Final Four, Baby!

Although her mother is an eternal pessimist in these matters, I don't think Ruby ever doubted that UCLA would at least return to the Final Four for the third consecutive year. She proudly wears the colors here. She sometimes looks much older in pictures, and this is one of those, I think. She looks to me as much a miniature version of an undergrad as the toddler she actually is. It doesn't help that she has spontaneously taken to calling us "Mom' and "Pop" as if she actually were nineteen. It will be particularly annoying if she decides to go directly from the terrible twos to teenhood, thereby inflicting maximum pain upon our lives and robbing us of the joy of those golden years between 3 and 12.

At this point, far be it from me to put this past her...

I think that I very well might have felt a bit hurt by this shortening of "Popi", since I have become quite attached to it, particularly because she came up with it herself, but for a bit of coincidence. Not that she won't change what she calls me many more times, but I can live with "Pop" because last week, while I was pinned to the couch by G, The Godfather happened to be on, and during the scene with Brando in the hospital, all alone, Pacino comes in and says "Pop, I'm here."

If it's good enough for Vito Corleone, it's good enough for me.


In any case, it's certain that she will skip blissfully through the week while her mother frets about the athleticism of Memphis and the overall quality of North Carolina. The only thing she has to worry about is timing her fits perfectly to coincide with the games. And if history is any indication, she has nothing to worry about, as she has honed this particular skill to a fine art...

Pictures from the Visits

A big week, with visits from YeYe (aka their grandfather Jon) and cousin Maile (along with her parents). We had a fantastic dinner over at our friends Chops and Jane's place on Tuesday night, with three toddlers and a couple of babies on the loose

Tia Jennifer (or is it Tia Yeni?) with the little boy

Ruby and YeYe

A Loving Goodbye

Too cute for words. Maile and Ruby giving each other a little loving as they say goodbye.

A Very Scary Maile

Hopped up

The New Tat

I've been asked quite a bit about getting a new tattoo, since as you all know I have one in Ruby's honor, which is fairly prominent on my arm. It seems quite unlikely that I could get away with not getting one of similar size and prominence in honor of the little boy. Here is a picture of us getting it done. It's a very stylized rendition of her birth date in the Aztec calendar, which is the Year of the Rabbit, the Month of the Monkey, and the Day of the Wind.

So, there are three obvious options for a tattoo on my left forearm dedicated to the boy;
First, a nice, fat Virgin of Guadalupe. Perhaps a Robot Virgin. Or a Virgin of Death.

The second option, of course would be a nice cool glass of Porter. But the third option seems the most likely at this point. His birth date according to the Aztec calendar is the Year of the Flint Stone, the month of the Wind, and the Day of the Deer, in order below.

Tecpatl Ehecatl Mazatl

At least a part why this is the frontrunner is that these would work quite well. The Ruby tattoo has a circular flow to it that would be a very natural fit for the Wind element to be in the middle of a new tattoo. The Flint Stone may be a bit of a challenge, but the deer would be natural complement to the rabbit on Ruby's.

In any case, I have put some thought into it, and have some ideas, obviously, but they may change by the time I get around to actually doing it...

Quiz

Q: What is OCD?

A:

ps. She says "Alphabet Power!"

Gettin' Some Love

Here, we have a very short video of the little boy gettin' some love from the biggest boy he knows, Aubrey...

More Pictures

I realized this morning that we hadn't put any up of him awake and alert. He mostly sleeps, of course, but is quietly alert a good amount as well. Here are a few pictures of him just looking around this morning.

Jude's Birthday pictures

Sorry, no poignantly funny stories today. Just some pictures from Jude's third birthday party yesterday.



















Sometimes, she looks like a caricature of a cute little toddler girl. This is one of those times.















The birthday boy, eye-ing his cake.



















Little Lupe Porter being held by Greg.















and then Amanda















If she's cool, hip Aunt Karen, what exactly are they talking about out there on the deck?















and, of course, the inevitable end to the evening.

The little guy (and, of course, a story about his big sister)

We have been very cautious about making any determinations or inferences about his personality at this early stage, mostly because we don't want to jinx what seems to be more and more clear by actually saying it out loud. By saying that he does seem to be quite a bit, how shall we say, less intense than Ruby.

He certainly hasn't been, up until this point, inconsolable in the way that she was as a baby. The other issue that has led to our reluctance to make any calls about his personality is that he is the age today that she was on the day she came home from the hospital, so comparisons are a bit difficult.

Yet, we are tentatively coming to perhaps, maybe, possibly let ourselves believe that he'll be at least somewhat mellower. He does seem to be going through the standard "witching hour" in the early evening, but it is basically a fairly tiny bout of fussiness, where he generally doesn't scream, just won't go completely to sleep for a long stretch all by himself.

Natasha will have to fill you all in about how he is doing at night, but during the day, he is sleeping pretty well. The standard technique, at this point, is to swaddle him, then walk him around for about five or ten minutes until he falls asleep, then put him into his little vibrating chair. He will sleep there for up to a couple of hours, until he gets hungry. Ruby, by way of contrast, would not let us put her down for any length of time, under any circumstances.

Speaking of Ruby, I took her out for a quick beer this afternoon, like old times, just me and her. She loved it, because she got my undivided attention, and I loved it because they happened to have one of my all time favorite beers, Russian River's Beatification. When the check came, Ruby insisted, as she always does, on giving the money to the waitress. When Ruby gave it to her, the waitress inquired, "Do you need change?"
To which Ruby replied, "I'm not poopy!"
Needless to say, the waitress stumbled away from what seemed to her a very awkward and confusing situation. When she walked by again at some point during the proceeding 20 minutes it took us to get ready to actually leave, I explained that the word "change" to Ruby meant "diaper change", and she laughed. Still, she seemed a bit confused, embarrassed, and a tad uncomfortable.

Welcome to the world of a toddler's parent.

Big Day Out

Well, it was indeed a big day for the little boy. His first full on excursion out into the big wide world. We went to the farmer's market. On the bright side, the wares on offer were fabulous, the sun was shining, and it was our last day with Nana, who flew home earlier this evening.

On the down side, in what very well may be two recurring themes for our tiny protagonist, he absolutely missed the entire excursion, and he was completely and utterly overshadowed by the histrionics of his big sister. Now, I know that it's a tad premature to be worrying about these types of things, but part of being a parent is worrying. And, I'm not really the type to worry about the stereotypical parental worries like choking or lead paint or the dangers of crawling. No, I worry that my child will inherit the personality traits that have lead to my lifelong sense of existential dread.

Namely, I worry that, as he did today, he will miss large parts of his own life. Granted, I have mostly missed out on my own life due to a proclivity to over intellectualize any and all experiences, and he missed his morning outing by sleeping through it. I do realize that these are indeed different. But, by having a penis and missing any tiny part at all of his life, he is already way more like me than Ruby ever was or will be. So much so that it naturally makes me worry that he is, in fact, exactly like me, and triggers fears that he will inevitably relive the internal struggles of my life.

Luckily, there is at least some small consolation in that he will not be reliving the external struggles of my life, as he will undoubtedly be struggling with the unique challenges of living a life in the shadow of, and under the direction of his big sister. While he slept this morning, she completely soaked one entire pantleg of her jeans on the way to the market. She screamed at the top of her lungs at her Nana, "NO PUSH ME!!" because she has a strict rule that I have to push her stroller whenever I am present. She charmed a bunch of strangers with her exuberance and bright red knit devil horn hat. She also accompanied her mother to the bathroom. Unfortunately, her mother is currently convalescing from surgery, and is therefore unable to pick her up. So, of course, she threw a fit, and ended up heaving herself upon the ground as dead weight, and being dragged by an arm screaming for what seemed to her mother to be miles.

Thankfully, people don't really want to get involved any more, and therefore nobody called child protective services. So, for now, she remains under our protection. Of course, she remains convinced that her baby brother is under hers. She was incredibly proud of herself this evening when she got to hold him. In fact, she took it so seriously that she wouldn't let Natasha touch him while she held him. It was a bit disturbing, but very, very cute as well.

More on Names

I got a note from someone I work with congratulating me on the birth of my son that ended by asking "isn't that a girl's name?"

Well, yes it is. But, of course, it's also a boy's name. And, coincidentally, there is sweet vindication for using a gender-ambiguous name in yesterday's NY Times. The pertinent part states that

“Researchers have studied men with cross-gender names like Leslie,” Dr. Evans explained. “They haven’t found anything negative — no psychological or social problems — or any correlations with either masculinity or effeminacy. But they have found one major positive factor: a better sense of self-control. It’s not that you fight more, but that you learn how to let stuff roll off your back.”

In addition, there is also a very cool site that shows the historical popularity of all names that have appeared in the top 1000 most popular names for any year going back over a century. It does look like we're at a historical low for male Guadalupes as opposed to females. For perspective, though, type in Leslie to see the trajectory of name that truly went from male to female. Anica doesn't show up at all, but Anika is becoming quite popular.

Try it, it's kinda fun.

The birth of Guadalupe Porter Kingscote

Here is how it went down.

Because of the problems we had with Ruby's birth, which was most likely due to her size, we decided quite a while ago to have a scheduled c-section. So, back in November it was scheduled for Tuesday, March 4th. It became clear it was the right decision as the pregnancy progressed, since she was measuring two weeks bigger than expected. Two weeks. In theory, anyway, they are supposed to be growing at a rate of one pound per week at the end of a pregnancy.

That means two pounds. Well, this came as no surprise to anyone who saw Natasha since, say, October of last year. She started getting people commenting about how she looked like she was ready to pop any moment back in December. When visiting LA for Christmas, we were out to dinner with Tony & Alisa and Stephen & his girlfriend (who's name is escaping me right at the moment), when the waitress predicted it would be a girl, because it was auspicious month for girls. Natasha had to tell her that she was not, in fact, having the kid that month. Her eyes became the size Ruby's, and she obviously could not comprehend the possibility that this baby was not about to drop in the next couple of days. The waitress then suggested that the next month was good for girls as well.

At this point, Natasha was obliged to tell her that she was, in fact, not due to give birth in the next month either. Nor the month after that. Nor, for the record, the month after that.

Natasha's comment in the parking lot on the way to the car was, "I'm glad that didn't happen during my first one, or I'd be a puddle of tears right now".

The week before the appointment, the hospital left a message on our answering machine "regarding your appointment", which almost managed to bring Natasha to tears. Luckily it was just to move up the surgery by a couple of hours, so we went in at 8 am on the 4th. It took slightly longer than expected, but otherwise went perfectly according to plan. My mother had arrived a few days earlier, and was lurking in the waiting room with Ruby as he was born. He arrived at 10:51 am, and was whisked to a little table, where I helped clean him off and check him out. We then brought him over to Natasha to see, then went to the newborn nursery for the weighing and measuring while Natasha was fixed back up. On the way to the nursery, we stopped for a photo op outside the waiting room, where my mom took the very first picture of him.

In the nursery, we found out that he was 9 lbs even and 20-1/2 inches. We then went to a recovery room where we met up with a slightly loopy mommy. A couple of hours later, we moved to a regular room.

We were there until Sat., when we came home. My mother did a great job shuttling Ruby back and forth between home and the hospital while we were there. Aside from spending the time with our new little one, the best part of the hospital experience was "cookie time", which was at 2pm every day, when the most cheerful man I've ever met in my life would deliver a couple of cookies and a couple of cups of Peet's Coffee to the room.

In any case, we're home now, and all is going swimmingly. He did some fantastic sleeping last night; 11-1, then 2-5, and then 6-8. Ruby is giving him lots of kisses, and has finally started saying "Lupe Porter" instead of the "Lupe Quarter" she had been insisting on up until today. I was ready to go with her, and contemplated "Cash Money", but I suppose I'll have to drop that if she has.

As you may have heard, there is a bit of a split on the name. Before Ruby was born, we made a deal that I was to have final say on the first names in exchange for us all changing our last names to Natasha's mother's maiden name, Kingscote. Natasha had resolved at an early age to never take the name of a man, which I completely respect. I didn't really want to take Guest, as you have to repeat it endlessly in certain situations. So, we went to maiden names, and she couldn't even come close to pronouncing Aguirre, so we made this deal.

Which means that I like Guadalupe, so Guadalupe it is. Unfortunately, Natasha is a bit leery of Guadalupe as a boys name, and is afraid that he'll be as white as we are to boot. I grew up knowing only one Lupe, my great-grandfather. So, it sounds like a man's name to me. In any case, she likes Porter better, so she is calling him Porter, while I am calling him Lupe.

The upside to having such a long name is that it lends itself to endless variations. Feel free to improvise (except you, Mark). It goes without saying that he can be the toughest two week old in the hood with a nickname like G. He may also be destined to become a Cambridge educated novelist in the tradition of Martin Amos, or perhaps Salmon Rushdie, when called G. Porter Kingscote. Natasha father pronounced his name as "loopy", which may very well turn out to be highly appropriate. We don't know yet.

GP and PK both have a ring to them for me, although GPK doesn't, at least when spoken. Whatever he is called, though, he's here and anxious to meet you all.

Pictures from the Hospital

A