And Baby Makes Five

It’s funny how so much comes back to you, years after having your own babies.  Soon after my niece, Zadie, entered the world, and when Jody and Matt began to plan their trip to visit us in Barcelona, I offered to take the baby for a couple of days so they could get away.  They took me up on it immediately, which bodes well for them as parents who will remember to take time for themselves.  They left yesterday morning for Paris.  Jody shed a few tears, but Zadie has made the transition quite nicely.  Apparently babies don’t experience much separation anxiety until they are about 9 months old, and she’s a couple months shy of that.

I felt nervous going into our baby stint—it’s one thing to screw up your own kids, but you really don’t want to mess with someone else’s, even if they are family.  And I had already bitten her.  One day on our road trip she slipped one of her slender little fingers into my mouth as I was holding her and talking.  I didn’t realize it was there until I chomped down on it, causing her to wail.  Not an auspicious start. 

But somehow all of the instincts come back.  You remember how to shush and rock, the funny faces you made with your own babies, the feeling of unparalleled accomplishment that comes from making her laugh.  It doesn’t hurt that this baby is happy, charming, and knows how to sleep. When she cries, it is truly because she needs something.  You figure it out, and she stops.  Not so with my babies, especially C.C., who reacted badly when I consumed any dairy product during the nursing months, and who had colic. 

We took C.C. to Italy when she was about Zadie’s age, colic and all.  (Looking back, I think we must have been crazy).  Our friend Jerry was celebrating his 50^th birthday there, and he and Rhonda had invited us and one other family—who also had a 6-month old—to join them at a villa in Tuscany.  Jerry and Rhonda’s kids were 10 and 8 at the time, so perhaps they were the crazy ones, for inviting two babies along. As it was our first baby, and we had not spent much time with other babies, we thought our baby was normal, and that all that crying and screaming was what people meant when they said having a baby was tough.  When we met our friends’ baby, who sat placidly in his little seat for hours, we thought perhaps something was wrong with him, and asked our friend Rhonda if there was any cause for concern.  “No, Lisa,” she said gently, “it´s your baby who is not quite normal.”

Alec and I were out at a late dinner on Wednesday night, so we were tired when we began our first day of baby duty yesterday.  But all went well.  Alec took the first shift while I dropped the kids at school and went to physical therapy.  When I took over, Alec accompanied us on our way downtown—he split off to go to his office while I met my collaborator, Sarah for lunch.  We wondered whether folks thought she was our granddaughter, or if they just assumed we are very old and tired parents.  After lunch, I put her in the car and we went to pick up the kids from school—three car seats, lots of buckling and unbuckling, stroller, Bjorn, diaper bag…  I don’t miss the schlepping, I can tell you that much.  And then we went to Gracia to pick up Milo’s scooter at Bateau Lune on the Plaza de la Virreina. 

You may have heard that there have been big demonstrations in Spain for the past two weeks.  In Barcelona, the big one is in Plaza  Catalunya, but as the movement has grown, other neighborhoods have created their own sites of protest.  In Gracia the site is the Plaza de la Virreina.  We heard it before we saw it—a brass band playing When the Saints Come Marching In.  As we got closer, we saw a small crowd—mostly families with children—grouped in front of the band.  Young girls, about 8 or 10 years old, played the brass instruments while a few adults played the drums and bass.  We joined the peaceful group, eating our ice cream cones and listening to the music.  It was incredibly sweet, not at all threatening.  No matter what you read in the news, this is a peaceful group.  A makeshift clothesline held notices and flyers, attached with clothes pins.  And by the time we left the shop, the crows had tripled.  Someone brought large rolls of butcher paper for the kids to draw on.  The music continued.

By the time we got home, Zadie seemed tired.  We gave her a bottle and she slept for an hour while the rest of us ate dinner.  She woke up and Alec fed her while helping C.C. with her homework.  And then she wanted to sleep again.  So, although I should not admit this when I know her parents will be reading it, we rocked her to sleep, without a bath, without putting on her PJs.  She cranked about an hour later, drank some milk, and went back to sleep.  We hurried to bed—an act of self-preservation, convinced as we were that she would be up in the night.   However, although Alec and I kept waking up to check on the baby, she slept like an angel until 6:15, which must be some kind of record.

As I write this, Plaza Catalunya is a mess.  Police showed up in full riot gear this morning to force the protesters out.  Apparently, the city used the excuse of needing to clean the plaza to use forceful tactics, destroying the infrastructure that had been set up there, as well as the personal property of those who have camped there. My colleagues Joana and Amalia have been there all day, while those of us in the office track the goings-on on our computer (it’s no place for a baby).  The images are sad but familiar—tense police dressed in black, young people—frustrated with a crisis that has led to 40% unemployment among their age group—on their knees, refusing to meet violence with violence.

And all the while, Zadie sleeps in her car seat, at my feet.