I'm in Utah with the Bean until Sunday. Dim is with his uncle and cousin fishing about an hour outside of Salt Lake.
It was the longest drive EVER to get here. Traveling with a baby and a pregnant woman pretty much guarantees travel delays.
We stopped in Provo to get some dinner at a restaurant that had been advertising on billboards for about 200 miles. It promised good food at reasonable prices. Whatever. I wanted a toilet and a diet pepsi.
The food was, well, caucasian. I have never seen an entire menu so devotedly dedicated to the Whitey Mormon Tongue. Everything was pot roast and potatoes and meatloaf and chicken fingers. The most exotic thing on the menu was a Mediterranean salad: from the description, the only think that made it Mediterranean was the presence of black olives. Seriously.
I have been craving milk lately, which is kind of a pain because I don't really like milk. I went to the store to buy some Nestle Quick to make the stuff more palatable, and I realized that Utah grocery stores sell only GIANT canisters of any product related to children's interest. It's a bit spooky.
In any case, I'm enjoying my time here, and expect to be back Sunday night.
Here’s the deal with George: He’s a jerk.
He refused to come to our wedding, to Athena’s wedding, and the babies’ births and baptisms. For the last five years or so, he sent no birthday cards, no Christmas cards, nothing. It’s like his kids didn’t exist for him anymore. He would tell anyone at the Greek hangouts who asked him about it that he wanted his kids to change their names so they would no longer be associated with him. He is a small, stubborn man.
Even when he was talking to his kids, he was barely there. An occasional dinner and birthday and Christmas cards were about it. There are plenty of examples of his jerkitude throughout Athena and Dimitri’s childhood. I’m sure there’s a lot of good memories here and there, too, don’t get me wrong; but at his worst he was an incredibly absent father and an abusive husband. After Sophie divorced him, he just sort of checked out of the kids’ lives. And yet, for some reason, we (Athena, Sophie, and I) felt that he needed to meet the grandkids. We thought that meeting them would somehow, I don’t know, sucker him into talking to his kids again. How could he not? These babies are cuter than shit. They’d charm anyone.
So now, after having dinner with him once, he demands that we name a potential male grandchild after him, in accordance with Greek tradition. Aside from the moral objections I have with that, there still is the issue of The Agreement.
Dim and I made The Agreement before we knew the sex of the Bean. Simply stated, it was: If we ever have a girl, it will be named Sophia, after his mom, and if we ever have a boy, it will be named Chris, after my dad. This was the GREAT Compromise, since, while we love our parents dearly, I was not fond of the name Sophie and he was not fond of the name Chris. But this was the agreement we reached. It was relatively easy to make, since George was not talking to his kids at the time, and showed no signs of letting up.
Now, Dim is telling me that if we don’t name a boy George, that he (George) will definitely never speak to us again. Part of me thinks “Wow, that’s a shame. A petty, idiotic shame, but a shame.” The other part of me thinks “Good riddance!”
Just name him Chris George? Yeah, thought of that one. It’s a no go. Second place is as good as last, as far as George is concerned.
Just have a girl, you say? Nay, nay. He has already hinted that Georgia (In Greek it’s actually much more beautiful, your-YHEE-ah,but in white-people-speak, it’s a damn state) is an acceptable alternative for the penis challenged. Also, I want a girl to have the middle name Ann, after my grandmother, and Georgia Ann? Lord, no. People will constantly ask her for cornbread recipes.
So the issue boils down to this: We can do what he wants, and keep in contact with him, or don’t, and don’t.
Hence the sigh.
Dimitri’s cousin Peter and his girlfriend Aisling came to town for a long weekend. They went out to the casinos a few times, but mostly, they hung out with us. It was a lot of fun.
Bean, after a frosty first day, decided that Peter was her best friend and book buddy. That poor guy must have read the same three books to her 40 times. He didn’t seem to mind too much, though.
Bean had trouble getting to sleep last night. It turns out that it was my fault. I apparently locked the cat in Bean’s closet. When Dim went in to check on her, she was cooing like she does when she’s watching the cat. Dim discovered and released the cat, and Bean’s cooing stopped. I can’t imagine how many times Ruby must have popped into her dreams.
I feel exhausted every day. My ass, she drags. I haven’t barfed in a few days, which is nice. We had dinner with Dim’s father George. Upon finding out about our pregnancy, he demanded that the child be a boy and that it be named George.
Sigh.
As soon as I posted the news about my pregnancy Dimitri got two separate calls asking "Did you know that Jen was pregnant?"
Um yes, he did.
And I totally jinxed myself the other day when my mom called and asked if I had morning sickness yet. I said no, and not 15 MINUTES LATER ....BLAAAARGGGGGHHHHH!
Every day since I took the test I have puked. Here we go again. Dimitri says that it's a little too convenient that I start throwing up the day that I took the test. He thinks that it's psychosomatic.
Yeah. Psychosomatic chunks of breakfast and bile.
Dork.