Texas is calling.

Until Nicolaus was born we wanted to live here forever. Well, not here but this part of the country. Our plan was to eventually move further out, maybe into the mountains.

For some reason Kevin’s been itching to move, ready for a change. I’m open to it, so we went for a drive to explore areas that might be nice to live. Sigh, Georgia is so beautiful and this time of year you really start to wonder what you did to deserve this perfect weather. And yet as we were winding through hilly, tree-framed neighborhoods, the thought suddenly hooked into me: we should move back to Texas. But in my head it sounded stupid, so I didn’t say it. We kept driving around oohing at the mountain views and the trees and the beautiful old houses. And then Kevin said, “We should move to Texas.”

Out loud, it sounded like the right answer. It seemed so obvious. Texas! Why didn’t we think of it before!

Before the new puppy showed up, we valued our time alone, our freedom to do whatever we want. Now we suddenly want to be near family — and more to the point we want Nicolaus to be near family. If we move to Texas he can spend summers at the lake fishing with Kevin’s parents and weekends at my parents’ shop learning to play the fiddle. We suddenly realized that those things will do him a lot more good than perfect seasons and beautiful scenery.

Lucky we didn’t name him Tex.

Just when you’re about to walk outside and give your baby to the first person you see, he looks at you with a huge toothless grin, stretches his fisted hands way above his head, yawns with total abandon and finishes off with a syrupy coo. Ooooooooh, yes he is diabolical.

I had planned to update my journal with a somber reflection on the war in Iraq, with poetic prose reflecting a mix of feelings of relief that it is finally starting (the sooner it will be over), intellectual curiosity watching the politics play out and trying to understand those who vehemently oppose the war, and a strange new kind of sadness that comes not from a theoretical “war sucks” line of thought, but rather from just looking at my baby and imagining a young mother living in Baghdad looking at her baby and fearing for his life.

But then I got dressed this morning and guess what?
I FIT INTO MY JEANS FROM LAST FREAKING SUMMER!

So screw all that, I’m dancing around the house to the rockin’ beat of the Gipsy Kings.

In case you haven’t seen them already, here are pictures from a couple of weeks ago
http://www.tiffanyard.com/nico/index2.htm

I don’t know if you can tell in these pictures, but certain people may be happy to note that Nicolaus’ hair has a definite reddish tint, and in sunlight it looks very red indeed.

What happened to my dominant brown eye/dark hair genes? Questions as to whether I am the real mother are being raised. Kevin being so promiscuous and all.

So I’ve been a slacker about updating my journal lately. That’s because babies are hard work! Okay, honestly the work is easy but it never stops! So that’s exhausting. I think of ideas of journal entries, but I either forget them or by the time I have a minute to post an entry, the thing I was going to post isn’t true any more.

New parent exhaustion is a cliche for a reason. When you have a baby your idea of a good night’s sleep changes completely. I used to be really particular about getting good sleep, 9 hours at a time, ideally starting at two or three in the morning. Now if I get four hours I am thrilled. They can be any time of day; I don’t care! I will gladly get up at six AM if I’ve had four whole hours of sleep. It’s fucked up.

Last night was rough. Nicolaus has been having tummy troubles for the past week, and yesterday he was fussy and awake all day long. If you held him and sang to him he would snooze but the second you stopped singing or moved to a more comfortable position … or, heaven forbid, put him down, he would wake up screaming at you about how could you be such an idiot and what the hell do you think you’re doing. He’s remarkably articulate for a 5-week-old baby, and he runs a tight ship.

So last night I tried to feed him and put him to bed, but instead ended up with i>mein bed with Nicolaus and I both in tears.

Luckily Kevin rescued me. He took Nicolaus downstairs and told me to get some rest. I felt guilty and horrible for about one minute before I fell sound asleep. Bliss! For over four hours! I woke up around six feeling refreshed, with renewed love for my infant son.