Snow Day 1-22-16

Dear Emilia,

Today was my favorite day of our life together.  We woke up with the snow coming down and it didn't stop all day.  Your cousin Fernando arrived on Wednesday so the party consisted of him, Ron, Bia, Alejandro, your mother, I and your cranky crazy self.  The day started with a little bit of work, then shifted to a drive through snow covered streets watching people get stuck on the way to the liquor store.  Your mother and I have a penchant for wine in the winter. Chef Ronaldo made ribs for lunch and the movie marathon began.  You woke up a bit groggy, and were a bit sideways for half the day until you found your spirit when we put you in your bounce house.  I thought you'd wear yourself out but you kept strong all day long.  We watched the movie together and I tickled, bit and messaged your feet.  You giggled through most of it or cried as your communication skills are lacking.  That tongue of yours wags like a dog, sticking out all the time tasting as many things as you can get your hands on.  You stole Alejandro's blanket then microphone which caused sever trauma and fierce pain, it is very difficult being Alejandro.  You getting better at sitting up, gripping and your favorite way to convey your love is to pinch your momma's face, grab your daddy nose, and just be slap happy.  Your arms flare up and down like a baby gorilla and your soul beats like a snare drum.  You are perfect in so many ways with a few imperfections to boot.  Your look amazing, I can't really say I love you more each day because it seems impossible to love you more than I already do.  You make my and your mother's life full and we are so grateful for everything you do to us.  Happy first snow day Miss Emilia, here's to a thousand more.
                                                                                            Love, Dad

Little Fatty

Her eyes alive and wandering.  New people, places, senses, bright lights illuminate, dark nights that hide.  She loves being outside gazing at the trees, leaves, sky and clouds, a brilliant smile covers her face every time we work our way out on the deck.  She is happy about almost everything.  Baths are the best she lights up, hair slicked back looking like little George Cloony. Drying off is the worst as she cries cries cries.  She hates when we rub the lotion the skin.  She sleeps in til 9 sometimes 9:30 then she starts to wake like she is communicating with spirits.  She twists she turns, her eyelids peel back she looks at me then back out.  She grunts even growls legs kicking arms reaching yawn yawn yawn eyes flap open then out again.  On and on and on for 2 3 4 5 6 10 minutes she squirms like a worm on asphalt.  We watch we laugh we wait and then she cries just a bit to let us know shits bout to get real.  She wakes up only once or twice a night, Luciana lets me sleep.  Momma so good to me and even better to her.  Emilia drinks formula that makes her stink and she smiles when she farts.  She is growing, morphed into a little fatty.  Sometimes she looks like Cloony or Brando with hair slicked back, other times Chris Farley with belly all fat.  She is tickeled all the time until she is hungry then it gets real again.  This time is the easiest part and I appreciate each moment that she is completely immobile.  She travels, we are instilling the wanderlust.  To the metropolis of Cordele and over to Mima’s house.  She loves the Mima.  She loves the Avo(her Brazilian Mimas).  She turns three months on Friday and we head to St. Louis in a few weeks.  More fatty to come.  I need to work on the nickname.

Brando

 Farley

All Smiles

pelo loco

FEED ME SEYMOUR!

 

Los Amigos Tres

Tonite was an ordinarily special nite. Movie nite for piglet and pee wee.   She slept thru High Fidelity then up and at it so we tuned into Jerry Macguire.  We watched the movie, watched each other and a new look caught my heart.  She is a firefly with intermittent sighs grunts whims and cries lighting up our family of three.  The three amigos will always go shotgun across the bench seat heading straight to the late night parties.  I’m amazed at how our life has changed but stayed the same.  So little not too sweet quite yet but that pirate face will melt your heart.  She only smiles when she farts and looks just like me too.  Her eyes are dark and inquisitive or misconstrued in temporary blindness.  My pride bellows and her mother is as smitten as every new mother could ever be.  Our life is great and she brings a wealth we could never find just the two of us.  It is and forever to be the three of us always. 

Six Five Fifteen

She says hello Emilia Clare, 9.1 lbs 20.5 in at 5:21 pm six five fifteen.  It's gotta be five o'clock somewhere   She arrived with a head full of hair and a cry that could fill an amphitheater, blessed I suppose.  I figured out diapers just after figuring out how to hold her bobblehead.  She burps sitting up, is unsure of day from night and seems to smile but I could just be biased...just a whole lotta love.  Momma relaxed because her mommas' here, daddy relaxed because no work for three weeks sooo nice.  She is a week old toady.  I slept on the floor at the hospital comfortably as the nurses carted her away each night but that didn't last. Once home shit turned upside down and she didn't want to go to sleep before 4.   Better schedule now as everyone is asleep at 11:22 pero vamos a ver.  She so cute, so pale so ornery.  The doctor said she had thin skin and I wanted to smack him.  All else said, she is perfect, perfecto un angel, mi vida so sweet and soooo little.  It's the best gift ever could be ya see, loving you wish I could take you to Bonnaroo.

Six Weeks

7/21/15

12:08 up late with Emilia Clare. She spent the evening out at Scout then a promenade through the streets of Nashville.  Her senses improve and the scents become more defined and real to her little pig nose.  The most exciting part of the past week, the slow uptick of the sides of her lips.  It seems she finally recognizes Daddy when before it was just Mom and her bountiful boobs.  We laugh now, we make animal noises and her eyes turn up like I’m looking into a mirror.  The past 10 days the most amazing and foreign so far and I expect every 10 days to bring more.  The family refines my soul bringing together the loose pieces of a life re-establishing the foundation scattered about after my parents divorced.  She is the rabbit out the hat, a little tinkerbell, the best prize at the county fair not like the giant bear but the oversized corndog funnel cake and cotton candy combined.  She is perfect, she is mine. 

Oink

Watched Interstellar and in deserved hyperbed thoughts contrived from pride, excitement, anticipation and sorta IPA I looked into who I am, will be and could be for that little girl.   There is no greater feeling in my world than now, Luciana passed the ***out gone a quarter into the movie carrying that sweet baby.  36 weeks.  It's all you ladies, in indebted gratitude for what you do to make a relationship a family.  To be completely in love with not one but two beautiful beautiful girls.  She creates a sentiment that I'm  just beginning to feel, only now becoming real.  Real for me is so unlike real for Luciana, the belly the aches the patience the stress. 

I saw her face for the first time yesterday yawning and stretching a little pig nose that rises up starring you in the face.  Luciana so defensive when I oink at her but Emilia Clare shall be the prettiest piglet.  Mama's getting more tired, not wanting to finish revising her dissertation which she recently defended and is  a DOCTOR now...Dr. Prestes but feel free to call her Dr. Sanders.  She has fulfilled her dream and what will come next! Life growing fast.

The blog intermittent as it will be from now until Emilia is somewhere around three.   I will abide and  IPAs confide the story of family of love.  Soon the poopy diapers, the crying and sleep deprivation will draw out a new life and mood in the blog.  Lu's momma coming for a couple weeks to reprieve, then Bia's momma coming for months on end so help on the way.  For now though nothing better than knowing that in just a few short weeks I'll be a daddy and we'll have our little girl.

Preservation Luv

 

How did Luciana and I meet?  Perhaps church, a mutual friend, or better yet, at the grocery store? Luciana and I share so many similar interest and our boisterous personas collided at a bar, my favorite bar in Knoxville Tennessee- Preservation Pub. 

Oh Preservation Pub I love you so.  The quotes, smoke and music lured me in around 2005 with the Whiskey Scars on stage.  An instantaneous love affair began that cajoles the mischievous soul; a refuge for people of simple yet select values and a rabid relationship with alcohol.  The nights in the square always alive, people spilling out rich in conversations plotting capers, the meeting point for Sundown in the City, Rossini Festival, and Rhythm and Blooms.  The Pub it, beats like a heart with its blood red walls and funneling music that coldcocks as you walk through the door. 

So of course this is where I always assumed I’d find my wife, the mother to my children, the orange juice to my vodka.   I wandered into the bar as the magic of Little Iffy lit up the stage people dancing frantically.  For those non-Knoxvillians, Little Iffy is a local rapper who raps about Harry Potter.  Fact, look him up.  I walked toward the bar when I noticed a tall brown skinned diosa who seemed to smile at me.  She was so gorgeous with long black hair almost unapproachable, but the jean and chucks played to my swagger.   As I walked towards her she didn’t run away so I asked her if she’d like a drink.   White wine the reply looking away with a rich accent I couldn’t quite match.  I asked where she was from and when she said Brazil I smiled wide with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Fernando Meirelles on my mind.  If you’ve never watched City of God or Almodovar’s Habla con Ella where Caetano Veloso sings Cucurrucucu it may be your ticket to landing a hot Brazilian wife.  We started to talk about traveling, music, movies, how Knoxville changed over the past five years and couldn’t stop.  We talked all night and ate sushi the next day as life took a new direction that has led us to week 32 of Emilia Clare’s little life. 

We now live in Nashville in our new home and a not so different life for another two months.  We patiently await getting back to Knoxville and only a matter of time before we move on and are back on the beach whether it be in Florida or Brazil.  Until then I guess we’ll just wait on Miss Emilia Clare.