It Takes a Village...

...to eat a piece of bread.

I mentioned in the last post that Kiernan had started feeding us. He continued to improve this new talent by feeding his Gammy--Wendy's mom--all week long. Wendy was out of town for the week on a business trip, so her mother and her stepfather, Rance, were gracious enough to drive to California to help me out. Kiernan and I have had a couple of days without Mommy before, when she did overnight business trips, but we had never gone for a whole week without her. We were both a bit nervous. Fortunately Wendy sensed this and invited her parents to come and visit.

Lucky for us they took her up on it. Having them here made a world of difference.

Kiernan and I drove Wendy to the airport Monday morning. We arrived there in time for his breakfast feeding, which Wendy obligingly did sitting in an out of the way spot in the terminal. We waved bye-bye to her until she disappeared in the line for security screening, then we went back to the car for phase two of breakfast: cereal (incidentally, it's usually the other way around). After Kiernan finished his cereal we went for a little walk in the airport, just to give him a chance to stretch before what I anticipated would be a long car ride home. As there was a motorcycle wreck on the freeway, I'm glad I did that. Once we got back to the car, Kiernan immediately fell asleep and stayed napping all the way back to the house.

Shortly after we got home, Gammy and Grance arrived for their visit. That's right, I said "Grance". That's what he goes by with Kiernan, much to his chagrin. At some point several months ago I got tired of saying the words "Grandpa Rance" and just decided a contraction was in order. Thus was the name "Grance" born. And let me tell you, he just loves it. Absolutely loves it. Actually I think it is growing on him, but at first you could tell that he thought it was weird. To his credit, however, he has never overtly objected. At least not to us.

A word here, then, concerning the nicknames of grandparents.

Kiernan has eight grandparents. He has a Na-Na. A Pop. A Pap-Pap. A Sandi. An Omi. A Big Daddy Jake (I know, I know). A Gammy. And a Grance. Eight wonderful grandparents and not a Grandma or a Grandpa in the lot. The kid's gonna be a teenager before he gets their nicknames straight. Oh well. It's our fault. We let all of them come up with their own nicknames themselves, save poor Rance (who, it should be noted, offered to take the mantle of Grandpa until we shortened it, proving that we cannot be trusted, even when we complain). We should have just settled on two all-encompassing grandparent monikers, one for the girls and one for the guys, and left it at that. But we let them decide. I guess part of this was that I never got over the story of how my grandmother, my mom's mom, reacted when I came along as the first grandkid. I believe she said--God rest her soul--"What's he gonna call me? Can he call me Charlotte?"

At any rate, they're all fine individuals who have been great parents, so I suppose they've earned the right to be called whatever they want. In fact, I think I'm going to start brainstorming the name Kiernan's kids will call me, starting now. If you have ideas, feel free to chip in. As it stands I think I'll go with "Yo Dawg". It's got that hint of keepin-it-real without losing the essential classiness that embodies who I am. Yo Dawg. Yeah.

As for Big Daddy Jake...um...I think I'll cover that another time.

As soon as Gammy and Grance got here, they hit the ground running. Gammy demanded I hand over the baby and banished me to my office to get to writing. Rance procured a pair of clippers and went to work on the ridiculously overgrown ivy that lined--did I say lined? I meant engulfed--the driveway. He did a bang-up job on it too; by the end of the day you could actually get into the car without having the sensation that the hedge was trying to claim you as its own.

Gammy did a lot of the feeding during the week, which is why I mentioned that Kiernan was practicing so much of his new talent of feeding others on her. She was a good sport through it all, taking various bits of bread, half-chewed cheese--she tried Muenster on him, though right now he seems to prefer orange cheese and cheesefood--egg, turkey and capicola ham as Kiernan proffered them. She'd try every once and awhile to beg off, saying, "No no. I couldn't. Really you've given me enough. I'm full." Kiernan would have none of it, though, and would continue holding out the morsel until she took it.

At one point I was busying myself in the kitchen during a feeding and he held up a piece of bread for me to eat. I came over to his feeding table, bent down, and took the bread in my lips. We got the timing of the transaction wrong, however, and it sort of hung there, pinched between my lips. Before I could pull it into my mouth, he reclaimed it and popped it into his own. He smiled hugely and Gammy and I laughed. The game now has a new angle that has provided us a way out of eating half of his food. All we have to do is hold the food in our lips, and he takes it back and happily eats it, making us feel sort of like bird parents. This is especially good news for Wendy, for sooner or later he's going to offer cheese to her. The ultimate test will be to see whether she can stand to even hold it between her lips for a few seconds without freaking out. I'll keep you posted.

During one of our bread exchanges, a piece of bread fell to the floor. I beat the five-second rule and returned it to his table. He promptly held it out for me. I took it in my lips and he took it back, then he offered it to Gammy. She took it in her lips and he took it back. Satisfied that the tidbit had made sufficient rounds, Kiernan went ahead and ate it.

I can't wait until he starts using a spoon on his own. On days we have mashed peas, I plan to be out of the house. Or maybe I'll just have his Na-Na visit. I'm sure she loves peas.