I have been sitting on this for something like three years, and I finally dusted it off. I am not typically intrigued by matters of economic history, but this was just fascinating. Who knew a fish could be so important to the unfolding of a thousand years of world events? Although having grown up with a fifteen-foot statue of a cod at the entrance to my hometown, I might have guessed that something bigger than lutefisk was at stake. Highly recommended (the book, not the lutefisk, although I do enjoy a small bowl at Christmas).

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

I don't usually go for paranormal-heavy conspiracy theory stuff, but I couldn't pass this one up. Imagine an ultra-secret Black Ops program to train American soldiers to walk through walls, achieve invisibility, and even have the power to kill a goat just by staring at it. According to Ronson's research, just such a program existed in the late 1970's, and his interviews with the various people involved indicate a renewed interest in such bizarre schemes as part of the War on Terror. An absolutely fascinating little book. I couldn't put it down for a minute, which is something that I haven't been able to say for a long, long time.

I am a father now

I am a father now. This is something that I have always wanted to be; even during the years I was studying to be a priest my thoughts were often turned to the family it appeared I would never get to have. And now here I am, a little baby boy asleep on my shoulder, a little person who will look to my wife and I for his every need for the next, well, for many years to come. This set of circumstances seems to have a particularly difficult time in seeming real to me. I am not in denial or anything, but this is taking more getting used to than I had expected.

He is a beautiful little fellow. I know this is because he looks so much like me, but it is still something I marvel at. He is an exquisite creation, with his tiny little fingers and toes, his toothless grin, his querelous hairless eyebrows. I treasure him, for I know that I am undeserving of such a wonderful charge. I hope I do not fail him, I hope he will not be disappointed when he grows up and learns that I am his father. I hope that he will love me, as I most certainly love him.

I am a father. I have a son. I am happy.

Heads on backwards

Why is it that whenever babies lie on their backs with their head turned to the side, it looks as if their heads are on backwards? It never fails, and it puzzles us.

We have a son!

Oh strange and overwhelming day! After the longest day I can ever remember, after unspeakable suffering on the part of my beloved wife, at half past midnight our beautiful little baby came out into the world. I cannot wait to tell you more about him, but there is a lot of sleep to catch up on first.

At the end of a dungeon crawl ... a Wild Baby!

I was out late last night, over at a friend's house playing Dungeons & Dragons until two o'clock in the morning. I haven't done that in quite a while, and it was a lot of fun!

When I arrived home, Anita was deeply asleep. The baby, however, was not. "Like a typewriter in reverse," I told my sisters tonight; "Like some sort of crazed octopus," I told my co-workers. Our child was just going nuts in there! As I slid quietly into bed next to my slumbering wife, I put my hand on her tummy as I always do, just to have my whole family there in my arms, and holy cow! A flurry of activity such as I have not felt before, all over the landscape of Anita's belly. I cannot imagine which limbs were involved, but there were a powerful lot of them, all flailing away like a gang of people who flail at things with their limbs. It was overwhelming; I nearly cried, I was so excited, but I did it quietly so as not to wake Anita, who really needs all her sleep.

Names

People have to have names. I mean, how confusing would it be otherwise? We have finally settled on a pair of names for our new little person: Anwara Mairead for a girl, Aidan McGrew for a boy. Pretty neat, huh?

A bit of background is called for, I suppose. Anwara is the name of the mother character in The Moorchild by McGraw, a book we listened to together on our honeymoon. It also, coincidentally, means "to bring to light" in Arabic. Mairead is the Gaelic spelling of Margaret, and is pronounced may-read.

Anita has always liked the actor Aidan Quinn, so that brought Aidan to the table. But as we looked into it, there were a lot of reasons for us to pick this name. There were no fewer than fourteen Irish saints named Aidan, which is the diminutive, or nickname, of Aodh, the ancient Irish sun-god, which ties in nicely with Anita's love of the sun and especially early morning. McGrew is the little brother character in The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt, one of Anita's all-time favorites, and a book that Aldean had to read and be quizzed on when we first started dating before the relationship could proceed. (Thankfully I passed!)

We found a midwife

I think we have found our midwife. It was a pretty easy decision for us to make regarding our desire for a home birth; I have some vicarious experience with the home births of my two youngest siblings, and Anita has no interest in having such a personal and spiritual event as a birth medicalized in a hospital setting. But actually seeking out and selecting a midwife? That sounded like an awfully grown-up undertaking!

But we found her! Anita did a lot of online searching, and we interviewed and selected Rachel McGraw. She is surprisingly young; as Anita put it, "When I think midwife, I think old wise woman, I think crone." But she is well-qualified and we think we will have a wonderful experience of pregnancy and birth with her assistance.