Christ came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
Keep this line from the Gospel in your heart, especially when you are tired.

I love this thing.

http://www.pumpease.com/

Remember how I promised to update frequently? Forgive me for complaining, but I have mastitis, or at least symptoms that portend mastitis, for, like, the 47th time. And I have an exam, for which I must study frenetically this week.
You pray for me; I'll pray for you; we'll all pray for each other.

We are naming our next son Raymond Benigno and our first daughter Teresa Carmel or Teresa Epifania.
I have decided that I want ten children (at least), so I'd better keep pondering names!

Papa Benedetto and my Benedetto

a vaunted jaunt, a visit from a friend, and other things

I'm going on my first vacation, to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Mom, Dad, and Lightfoot 2 went there last year and had a lovely time. We're going to go to the beach (but worry not--I won't go in the ocean or be exposed to sunlight) and watch movies and generally enjoy ourselves, and Dad and Lightfoot 2 may even go fishing. Mom is especially excited to go back to Stack 'Em High, the best breakfast place this side of paradise.

Here's a picture of my silly dad and me. He was trying to make me smile by tickling my cheeks.


I look kind of like ET here:




Yesterday Tom came to visit us. Mom and Dad were so glad he found time to see us before moving to Atlanta. He brought me a beautiful blanket, which his mother made for me. Thanks, Tom's mom!

I had to take Benedetto with me to Manhattan for my six-week postpartum checkup. I nursed him before we left the office, hoping we would finish our visit to the Mid-Manhattan Library before he needed to eat again. We walked at a leisurely pace down Madison Avenue until, around 43rd Street, he started screaming. Now, he usually doesn't do that. We try to feed him when he shows any of the classic signs of hunger. So I didn't expect the meltdown, and I didn't know where we could go to nurse. Then, it came to me. A women's lounge in Lord and Taylor! I hustled down 5th Avenue, threw open the door to L&T, and bounded up the escalator to a lounge on the 2nd floor. Success! I found a clean, comfortable couch, and after nursing for a few minutes, Benedetto was a happy, well-fed baby. As I was repositioning him in his carrier, a little girl approached us and exclaimed, "He's so cute! How old is he?" "Thank you!" I said. "He's 6 weeks old." She looked confused. "So...he's one?" "Well, no. He's 6 weeks old, so he won't be one for a while." She looked confused again, but then her face brightened. "OK. So he's one!" Before I could respond, her mother came over and said, "What a cute baby! How old is he? He must be a few months old? "Actually, he's only 6 weeks," I said. "Oh!" said the mother. "Yeah, I guess he looks about that age." They came closer and peeked into the carrier, and then they picked up their bags to leave. As they walked out the door, the little girl said, "That baby is so cute. He's one!" "No," the mom tried to clarify. "He's only 6 weeks old."
Can you guess what the little girl said? "Yes, I know. So he's one!"

What kind of orange juice shall we get?

I love being carried in my mei tai. I love listening to the rhythmic lub-dub of mom's or dad's heart. I love to peek my head and hands out and view the world. Sometimes I cry when I'm first put into the mei tai, but I usually fall asleep after a little while. Mom carries me in it when we go to the grocery store. As we shop, she tells me what she's doing and points objects out to me, to encourage me to develop my verbal skills. She'll say things like, the orance juice is on sale; what kind of orange juice should we buy, Minute Maid or Tropicana? Sometimes people don't realize that she's carrying a baby as opposed to, say, a front-carried bag, so she gets a lot of funny looks!

PLEASE! PLEASE, PICK ME!

It's me, Maura. Benedetto has asked me to guest blog. If he likes what he reads, he may invite me to write here regularly. I hope I make the cut!

I'm appropriately suspicious of Craig's List, but Paul has used it to solicit tutees, and I have used it to give things away. Actually, I beg people to come take my stuff so I won't one day find myself buried under used Post-Its, or Ziploc bags given to me by boys I liked in elementary school, or wrapping paper that has lost its sentimental value because I don't remember what present it came with or who gave me the present. Until recently I was wont to hold on to ephemera for dear life, because I NEEDED my stuff and I MIGHT use it someday. Well, I have eradicated my packrat tendencies and have downsized my way to a simpler, neater life. Thank you, Craig and your list, for facilitating the giving-away of my useless junk.
Anyway, I recently turned to Craig's List (in addition to an agency, local newspapers, several local colleges and many, many other resources) to search for a nanny for Benedetto. I found a mix of ads, some quite professional, some shoddy, and some untintentionally hilarious. If you ever have nothing to do and no one to talk to and only free hand (like, for example, when you are nursing your child in the middle of the night and figure you might as well not try to accomplish anything), you should browse Craig's List ads, especially those in the "free stuff" section. Better yet, POST in the free stuff section. You will receive enough galactically silly e-mails to keep you laughing for eternity. One time I posted offering a shoe rack that I had bought years ago and never used. (See above: I believed I might need it. It was so white and so lustrous and so compact, and so, you see, I couldn't part with it.) For days I received e-mails about the shoe rack. One person kept writing increasingly urgent and increasingly conspicuous messages.
1. subject: pick me
2. subject: pls, pick me
3. subject: please, PICK ME
Then, all of a sudden, he progressed to
4. subject: PLEASE! PLEASE, PICK ME!
Why did he importune us with such perseverance? Well, the body read something like this:
I want to give the shoe rack to my girlfriend as a surprise. Oddly enough, we received messages from a few guys who wanted the shoe rack for their girlfriends. One guy said he "needed" the shoe rack, because his girlfriend's shoes were taking over their room.

But, my absolute favorite e-mail read (I kid you not) as follows: The shoe rack is SO, SO GORGEOUS. Any chance you are coming by Allerton Avenue with the shoe rack?
We ended up giving the rack to someone who wrote an ordinary e-mail, but I would have loved to give it to the author of that e-mail. I could have written, yes, the so, so gorgeous shoe rack and I just happen to be going on a jaunt to Allerton Avenue. Where shall we meet? Ha!

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering if I have a point, what it is, and when I will get to it. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I intended this entry to be about nothing. Why? Well, I've tried to keep blogs before. Tried and failed miserably. I felt like I had to say something important and to say it eloquently, and since I couldn't meet my own standards, I set most of my entries to private as soon as I finished them. I no longer feel that pressure. Look, I'll be honest with you--I'm not trying to write anything earth-shattering. For now I'll just try to keep you entertained!

Benedetto asks, do turtles make good playmates?

My name is Benedetto. Right now I am sitting on my mother's lap, cooing, flailing my legs, staring intently at my feet, chewing on my mother's arm, and still managing to type my first, witty blog entry. My mother has decided that I/we should keep a blog. She's been pretty tired since I was born, but now that she's feeling awake and alert again, she's taking action. She promises to update this blog and not to neglect it as she has done with previous blogs. She also promises not to substitute this blog for personal, direct communication. And I promise to regale you with stories! I intend to become quite a raconteur.
Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the first and only son of two parents who love me dearly. My mother tells me she has been anticipating me and hoping for me for as long as she can remember. She's a medical student and has to return to school soon; she's apprehensive about being away from me. My father works in financial services. He's a pretty chill guy. He's a math genius and a jazz enthusiast and a very good pianist. Oh, and he can cook! People say we look like two iterations of the same person; I take that as a compliment. I'll describe these two nice people in more detail as I get to know them better.

Allow me to explain on my parents' behalf why they named me Benedetto Paciano. (An aside: Mom and Dad made such a big deal out of my name, gushing about how it's so beautiful and so perfect for me and so on and so forth, and now they almost never call me by it. I'm called Little Guy, Little Buddy, Sweet Baby, Sweetington, Honey, My Sweet Boy, and a host of other cutesy names. Funny people, my parents!) Mom and Dad want me to be a gentle, peaceful person, and they named me accordingly. And that's kind of it. I'm not named after anyone in particular, except maybe Pope Benedict.

What else shall I say in my first post? Oh, I know; one of my onesies reads, I like playing with turtles and birds. How perplexing. How does one play with a turtle, anyway? Do they make good playmates?

I'll write more later, and I may ask Mom to "guest blog." Now I have to sit upright on Mom and try mightily to touch my feet. Someday, somewhere, I will grasp my own toes.