Month: June 2008

Where’s my cake?

Since he was, oh, maybe, three days old, people have been asking us, “Is he sleeping through the night yet?” We didn’t know anything, so we felt like he should have been and that we were unlucky and that all newborns slept 12 hours in blissful silence.

Since then we’ve heard from enough other parents and read enough books to know that our response should have been, “No, of course he’s not sleeping through the @#$*& night yet. Shut up, get out and don’t come back without a casserole.” We’ve also learned that it’s a relative term. For at least a month he’s slept for 10 hours or so, only waking once to feed. We learned that made us very lucky.

Well last night, in celebration of his four month birthday, he did, in fact, with no ambiguity…

“cue the celestial choir”

… sleep through the night. He went to sleep at 7:30 p.m., blarked and werfled a bit at 5:00 a.m. but then fell back asleep until 5:45, when he awoke with his characteristic big morning smile.

And there was much rejoicing, none more than by the Mommy, who does not do quite as well as the Daddy when it comes to sleep deprivation.

Of course, who knows what he’ll do tonight.

Go to the Flickr page. We’ve uploaded a backlog of at least two weeks of photos, including photos from our trip to Topsail Beach with Becky and Dave and Evan and Levi “although there’s nothing to indicate we were at the beach”, a veritable cornucopia of facial expressions and some biting.

http://www.blogger.com/img/videoplayer.swf?videoUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fv2.nonxt8.googlevideo.com%2Fvideoplayback%3Fid%3D43d020a4e1c9b5d9%26itag%3D5%26begin%3D0%26len%3D86400000%26app%3Dblogger%26et%3Dplay%26el%3DEMBEDDED%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1266319263%26sparams%3Did%252Citag%252Cip%252Cipbits%252Cexpire%26signature%3D12660AAC0DFEBF336D1BC465EA56353EE97E0B7E.4738062766094A6FB2DAAEFED0991131D1829F25%26key%3Dck1&nogvlm=1&thumbnailUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2FThumbnailServer2%3Fapp%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D43d020a4e1c9b5d9%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw320%26sigh%3DMRGhvZGIc40rEVWBb-UzZZsjqfo&messagesUrl=video.google.com%2FFlashUiStrings.xlb%3Fframe%3Dflashstrings%26hl%3Den

On a cold night in the winter of 88, a small little kitty was found under a car on the streets of Chicago. The people that found her thought that they had heard a baby crying, only to find this poor kitten. Unfortunately “or fortunately, as you’ll see” the people that found her also found that they were allergic and couldn’t keep her.

Through a friend of theirs, it became known that I might like a cat. And thus a new home was found.

Linty lived with me in my studio apartment in Chicago for a couple of years and then in a bigger three bedroom apartment with a couple of friends. She loved to sit in the window and meow at passers by.

In 1991, I was leaving for the Peace Corps and asked my parents if they could keep her just for two years. They agreed, probably knowing that when I returned I would be moving around a lot and it was easier for them to continue having her living with them. Plus, they had grown attached.

Linty continued living her doted upon life in my parents large house. They even built a screened in porch, which expanded her domain. They all moved to Arizona several years ago where Linty happily passed her time sitting on a tuffet in front of the fireplace or on my parents bed.

Sadly, Linty’s health had declined in the last several years and she died two days ago at the age of 19 1/2. We will all miss her insistent meows in the morning and ability to shed over every single chair in the house.