Jonah's birthday party

This weekend was inordinately social. We hosted Max's class and families for brunch on Sat, went to the Botanic Gardens with Entin Bells and Sam and Alani on Sat night, and took the train to Manhattan for Jonah's birthday on Sunday. Max played straight through and seemed to be in a delightful mood - I think this is really what he want, nearly constant social activity. He doesn't seem overtired from it. Rather he seems recharged. He's been playing in the intervals in this lovely way by himself adn with Eliza, helping her to get a toy he isn't too interested in (though he's pretty much completely interested in anything she picks up), and doing a lot of imaginative, independent play on his own.

At the Bontanic Gardens, we saw trains running through historic and actual NYC landmarks made entirely of organic materials. (Window glass of melted sugar. Statue of Liberty made of palm fronds. The Guggenheim as tiers of giant mushrooms.) After, there was a tree lighting, and Max, Alani and Miriam ran screaming with delight through the wide, cold paths to the cars.

blogvel?

I had an idea in the shower or something that it might be neat to have a story that came through in blog form. Like an epistolary, or journal-entry novel, but published as a blog. Or rather, I was thinking I should just cut and paste pieces of The Priest into my blog - that that might solve the structure problem. Or rather rather, I think it is something I'm writing kind of like a blog, going forward and backward in time, encompassing a strange dipping into styles and out of people's heads. I would want to get a lot of it straight before hand, but that's kind of fun. I bet there are a million people doing that now already...

marathon

This Sunday, Rick ran the marathon. In typical Bell-Kahn family fashion, Max was excited, but a little too tired for it -- he was sick the night before. I was so harried I didn't do half of the things I wanted to, including take pictures. Eliza kind of went along for the ride, smiling and laughing and not napping. And Rick strategic consistency allowed him to pull off what really felt kind of impossible. I don't know if it's a strategy, or what, but he seems to have a very strongly-communicated policy statement about our marriage, family, and his place in it. I think it is this: Rick will uncomplainingly be a stellar dad and doting husband, doing things like washing dishes on the night he ran the marathon, etc, as long as he has room for: a really intense athletic commitment that obliterates a few months of weekends every year, time to himself to "read the paper" most mornings, no talking before coffee on weekends, and the opportunity to watch 40% of all Mets and Knicks games, 90% of Jets games, 100% of important playoff type games, golf tournaments with Tiger Woods in them, assorted tennis matches, and be able to go to U2 concerts and hang out with his friends.

I was very, very proud of Rick for running the marathon, and for being so incredibly judicious and conscientious about working it into our lives - he tried so hard to make it as un-onerous for me as possible. I wonder if there is ever a chance I can apply some of that strategic long-term thinking to my own life? Probably not? I seem to operate in fits and starts, and go, go, go until I collapse.