I've been officially an Assistant Principal for three weeks now. It's what I think I would like to write about but under limited wakefulness I am drawn more to write about my son with the words my waning wakefulness can afford to spare. In brief, he is super.
(Enzo at Stern Grove in his Frog clothes.)
This last weekend we went to Stern Grove in San Francisco. Through out the summer, on each Sunday, concerts and performances are put on for free at this park. This has been going on since the 30's. Mrs. Stern donated the park and headed the organization to ensure that the public would have a chance to see for free the arts that are not always available to all.
You can read more here and see the schedule. It's the only place that the San Francisco Ballet will perform out of doors each year. Tami and I found the event years ago when we wanted to see the San Francisco Symphony perform. We simply brought a blanket and were amazed to see hundreds of people enjoying lavish picnics with plates of fruit, salads, sandwiches, and bottles of wine. Ever since, we try to make several performances per summer and we are way better prepared than on that first occasion. Like so many, we show up hours before the performance begins and enjoy a leisurely picnic, sometimes with friends, and chat away the San Francisco Sunday until the show begins. The shows are very diverse and include poets, plays, ballet, and music from classical to popular groups like They Might Be Giants who will perform this summer. On this last Sunday, we heard an impressive guitarist from Spain and his group named DePedro as the openers. I loved their music! The headline performance was a French group called Caravan Palace that combined synthesizers, string instruments, and more to create trippy jazz/swing/dance music. Going to Stern Grove is like a sampling of culture from far and near whose common thread is a stage. Our friend Tom met us for the last portion of the show and then spent the rest of the day in The City with us. We had a great time.
(Enzo always likes hanging with Tom.)
(You can see his first tooth in this one.)
(*Update: Just hours after publishing this post, we discovered over breakfast that Enzo now has two teeth! His front two, center bottom, teeth are now growing out past the gum.)
Though I've been working for the first summer in years, we've managed to enjoy ourselves very well. We've had several friends over for dinner (I can not imagine how I did not pull out my camera on those days), visited with family, gone on walks through town, watched Enzo continue to enjoy the world and people, celebrated important birthdays, helped The Kid with his teething, helped me with my now removed wisdom teeth, talk, play, and love each other. My favorite parts of these days besides the above continue to be the mornings where Tami, Enzo and I have time to wake up slowly and chat in bed. Oddly, or I suppose, quite naturally, the more time I spend with them in the morning the more I miss them during my day. It's VERY nice to have a reason to miss being somewhere with 'someone-s'.
(I feel that there are words captured in this snapshot of a gesture.)
Enzo also supports himself sitting now. This has opened up the world of high chairs and the wonderful world of sitting face to face. A couple of days ago, just as Anne, Perry, and their lovely three month old daughter Gwynn were arriving, I turned to see where my lying down baby boy had been to find my sitting up baby boy playing with the radio. Awesome! I missed and can not guess at how he did it by himself but I was very excited. I look forward to watching him do it again someday. The first time we sat upright and face to face on the floor Enzo appeared to assess the situation and then just laugh while looking up at me. That's exactly the good feeling that was going through my mind as I took in the scene. It was novel and giddy. Admittedly, this kid laughs a lot. I suppose the whole world is novel to him. It's contagious; that feeling of joy goes through my mind regularly when I am with him or thinking of him.
