Birthdays

10 March 2009

Well, by the date on this, one thing is clear: I’m forty now.

Forty. 40. The big 4-0.

As Sebas told me the other day after thinking about it for a moment, “Dada, that’s a really old number.”

Thanks, pal…

Of course, he had thought I was going to be 5. Yep, five. Well, he had just turned 4, and he knew my birthday was coming up next, and, obviously, I’m older than him.

So must have been turning 5. But when I told him, no, 40 – well…

And so it is. But its been great so far. I’d say I don’t feel a day older than 18, and, really, it’d be true. I don’t. Never have. Still do just about everything I did then. Probably, weirdly, in better shape now. Definitely run faster…

And I’m very, very, very thankful for that.

Actually, and of course, have a lot to be thankful for.

Pretty much starts and stops with the 3 magical creatures I live with. But also family, and some really good, longstanding friends.

That was on display over the weekend. Lorena (again!), with her amiga Rosann, pulled off a really great surprise party over at John and Rosann’s place. Was supposed to be the famous “80s party” we had always heard about. But turns out was my party. With 80s regalia (Run DMC shirt for me, Lorena smashing in a true blue 80s outfit, complete with shiny zipper and fish net gloves. Evidently, she’s always wanted to dress up like that. Hmmm…).

Door opens, and there is standing Kousik, Mrugesh and Neena (and cute 3 y.o.), Dennis, all my family, Heidi and Meg and husbands from BIPAI, Dave and Christine Mora.

Wow. Shocking, when you don’t expect to see something like that.

But what fun. All the BIPAI folks ended up coming. Even Edith. And Mom got to meet her as well as one of her idols – Mark. Really nice for everyone to come.

And really great catching up with everyone we hadn’t seen in awhile. Just had a rip, roaring blast. One of those nights you wish would never end.

Roaming around the neighborhood at 3AM with Dennis looking for Camy’s car…
Oh yeah, that’s another story. When I get over the $200 its cost us (so far), maybe I’ll write about it (or just ask John)…

The next AM it was minus an hour for the (darn) time change. Then on to Seba’s zoo party. Tough. But also great. Fantastic, gentle party, with all the nicest kids from his school. Who needs blank-ing pump it up. Give me the zoo…

Nice Sunday with all the family, last night with James and Julie, John and Rosann. With just coming off of major jet lag after a month in Africa, we’re pretty tired (plus GI bug for Lorena, Oscar and me…). But so much fun.

Then, this morning, my actual birthday.

Have been thinking a lot about my 30th. Was the perfect birthday. Was in Honduras on a mission trip. Woke up in the Garifuna area, worked all day in Santa Fe. Nobody even knew it was my birthday, much less my 30th. No family or friends could call me and razz me.

The work I loved in a place I loved.

It was perfect.

Today. Houston. Just another day, getting ready to go to work.

Hmmm… Was this how I had imagined my 40th?

Actually, had been planning for awhile to have all of us go off somewhere exotic, celebrate it in style, way out there in the world somewhere. Like Lorena’s 30th, when we were in Thessaloniki (awesome – one of the greatest dinners and post-dinner walks of all time…).

But then, no, up came the chance to do the Africa month, so sort of traded that for having my 40th here in Houston.

Oh well, but was a good trade. Last month was incredibly special.

So - ho hum - the long-anticipated 40th in Houston...

But then the surprise party.

Phenomenal.

And the nice weekend.

Really great.

Good night with the brothers last night.

Hmmm. Pretty great.

This morning: brushing my teeth, just about to run out the door to work.

Same as always…

But then I hear the little feet coming up the stairs.

Odd, Sebas never does that in the morning. He’s downstairs with Mommies, getting ready.

I hear him get to the top stair.

Then start singing:

“Happy birthday to you.”

“Happy birthday to you.”

“Happy birthday, Dear Dada. Happy birthday to you.”

Tonight, it will just be the four of us. Get off a little early from work. Pick-up Sebas. Get Lorena for her work-out. Sebas and Oscar and I hanging out at Rice. Maybe a little coffee shop afterwards. Store run. Make up some fajitas. Turn in early and get some rest.

And to think, I thought I already knew what a perfect birthday was…

My last birthday and Moving into 2228 North last year...

Found these from last year. Hard to believe we've been there that long...

10 March 2008

Great birthday so far. Got caught in a big rain and wind storm walking home from Ben Taub for lunch with Lorena and Sebas. Just got blasted. Soaking wet, shoes probably ruined. Beautiful multi-color umbrella just torn up. Had to laugh. Nice lunch with my crew. Got to play a little with Sebas. He told us tonight he wants to wait until it gets dark, “then we can get into a rocket ship and go up into the stars, look at the planets.” Maybe we will! Going to look at a few houses tomorrow. Criteria: yard for Sebas to play in, washer/dryer for Mommies, more space in general would be nice.

1 May 2008

So we found the house, and a very nice one. 2228 North. Sebas already knows the address by heart. He has been missing “#1” some, but after I explained to him that you never lose an old place you live, you just gain a new one, he has brightened up about it. That and the fact that his “road” and most of his cars and toys have made it over. He now proudly says he has three houses – Lesotho, Dryden, and North, but Lesotho is “home.” Its funny, he only says that to me, not to Mommies, but he’s been adament about it since we moved here. He’s been hearing us talk about Dallas, and sometimes says he has 4 houses, but I doubt he really remembers Eagle Trail. Although being re-united with a lot of his old “baby” toys from there may be doing it.

Wow. 4 houses. I think 765 Westwood in Saint Louis was my official 4th, not counting college living. And I was 26. Bears is 3, and already on his 4th…

We had a spectacular “fight” the other night. First night in the neighborhood, and I was making him go home on his bike as it was getting dark out. Had just dumped him off the bike a minute before, accidentally, and I think this had him fired up.

“Dada, Dada, Dada. Wait, Dada. Wait just a minute,” backing the bike and me up. “No, Seba, let’s get going.”
“Dada, I am SO mad. And this is… SO sad!”
I just had to break out laughing, little guy standing there hands on hips scolding me on the sidewalk. Welcome to the neighborhood.

This morning, something else funny:

“Does Seba have two hands? Does Seba have two feet?”

So many funny things he says, I wish I could write them all down.

He’s blues-ing a bit, I think from the pressure of being in a tough school all day 5 days a week, at his young age. May re-think that after the baby gets here and things get stable, but in a lot of ways its been good for him, keeps him from overwhelming Mommies, and I do think he on the whole likes it.

But he REALLY wants and needs someone or more, all his own, to play with. He wants to interact with everyone, to play with every kid he sees on the playground, in that one on one way he had with Nina in Lesotho, but hasn’t had since. That’s probably his greatest unmet need at the moment, and the source of what I feel is a sadness he is carrying around right now.

The old Seba can’t help but shine through, but its weighted down lately.

Quick note to remember – how much I love, and he loves, those walks around the block at Dryden. He asked for one as we were clearing out the other day, a quick sneak around the block, and then back to see Mommies. Gave me a besito after an ame’ – really a precious moment.

When Sebastian turned 3...

Wrote this shortly after Sebas turned 3...

6 March 2008

I’m telling you, pal, you ran your way out of being 2. Like you just couldn’t wait to be 3. We finished up at the bookstore in Georgetown, and you started pushing your cooing. Running up Pennsylvania Avenue. You’re so fast, Sebas. Dada had to run to keep up with you. Mommies was toting Oscar in the tummy, of course, so we stopped from time-to-time to let her catch-up. You didn’t want my hand on your shoulder. You had to run free yourself. You ran all the way to George Washington University Hospital, until the road ran out. Got you some T-shirts to sleep in since we left your PJs at home. Then you ran back to the hotel. What a beautiful day. You ran up and down H street between New Hampshire and 25th, back and forth, pushing your cooing, dodging people, checking out Mommies, red cooing you were.

What a great little trip to Washington that was. Had your birthday with me and Mommies and Nancy at Bistro Francais. She gave you bubbles and you’ve been playing with them all day today, Mommies tells me. You slept through dinner, then woke up in the cooing on the way back to the hotel.

We played and read books. You so love to read. “Read me a book,” you say. “Play with me, Dada.”

We play a lot of games, usually where you “push me down,” then proceed to jump on me. We “fight.” I do you “upside down monkey.”

Looks too rough to Mommies, and to grandmommy and granddaddy. But you love it, and I love it. Even Bum of the Face, a game from Lesotho that almost got you killed one night over there when you did it to Mommies and she flung you up in the air instictively. You were heading off that tall bed we slept in over there, straight for that rock hard cold floor. Somehow I was able to reach over the bed and catch you, halfway down. You’ve never Bum-on-the-face’d Mommies ever again, needless to say.

In Lesotho I used to give you a bath most every night. You’d play and swim in the tub. I let you do it even though the water wasn’t the cleanest, so much you loved it. Would try to keep you from drinking that sometimes green-with-chlorine stuff. Could only get you out by playing Nora Jones “Don’t know why…”

You knew all the words. I remember you singing it to me one beautiful day shourtly after you turned two. You were in the pack riding on my back like we did in Africa. Up in Golden Gate, way out by the vulture restaurant. We were up there with Tony and Greg, and all the Jesuit boys, and your sometimes-buddy Ella. Walking back to the car from a great hike where we looked over the edge all the way to the far Draks. I remember trying to watch my step on the rocks so we wouldn’t fall, and you singing Don’t know why, softly, the words just a little bit your own.

Like I have so many times these first 3 years, Sebas, right then I wished time would stop, that you’d always be 2, and up on my back, and us walking along that ridge in Golden Gate.

5,000 km and a month in a truck...

When we put this trip on the schedule, it didn’t seem like such an epic. We’d be going to South Africa – our first time back together since leaving Lesotho – to do a week of training in one of our old haunts, Bloemfontein. Get a week off the following week to do some traveling in South Africa, probably try and stop by Lesotho to say hello to everyone. Just a couple weeks. Nice and simple.

Well, as they often do, things changed. And next thing we knew, we had both trainings – Rustenberg and Bloemfontein – then our week off, then to Lesotho to cover for a whole week. That would be a month!

Exciting, and somewhat daunting with two little boys. But, still, we’d traveled a lot. This would just be a long one. No big deal.

As the time approached to leave, its seemed daily like a bigger and bigger deal. February comes faster on the heels of Christmas than I appreciated back in the fall when we were making the original plans for this. And Christmas in Africa, as we knew, tends to be a time of relaxation, where not a lot business-wise gets done.

Which is great, when you’re there and get to enjoy it. There’s a sort of black hole from early December to mid-January, where anything not wrapped up at the beginning slides all the way to the end.

And definitely did with getting the Trainings together. Before we knew it it was mid-January, we were leaving in a couple of weeks, and the Trainings were nowhere near ready. I was working mainly with a couple of colleagues in Botswana – Dwight and Ryan – plus my colleague here, Heidi. And we were working hard. Really hard. From getting in touch with our EGPAF sponsors, to finding out for sure if we were really doing the trainings, to realizing how far things had progressed in the field since BIPAI last updated its Advanced trainings.

Wow. A lot of work. And all in just a couple of weeks.

We worked like dogs, and just seemed to get it all together. Not a lot of time for planning on the family end.

It would all fall together, right? A 3 year old, an 8 month old, Lorena and me. A month on the road in South Africa and Lesotho. No problem, right? Just do it!

Well, we did.

And it was amazing.

In the end, it really was 5,000 km. In a white Nissan double cab pick-up truck. Lorena and I up front, Sebas in the back on the right, Oscar on the left.

Those were the positions. From Joburg to Rustenberg. Out to Pilanesberg and crazy fun Sun City. Through rain so hard we could barely see (and keep the truck on the road) and the rolling (and rolling and rolling and rolling) open spaces of the Free State. All around Bloemfontein (and around and around, trying to leave town when our week there was up). Back to Mimosa Mall and the really good Thai food we like there! To the Waterfront, so new and fancy. From Kroonstad to Polokwane without getting out of the truck (ouch – sorry, bum!). To magical Kruger and all up and down that phenomenal place, Sebas on the Seba-hump (or Lorena’s lap or mine..). Three feet from two male lions, crossing the road in front of us. Trapped by elephants and buffalo.

To the end of the road at Pafuri.

Back to Lesotho and wonderful reunion. Clarens, more Free State.

All over and around that beautiful country.

Us and the boys. A month in a truck.

Really incredible. Changed our perspectives on a lot of things, I think. Or maybe just reminded us who we are.

Much to tell. And hope to in the entries that follow.

Mike
3/3/09 (Happy Birthday, Sebastian!)