11/19/06 Gabriel and Mom visit a new baby

Overall a pretty lazy day, unfortunately for two little boys who were bored and hyper this afternoon. Dave took them to a park and got the edge off, while I talked to Steph and prepared a dinner for Betsy and her family.


Then Gabriel, Katrina and I went to the White family's house to deliver the meal. A handy excuse to see the new baby! Dylan is just 4 days old, and I thought he'd look tiny compared to Katrina. He has SO much hair, and, of course, is SOOO cute! Ah, baby love.


Gabriel wasted no time seeking out Gina's trains, and they ended up playing with a dump truck puzzle together, with bursts of laughter that had us grownups a little concerned, but no disasters. Gina and Gabriel play really well together; Gina is very tolerant of Gabriel's train-focus and sometimes-antisociability.

Katrina has been a sweet, smiley, adorable baby today, hardly crying. When she did cry this morning, I wrapped her up, put her down, put on the noisemaker, gave her the pacifier, and five minutes later, she'd spit out the pacifier and was asleep. I swear she seemed relieved when I put her down.

Evenings to bed are not nearly so easy, unfortunately; it can take hours before she settles into a good nighttime sleep. Which she has been for many days in a row now, waking up once or twice to nurse and going right back to sleep. Dare I get confident this is the way it's going to be?

Steph told me all about the wedding (congratulations to my cousin Erik and his new wife Francesca) and funeral (condolences to my aunt Jacqueline and RIP Uncle Dan) I missed in NYC this week. Somehow all my cousins made it to NYC from France, but I couldn't! I wish I could have, it sounded like quite the grand affair. Our cousine Perrine (Erik's sister), whose daughter and son are 4 and 2, also wants our kids to know each other and encourages us to visit them in France. I guess we have a lot of flying in our future!

Steph also says our cousin Jason (Jacqueline's son) wants to visit me, which I think would be great. This is actually possible since he lives in L.A. now -- but I haven't seen him since he was 12! And we all lived in New York then, yet we still hardly saw each other. That's not going to happen with Aidan & Remi and Gabriel, Julian & Katrina. They're going to be more than cousins. They're going to be friends.

11/19/06