Prenuptial reflections

Big Poppa here, in a very empty, rather quiet apartment. Ash and Ezra have embarked on a scouting mission in Santa Fe, and I will reinforce them tomorrow. The last couple of weeks have been a blur of wedding planning. As a family, we are not the most organized bunch. We have trouble keeping our home fit for habitation, let alone finessing the complex choreography of a largeish wedding weekend. But things have begun falling into place -- we'll be busy over the next week, but it's starting to seem doable.

The sleep progress has been tremendous. We have more-or-less consolidated our gains from last week -- very little crying, and one feeding in the course of the night. And then, on Thursday night, out of no where the kid slept through the night. I mean really through the night -- no wakings from about 7pm to about 6am! Holy crap! Then, just to drive it home, he repeated this tremendous feat the next night! We are in shock. It just does not compute with our now-mangled circadian rhythms any more, so naturally we, well, mostly Ash, have been waking up in the middle of the night on our own, wondering if he is still alive. Happily, the answer is yes.

Of course, all this happens JUST in time to completely blow up our finely-honed routine by schlepping the family across the country to Santa Fe. Early word is slightly troubling -- I guess last couple of nights' sleep was less than satisfactory. We have witnessed how quickly the training can unravel, and fully suspect that all will be undone shortly. But we have also witnessed how quickly we can get back on the straight and narrow, if we're brave. So we hope we can build on our earlier successes once we're back in Chi. And then we'll muck it all up a month later when we go to Alaska ... and the circle of life turns on and on. I characterize this as two steps forward, two steps back. (cue Paula Abdul)

In other news, Ezra's bottom two teeth are gradually revealing themselves. He's handled teething pretty well so far. And his meal repertoire is slowly expanding. I'm told he had his first multicourse Mexican meal the other night: pinto beans, guacamole, quesadilla. And saltines.

Soon Ezra will have two legally married parents, and we'll be able to post pictures of Ezra from our wedding! I head out first thing tomorrow morning. Terribly exciting stuff. Thanks to all for the well-wishes.

Much love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez