Sweetest Christmas Eve

 Neibaur and I had a very magical (and ethereal, if you will) Christmas Eve.  We cooked a North African spiced soup (perhaps one which wouldn’t have been too far from a Bethlehemi diet?).  It was mild, nutritious and brought happiness to our tummies.  How could it not, when it had carrots, potatoes, celery, cinnamon, turmeric, leeks and other ingredients that spent six hours in the slow cooker continually marrying each other?  We ate it at midnight with some ciabatta (our current bread-of-choice).  Put together, the soup, our cozy home, a lovely Christmas tree spread, and almost four years of deepening love we hope captured the spirit of gratitude we wish to offer our Lord for the Savior’s birth

                                                                                                                                                                                      

Singing Recital

  Singing in front of human beings can be scary.  Luckily, my December 21st recital was too low-key to be scary.   There were only four of us in the class and our audience comprising friends and family were full of love for us indeed!  The highlight of the class for me was experiencing Wilson Sutherland’s supremacy on the piano, an accomplished Juilliard musician whose skills blew my mind every week!  The best part of the class is that we got to have a recital in an apartment on the 41st floor of a building overlooking Times Square.  I sang “Over the Rainbow” as a solo and “Let’s Do It” and “Old-Fashioned Wedding” as duets.  It was nice to put weeks worth of practice to work and it was especially great to see how proud Neibaur was of me as I performed.  We have it on videotape to show any parents that might be interested and although it would be too painful to watch myself sing, I have caught Neibaur sneaking a peek of my performance twice.  He thinks it’s great.  One other great product of the class is that Wilson and I struck a deal:  we’ll be trading voice lessons for music sheet clutter-clearing sessions.  Yippee!

Library Stories

On Tuesday night, I went to the library to work on a final.  I left work at 4:15 and arrived at school by 5.  I gathered the materials I needed and worked on my problem set in pencil for a while.  Later on, I turned on my laptop, put on some amazing electronic music, and started converting my answers into a soft copy.  I worked intensely, without even once checking email or surfing the web (common procrastination measures).  The next thing I knew, my 9-cell, 8-hour battery was on critical mode.  It was 1:15am.  I was thirsty and hungry and had missed several promptings and opportunities to eat or drink thinking that, “Just one more thing,” or, “I need to focus,” or, “I’ll waste battery juice by taking a break,” or, “Finish first.”  I couldn’t believe how quickly time had passed.

I left school, took the 2am subway and got to 200th at 2:30ish to find Neibaur waiting for me.  (I had called him to tell him I was on my way.)  I took a shower, got into pajamas, and got ready to finish the work.  Neibaur, the most thoughtful husband in the world, had deseeded a pomegranate for me (so good to eat fruit when your body is so strained) and he loaded them into my mouth by the tablespoonful.  So delicious!

I gave my work another hour or so and turned it in.  It felt good.

New Life

On Monday I got to experience something very sweet. Since we moved here we have come to be friends with the family that lives in the apartment below us, the Orton family. When we first met them at the end of July, Emily was about 5 months pregnant with their 5th child. At the end of November, as they were preparing for the birth (they decided to have an in-home birth with a midwife), they asked if we would be willing to watch their children while the baby was being born, and we enthusiastically agreed. That day was yesterday.

As soon as we got out of bed the phone rang. It was Emily, who had been waiting to hear us moving around above her (our floors creak loudly when we walk) so that she could tell us that she was going into labor. Leila had to work, so I got to have the four kids all to myself. We had a fun time watching movies, sliding down an ice hill on our stomachs (like penguins), and eating the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the world. During the early afternoon Heather, Leila’s best friend in NYC, came over to help watch the kids while I took a little time to work on a final paper that was due later that evening.

Heather left a little before 3 and around 3:20, Erik (the father) called to tell us that the baby had been born, and that in about an hour he would be up to get the kids and take them to see the baby and their mother. When he came and gathered them up he asked if I wanted to go with them. I said that I didn’t want to disrupt this special family moment, but he insisted, so I went.

It was really amazing to see the baby – a girl. She was barely 2 hours old and looked so new and healthy. I got to watch the midwife measure and weigh the baby, and when she picked her up to turn her on her stomach it looked as if they baby were just this tiny blob made of bones which were still a little soft – she just kind of folded over the hand of the midwife. As the baby was being weighed and stuff, she started making loud sucking noises with her lips and the midwife told us that the baby was telling us she was hungry. I didn’t know that this is how you tell, initially, when a new baby is hungry (I thought that she would start crying when she was hungry). It was so amazing to see this instinctual communication. It was the baby’s first communication with the outside world.

The other really interesting thing that I noticed was the reaction of the Orton’s 2 year old son, Eli (Leila calls him Dash because he looks like the character Dash in the movie The Incredibles), newly promoted to next-to-youngest child. Eli is a good kid who usually spends his time in his own little world with his limited vocabulary, just doing his own thing and not really bothering anyone else. However, when he saw his new sister he somehow understood right away what had just happened. He knew that he was no longer the baby of the family and that the attention of the family would not be on him as much anymore. He started randomly crying and doing other things to get the attention of his parents (who also recognized this right away and did a good job of giving him as much attention as possible). It was remarkable to see Eli’s depth of comprehension of the new life situation. I guess that there’s a lot more going on in his mind than is revealed to us.

All in all it was a special day and I really feel blessed to have played a small role in not only watching the kids during the birth, but also witnessing some of the baby’s first moments in the world.

~N

Sunday Before Finals Before Christmas in New York

It is the Sunday before finals and my eye is twitching.  We are full of vegetarian lasagne, perhaps the best recipe we’ve ever had.  Neibaur is enjoying an online Lakers game and sharing how much he enjoys the occasional eye twitch.  It makes him feel like he’s in the movies (in the movie 5th Element, John Malkovich’s eye twitches on cue).  I don’t enjoy them much but I do think that hiccups are fun.  I did some research and discovered that benign eye twitching cases are caused by lack of sleep and stress.  Enough said.

In the sea of papers and finals, it is nice to reflect and write about this moment.  Only 3 papers and 2 finals left for us.

Day One With Family Blog

Take a break and experience snapshots of our life.

Hello world!