Jefe

Uncle Jeff came into our lives just shortly after Baby Girl was born.He sent a gift to Baby Girl before he had met her. It was a set of baby teething rings and her first toothbrush.

Uncle Jeff still plays a pivotal role in Baby Girl's oral hygiene. When she refuses to brush her teeth, a mock phonecall to Uncle Jeff is paid.

Uncle Jeff, of course, is a dentist. A dentophile. A crocosmile hunter.

When Baby Girl fights the brush, Loverpants puts his celly to his ear, "Uncle Jeff? Yeah, I've got Madi here. She ate a lot of sugar today and she doesn't seem to want to brush her teeth. You think it's important, huh? Yup, that's what I told her. Okay, let's see if we can get her to reconsider."

A thorough teethbrushing usually follows.

Because Uncle Jeff is on the ready speed-dial, Baby Girl now seems to think that he is the 4-1-1 every time she deals with intransigence. "Know what Uncle Jeff says, Mama? He says you have to come play dolls with me." Like Uncle Jeff is an operator on QVC, just standing by, ready to take her call.

All I can say is that Auntie Eunis better keep her man on lockdown, because Uncle Jeff is a rockstar as far as Baby Girl is concerned.

Cousin Jazz!

Cousin Jasmine came to visit. She ended her American tour d' force of all major East Coast cities by crashing on our commodious air mattress where at least one mouse scampered around her bedside and where our children awoke intermittently to make sure she didn't forget about night terrors. They're fun. Then Baby Girl aired a matinee of "Wonderpets" while nustled up next to Cousin Jasmine who was jetlagged and dog-tired and we made her inferior coffee to try to compensate. And bought her a chocolate kreme doughnut from Dunkies. She bought us a whole sushi dinner and made us laugh like backyard banshees and kept telling us how cute our kids were, even though they took turns waking up from pleasant dreams by raging uncontrollably. I am sure she just assures herself this tendency came from my side of the family. She is probably right.

I absolutely adore Cousin Jasmine.

Here is what she likes: Menus inspired by the Periodic Table, faux cross-stitched horse deco sweatshirts, Belle & Sebastien, loud and animated interjections, maparriums, sushi buffets, left-leaning politics, words, working for The Canadian Man, old lady woven leather shoes, Mark Wahlberg, and embracing the geek.

And now she likes Walden Pond! Hurrah!

You guys, look! I won the fluffy animal from the booth at the carnival!

Summer that Was

Hey, September, how yoo dooin'? September, here's what: I'm happy you're here. You always bring with you the smell of U-Hauls and giddy college students, the sounds of wonky high school trombone players, "Haa-yaaang on, Sloopeh, Slooopeh, Hang Onnnn!", freshly cut football fields. Your days start to slope, the sun waning, 7:30, 7:15, on on on down to 6:30 p.m. and by the time your turn is almost up, there is a coziness to the night and an acquaintedness with new school textbooks, while still a hopefulness that there are big things still to accomplish this year.

But let me tell you about this past summer, September, the one you're sweeping up for me in your wake. I'll be frank. I thought this summer 2010 was going to suck. I thought I was going to be all soaking bedsheets with milk and wandering zombie-like around my creeky home at 3 a.m. But this past summer was awesome in its unremarkableness. It was just lovely, and smooth. We didn't go anywhere spectacular (Newport? Cleveland, anyone?). I don't even think we went out to brunch somewhere splendid. We just ate a thousand popsicles on our cruddy patio, watched the airplanes overhead, and wasted a lot of sprinkler water on ourselves, which, if you ask me, wasn't a waste at all.

Sure, it was no party when Loverpants got pneumonia. And the hematoma thing I could have done without. But I'll always remember Fourth of July, sitting with Brother Greg watching the "Boston Pops" on our couch and talking about how his blanket and law textbook were waiting for him on the Common, but instead he was sitting watching the performance with us on TV.

I'll remember chicken parm night with my old man and Julie, defining bummerooski with my mom and Goobs, and just being so grateful and shmoopy to come home from OH and come back to my life with my hubby.

I'll remember getting to know the girl that Baby Girl is now at an articulate 2.5 years-old, how she used "I'm sulking" totally appropriately, how her sapphire eyes, framed by her pixie cut, look out at a world and see not a complicated planet but only the ripe cherry tomatoes in the box garden, the sequined pink slippers on sale at Target, the travesty that is the removal of the "Shrek 3" billboard on Gallivan Blvd.

Most obviously, though, I'll remember the ease and wonder I felt for 104 days of meeting this new Little Man in my life. I don't know what angel interceded in Heaven so that I could have this little boy with a halo all summer long, but I am grateful. He is so marvelously adaptable that holding him - which I try to do as many seconds of the day as I can - is a tranquilizer, it's possibly the best drug a hospital lets you leave with, no prescription necessary. Just hold Little Man for a minute, ohhhh those soft little cheeks and fluttery eyelashes! And you will know.

So all that is to say that life until now has been wonderful, and welcome to you, September 2010. 30 more days in this month of turning 30. Yahoo.

*** Some snaps that our new friend, the talented Dr. Paul Yoo took at Boston Temple in the Fenway.