All on our own / Thanks to grandparents

We knew the time would come, but did not realize it would seem to be so soon. We are now a 3 person household (whose electric bill this month will probably be the equivalent of the power used by a small country in Africa). Grandmother Gail departed DC on a flight back to Dallas this afternoon. All of the tireless cooking, cleaning, laundry, weeding, talking to the birds and holding the baby has left us saying a little bit of "what now?". We will miss both grandparents Solomon being here and their help, but more importantly, so will Melissa.

Of course, we are also lucky to have grandparents Farley close by - and the visits by grandmother Cindy and grandfather Roy will be frequent and helpful.

Therefore, this posting will be dedicated to Melissa's grandparents - yes, you have the best position in the world, being able to participate in the fun things and then hand off child to parents for the not-so-fun things, but most importantly, Melissa is lucky to have all her grandparents around her for love, guidance and support. We, as new parents, couldn't ask for anything more.




I'll also note that I have been inundated with requests for more blog entries. Well, between Melissa and Lisa, Steven has been quite busy. [He sure has - yakking with the electrician, climbing on the roof with the chimney sweep, reading the mail, ripping vines out down the street, cleaning the fish pond, reading the newspaper and Texas Monthly - many are things that could have been done prior to Melissa's arrival, but procrastinated or don't relate to taking care of the baby. -- Lisa] [Hey, that's not fair - I also have been assisting the main cook, going to the grocery store every other day, putting together and taking apart all items pooped on, doing laundry, working on our lawn, changing diapers, clipping coupons, fixing mom's computer (the remote control thing is really cool), and many other things. -- Steven]

OK, before this turns into a tit-for-tat, first note is Steven is unable to provide the most important function to Melissa, at least at this stage in her life. Lisa is unable to do many pre-birth items and is fully occupied most of the day and night by feeding or necessary sleeping. Steven changes many (possibly even most) diapers, cleans belly button, carries around and attempts to amuse Melissa (someone has to be entertained by his jokes). All of this sounds like the shirt Aunt Amy gave Melissa is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - "Chai Maintenance"! (For the non-Hebrew literate, before you go google what "chai" means, literally it means "life", but in this instance, just say the phrase out loud and you'll get the joke.)

We are less than 12 hours from having in-house assistance and already feeling the heat. This will be an interesting week.