The Big Easy and Maya

Four weeks away... Maya is 11 months

The Radio Flyer

Maya @ Ten Months and Still Going

Aunty Mira & I

Maya at the Beach

Almost Nine Months

Don't I look cute... I am so good that I even help with the laundry.

Parents insisted that I wear the hat.

I don't know, but it is not sunny in the house.

Eight Going Nine Months

My favorite pass time is to tear paper... So please, don't leave anything important at baby level.

I really, really like tearing paper... can someone tell me why?

I am now crawling to my next target...

Some of these things look mighty interesting!!!

I wonder if I get to have this piece of plastic...

Maya at Seven Months

Her seven months has begun, she has no trouble picking up toys and passing them hand to hand, and she has already started to play "drop the rattle,". Maya seems busy collecting important information about the world and her actions, refining her understanding of cause and effect. She has already started to point finger (in a physical, developmental sense) , and sometime in the next month I read that she will begin using a pincer grasp and picking up small objects with her thumb.

Some more pics from my trip

Yo paresco una dectective con mi lindo vestido.

I think I look like a detective with my cool dress.

Mi Bisabuelita le gusta que vista de rosado.

My greatgrandma loves me in pink.

Tia Doris me siento y me miro fenomenal en la ropita que me regalastes... gracias!!

Aunt Doris, I look and feel so good in this outfit... thanks!!

Meet Abuelitos y Bisabuelitios (grandparents and greatgrandparents)

Here I am with grandma Elizabeth.

Aqui estoy con my abuelita Elizabeth.

Me gusta jugar con mi Abuelo al caballito... me hace reir mucho.

I like to play horsy with Grandpa... it makes me smile a lot.

Mis queridos Bisabuelitos... me cantaron y jugaron mucho conmigo.

My sweet, sweet great grandparents... they sang and played a lot with me.

Standing by myself in my Abuelitos' house

Aqui yo estoy sonriendome porque pude levantarme yo sola.

Here I am smiling because I am holding myself up.

ho no!!! Tia Nydia me esta tomando fotos otravez.

oh no! my aunt Nydia is taking pictures again.

No se cansan de tomar fotos.

They never get tired of taking pictures.

Poet and Princess

Melissa and Maya are away this week in Miami visiting with the Honduran/American sides of her family: parents, grandparents, family, list of girlfriends, Melissa's parents place in Broward. As I'm working, I was unable to take off but I have been able to catch up on a little night reading. Here's detail of a profile of the young Arthur Rimbaud by Henri Fantin-Latour, "Un Coin de Table", 1872. Rimbaud's got that dreamy look in his eyes - young poet. This painting's kept at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris - I've never been but hope one day I will have the chance to visit - hopefully with Maya.

While Melissa and Maya have been away, I've had a chance to finish a book about Rimbaud, Henry Miller's Time of the Assassins. Essentially, its a tribute. Miller's take on Rimbaud, what happened in Rimbaud's last 19 years after he left poetry at 18(!): gun runner, Abyssinia, mercenary, carrier of a belt of gold coins, dyssentry - man of the world. Its a fascinating take, le monde moderne. It brought up memories when I was living in New York, a more bohemian lifestyle - NYU graduate student - the village. It also got me thinking about my daughter, her bright eyes, smiling face, morning, future possibilities and concerns. If one day Maya finds this entry when she's a little older, she might wonder why her old father read Miller's take on Rimbaud.

Here's a latin verse that's also haunted me this past week. The reference is not the mass but Miami bookstacks, mathematician's musings, themepark engineering, Stanislaus Ulam, his old friend John Von Neumann:

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quid quid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Semaphore into the future, Maya.

New Years Day Reading

I like to lie on the persian carpet and read daddy's books.
Hey, who's that spying? Can't you see I'm trying to read!

I should take a break and play with mommy and my fluffy dogs. Hmm, if daddy has more time after work, I'll tell him the interesting things I found if he takes us for a walk in the stroller.