Babe with the power

"Auntie, guess what? 
Last night I slept for 10 whole minutes every 5 minutes. It was so great."

Bonus point if you know the title reference without having to Google it ;)

The highlight of Christmas break was observing baby's bodily functions. Every bowel movement was met with robust applause. Listening to someone fart has never provided an evening's worth of entertainment. He even peed in artful trajectories so sometimes it took a few people to change his diaper, a task I lovingly performed on various occasions. 

I feel sorry for babies who aren't aesthetically pleasing to look at. I also feel sorry for people who looked great as babies but turned into weird-looking adults. Fortunately, Dario didn't have the former problem. The Chinese-Filipino-Mexican combo is working out so far. He'll most likely be a good looking full-sized human being as well.

The year 2013 in fewer than 2013 words

On New Year's Eve,
Jesse said: "Did you know your eyebrows are uneven?" 
I said: "What are you talking about?"

Jesse said: "Go look in the mirror."
So I did, and what do you know, I made it through the whole year without noticing I had indeed over plucked my left eyebrow. Here's a list of other noteworthy events of 2013:

January: I made babies. At RISD, in a class called “Drawing Children.” Even though one (or more) of my babies looked like a Russian mafia midget with a mild to severe case of blepharospasm (eye twitching), I still got an A.    

February: Storm Nemo dumped a few feet of snow on Rhode Island. Power was lost. School was cancelled. I made a snowman with Nemo leftovers. 

March: I turned into the primary president at church. It happened like this: the bishop of our congregation called Jesse and I into his office, said he wanted me to be primary president, I said “Oh no,” and then he said that everybody loves me, and that I have "a way" with children. The end.

It was not the job I wanted, mainly because my heart isn't a bottomless pit of patience for other people's kids, and because primary is the largest organization to be in charge of every Sunday. Each week, I have to make sure all 10 children’s classes (ages 18 months to 11 years old) have teachers who will show up and provide a spiritually enlightening lesson; that I (or some other responsible, spiritual adult) provide a spiritually enlightening lesson to all 33 children age 3-11 in the same room; that there’s a reliable adult present to teach them how to sing hymns from the children’s songbook so the kids can stand up in sacrament meeting and not be embarrassing because they don’t know any of the words to the songs in the annual primary program; that no child gets punched in the face, poked in the eye, or runs while holding scissors. 

Jesse also received a new calling. He's the ward clerk, which means he attends church meetings from 7:30 am until 2:30pm.
April: Nothing noteworthy happened this month.

May: I made my debut as a medical illustrator.

June: June was boring. Except for when Jesse became the finance director for Project Hope Art and was selected to be an analyst for the Clinton Health Access Initiative.    

July: We went to Haiti. 

August: We had our 8-year anniversary in Vermont at Shelburne Farms. On our honeymoon in 2005, we walked around all day at the San Diego Zoo. So on August 17, 2013, we walked around all day, traversing various portions of the farm’s more than 10 miles of walking trails and playing “Name that Poop” near the sheep/pig/goat/llama pens. Apparently I’m more adept at identifying animal feces than Jesse. 

I was awarded a new title, according to one family we know from church, the matriarch of which informed me that her children had this conversation in the car:

Child 2:  I wish Sarita was our president, she would be so much fun.
Child 4: Well, you can't have her because she is OUR primary president.
Child 3:  She is the best Primary President. She is so fun, now that she is our president we play a lot more games.
Child 2: She would be good at any thing.
Child 4: Yeah, like Ward President!

September: We ran the Wicked Half Marathon in Salem, MA. I had always wanted to see Salem, until we got stuck in 3 hours of traffic on the one-lane road that leads into the city.

Jesse’s parents came to visit. 

More volunteer work: we started working our 2^nd and 4^th Saturday shifts at the Boston Temple as ordinance workers. Our shift is 11:00 am-5:00pm but add at least two and a half hours for commuting time to and from Boston.

October: Jesse received a fabulous promotion at work.

I realized that I signed up for the two classes that should never be taken in the same semester at RISD: Book Dummy and Illustration III. The latter is a class focused on character development. For 12 weeks, you try to make characters look the same from different angles in different scenes. Each project had multiple parts—hours of preliminary sketches, rough drafts of final sketches, final sketches, then color comps, then finals in full color, etc.

The goal of Book Dummy was to produce a complete version of a book you might send to a publisher or agent—a complete 32-page layout (so that the pages turn) with text and illustrations in place and at least one finished spread in full color. This class would have been less problematic had I not changed my story every week.

So I crawled into my cave and didn’t come out, except to teach WRT 104 at URI, use the bathroom, and attend my 29^th birthday party. Thank you wonderful friends!

November: We had Thanksgiving in New Hampshire. 

December: Jesse received another fabulous promotion at work. 
There was so much to do in Book Dummy class and I was so far behind that I was 2 hours late to the last class with a sloppy final project—when do I ever do that? Never. It was a traumatic day and I cried. And then I had one day to completely redo my book dummy before leaving for a Very Important Writer's Workshop in Big Sur, California. So in the end, it all worked out.

AND, the day I flew to California on December 5th, Merella’s baby, little Dario Levi Espinoza, was born. He wasn’t due until December 19^th, but must have heard I was coming, and wanted to say hi. I went straight to the hospital after landing in San Francisco.

A big envelope arrived in the mail. 

We spent Christmas in California.

And now we're going to live despicably ever after. 

Dear Sunseri Children

I had lots of fun taking your pictures. Even if you didn't want to wear the super cute outfits your mom picked out just for picture day. Even though you had The Blow Pop Incident (that left a temporarily permanent red stain on your face) minutes before driving to Meshanticut Lake. Even though you ran down the street to pet the snake (and dangle it in the air) the neighbor dug up in the yard when you were supposed to be putting on your seat belt. 

Good thing you snapped out of it after a random guy pulled up next to us at the lake and let you pet Alice and Moose, his ginormous black Great Danes. Good thing the dogs didn't eat us. 

The good news is that you are totally normal! Most kids think they have a million better things to do than sit for pictures. Including watching Andre, that "feel-good movie that lifts the heart, tickles the funny bone and soars the spirit" (even if it only got 5.4 out of 10 stars).  Thay's ok. I get it. I'm just glad you sat still for five minutes, and that once or twice, you  arranged yourselves beautifully, and that you're really photogenic, and that I get to see you on Sundays. 

Tiny Romans & Tater Tots

So, apparently the best time to take newborn photos is within the first 10 days of baby’s life, because after that baby is slightly more aware of when it’s being stuffed into baskets and flowerpots. It gets easier for baby to thwart the photographer’s artistic ambitions. Baby pretends to be hungry and fusses the whole time photographer is trying to get one good picture. The second photographer leaves, it goes to sleep for the rest of the day. 

I was in Haiti during that 10-day window of opportunity for Roman, so he had to wait a while. By the time I arrived with the camera, he had already not been in the mood for pictures for three weeks.

 

Lucas and Penny were more interested. But only for about two minutes. Penny thought the props were for her and that she was the baby. Later, when she realized we were ignoring her, she entertained herself by squeezing a whole bottle of lotion onto the floor. Lucas lost interest when I told him I already had 5 pictures of him bending over, waving his butt in the air, and that I didn’t need anymore.

I need to work on framing the subjects so that arms and legs aren’t too close to the edge. But overall, it was a good first attempt at newborns. So thank you Roman, for letting us poke you, and put itchy bow ties around your neck, and stuff you into crocheted things. 

My other client of the summer recently turned one. His hobbies include: perusing the newspaper for grocery store coupons, flirting shamelessly, and deflecting fistfuls of sand Ava throws at his head while he’s minding his own business at the beach.

Tate was also not in a fabulous mood on picture day. But like Roman, he cooperated just long enough to smile. It helped that we bribed him with popsicles and tickled him mercilessly.

Happy birthday Tate!

"Did you say 'Popsicle'?"

"I'll take 4. But I only eat freezer-burnt grape-flavored ones."

"I don't think she has any Popsicles..."

"My butt hurts!"

"This is exactly how I hoped to spend my day..."

"I give up. If I smile, maybe they'll leave me alone."