6 months

I find it hard to believe, but our splendid baby has already made it to her half birthday! I remember reading in the baby books about what she'd be able to do at six months, and when she was just a newborn, it seemed impossible that she'd be laughing and rolling over and bouncing on her legs in so short a time. Infancy is really an amazing thing. She has her off-nights, but she is generally sleeping well (from 11:15 pm to 6 am) at night; she's more finicky about naps, though, and often insists on being held in the carrier in order to sleep. Humph. She's still only tasting solids and not really swallowing, but we just keep trying it out every day. Her temperament is still mild and easy-going, and she brings lots of laughs and smiles wherever she goes. Every time she smiles and kicks her feet with joy, my heart overflows. Here are the highlights from today's photo session:

Tree, 2016 edition

In recent years, I've enjoyed posting a picture of our Christmas tree and talking about any new ornaments acquired on our adventures that year. Well, we forgot to buy a Christmas ornament on our adventures – though maybe we weren't inspired enough in our travels. I think we only went to San Francisco and Boston, not places one tends to think must be commemorated with an ornament. At any rate, here's the tree:

A. said she liked our tree, but that it wasn't as good as hers, "because it doesn't have as many presents under it." True!

While we didn't acquire any ornaments on our travels, we did acquire a new baby! So we can celebrate "Baby's First Christmas," a milestone whose significance I don't quite understand. Every holiday this year is her first! She has no conception of "holiday," nor can she appreciate any of the traditions associated with Christmas! Oh well. Here are her ornaments:

And we made handprint/footprint ornaments from a gift we received at the baby shower. I don't even want to describe how many attempts it took us to get proper impressions, and even these seem kind of shallow.

At any rate, they're done! I doubt I'll ever become the kind of mom who is awesome at crafts, and I think we'll all just have to be okay with that. I know I am!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

A new era dawns

And it is the era of solids! Well, "solids." I diluted this oatmeal cereal with so much breastmilk that it was practically a liquid. I couldn't quite tell what M. thought about the whole business. She's been giving us lots of signals in recent weeks – looking with great interest as we eat, grabbing for food off my plate, making munching movements with her mouth while we chew. Today was mainly about introducing her to a spoon and having her experiencing a slightly different texture.

We got to use the personalized spoons that were a shower gift from Julie and Katie. They're engraved with our in utero nickname for M., Lumpy. I still love to call her Lumpy – Grumpy Lumpy, Slumpy Lumpy, Bumpy Lumpy, etc.

Here's the face of a girl who knows something good is about to happen:

"What is this strange sensation??"

Grabbing the spoon like it's a toy

"Nice."

We're excited to introduce her to solids, so that we can all share the family love for eating. I know it'll be a few more months before she's getting significant caloric intake from food, rather than from my milk, but I'm still astonished at how fast this has happened. Those early weeks in July when I was nursing 8x a day and pumping 8x a day are still so fresh in my memory. I was so determined to increase my milk supply for her; her need for me to provide her nourishment was so obvious. And now she's already moving on! I had never been much of a newborn person, but now I already miss her newborn days. No wonder people advise me to soak up every moment and enjoy every day. It all changes so quickly...

Thanksgiving 2016

Baby's first Thanksgiving! It was her first time to visit my parents in WC, the Land o' Plenty! I was so busy playing football and eating that I didn't take too many pics of little M. But she did enjoy spending time with Dave's parents:

And my mom was so pleased to have her youngest grandchild at her home:

The big adventure came the day after Thanksgiving, when we took M. to hunt a Christmas tree at the local tree farm. It was a little overcast, but the weather was mild, and I think she enjoyed the tromp among the trees. A. helped to cut down the tree, while Matthias seemed a little less interested.

Grandparents extraordinaire!

We don't have many pictures of the three of us, but I like this one! You can see A.'s coat in the corner as she saws away at that trunk! Hehee!

I also took M. to Longwood Gardens for the first time, for a quick sweep past the Christmas lights and through the conservatory to see the Christmas lights. She was not upset, but she was also not that impressed. Maybe it'll be more exciting to her next year.

Five Months for Maddie!

I almost missed it (good thing Uncle Stephen said something), but it was Maddie's five mensaversary today! Here are some snaps from today, taken in my parents' living room:

What a delightful baby she is! She is sitting up a little better, chewing on her toys, and laughing at sneezes. She loves crinkly sounds, jabbering, and being lifted and swung around. She sleeps well, usually giving us a good 6 hour stretch at night, and often even more! I still feel like every day is a treasure with her.

On Trump's Victory

I had been planning to write a cute post about taking Madeleine to vote for our first female president. I had been planning to share how surprisingly emotional I felt at the last moment, how although I had never been an enthusiastic fan of Hillary Clinton, I was proud to see a woman in the top political office of our country, and how I hoped it would presage a more equal world for women, one in which my infant daughter would grow up and flourish.

Instead I am dismayed and discouraged, outraged and in disbelief. Like all of my friends, the media, the pollsters, etc. etc., I did not see this coming. I had no idea this could be coming. Though I was born and raised here, I do not know this country. I am deeply sad for my fellow Americans who are immigrants, women, minorities, disabled, Jews, etc. etc. In this post, I am trying to articulate why I am taking the absolutely resounding defeat of Hillary Clinton and equally resounding victory of Donald Trump so personally. Part of it is this: when I hear the slogan "Make America Great Again," I hear the enthusiasm for a time when I could never become who I am today. Professionally, I work in a field dominated by white men. I am being told that not only do I not belong, I never should have been admitted in the first place. My education, talent, training, and hard work count for nothing.

I remember when I was living in Greece in 2009-2010. I was astonished by how often I was asked in a friendly and conversational tone, "Where are you from?" by various Greek folks I interacted with; I always said, "I am from America," to which the same reply always came, "No, where are you from?" I insisted again, "from America," and my interlocutors would sometimes become impatient. Finally I would say, "My relatives came from China," and they would say, "Ah, China! There was a group of Chinese tourists here yesterday." How could I explain that to me, Chinese tourists are foreigners, and that America is my homeland? It was clear that in this place, nationality and race/ethnicity must be identical. One couldn't be both American and Asian. What a relief it was, then, to come home to this melting pot, to a place where diversity is a strength, where a black man could be president and I could be an American, full-stop. Was that all a dream?

It's a commonplace that after 8 years of one party's rule, presidential politics shift in the opposite direction. Before this campaign began, I fully expected the Republican party to reclaim the White House. A number of Obama's policies were unsuccessful; the Republican party had invested a lot of effort in grooming a strong class of rising conservatives ready to present a different vision. But the country didn't want either vision: it wanted to burn down the house; Trump won in part because he is NOT a conservative. I still cannot believe that a man who believes what Trump believes and has said what Trump has said became the candidate of choice for Americans. I don't need to rehash his beliefs here – but I'll say this, immigration from Asia is now the fastest-growing immigrant category in the US. When people are looking for a scapegoat, they will not be content to vent their resentment and violence on merely our black and Latino neighbors; they will come for us, too. We have seen this before in our country (Chinese Exclusion Act, anyone?), and I fear its resurgence. Naked racism and open white supremacy have just been reaffirmed in the most public way, and they will touch us all.

Now time for a paragraph about misogyny: Clinton was a fatally weak candidate (it turns out), with tremendous baggage that she piled on herself–the poor judgment, the clannishness and tendency towards corruption, all of this also well documented. But she was also incredibly well-prepared, smart, studious, dutiful, and really cared. In these positive qualities, I wanted to see something of myself. I hold a minor leadership role, and I know that I am not the most charismatic, the most exciting visionary, the most popular person, nor when people imagine someone in my position do they ever imagine someone who looks like me. They imagine a white man, just like my predecessors. But my responsibility is to lead and to teach, and so I try hard, I work hard, I show my sincerity, and I put all my skills and talent to work for my cause. And it's hard – I wear heels so I appear bigger to the people who are all bigger than I am; I lower the tone of my voice when I speak so I sound less "shrill" and "squeaky"; I try not to show too much emotion so people won't think I'm "hormonal" or "unstable"; I prepare everything to a T so that I cannot be called "stupid" or "incompetent"; I couch my opinions more gently so that I'm not called a "bitch." My male colleagues do not have to do this. Because I experience this every day, I am more sympathetic to the tightrope that Clinton has had to walk. But the message of this election is that none of these efforts matters; that someone completely unqualified and unsuitable is preferable because he yells louder, demeans others better, and cares only about his own status. His utter dismissal of women, his treatment of women as objects rather than subjects are central to his appeal, and I cannot stand it. I have been groped, grabbed, leered after, and reduced to my sexual parts by strangers for a long time, but never have I felt so physically vulnerable as I do today.

I reserve my last major point for the white evangelical church. It was hard for me in 2004 to see the political agenda of evangelical Christians reduced to a narrow set of priorities. I had spent the summer of 2004 in Uganda, where I had my first experience with an utterly different church culture, and frankly, saw a level of poverty and suffering that I still don't understand. How was it that we were representing Christ to the world as only concerned about abortion and gay marriage? But George W. at least was a sincere believer, and his work to distribute HIV/AIDS medication in Africa still sticks in my mind as a beautiful example of the good someone with love for the vulnerable and a place of political power can do. That white evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump (a non-Christian who has a long record of being pro-choice and supporting liberal social policy) tells me a lot about the American church today–that it ultimately cares about power and superiority and influence, that its heart does not break for the refugees, the vulnerable among us, the imprisoned, the meek and lowly. I do not believe that the Democratic platform is a Christian one, and I am not advocating that all Christians should vote en masse for the Democratic party. But I have often thought that if Jesus were to minister in America today, he would not be attending our suburban megachurches on Sunday mornings, or our Wednesday night prayer meetings, or Saturday afternoon youth groups. I feel strongly that he would be with the homeless, the transgender, the drug addicts, the mentally ill, the people living on the streets whom I avert my eyes from and whose stench I literally hold my breath to avoid. He would reject our politics of respectability and middle class comforts. We are the Pharisees: we cherish our systematic theology and debate the most faithful translations of the Bible (learn Greek, y'all); but we do not love the poor (too lazy!) or turn the other cheek (we must protect our rights!) or shatter the world's expectations with an outpouring of costly love for those who are different from us (they are evil and must repent first!).

Now this is the "carry on" part: the sun has risen today, Maddie will wake for her second nursing soon. Trump voters are still my neighbors. I am a college professor, and I will return to my classroom filled with black and brown students, young women in hijabs sitting next to young men in yarmulkes. Let's get some more white men in the door. But I grieve and I hurt and I fear. Pray for us.

Trip to Ottawa

Last weekend, we gathered with my dad's side of the family to celebrate my grandfather's 90th birthday – in Ottawa, Canada! This led to a number of milestones for Madeleine: first international trip, first time to Canada, first time meeting her great-grandparents and our relatives from Waterloo and her Uncle Peter. It was quite eventful!

M. and my cousin Stephanie

Happy with Uncle Peter!

We drove up to Ottawa, family roadtrip style: Dave, Maddie, and I joined Grace, A., and M. in their minivan, and the six of us braved the journey together (Stephen traveled separately because of his work schedule). The kids were really quite good, with only one period of total meltdown on each leg of the trip!

(N.B.: my dad restraining M. by the collar so he doesn't plunge face-first into the cake! Haha)

Our actual time in Ottawa was very brief, but it felt so special to see Maddie with my grandparents! I have so many memories of their house, too, so it was precious to bring our little baby there. We went out for dim sum lunch and Chinese seafood dinner in Chinatown, and posed for family pictures to commemorate the moment.

My Ye-ye is pretty out of it these days. I'm not sure whether he recognizes me or knows that I'm his oldest son's daughter, and I'm quite certain he doesn't know whom Maddie belongs to. But when he sees Maddie, he instinctively reaches out to her and bends in close to make eye contact, smiling and chuckling and singing her little songs.

It was so moving to see those two together! Praying for more opportunities and more years to spend together!

Halloween 2016

Maddie is a bit young to enjoy Halloween, but that didn't stop us from suiting her up and taking her out for her first trick or treating! We went up and down the block near Stephen and Grace's house, along with a pretty cute Elephant and Thomas the Train:

Here we are before setting out:

I love this photo! Little baby was getting quite sleepy already, and A. was so delighted to be in a matching Elephant costume, and M. was happy to be his beloved Thomas.

Baby fell asleep shortly into our jaunt:

We came home with a small haul, just as the bigger kids began to swamp the neighborhood. Why do people like such scary costumes?? Shudder.

And here is baby in her secondary costume, as a soft little sheep:

Thanks to Auntie Jessica for the handknit hat! Til next year...

Four months

Happy four months to our joyful little baby! She has become a super-drooler, and just recently began really grabbing objects. Every day is a little adventure!