Geeks

What magic power would you like to have, if you were given the choice? I am, of course, thinking about powers from the Harry Potter stories. My first choice has always been apparition, but lately, "Accio" has been gaining a glossy sheen due to the fact that I am so often sitting in one place with both my hands occupied by the breast pump and its apparatus. I could easily free one hand to use my wand to summon a book or other useful object. But it seems that no matter how hard I concentrate, I can't get the warm washcloth to fly from the kitchen to the couch.

The harried lives of hapless muggles.

I think about these sorts of things a lot, and many of my references are pretty dorky. During our hospital stay, whenever we went through the tunnel from Abbott to Children's, the Lord of the Rings references were plentiful. The doors that open automatically reminded us of opening the gates to Moria, and more than once, the word "Mellon" was uttered in their presence. The word "tunnel" was said in Gollum's voice.

Really, we're just geeks in grown-ups' clothing, and this child has years ahead of him, feeling embarrassed by his juvenile parents. His mother will quote lines from "Friends" at seemingly inappropriate moments, his father will say "What's taters, precious" while cooking in the kitchen.

There will be much eye-rolling in the McCauley household.

Even the presence of the onesie and the huge giant shirt have me in mind of house elves, and I can't stop thinking about Dobby saying "Master has given a sock" and thinking that clothes are a rite of passage for our little schnooks, too. Clothes make him look like a real baby and add another level of humanity to him.

He's still not as big as a house elf, but he's gaining. He was 2.877 pounds this morning (1305 grams), and that's so very close to three whole pounds!