How Time Flies

Wow, as of today Stella Rae, the Brooklyn Baby Baby, is four and a half months old. I thought it would be fun to do a little photo essay showing her growth, relative to me. Fortunately we have many, many shots of me sitting on my rear on the couch. Apparently the sheer magnitude of time I've spent on this couch dictates that at least for some of that I would be holding my daughter. That in turn dictates that for at least some of THAT my wife would have a camera.

So, kind of like "33 Short Films About Glenn Gould," you have roughly the same photograph of me with her, tracing her development. To me she already looks like a different child; it's kind of crazy.

There are a few lessons I can draw from this photo series. One is that I only own about three shirts, and one of them is a hideous, juvenile garment that screams "Serious X-Men Reader. 'Nuff Said." In truth I don't even like the X-Men all that much. I bought the shirt for my older brother's birthday, 20 years ago! But he hated it as he thought it was too juvenile. So, in typical fashion I took it back decades later.

Another lesson I can draw is that I awake with some serious bedhead.

Another lesson? I must really, really love our couch.

Also, our daughter, despite the coughing (she's gone on a new jag of them just recently), the constant colds, the lack of sleep, the fevers, is totally kicking ass in the development world. Look at that bottom photo. That's a happy baby. She didn't get like that totally by accident. Kudos to my wife.

This weekend was a fun one, by the way. Sunday we visited my mother, Stella's bubbie, and slept over. (Stella kind of hated being in a new environment and let us know it.) Monday we went down to the South Street Sea Port for my mom's 79th birthday and treated her to lunch. It was a beautiful day, and even though the lunch, at Pacific Grill was frankly kind of terrible, it was lovely to be able to do that for someone I care about so much. My brother Stu came down too, which made Stella very happy as she loves her uncle.

But you've got to love my mom. She always tells it like it is. At one point the waiter came by and asked her if she likes her steak sandwich.

"No, to tell you the truth," she said. "It's really not very good at all." By this time, of course, she had eaten nearly all of it.

"I wouldn't have told him if he didn't ask," she explained. "It's not HIS fault, he didn't make it, but he DID ask."

The only reason we took her down there was so that she could see The Waterfalls, specifically the lovely one under the Brooklyn Bridge. She hadn't seen any of them yet, and I wanted her to, as it's a once in a lifetime event.

(For those from out of town The Waterfalls are literally that. An artist has erected massive, artificial waterfalls in New York's East River. The grandest one is right underneath one of the uprights of the Brooklyn Bridge. It totally changes the relationship you have to this icon of modern engineering to see water spouting from it. I wish I had a good picture of it, but I don't. But in a month they (there are four) will all be gone for good. At night lights radiate through them, but I've never seen it because we are home with Stella Rae, trying to get her to sleep.)

On a related note I am eternally glad Randi and I both saw The Gates in Central Park before they were gone (we went when it was snowing, it was beautiful) and that we ponied up the money to see Matthew Barney's magnificent, astonishing and overwhelming Cremaster exhibit in the Guggenheim; the latter is certainly the greatest art experience I've ever had, and I doubt it shall ever be topped.

My mom, of course, loved seeing us, and was thrilled to see The 'Falls. And we were thrilled that she was thrilled. Then, after not too long it was time for home. And, amazingly, the little one slept almost all night. Why? What did we do wrong?