a beautiful day

When we clean up for company, it’s as if the house perks up, like a dog that knows it’s been good and is waiting for a pat on the head.

Kelly brought these fancy doughnuts from a shop in San Francisco. The box was plain brown cardboard. Inside, huckleberry-meyer lemon, bacon-maple, and deep-fried chocolate cake doughnuts.

How many years of evolution did it take to produce the bacon-maple doughnut? It was worth the wait/weight. Genius.

Nicole brought a perfectly-cooked vegetable fritatta full of sauteed onions, tomatoes, confetti-ed through with snips of fresh parsley, in a huge cast iron pan. She borrowed the largest possible chef’s knife from the block in my kitchen to cut and serve it. I tend to worry that knives are going to somehow fall on the floor and harm a nearby child. Especially large knives. No such thing happened today. In retrospect, the knife was proportional to the giant pan.

Kathy brought a fruit salad which I did not eat as I was getting all of my sweet rations met by the douggghhh nuuuutssss.

Kelly and Nicole brought their husbands, and children.

Jonah had a playdate with a 7-month-old, a 20-month-old, and a 3-year old.

Kathy came solo on her mom’s day out. We thanked her for being willing to spend part of her kid-free day around our kids.

We moms sat in the dining room and talked about language development and potty training and epidurals while the boys (big and small) played in the nursery.

It was like no time had passed. 20 years since we’ve graduated from high school. A few wrinkles (barely!) and these families we’ve all practically just recently begun.

At 12:30 I cleared the nursery. Naptime! (What right do I have to declare an actual nap time? I still act as if he might take a midday nap every day, even if objects are sometimes larger than they appear in the rear view mirror. Plus, the kid seemed like his synapses were frying. Or maybe those were my synapses?) Within minutes, the room was empty, reasonably straightened up, and it was just the two of us.

We nursed, we sang, we rocked. He also had two bottles. He complained because he wanted to play with a superman magnet I’d stupidly let him take off the fridge during our foray to the kitchen for bottle number two and I took it away. But eventually, that passed. At 1 p.m. I exited the nursery, victorious.

All three women gave me the bow of acknowledging mom-awesomeness. “You got him to nap? I never would have been able to do that with people around.”

I know. It was a miracle. I tried, I persevered, it worked.

The truly amazing part? He slept till almost 4 p.m. Longest nap on record.

The party broke up around 2 as everyone else’s nap times were rapidly approaching, and Kathy had to go for her pedicure.

Jonah woke up at 2:15 (wait, I thought you just said he slept till 4).

I went in, he was crawling around his crib, mushing his face into the mattress, and whimpering. I held him, nursed him, he fell back to sleep on my lap. I napped with him until 3. Put him back down in the crib, and he just kept on sleepin’.

Woo hoo!

Elina and Laszlo and his grandmoms came over just as Jonah was waking up. Party, round 2. Jonah was thrilled. He shared his toys (as much as a 14 month old can share) showed off his verbal skills and stacking abilities, and demanded that we dance. So we did. Me carrying him around and round and bouncing him up and down, him grinning and shouting orders (as needed) and pumping his legs like the double barrelled wagging dog tails that they are.

And then we all went for a walk. In the waning sun, the day still warm. Arizmendi was closed so we went for Mexican food instead though I had to go to Trader Joe’s first to get “brea-duh” for Jonah since I’d promised it to him and he wouldn’t stop talking about it. We circled the bread display and he pointed very clearly at a particular sourdough baguette. He wanted THAT ONE and I obliged.

Somehow I was unclear on how late it was getting and I neglected to buy anything dinner-like for Jonah but fortunately Elina shared her burrito and her sweet oatmeal stash.

A bit after 6 we were heading back up the hill, on foot. Dangerously close to bedtime. One block up, Jonah demanded to nurse. DEMANDED TO NURSE. So I stopped, dropped down onto the cold pavement and nursed. Fortunately that only took a few minutes and so we resumed our walk, with all four of us singing songs to the tired and cranky boys as we harmoniously huffed up the hill in the still-warm twilight dark.

We all kissed goodbye at the bottom of the stairs and I took the boy, shouting “moon! moon!” to the evening star, to bed.

Do you need a diaper change?

No.

Do you want to read books with Daddy?

No.

Bottle?

No. Nurse.

We nursed. And I sang and rocked while I nursed him. But tonight was one of those nights where he couldn’t quite nurse himself to sleep. I told him it was time for bed, got up, carrying him to the crib.

I asked, “Which song do you want?”

“Pat,” he said.

I sang Pat-a-cake four times through, in my best going-to-sleep-song voice. And then I sang “Don’t fence me in” because I could tell he still wasn’t tired. And then I put him down and as he snuggled his face into his doggy/lovey/blanket thing, he said, “Nap!”

I rubbed his back for a bit, and then said Goodnight.

About five minutes later, Scott and I were walking past the nursery and heard noises. Jonah was making little toning sounds, like he was experimenting with singing. Maybe.

And then he was asleep.

And then Scott and I ate the pork roast that was so good it would be rated three x’s if it were a movie.

Yum.