Mazel tov

Michael recently auditioned for the role of a bottle dancer in our church's summer theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof. The tryouts were two weeks ago Sunday, when I was (unbeknownst to everyone else) in early labour; the first read-through was a week ago Saturday, at which Michael received his copy of the script and found that he had indeed been cast as one of the four bottle dancers, whose role is to perform an intricate and complex Jewish folk dance while balancing a bottle on the head. (This being a church production, all references to alcohol have been cleverly eliminated; thus when the innkeeper - not bartender - offers his guests a drink, he doesn't add 'of vodka' in our script, nor does he lament having 100 unfinished barrels of the stuff to get rid of at the end of the play.) I've gone to both practises with him, partly to admire his performance and partly to show off Jane to the other cast members.

Initially he was not listed as being part of the ensemble, which would be a random townie who gets to sing in all the general songs. Somewhat disappointed, he talked to the director to ascertain what was lacking in his singing during the tryouts. 'It's all right,' he told me afterwards. 'They took me off the list because they thought they would make it easy on me, with the new baby and all. But when I told them I wanted to be part of the ensemble, they put me back on.' 'I should hope so!' I told him. 'My word! Catherine pitched you to me as someone who can sing and dance!' (Catherine certainly did her best to show us each to best advantage to each other the night we met. According to Ron, her matchmaking style consists of the following formula: 'You stand here; you stand here. Stay right there while I go get the vise.')

Jane's umbilical cord fell off this morning. She is embarking on her third week ex utero, so that seems about right. Meanwhile we still continue to live off the generosity of friends, who have provided us with meals so thoroughly that I still haven't cooked since coming home from the hospital. If you ever wondered whether it's worth the effort and thought to bring a meal to a new mom (or anyone under duress, for that matter), rest assured, it is. What a blessing this blissful time is! It's not that I can't cook, but that it is so wonderful to be able to relax and enjoy this time with my baby instead of having to dream up what's for dinner, shop for groceries, and stand at the sink peeling potatoes or whatever. I always thought that bringing people meals was a nice thing to do, and now I know from the inside that those feelings of righteousness and nobility from doing such a grand deed are completely justified. =)

I had a whole slew of funny stories from early in pregnancy, when the Scatterbrain Hormone was at its highest, which I didn't post because we were keeping things quiet until past the first trimester. However, I am gratified to note that new motherhood has its own brand of Quirky Hormone, involving such scenarios as removing the box from a picture frame with the fire poker, using a candle to burn the legs off a pair of nylons, and rooting through last week's garbage to find a return address that got inadvertently thrown away before the thank-you-note was written. As the Neverending Story most annoyingly said, that's another story and shall be told at another time.