Happy Solstice

Each new day with The Child seems to last forever. Maybe that's something to do with the 2 hour feeding schedule. Or maybe it has something to do with the goofy sleep schedule that is creeping into my days.

Mark continues to be a sweetie; he's become a laundry demon, whisking soiled clothes to the laundry facilities next door. He's also been sure that we each take some baby-free time each day.

The Child looks bigger today (Tuesday) than he did a few days ago. It's a relief; given all the food he eats I was beginning to wonder where he was putting it all. His solstice event was loosing his umbilical cord. It was pretty gross the night before solstice, hanging on his stomach in a red bloody paste. I found the umbilical bit in the morning. As a proper pagan parent, I suppose I need to sew up a bag and put the cord into it for him.

(Cue drumming)
John (dressed in ritual robes): "Oh my son, several hours after your first Summer Solstice, the umbilical cord that sustained you inside your mother's body fell away."
Teen Child (rolling eyes): "That's nice; can I have the car keys?"
Mark (stops drumming): "If we're done, can I stop drumming? It's hurting my wrists."

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Yesterday (Monday) Mark and I put The Child into the baby Bjorn carrier thing and I carried him on my chest to the Eugene Library. The Library had a book on the Summer Solstice on hold for me. Of course I had to sing Sensitive New-Aged Guys by Christine Lavin as we walked. We hadn't gotten a half-block away from home when one of our neighbors pounced from her porch and wanted to see The Child. Once we got to the Library, we put him into the pram and pushed him back home. A different neighbor pounced as we returned home. I think I need a T-shirt that reads, "It takes one child to raze a village." The Child was out like a light by the time we got back to our house. I can tell that the pram is going to be my very good friend over the next few months.

One of our other very good friends is a heartbeat bear we got at a recent shower. It's a stuffed bear with a recording of a heart beat in it. It will play a whooshing rhythm for about twenty minutes and then turn itself off. It's kind of strange to me because it sounds a bit like the engine room from Star Trek. It's also oddly compelling because after a while, the relentless pounding noise starts to work its voodoo on my libido.

Heartbeat Bear: "Thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh..."
John (entering the bedroom where Mark has put The Child to sleep in the cradle): "Man, that bear really puts him to sleep."
Mark: "Yeah. He's out."
John: "It's odd; it kind of makes me want to do it."
Mark: "Everything makes you want to do it."
John (indignant): "Nuh-uh! Ancient Assyrian Art does not make me want to do it."
Heartbeat Bear: "Thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh..."
Mark: "But Ancient Egyptian Art does. (Takes classic Egyptain arms out stance) I don't see what the difference is."
John: "Assyrian Art is too militaristic; the Egyptians had a good eye for the human form. I still don't understand why this bear does what it does."
Mark: "That's because it's like mommy's heartbeat; Freud didn't get everything wrong, you know."
Heartbeat Bear: "Thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh..."
John: "What? Pound-pound-pound equals mom equals sex?"
Mark: "Yep; why do you think drumming is such an integral part of religion?"
John: "Mommy's heartbeat? Eeuw!!"
Mark: "It's primal; it's the first thing you heard for the first six months in the womb."
John (runs out of bedroom): "Mommy's heartbeat?"
Heartbeat Bear: "Thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh..."

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Mark and I have been splitting up dad-duty. During my watch Monday, I decided to take The Child on another pram trip. I did a quick walk around the block. I was pulling the pram behind me in our front yard when I thought I heard The Child make a very odd clacking sound. I stopped the pram and I heard the sound again, only it wasn't coming from Arthur; it was coming from a crow perched on the power lines in the alley over our house. Traces of white frosted its black wings and its eyes glittered like hemetite beads. It inclined its beak as if trying to look into the pram, so I pushed back the cover for the crow to see. The crow peered down from the power line, then got interested in something else.

(cue drumming)
John (whisking aside his ritual robes to reveal a box): "And for your sixteenth birthday, I have made you this."
Teen Child (muttering): "It's not another mobile, is it?"
John: "What?"
Teen Child: "What is it?" (opens box) "A cloak of crow feathers?"
Mark (stops drumming): "Eeuw; so that's what you did with that carcass. I hope you washed those feathers before you sewed them together."