You are becoming steadily more alert, Matteus. When you see Daddy or I lean in close, you peel back your upper lip a little in something like a smile. Yesterday you tracked the silver zing of a granola bar wrapper back and forth for a few minutes and you can raise your head, blue eyes bulging, for fifteen or twenty seconds at a time. Nights still aren't entirely predicable, but we're edging towards a routine. Usually a feeding between 9:00 and 10:00 and then another around 2:00 and another around 5:00. But sometimes there are three wake-ups. A couple times only one. The main problem is that you continue to keep Daddy and I awake even when you are asleep with your grunts and growls and mewling.
Yesterday was the first day of school. Daddy went up to teach (looking dapper in a lime green shirt and striped tie) at 7:30 and then you and Gak and I walked Thisbe to school. Your sister wore her Hello Kitty shirt for the second time this week. At the intersection of Highway 3 and 2nd street there was an accident, two white cars nosed against each other, fenders and grills ripped and bent and crippled. In one car, an older sister was taking her younger sisters to school. We saw the sisters emerge from an ambulance, twins dressed identically in skirts, backpacks snug against their spines, and cross the intersection to a minivan waiting to whisk them away--presumably to school.
Gak dropped Thisbe off and then she and I sat on the couch at Blue Monday, chocolate croissant and blueberry muffin between us, talking about my lesson plan (I told her I was going to have students write about their first experience with language) and her manuscript submission (the editor sent a quick e-mail saying she loved the writing and story but nothing more). You slept in the stroller, flaunting your new double chin, your skin shadowy and smooth in the low light of the cafe.
Then I dressed in a skirt and brushstroked shirt and black Mary Janes and walked up to campus. Mary Carlsen gave the opening convocation address (after all of the professors whooshed down the chapel aisle, fluttering like nervous birds in their academic apparel). She talked about coming in right. Entering into a place both correctly and ethically. She was talking, of course, about the entrance into the academic year and to the physical and psychological beginnings of the students' life on campus.
And then I sat with sixteen students around a square table and heard about their experiences with language: first words and Frank Sinatra lullabies and foreign languages and the monotone diction of news reporters. We looked at the syllabus and talked about what makes a poem and then what makes a good poem. They were lovely--bright and eager. Thoughtful. Ready with answers and ready to talk to one another to come up with better answers. After class Daddy and I walked home and (after greeting and feeding you) took you to the Cow. Actually, before we took you to the Cow you shat all over me. One moment I was cooing at you, explaining how much I missed you and the next moment there was warm excrement soaking through my tank top.
At the Cow, you watched the ceiling fan and Daddy drank a beer and then another and I drank a glass of pinot gris and then a half a glass more. Gak and Thisbe showed up and sat beside us on the red couch, reading a horrible book about a mermaid Barbie and a surfing competition. It was lovely.
Newborns, however, scoff at those words. And so, while one part of our lives falls into a rhythm (classes, Sunday school, dance lessons, choir, stacks of papers, department e-mails), the part of our life that is you refuses to be pinned down or predictable. So our rhythm instead has become the movement from known to unknown, from planned meeting to unplanned feeding, from manicured student smiles to your seedling grin.
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