One more from the weekend

The arrival of the grandmothers, part II

Amy's mom is here this week. She's giddy, too.

Pumpkin hunting

We didn't make it all the way out to Sauvie Island this year, but we did go for pumpkins today nonetheless.





Also, considering Mr. Baby's arrival, we won't get around to hosting the annual carving party this year. But it's a good trade-off, for sure. Though I think Jasper involves more cleanup. Next year, however, we'll resume the tradition.

Mileage check

I've cleared 1,600 miles on the bike so far this year, which is the equivalent of a trip from Portland to Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm doing well with the weather so far, and hope to keep at it and clear the 2,000-mile mark before the end of the year.


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Playing on the bed

The arrival of the grandmothers, part I

My mom was here to see her first grandchild last week. She was giddy.

A thought

I went on a cleaning spree while I was off the past couple of weeks. In sorting through one closet I found a bunch of cards Amy and I exchanged over the years. One - from back in college - had one of my favorite quotes on the back.

For all the knowledge that we will never succeed in the work of our lives, we must continue to choose to continue. For all the frustrations and fears that each of us has and will have in our short time, we must choose to pursue to the end of choosing the best we know for each other, and in that choosing, long and late, we will connect with each other.

-- A. Bartlett Giamatti

Seems fitting these days, in many ways at work and in politics, no?

Jasper's namesake

My mom flew in today (more pics on that to come; meanwhile, suffice to say she can't quit telling us she's in love with her grandson) and brought this picture of Jasper's namesake - Jasper Newton Prince Jr. (March 4, 1881-July 11, 1918). He is our Jasper's great-great grandfather on my father's side.

You can see from the markings at the top that the original, which hangs in my parents' house, is an oval-shaped print. And the line running through his hat shows how old it is because that's where the picture broke apart when they took it out of the frame years ago to make a copy.

I suppose in everyone's childhood homes hangs a long-gone relative's portrait from which, you'd swear, the eyes followed you when you got up in the night for a snack or to use the bathroom or maybe even to sneak out. This was that picture in my house growing up.

The hat.

The cigarette.

The buttoned-all-the-way-up shirt.

I mean, when you're about 13 years old, you think anyone who got their portrait made with a cigarette dangling from his lips, clearly, was a man not to be messed with -- much less to do mischief under the nose of in the dark of night. It's only tonight, so many years later, that I noticed for the first time the doorway or whatever that is over his shoulder. As a kid, I never -- ever -- managed to get past the face. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing but the face.

I wrote a little about Jasper Junior -- and his wife, whom I trace my Choctaw heritage back to -- in 2004. Here's the related passage, which gives a little more background on the man and his life:

Eliza Walker, my great-grandmother, is the bedrock of what I've always known to be my Choctaw ancestry.

Eliza, an original Choctaw enrollee who stopped speaking her native language as a child to avoid discrimination, married Jasper Prince Jr., an Irishman, in 1903 after meeting him at a church social. His family disowned him because of the interracial union.

Undaunted, Jasper and Eliza pressed on. They farmed the allotment that was one of the few benefits her roll number offered. They had seven children, and Jasper, planning for his growing family, borrowed against the land. Then he died in 1918 at age 37, leaving his wife with a row of mouths to feed and a stack of bills to pay.

A widow at 31 with children ranging in age from 6 months to 13 years, Eliza lost the land as she struggled to hold her family together. She persevered, though, serving as her brood's unbreakable bond through the highs and lows of the 60 years that followed.

She died in 1981 at age 94, a slight but commanding woman who always was the anchor of stability in the family.

In that portrait I can see some of the qualities that have come down from Jasper to his son Elmer to his sons Randy (my dad) and Darryll (my uncle), then to me and, perhaps, to this new Jasper.

Our Jasper.

Like I said, I could never get past Jasper Newton's face in the portrait as a kid. Now, it's funny, but I can't get past Jasper Elliott's face in front of me today.

I'm entranced by both. Just for different reasons.

If only...

... more people in OKC were this cool.

A few more pics (or The grandmothers are clamoring)

Some more pictures as my time off nears its end....

This was from back when we were at the hospital. Jasper likes to get a good foothold while nursing.

Also back at the hospital. The football hold -- as taught in baby class -- a position that is almost guaranteed to soothe the crying baby. Jasper goes for it almost every time.

Amy attempts to give me dirty (and I mean dirty) diaper-changing instructions. Wiley pays more attention that I do.

Jasper really likes to play with his hands. A lot.

All snuggled in to the wrap-carrier-sling-thing for a walk on this cool afternoon day. Within minutes, he's asleep.

Back from the walk, resting on the porch. Jasper sleeps in that pouch. Sleeps hard.

I attempt to soothe Jasper earlier this evening while Wiley's expression suggestions, "Crying? Again?" (Should've used the football hold.)

Then and now: Our friend Dina brought dinner tonight -- capping two weeks of dinners friends have brought us (What great friends! What wonderful food!) and while she and her boys were here they delivered pictures from Amy's baby shower that Dina hosted. I think in this picture Amy is remembering the whole ordeal that is pregnancy.

Jasper's first week*

A week ago tonight, we got into bed with Amy feeling contractions and thinking it still would be a few days before Jasper would arrive. Tonight, we are all settled at home with both Amy and Jasper next to me alternately sleeping and nursing.

The intervening days have been an exhilarating and exhausting roller coaster of emotions.

Before going into all that, however, here's a picture: Jasper in the car seat -- he really likes the thing -- preparing to leave the hospital (for the first time; more on that later). He's a long, skinny guy, but not as much as this picture suggests.

Let's start with the name: Jasper Elliott Prince. I don't know if folks are just being kind or what, but everyone keeps telling us they love the name. The first name was picked for family history. The middle name was picked for sense of place.

Jasper is the name of both my great and great-great grandfathers on the Prince side. A striking portrait of the junior (born March 4, 1881, died July 11, 1918) resides in my parents' house. Maybe we'll get a copy of it for our own home now. Personally, I like the name because it has a certain older feel, a Midwestern sensibility as my friend Q once said. Plus, I don't think we've met any other Jaspers.

Elliott we originally had in the running for a first name because we like Eli. Went around and around about the spelling. Settled on double l, double t in the end for a couple of reasons, I suppose, though just about any combination would have some symbolic ties to the Northwest -- where our Jasper was born. Elliott Bay is in Seattle, which is where I first thought I'd like to live someday if I ever made it to the Northwest. Eliot Glacier is on Mount Hood, which we see every day -- and I stop to look at as I ride to work. Elliott Smith is one of the musicians from the Northwest whose music I most like (though none of it is exactly happy baby-friendly stuff).


That's Jasper as he looked as I peeked in on him earlier tonight.

Again, about this time last week Amy's water broke and off we went. We'll spare you the gory details, but an epidural around 4 a.m. pierced something it shouldn't have, resulting in what the doctors called a spinal headache. Basically, the botched epidural resulted in spinal fluid leaking, which made her brain ache anytime she was upright. As a result, for most of the time between 4 a.m. Monday and about 4 p.m. Wednesday, she was flat on her back. With her feeling better, we came home Wednesday night only to realize the headache returned -- which meant even more time flat on her back while trying to feed the baby. So back we went to the hospital on Thursday to get what the doctors call a blood patch. They drew blood from her arm and injected it into the same spinal spot used for the epidural. The goal: have the blood, basically, fill the pierced dura and prevent more spinal fluid from leaking, thus ending the headache.

Bottom line: She's a helluva lot tougher than I am or ever will be. In the course of four days she had a giant needle shoved into her spine, gave birth to a nearly nine-pound baby, endured a debilitating headache and then had another giant needle shoved into the same spot in her spine.

She amazes me. As does Jasper, who helped me blog some of this in between feedings tonight.


* Note: Corrected namesake reference to great and great-great -- rather than great-great and great-great-great grandfathers. Sleepy.