Chaos At The Luau: Let's Pretend It's Summer Already

The weeks are blowing by now that the conference is over and I don’t want to do anything but be with baby (and daddy, too, of course). I’ve got a nest to finish feathering, a yard to gut and replenish. Don’t I need to be around all day to ponder the wall colors and landscaping ideas?

We spent last Saturday afternoon swimming with the tadpole in the frigid waters of Deep Eddy Pool . Now normally, this beach mama wouldn’t dip more than a shin into the depths of shimmering cement pond but I could barely wait to get him all slathered with sunscreen and in his blue dino sun shirt, Speedo and hat before racing out into the water like a kid with a new inflatable shark raft. Willem loved the pool as I had hoped and prayed throughout all of his bath time conditioning. We got out before our limbs were too blue and too numb. We spend the rest of the afternoon lazing in the shade and rolling around on the blanket as daddy worked his daily crossword puzzle.

The new sitter is working out brilliantly. She’s very baby-centric and the ringer is Finnegan, the infant who looks like a Russian writer on a book jacket. When he arrives with mama in the early afternoon, he and Willem both light up with eager recognition. They start grunting at each other like little cave babies and grinning like toothless aged men with a moment of clarity. They play wonderfully together as earth mama navigates. She’s all about the babies and sings to them, tells them stories, shows them sign language, takes them to the park (ambitious journey with two tots, I must say), and handles them like precious heirlooms. It’s not surprising to see that by the end of the day they are sucking the other’s binky, sticky with Wagon Wheel residue and completely exhausted. It takes lots of hyper-stimulation when I get home to keep Willem awake long enough for me to feed him and bathe him before he’s sound asleep.

The other day I called hubby to check in on the kiddos and he mentioned that he had just turned on the monitor housed in the studio to hear what was going on in the baby’s room. He said they were playing and singing. I said, “Click it on, I want to hear.” Of course, when he did, I could hear Willem fussing in the background and he sounded rather inconsolable. I heard an immediate click as daddy turned off the device and heard him say, “I better go in there.” So I don’t always expect it to be a bed a roses at the casa de Zuniga but I know all is well most of the time.

And now for the infant pictorial as requested by the dad...

"I am a goat!"