The Aerie

Seventeen

So now my twins are Seventeen. Seventeen? 17? Wait, you mean next year they'll be adults?

Oh my. Where the hell did the time go?

Last night as a pre-birthday-present torture we forced the twins (Dante scarpered to the basement) to view their ultrasound videos which continue along through the fourth month after their birth. They were appalled and very deliberately bored, but it was amazing for me. Not because of my skinny, bushy-bearded appearance, or the fact that my wife's parents were practically the same age then as I am now. No, it was just that I have no idea where the time went. It feels like no time - and yet it feels like forever.

It didn't help that video from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) brought back memories of how stressful those times were. There we are putting a brave face on the situation, but we're crowded into a corner with the two incubators, alarms from the dozen other babies beeping all around us, trying to cram ourselves and our parents into desperately homey rocking chairs while blue-smocked nurses scurried about. I don't know how we survived it, but of course we had to.

Contrast those tiny floppy babies with today's reality. Leo is a strapping young man, and Gennie is a flourishing artist. It's incredible, watching those squalling babies, to see what they've become.

Gennie attended her very first Art Fair this weekend, and it was very successful - she even sold one of her original paintings to a very canny investor. When Gennie is famous, that investor will have a fortune hanging on her wall.

This weekend would not have been as successful for her without the support of a lot of people. The women who run the Community Farm that we buy from loaned her a rack to display her art. Giovanna gave her TONS of material, gleaned from decades as a professional artist, now that Gio is leaving for an academic career in England. More valuable than the materials was Gio's advice on how to work these art fairs.

So Gennie turned seventeen sitting at a table at the Uptown Art Fair.

After the fair we took the family to Snuffy's Malt Shop for dinner, then home for videos and presents. It was a good weekend, but I have so much work hanging over my head now...

Back to it, I suppose... I have a four-day week, then the weekend spent with my birthmother and maternal half-sister at my birthmother's new home in Iowa, then another four-day week, so that's something to look forward to...

Posted by Albatross at August 4, 2008 8:04 AM | TrackBack