right before new years we flew down to durham, unloaded at my parents house, then headed over to my brother’s to cook dinner and introduce the lil girl cousins for the first time. nara’s rattle from ron and erica was the main common source of entertainment.
backtracking a bit to the day in mid-december when nara started showing preferential treatment towards a stuffed creature. that would be ‘bla bla’ the south american made cat that ninja and sung brought to the hospital and perched in nara’s bassinet to watch over her.
in the same spirit as sooki’s blog, here’s a snap of nara enjoying her lil swedish green dress. she loves it! it fits her perfectly.
Nara’s first Christmas with her grandparents in Virginia was a lovely time. Grandfather Jim played soothing lullabies on the piano for Nara while she dozed in his lap, Grandmother Sandy played pat-a-cake and held and fed her, and they both sang to her often. Eugenie and I cooked dinner on Christmas day, slow roasted leg of lamb with mint sauce, haricot vert and shaker corn pudding. For desert, a perfect pecan pie.
Dec. 23rd: here we go on nara’s first flight – almost the motto of North Carolina’s license plate “First in Flight” due to the Wright brothers.
We liked the illustration demonstration an infant utilizing the flotation vest. I also relished sitting for john waiting for the baggage – Reagan Airport had the classic Eames airport seating and I mimiced an old 1973 photo of my mom, my brother, and me sitting on the same seating looking off to the right, waiting… unfortunately don’t have the actual photo for visual comparison. Will have to get that – the colors were really good!
4 months weight: 13 lbs 11.5 oz, height: 24 3/4″, head circ: 40.25 cm.
thought I’d do a recap comparing month milestone photos. the scaling is a bit rough.
on dec. 22nd, we also met up with jean, viola and julian for some tree time at rockefeller and katsu and fao schwatrz! yum and thanks viola for nara’s rabbit. we look a bit wasted in the photos – the trek uptown was spontaneous after her monthly checkup; so much for the agenda of never appearing as disheveled mom!
after some angry grunty eating, nara got a bottle supplement and is lookin’ satisfied!
she also got her first passport! she’s ready to go international! she’s stuck with a baby photo for 5 years.
we spent nara’s first thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house. it’s the first I’ve had with them since my years at Columbia which is already over 10 years ago! living downtown as opposed to uptown has really made me bad about keeping up with my dear relatives. we forgot to take a family photo at the beginning of the meal but we have one of nara waiting to leave home for dinner, and some post-dessert entertainment. Uncle Robert improvised a performance which definitely caught nara’s attention and she also had the privilege of being small enough to sit on top of the piano to feel the vibrations through her diaper. then May fed her and she zonked out in her arms for a while. meanwhile Oscar and Lily were meowing in the kitchen, getting feisty from all the good smells of turkey.
almost forgot today is the 22nd. nara has reached the 3 months milestone so to celebrate, i used the logo of one of my favorite companies, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, now known as 3M. Nara got taken out in her second zipcar ride around downtown with jon santos and anicka where we had a questionable meal at the bridge cafe in south street southport. Then Nara went home to welcome her Papa back from Monterrey, Mexico.
Update: Nara’s 3 month stats: Height – 24″, Weight – 12.4lbs, 
i subjected nara to stuffed animals, more crouching on elbows, rattles and then played around with iMovie. you don’t even need quirky start-stop edits like chris cunningham – babies have their own built-in jerky moves
john encourages exercise in the house.
Curie (www.cchauchat.com) was instrumental in helping me make Nara’s first halloween costume – Yoshitomo Nara’s “Sleepwalker”. Originally I was going to get acrylic felt but Curie guided me to the aisle of super soft lush Wool Coating at Mood which had a nice array of pastel blues. Then she helped me make a pattern utilizing some bodysuits as a guide as well as the actual Sleepwalker’s head which happens to be the same size as Nara’s live head. I did the initial batch of sewing and then Curie came back and made some major adjustments and hand-sewn finishing touches. Thank you, Curie!
On halloween, Shirley brought over pumpkins to carve. After subjecting Nara to a photoshoot, we relieved her of her costume and headed out with Karen and Mike to Sobayah for dinner. It was crazy on the streets – drizzly mayhem! So Karen and Mike became Nara’s bodyguards, sweeping away the riffraff like two expert Curling athletes, me and Nara being the stone. At Sobayah, we were greeted by Spike Lee circa 1989 and Baby Freddie Mercury. Baby Freddie Mercury was more frightening because his giant diaper-safety pin was right at our eye-level as we sat on the foyer bench but he proved to be really nice and gave us complimentary mini-cocktails as we waited for our table as he entertained us.
crick isn’t ready to relinquish her spot on mom’s lap
we just watched ‘Helvetica’ – it was nice to see the renowned typographers and designers speak on screen. of course, we used helvetica this time to demarcate her milestone. and the rattle that ron, erica and ace brought on day 2 of nara’s life. Her current stats: 10 lbs 9.2 oz 22 1/2 inches tall 38 inches head circumfrence
sandy chuck enabled all of us to go to viola and paul’s oktoberfest at their house in southhampton – THANK YOU, VIOLA, PAUL+SANDY! nara looked appropriately scandinavian for viola courtesy of H&M and Kumquat. missed out on a photo op with paul and cute julian but got pics of the girls and papa! By then all sausages, cucumber salad, bacon-potato salad and beer were consumed as well as sandy’s awesome plum crostata. YUM.
violapaul from eugenie selway on Vimeo.
steven and jude stopped by to meet nara and get a bit of help with the computer. they brought a “olivia” counting book, a piggy book and a lullaby book.
jude made best friends with nara at the first moment and nara kept smiling at her so much so we got a real photo of her with her big mouthy smile!
further down are more photos with her more calm smile.
for anita from eugenie selway on Vimeo.
nara had her month exam: ht: 22 1/4″ wt: 8lb11oz hc: 36 1/4″ and doing well!
was jon santos’s birthday and unofficially nara’s first month. he invited a bunch of people up to his masten lake home and john and i decided go for the day – our first out-of-town excursion for the summer.
we spent the last sure sunny afternoon this week at the highline. even with its small flaws, it was amazing to see that something of this level of design got executed in NYC. hoping that this will push the city in a good direction. people seemed to really be enjoying it and mom definitely enjoyed Piet Oudolf’s hand in the work. i enjoyed my first drip iced coffee of the year. nara, i think, liked to roll in a comfy sleepstate. john spent time behind the lense.
