isoglossia

Sunrise-heavy this month.

Last month’s skies

Magda, the photo archivist here at isoglossia.com, dug through some old pictures of the big one and matched them up with some more recent shots of the small one. Can you tell who is who? Answers are in mouse-overs, for those who can manage such things.

From the “we already owned all the crap” argument for having more than one kid.

The sun finally broke through and my relatives finally broke down, begging us to show them something more interesting than the inside of a grocery store. So we dropped the big one off with his sitter to play with a giant basketball-playing M&M, left Magda home with the parasite (”I’ve seen Ljubljana before”), and drove east to the capital via the Roman military ruins at Ad Pirum, invisible under crunchy snow. Then came the inevitable but always entertaining circular tour of Ljubljana’s old center. Playing with the new Lensbaby in nearly every picture:

It was noon when we started in Prešernov trg

They’ve replaced the acid-etched marble figures on the Robbia fountain with pasty-white resin replicas

By half past twelve we were climbing Castle Hill

And a few minutes later were entering the castle

We spent a long time atop the tower, enjoying the sun and looking down at where we’d started

And took

Some pictures of

Rooftops sprinkled with sneg

Descending, ended up at the Dragon Bridge

“That thing is scarier in pictures than in real life,” my sister says

In the public market, we bought raspberries but gawked at fractal vegetables

Passed a famous landmark without pausing for a drink

And ended up back where we’d started

I don’t yet know what I’m doing with that Lensbaby, but am willing to put in some time. Which I have so much of.

The last ten days have been full and busy, but not in the way you might expect. Suddenly having twice as many children in the house has been something of an adjustment, but not nearly as drastic as we’d anticipated.

Magda and Alek came home from the hospital last week after the minimum allowable stay. Their Wednesday release surprised us all after the ten-day stint Adam required, the sickly little twig, two winters ago. In the last week we’ve been working Alek into a routine, which he’s adopted quite willingly, and nipping any incipient jealousy in the bud in the case of Adam. Big brother seems adequately distracted, though, by his own progress. New baby eats, sleeps, farts, repeats, more or less, and Adam babblingly narrates the endless inventorying of his toys, books, and crap, occasionally pausing to not eat before launching into a detailed description of Christmas. Certainly we will have our Nights of Crisis, but so far the transition from one kid to two has been smooth enough for us to be consciously very thankful and subconsciously ever so slightly, slightly, smug.

Auntie NewsAmong the things keeping us busy that are not endless screaming has been a visit from one each of auntie and cousin. The weather has been crap since they flew into Trieste, so the visit so far, a first one to Europe for the cousin, has been limited to buying, preparing, and eating food, with occasional baby-holding stints but precious little else. Five days of rain edged this morning into light snow, the first of the season. Pretty enough but not encouraging for showing off the glitzy sights of downtown Nova Gorica. So we stay inside with our mostly agreeable babies and pumpkin ravioli.

Does this mean I get to be an International/Internet Auntie to the boys? one correspondent inquires, and the answer is yes. If you are reading this, you don’t necessarily meet all of the criteria, but you can consider yourself in the running. However, all Internet Aunties, International or not, need to be aware of a few things:

• The Alek/Aleks thing proved to be too much for us, so for the time being he is called Jeżyk (or Ježek), since he looks like a little hedgehog
• Jeżyk is one gassy little baby
• His neck has the strength of a four-month-old
• Adam is not jealous of the new one, but it doesn’t hurt if you play Domino Animalies with him for a few hours
• The Jeż is currently sloughing off his fetal skin, so photos will be at a minimum for a few days. We want the Jež thing to stick, so keep your chameleon references to yourselves

This post is also my way of blowing off all of the many, many of you who have written with words of congratulations, joy, thanks, warning, and so on, not to mention gifts for the new boy, and to say that it may be a long while before I’m able to reply individually to you, but I will try. In the meantime, posting here really will be curtailed while we wait for the skin to flake away and grow back. And for the time in the day to return to its former shape, if ever.

On the telephone. Magda and Alek in hospital, Adam and I at home…
Magda: You suck!
Me: . . .
Magda: I was talking to Alek.
Me: I thought you might’ve been.

In the hospital, visiting hours. Our obstetrician has just departed…
Me: Damn! I should’ve asked about who I should see about getting a vasectomy.
Magda: I already asked her.