Nico News #4

Dear Friends and Family,

Nico is closing in on four months of age and he is teaching us that love is not born in an instant but blossoms over time. In the evening, after a hard day of playing, crying and sucking, I watch Nico totally in love. He sleeps soundly, his little barrel chest rising and falling, a scrumptious baby sigh slipping out between his lips.

Other evenings, when Mike returns from the office, we have a NAKED BABY ALERT--Mike strips Nico to his birthday suit and cradles him in his palms as he carries him through the air to the bath. Nico is stoic and maybe even enjoys the bath.

Then there was the wonderful moment last week when I took Nico to Mike's work for a book party and to be doted on by Mike's colleagues. I breast-fed Nico in a back office and after gulping down his milk, Nico smiled at me and took the BIGGEST POOP OF HIS LIFE, right there in the office! He pooped up, he pooped down. When I got his clothes off it appeared that Nico had even gotten poop up on his shoulder. I found this move irreverent and wonderful.

Our attachment grows... One thing we've discovered is that Nico is the BEST AUDIENCE EVER. We sing to him, loudly with rattles and a whole lot of dancing. Mike uses Nico's lotion bottle as a microphone and I shake his baby rattle and my hips like I'm a Temptation. He loves it! He thinks we're great. Hey, maybe we really are talented.

Then to prove that love isn't logical, rational or ever prudent, there was the... FIRE ALARM INCIDENT. In late December, we took Nico on his first airplane ride to Connecticut to visit Auntie KK (my sister Caitlin) for her baby shower (Caitlin is expecting a baby boy in April). To save money, we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Guilford, now known to us as the UnComfortable Inn. At 8 am on Saturday morning some poor customer of the UnComfortable Inn had an unlucky run-in with the toaster in the mini kitchen in the lobby. Apparently, this customer blackened his toast and simultaneously set the fire alarm off in the entire hotel. Mike and I were in a deep slumber until the untimely toasting mistake. In Mike's defense, the fire alarm did sound like the arrival of a space ship--high pitched screeching. So poor Mike is ejected out of what was probably one of the soundest sleeps he'd had in a few weeks of child-raising. Testosterone pumping, Mike, the father of an infant, flies upright swinging like he's Daniel Day-Lewis in the final scene of Last of the Mohicans. And for some reason decides he needs clock his wife in the back of the head! Apparently, he was reaching for the radio alarm on my side of the bed because he thought it was going off. (I still don't quite understand the logic, if any, behind this move.)

Anyway, the next thing that happens is that Mike--who is probably still asleep and acting from the depths of his subconscious--picks up the baby who is sleeping in the king-sized bed with us and tucks him under his arm like a football. Still swinging like a prize fighter Mike jumps off the bed. At this point, I am fully awake and I start yelling, "It's a fire alarm, it's a fire alarm." Mike looks at me and then heads for the window, tearing aside the curtains where he sees that we are on the second floor and he calculates that he can probably make the jump to the ground with the baby safely in his arms.

Fortunately, before jumping Mike seems to wakes up and think better of the move as there is no sign fire or smoke or anything dangerous at all!

Love...is a liquid that flows through our veins. Love...makes us tender and strong beyond our imagination. Now we joke that Mike saved Nico from the toaster but in reality Nico is very, very loved by two people and as he grows and becomes more himself I hope he will be loved by you, too. To help you fall in love with him, go to the Picasa links to see more pictures!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan/SantaBaby
http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan/NicoSGrowing
http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan/FebruaryPhotos