Jack meets the family

For Christmas this year, Jack got to meet his family-- including his second set of grandparents, who had been kept in Portland five days longer than planned on due to a fearsome blizzard up there in the Pacific Northwest. Four grandparents, one great grandma, four cousins-once-removed, two step-cousins-once-removed, six great aunts and uncles, and a partridge in a pear tree. The one very important part of his family he has not met yet is his aunt and uncle, his ONLY aunt and uncle, and his three fantastic cousins that are back in Minnesota and missed him because they came to visit when he was supposed to come out, not when he actually did. He will meet his aunt when she comes back out in January, but will have to wait a little longer to meet the Mickelson boys. That's probably okay, since getting a little bigger and stronger will help him hold his own a little better against that rough and tumble triumvirate.

Jack was of course the star of the show on this Christmas day. My step-cousins produced what Danny characterized as "an endless stream of radioshak consumer electronics" to photograph the little guy as he was passed around from arms to impatiently waiting arms. I have never felt so popular on behalf of someone else. And he was just a little trooper through it all. I can't believe how lucky we are. I never really understood what was meant by an infant being "tender and mild" until I met Jack. At dinner, all the parents in the room shared stories about the steep learning curve of new parenthood and the foibles and stumbles along the way. In the first eight days of his life, Jack has gone awfully easy on his parents. He's sleeping for four hours at a stretch at night and when it's time to wake up to nurse, he doesn't do it by crying, he sits there and coos and makes little lip-smacking noises until we notice him. My aunt was telling me about how my cousin used to just wail at 6pm each day for two hours for no apparent reason, just to "blow off steam." Jack cries when he needs burping or when he's poopy, and sometimes not even when he's poopy. I am well aware that by writing this I am condemning myself to a sleepless night tonight because the fates don't like to be taunted like this. So I am knocking on wood, and counting my blessings, and aware that even if and when everything changes and we need to figure it out all over again, at least we were treated to a week of this bliss during that time where adjusting to your new life is supposed to be so difficult.

The other day, as we were lying in bed, waking up from one of our family naps (a new favorite part of our day), Danny said, "I can't wait to see what happens in the next... the next... everything." Somehow that sums up exactly how I feel right now. The next everything. I liked that so much, I am changing the name of our blog. While I do cherish that Shel Silverstein poem, it's more meaningful to me to use the words of someone I know and love. But as a fond farewell to the old blog name, here is my Christmas wish for you, Jack:

Listen to the mustn'ts, child
Listen to the don'ts
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts,
Listen to the never haves,
Then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child
Anything can be.