I’m hurtling forward in space and time, alone, and things are out of my control and cold and gray. And my eyes are bulging out of my head, and I’m wearing a bolo tie. And there’s a weird conductor guy interrupting my reverie. And the babysitter is telling me my daughter’s PJ’s are dirty. And someone at work is calling to excoriate me about not being “truly collaborative.”  And a bottle of breastmilk spilled on the floor. And my coffee spilled on the computer. And hyperinflation looms.

Tomorrow surely will be an improvement. Nina is turning nine months. Happy Birthday! She said her first word over the weekend in Washington DC, and it is CAT. And attended her first Georgetown basketball game.

I wish that I had made this for you!

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

In a very odd coincidence, I have stumbled upon this quotation from Henry David Thoreau three times in the past two weeks. A trite phrase, but true. I am working on removing the quiet desperation from my life, little by little. My child helps me with that. Not checking my Blackberry helps (I use it mainly as a watch). Some things I’ve been reading about the Catholic church also help. Drinking helps.

Just kidding re the drinking.

For an incredibly moving depiction of some not-so-quiet desperation, please refer to the movie Snow Angels. Wow…how did this one slip under the radar? Apparently the reviews aren’t that great, which probably explains why it’s such a great movie. It’s directed by David Gordon Green. Nothing like the other movie he put out this year, the so-so Pineapple Express.

It’s an excellent, excellent new Darren Aronofsky movie. We saw it over a week ago and I’m still thinking about it. It doesn’t try to be too much, and it’s quite touching, but not in a corny way. Mickey Rourke is amazing. See it, everybody!

…and we’ve got a crawling, cruising, teeth-cutting spunky lil’ gal! Actually, the teeth cutting is quite new, having started just a couple of days ago. It’s one tooth, on her bottom gum, that feels like it’s coming in, although we can’t really see it. Nina doesn’t seem to be bothered by it, although she’s often feeling the gum with her tongue, which makes her look very cute.

Nina moves constantly. It’s amazing how she can just go and go and go. She follows us around the house on all fours, and then pulls herself to standing on just about everything. She apparently has no fear of falling. Over and over and over she tries, and gradually her balance and coordination is improving. She’s a very headstrong little girl — in more ways than one. She has recently taken to banging her head against the crib in anger when she doesn’t want to go down for a nap, resulting in a few bruises. I discovered this one day when I hid under the covers of our bed to watch her try to put herself to sleep. It was rather shocking, but Nina’s doctor says it’s nothing to worry about. We just have to ignore it, and help her lie down when she’s standing up in the crib, and eventually she’ll stop. Nina is already showing us her strong will. She’s going to be a very feisty little lass, I suspect.

And, she’s sleeping clean through the night! John and I, meanwhile, are not. The slightest peep or rustle from the vicinity of Nina’s crib, and we wake up. I suppose we will outgrow this.

…but I’ve kind of become bored with blogging exclusively about her. She’s healthy and growing (probably weighs over 20 pounds now), doing new, cute stuff everyday and charming most everyone she meets. It’s best followed in pictures, and we have loads of these on our Flickr site. The latest is a video of her standing up in her crib. New developments include clapping, some crawling (although she still prefers the army crawl and — when she really wants to cover a lot of territory — rolling) and trying to pull herself to standing whenever possible.

So, as a new year begins, on to new topics! Such as Cool Stuff I Find on the Web. I was hunting around Google to figure out if the New York Times had written anything about the new Kramers Ergot. I thought maybe they had, given all the attention that’s being paid to graphic novels and comics these days. I didn’t find an article, but I did stumble across the website of an artist named Stef Lenk who does some really beautiful, haunting work (see below). Pretty cool how you can set out looking for one thing and discover something totally different, and better. Oh how I love the Internet! And my new red Dell laptop that I received for Christmas. This is the first time in years that I’ve had my very own computer. It doesn’t belong to a corporation and I don’t share it with anyone else in the family. So I can fix it up and use it in absolutely any way I like. Hooray!

Incredible! I’ve just ordered copies of this from Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater. I love Ozu’s movies: They make me nostalgic for a Japan that I never experienced (pre- and shortly-post-War) but feel like I did. This is Ware’s interpretation of Tokyo Story. Now that I see this, I realize that there is a certain similarity of tone in Ware and Ozu’s work.

And Happy Birthday, Ann! There’s some connection here with Ann’s gift, which is on its way to her in DC. I say nothing more so as not to give away the surprise. What’s not a surprise is that the gift will arrive a few days after her birthday. Sorry Miss Ann!

Nina had her first encounter with Santa today. She was a little sleepy, as it was just before her naptime. I put her on his lap and after a few moments of looking a bit perplexed, she settled in comfortably, as if thinking, “OK, so this guy’s going to rock me to sleep today.” Santa gave her a candy cane and suggested that Daddy take it home and use it to stir a cup of hot chocolate. That seemed like very Santa Claus-ish advice. This was a very softspoken and gentle Santa — no bellowing Ho-Ho-Ho’s or shouts of Merry Christmas. I guess that kind of thing just scares the kids.

Nina fell asleep shortly after meeting Santa. We made several more stops in Manhattan afterwards, including lunch at Menkuitei, our favorite NY Japanese restaurant. Today they had roasted ginko nuts, a nice toasty treat for a cold day. It was below freezing, and Daddy — our hero — pushed Nina’s stroller through much slushy snow, and carried her up and down numerous subway stairs. Nina went to bed at eight o’clock and Mama is about to follow.

A quick Nina update, which I’ve become too busy lately to provide very often: Our sweet, chubby babe is now six months, and eating solid food, commando crawling (dragging herself tummy-down along the hardwood floor) and becoming a big fan of peekaboo and pillow-hugs (my baby-friendly version of a pillow fight). Here’s a video of her eating sweet potatoes, which she liked but didn’t love. Today, a few days later, I fed her mashed avocado — guacamole, I guess — which was a huge hit. She opened her mouth wide as the spoon approached, and she kept almost all the mush inside.

She recognizes me from afar now, and she cries when I come home from work — not when I leave. It’s as if in this instant that I walk in the door, she realizes that I’ve been gone and wants intensely to be with me, which is of course incredibly flattering and daunting. I think that this, more than anything so far, makes me feel like a mom.

And Daddy’s feeling more like a Dad, perhaps. Today, Dec. 7, 2008, Nina was rolling around on the bed after a bath and said “Da-da” for the first time, or something that sounded very much like it!

On a foggy Saturday afternoon, we decided to give Nina her first taste of the local bucket swings. After a few moments of being quite perplexed, Nina relaxed and enjoyed the experience. She also liked watching the children next to her swinging. I picked a yellow ginko leaf off the ground which I’ll save to commemorate the experience.

Nina’s making some advances toward talking. After making what may or may not have been consonant sounds for the past couple of weeks, today she unmistakeably said, "Mama," and then began saying it again and again. I realize that this is just a random sound she makes and not — to her — a word with meaning, but it was still startling to hear. Kind of a preview of what’s to come. She’s also saying "baa baa." No "Dada" yet!