I have fulfilled my promise and played my role in the unbroken covenant dating back 3500 years to Abraham. My son has had his bris. He did beautifully, although my father had to be cautioned by the mohel to hold the boy's legs more firmly and a bit more carefully. The boy is rather strong, according to the mohel.

The attendance was low but the important ones managed to come.

I wore my grandfather's yarmulke for the ceremony. It was the first time I had put it on, ever. My grandmother had made it for him. He wore it all the time I knew him. The cantor said it was Bukharan in style, which I did not know. It was a difficult moment for me. The bris for the boy named for my grandfather and my wearing his yarmulke. I took it out of his tallis bag and closed the bag up. I had been delaying, coming up with reason after reason to avoid taking possession of these things from my mom. It doesnÂ’t take a genius to figure out why. But I wore it.

After the bris, we hung it with our guests and then went for a long lunch at our old beach club. The kids frolicked on the lawn next to the ocean. It was a spectacular day. I drove everyone back home for a little while and we returned to Westchester that evening for the Seder.

The Girl Child sang the four questions in Hebrew. She's five years old. She is now officially more accomplished than I am.

We didn't get home from the Seder until almost 10:00. We were all terribly tired. The children had not napped and I have not had a complete night's sleep in days, if not longer. I put them to bed and went to my room to unpack from the day.

It had been a momentous day. We welcomed our son into the world in a spiritual, ritual way and we celebrated the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It was quite a day.

I opened my grandfather's tallis bag to replace within it his, now my, yarmulke. I don't know why I did the following, what prompted me to do this, but I put my face to his tallis bag and inhaled.

He has been dead since December, my beloved grandfather. I miss him more than I can possibly relate. I thought I was doing better with his death.

But the tallis bag. Oh, my. The bag smelled of him. I could smell his particular scent in it still. The scent I used to smell when I hugged him or sat next to him. I can't describe it but it was ineluctably his, this scent. I closed the bag immediately and began to struggle not to cry. It was such a blow, such an unexpected punch to suddenly find him there in that bag, there in the room with me. I shut the bag quickly so I could, as if I really could, preserve the smell, not expose it to air, bottle it for later, hold on to that dear man for a little bit longer.

Right now, the scent was too much for me. I'm not going to tell my mother or uncles about it, I don't think. Maybe later it will be a comfort to me but right now that faint scent is overwhelming.

I miss him so much that I have given my son his name. Although, right now, I have difficulty calling my son by his given name. Instead, I call him by the nickname my daughter has bestowed upon him and I find that easier.

I'm going to hug that bag to my chest, you know, and pray for the time that it becomes a comfort to me and not a trial.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:23 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I just slept for the last 40 minutes or so and am feeling marginally more human. It was an early start to the day (alarm at 3:40 a.m.) after a difficult night with the little guy, mostly difficult for my wife but I was up a bit, too. I had to get up so early to meet the new nanny at the airport at 5:20. It is about an hour's drive from her to Kennedy airport.

So, it was about 4:00 when I went downstairs this morning to quickly make some coffee before heading off and I heard some suspicious little feet pattering away upstairs. I went up to investigate and found the Boy Child and the Girl Child coming out of her room:

BC: Pappa, me so thirsty, me have some freshWAter, please?

GC: Pappa, he's really thirsty and wants some fresh water. My water on my night table is a little old.

Me: What was he doing in your room?

GC: Oh, he slept in my bed because he said he was scared.

I picked him up and carried him downstairs where I got him some fresh water and brought him back up and tucked him and the Girl Child back into her bed, hoping they'd get to sleep.

They didn't. I heard more footsteps moving around quickly upstairs.

Then my wife came down. Now, this is how you know you've married a good one, ok. It is just past 4:00 in the morning, your wife has been up and then asleep and then up and then asleep throughout the night, she has just been woken up by the other kids, and she reports to you with great humor:

You realize that you are leaving me all alone in the house with two members of the five and under crowd engaged in an active search upstairs for the prophet Elijah? At least, that's what they said they were looking for when they just came into our room and woke me up.

They are some lucky kids, I tell you. If I tried that, I'd have had some violence committed on my person.

The bris for the new guy, by the way, will be on Wednesday.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:02 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I would say we've made a few changes for the Girl Child and Boy Child this weekend. We've brought home a new brother for them, fired the nanny (that went very well, actually), are bringing the new nanny in to start tomorrow, and have put the Boy Child in a big boy bed. The Boy Child is still wearing a diaper at night (age 3) because he keeps peeing in the night. The following is what transpired this morning when I crawled into bed with him to cuddle with him after he woke up:

Me: Did you pee in your diaper last night?

BC: Weeeel, I went to the potty a lot last night.

Me: Yes, but did you pee in your diaper?

BC: Mamma changed me last night [tone: earnest]

Me: Ok, but did you pee in your diaper?

BC: [sighs] Oh, dear. Maybe a lot.

I was so proud of him and his attempts to answer my questions without actually answering them. I think he's close to ready for national elective office.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:07 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I blocked it all from my memory. How bad the incomplete night is. I didn't get the brunt of it, I just took the 1:00 to 2:30 shift when, remembering that I was going to have to watch the two older children, I passed the new guy back to his mother.

Everything hurts -- head, neck, back. Not to whine, because no matter how bad I feel I can guarantee that my wife feels worse.

Sitting here right now with the older kids, I made the Girl Child (age 5) laugh:

Me: Girl Child, your hair looks so pretty since we got it cut. She did such a nice job.

GC: No, it doesn't. It looks stupid.

Me: Yeah, but it looks pretty stupid!

She laughed really hard. Gotta love a 5 year old with a good sense of humor.

I have to go make more coffee. Bye.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:47 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 I see the humor gets exponentially worse compared to the hours of sleep. However, if it makes GC laugh, your job is done my friend. Everyone is home? That's great news! Hang in there family RP.

Posted by: Wicked H at April 08, 2006 10:29 AM (BQhBn)

2 I am glad everyone is at home and happy. Have a happy Pesach!!!!

Posted by: Rachel Ann at April 08, 2006 04:30 PM (oig97)

3 God bless the little ones!

Posted by: Andrew Cusack at April 09, 2006 05:09 AM (kxskO)

4 I'm having flashbacks. Argh! The key is to be a deeper sleeper than the missus. Or at least to learn to fake it real well. ;-)

Posted by: Jim at April 10, 2006 05:21 AM (oqu5j)

5 I feel for ya, RP, I'm in the same boat. I thought to myself "I'm too old for this!" the first night that he screamed most of the night. Fortunate for me my wife has been taking the brunt of it: 3-5 hour gaps between feeding, the nights where nothing calms him. It's only a few months (hopefully) and I'm confident you can stand it. We've got a couple more to go and we may be seeing the home stretch. Then there's the constant eye and the chasing and the...

Posted by: Oorgo at April 12, 2006 11:37 AM (lM0qs)

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Here I sit. Quite tired, a beer filled glass at my feet, the baby monitors buzzing quietly behind me, my equally tired children sleeping upstairs, and a gigantic pile of clean newborn sized baby laundry that I washed in between assembling the cradle, going to the pharmacy, returning client phone calls and family phone calls, cleaning the new baby's room and sorting all his clothes, and visiting the wife and new child (who I still don't know what to call for my blog).

The Boy Child and Girl Child shared a picnic dinner on the floor of the Viking Bride's room tonight. They had McDonald Happy Meals, beloved of children everywhere, and the wife and I shared a celebratory meal that the hospital gives all new parents. Quite good actually (seriously), although if you give birth at Greenwich Hospital any of you out there, I urge you not to bother opening the bottle of NY State Champagne. Don't say I didn't warn you, ok?

Hopefully, the new guy will get released tomorrow from the NICU, where he has been kept as his blood sugar has not been stellar and he is still quite a tiny little fellow. I am optimistic that they will allow us to bring him home tomorrow. They kick the Viking Bride to the curb by 11:00.

Well, the mound of laundry ain't folding itself, so I must go.

Before I go, though, thank you all for this unexpected outpouring of support and happiness and good wishes and all the wonderful thoughts you all were sending our way. Even if it didn't influence the outcome (no way to know, of course but I figure it surely didn't hurt), it certainly touched my heart and I am terribly grateful. Thank you all so very much.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:24 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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