Category: Nem Nem Niamh

Orphan Style, Market pranks, Nem-nem’s wish, Dancing

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Songs, Tia

Traveling to my mother’s house recently Mago reported a back ache and that his throat hurt. Holding him on the back porch, looking into the room as grandma opened the door, I felt something warm on my toes and looked to see that Mago had thrown up all over both of us. Not only wet but gooey, thick, slimy, orange, and starchy – you have to know this of course – all over him and on my shirt and arms. Fortunately not so much on my precious pants, stylish though that would be.

They took my shirt and his clothes and threw them in the wash, lending me a t-shirt from my brother and for Mago a cotton one-piece pajama or underclothes suit: moderately worn, grayed and tattered, inexplicably very cute on him.

I don’t know where he got this notion, but in reference to this new outfit he said “I’m a little orphan!”

He played with his birthday cousin of one year older in the basement, babbling and doing I have no idea what, but they clearly share a world, very cute together. She’d say bye-bye and close the basement door on him, he’d cry as he couldn’t open it from the lower stair and had difficulty from the upper stair, and in a while she’d open it again to happily greet him or hug him. I don’t know whether setting up this greeting again and again was the point, or an innocent exploration of the power that she could open the door and he couldn’t, or both.

While grandma was sitting holding Nem-nem and looking at her (along with several of us), Nem-nem looked up at our faces. When I came to stand and look down and smile at Nem-nem, she looked up at me and returned a clear, beaming smile, looking right into my eyes and face and keeping that smile and contact for a long while. That’s the first that’s happened for me with her. On the floor she also near half-turned over; as I’ve said she’s strong, and she moves very much.

One conversation topic was the different views people have on whether its appropriate to keep a kid happy in a store by opening up something they want before you buy it (I agree that anyone who says you shouldn’t may have never held a bored child hostage to mundane shopping). My oldest brother extended this idea (his?) to a prank; go to the store alone, bring an emptied milk gallon to the checkout, and I suppose say something like “Sorry, I needed all this before I could get to checkout.” My youngest brother suggested bringing an opened package of adult disposable underwear to checkout, adding “..you could take this in all kinds of directions”. Tia’s comment: “No, I think this is only going in one direction.”

This morning Tia said she had a dream: Nem-nem grew teeth, while still just the infant she is, and said (in a little girl voice Tia did which I wish I could describe)

“I’m tired of lying down. I want to walk.”

That’s been my impression, or that she is very eager to explore, and she isn’t happy to just lie still.

Yesterday and today Nem-nem stared with great concentration into my face and eyes, the same look of concentration that charms me in Mago, while we danced to (and I sang her) this.

[audio:Landslide.mp3]

This is? [spoiler]”Landslide”, a Fleetwood Mac tune covered here by the Dixie Chicks. I hide that latter fact because it has prejudiced people against it – a prejudice I have rhetorically railed against, wearying family/friends. If you don’t like some of the Dixie Chicks’ stuff (or attitude) it doesn’t mean it must all be distasteful :)[/spoiler]

I think this cover of the tune is much better than the original.

A Lullaby for Nem-nem (Highland Cathedral)

Alex / / Nem Nem Niamh, Religion, Songs, Video

I’ve been very taken with a tune I found (and what it necessarily has to do with Christmas re the album I have no idea). I’d kept thinking it captures my feelings about Nem-nem’s arrival, and that I’d like to use it in my video here depicting my idea of that. I’d kept meaning to look up the song origin and finally did. I at first mistook it for one of many old Scottish folk tunes but it was apparently written by two Germans in 1982 for a bagpipe festival in Scotland. It’s called Highland Cathedral. Two prominent sets of words (at least) have been written for it; I very much like this set:

There is a land far from this distant shore
Where heather grows and Highland Eagles soar
There is a land that will live ever more
Deep in my heart, my Bonnie Scotland

Though I serve so far away
I still see your streams, cities and dreams
I can’t wait until the day
When I’ll come home once more

So Lord keep me from the harm of war
Through all the dangers and the battles roar
Keep me safe until I’m home once more
Home to my own in Bonnie Scotland

On first reading these lyrics, I was overwhelmed by the coincidence that the tune both expresses my feelings about Nem-nem’s birth and that these lyrics are so similar in several ideas to words I wrote for Mago’s Lullaby:

So together we’ll hie
Through the sky love, and fly
To the sunny bright places we’ll see
With the Irish we’d die
For our mothers would cry
For the days to be sunny and green

Both are songs of a fair distant land of my ancestry, both speak of soaring/flying, both refer to battle (that’s what I mean by “With the Irish we’d die”).

So Highland Cathedral is Nem-nem’s lullaby.

I’ve got Scottish blood, so I suppose it isn’t necessarily fair to give the Irish all the attention (as I do with my children’s nicknames). But I don’t have any children for England, or for Wales (yet), or..

I’m also struck by allegory in the words; Nem-nem arrives from a distant land she left (her place with God) to serve in a battle (the war for souls on this earth) and will long for her eternal home. So I sing it in homage to both God and my ancestors. Further, I hadn’t even realized when I wrote Mago’s lullaby that it maybe could work allegorically in the same way.

Here is the song with this video for Nem-nem; only it isn’t so “lullaby” here, though it can be sung that way and has been child-tested and found to work. It’s versatile. Click the image.

Come Home

The stills in this are deep space photography which I color-alter, distort, zoom, pan, cross-fade, and change lighting of to give a sense of travel, merging into the opening sequence from CONTACT reversed and sped up. CONTACT had it wrong. In that film, pious scientists/priests repeatedly declare that the remainder of space without any life apart from Earth would be a “waste”. On the contrary I feel it isn’t about how far we can look or travel out there and whether it means anything to anyone else, human or alien, but how amazing, beautiful and meaningful it all makes our existence here. Not that life elsewhere isn’t compelling.

Incidentally, I hope my video, while philosophically in great sympathy with this amusingly distasteful schlock I found at YouTube, may be better. Even a little better would fill me with hope.

These were Tia’s comments on my video: “It’s good”. Later I sought clarification on this:

“So you like it?”

“I don’t like that music with it. This Scottish tune to that.. it doesn’t fit.”

“You’d appreciate it more if you appreciated Star Trek.”

(Derisive sarcasm) “Well, yeah.”

“You don’t remember [Star Trek II Spoiler!] [spoiler]the bagpipes at Spock’s funeral?”[/spoiler]

“Did I ever see [spoiler]Spock’s funeral?” [/spoiler]

“Well, there you go. It’s really good, I recommend it.”

Our second baby, a girl

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Pictures, Tia

I’ve overhauled this blog as of this entry – converted it over to the WordPress blogging platform, with a new design I found and modified. Like it? Older image galleries aren’t working at the moment – they’ll be fixed.

This last June 17th, Father’s day, our second baby, a daughter, was born at 4:35 AM. Happy Father’s Day to me 🙂

The arrangements for and the delivery of this second baby were much easier than for our first – which I thought the midwife astutely referred to as the Pioneer – though still grueling and exhausting. We’ve named this baby (my decision less pathetically lethargic than for our first) but refer to her on the internet by a pseudonym. In a bit here is blather about that, her particular date of birth, and Mago’s first interactions with and comments about her, but first a photo slide show taken the day she was born, courtesy Picasa Web Albums, photos taken by an uncle, and also by Tia’s stepmom.

 

At this blog we call her by a pseudonym. First, “Nem-nem”, which is whimsical nonsense. Second “Niamh”, Irish and pronounced “Neve”, which I expect to confuse, fine for a blog. In Irish mythology (I’ve only just read this), Niamh is the princess of the land of promise (as Niamh, though my sister who served a mission in Ireland informs me there are many little girls over there with names spelled Niamh). I’d wanted “Niam”, Irish for “Bright” in addition to all this before “Nem-nem”, and further nicely confusing as it sounds just like you’d mispronounce Niamh/Niamh, but Tia doesn’t like it.

So her pseudonym here is Nem-nem Niamh. Why the Irish pseudonyms – our firstborn as Mago Elf Liam (Gaelic: Great Elf William)? A tradition of Irish blood on one of my mother’s lines, Mago being born on St. Patrick’s day, and his cousin also born on that date, and..

Now our second baby here, Nem-nem Niamh, shares her birthday with a cousin who has a quintessentially Irish name, who was born six years ago – also on Father’s day. And on the same day of the month as Nem-nem’s older brother born on St. Patrick’s day, the 17th, and his cousin also.. there you go.

The 17th day of the month is also shared with one of Nem-nem’s uncles, and her great-grandfather, and.. I think some others I forget 😮

And on top of all this a cousin – second cousin – was born on this very same day and year that little Nem-nem was.

I was going to do this this entry, but for lack of time, some videos I’ve promised will be posted in a future entry.

Mago has been very eager to meet his sister for a long time since before she was born. He would talk to her through mommy’s tummy, and long since adopted a mistaken reference to her as “FisterBruver”, or Sister-Brother. Since her birth I’ve had an inkling he may use this as a description of their relationship, as he said a day or two after her birth that “Now I’m a FisterBruver.” But it’s clearly also a title, and I suppose especially for her. And he also fondly calls her by her real name.

The first Mago came into the hospital room where mommy was holding Nem-nem, he was very enthusiastically but gently all over her, calling her FisterBruver, softly caressing her head with his hands, and wishing to kiss her, which we couldn’t let him because he had a croup cough. We got a mask for him so he could be close to her, as you see in the slides and video. I don’t recall all he said but one of the first things he said, when I took him a bit away from Nem-nem and held him, was:

“I love that baby.”

Also, speaking to Tia:

“Did she come out of your tummy? Is she going to go back in? Can I go back into your tummy?”

This is no indication at all that he doesn’t want Nem-nem here – though Tia has noticed he’s been more ardently seeking attention as an apparently permanent change since her birth. It’s simple curiosity. A verbose 2-year old informing us of the wonderful ideas that go through his head figuring out how things work.

I had meant to amend this previous entry with a comment after my brother wisely cautioned that you can’t take a kid’s feelings too seriously – indeed that’s true. Sometimes when Mago sadly or sourly insists on something that cannot be, I throw him a loop – he’ll say “Yes!” – I say “No!” – and back and forth “Yes!” – “No!” – “Yes!” – “No!” – “Yes!” – then I suddenly exclaim “Yes!” and he willfully exclaims the opposite, “No!” – not what he wants – and realizes he’s been hoodwinked and laughs. I’m sure many parents have discovered this fun trick.

You may note in the photos that Nem-nem has a lot of dense, short, dark brown or black hair at birth.

She is strong. She lifts her head right up if you hold her on your shoulder. She’d flop right out of your arms if you didn’t hold her close and tight. Her legs are very difficult to raise up from the pinned bend she keeps them in when you change her diaper.

She has Billy Reuben (is this how you spell the affliction? – ah ha ha! I just looked it up. It’s bilirubin – but I’ll keep that), that fairly common yellowing of infant skin from.. too many red blood cells? – which count went up for several days, but which today went into a decline. Thank heaven. Mago did not enjoy being in a light box to combat it for weeks, and we didn’t enjoy inflicting that on him.

A gripe you can skip if you wish – [spoiler]all the same I’ve maintained since Mago suffered the malady – why provide a light box only when the malady becomes really bad? Why not provide it if they suffer much at all? Wouldn’t that prevent the risk of it getting worse? I’ve heard it criticized that our most widely respected medical paradigm is often not health-oriented, but crisis-oriented. I’d say “health” is a state that can ward off illness. Disease is a crisis. If you take action only when there is disease, you are focused on crisis – not prevention, health. I don’t think it’s true on all counts, but here? Yes. Let’s make things better while they’re okay, not okay when they’re worse. Mind, I’m all for all the miracles we have available for when things are worse. Also, the midwife’s comment to me about the anesthesiologist forbidding my wife to drink water after her spinal anesthetic is that this is treating the situation as if she would have a caesarian section; if the throat is well-watered when there’s general anesthetic (and there is general anesthetic in that situation, but not the one we were in) there’s greater risk of the throat collapsing and suffocating in numbness. So he’s responding to the situation as if she’s having a caesarian, while we are well past that – this was at a stage of labor where that is neither necessary nor possible. So not only can we think too much in terms of making bad things okay, we can behave as if bad things may happen when there’s barely or truly not any risk of that. Welcome to your sue-happy society. This is malpractice risk overreaction. Sigh.[/spoiler]

I think she’s a beautiful, mild baby. I’m surprised how distinct and new but inexplicably, unsurprisingly familiar she is. The unknown novelties of having a baby aren’t as impressive, but she still is. My first impressions are that her cry and voice sound a whole lot like Mago as an infant, but gentler. .. I only recall her howling so far when given a needle shot (not unexpected) and when bathed. She does not like baths. It seems to be horrific for her. I think sometimes her sounds of alarm reflect Tia when she’s surprised or uneasy.

Today (or Saturday as I started writing this :p – hey, it’s her one week anniversary three hours after I click “publish”) I enjoyed my first moments with her where she didn’t seem hungry or otherwise distracted, just holding her as she was awake, and she seemed to be really taking in my face and just watching me talk to her.

As for us, we’re lacking sleep but happy.