Breaking News: Baby Sits Up!

Hold On Tight

And Introducing Glory as the Big Sister

Our beloved pup, Glory, a rescue dog from the South Bronx, has spent six years rolling around the northeast with us from city to country to mountains to beach. She is my other guru. And now a loving & protective sister. When we were at the birthing center, Kate & Andrew satyed with her. After the birth we gave Devon's skull cap & my T-shirt to them for Glory. "Don't be alarmed if she tears it up," our midwife told us, "to get out every smell." Glory just laid them on her bed until we came home with Devon, where she gave her the first of the daily puppy kisses.

"Here are your winnings..."

Daddy & Baby on Kentucky Derby Day, when Suzanna won $90 which we used to open Devon's savings account.

Where's my drink?

How Does She do Such Marvelous Stunts With Such Little Feet?

We end our "vacation" in Maine back where it started at the family compound at Bonney Eagle. Devon's grandfather Roger was, of course, working on stone work and Patty had the great idea, of course, to capture Devon's feet in cement.

A Day at the Beach

Classic photo booth at the Old Orchard Beach boardwalk in Maine. Mommy, Daddy & baby shared a beautiful Summer afternoon with the Cohen pack of NYC in mid-August. Devon's first time to the beach. We went on the carousel together and watched Rose Cohen (a four year old rainbow cat from Manhattan) on the kiddie rides. The photo booth was the last thing we did as you can see by the look on the over tired baby's face. She slept most of the way back to the Bonney Eagle compound.

Art Baby

This kid has been to about 10 different art shows at 6 different galleries. Here she is waiting for a diaper change at VARGA Gallery in Woodstock, NY.

Happy Valentine's Day Flashback

About a week after Devon was born we had our first holiday - a sweet, snowed-in Valentine's Day.

And in this corner...

We're hanging out watching the best episode of "30 Rock" (The Fighting Irish) one night this spring; we loved it so much we DVRed it. Jack, played by Alec Baldwin, is about to have a fist fight with his con artist brother (Nathan Lane) & father (Brian Murray) and they all go over their "fists names." Jack's fists are named St. Michael & St. Patrick, his dad's are Bobby Sands & Tip O'Neil, and his brother's Bono & Sandra Day O'Connor.

Devon, we noticed early on, likes to hang out with a cocked fist, sometimes both. So we decided to name her fists: Her left one honors Suzanna's paternal grandmother, Barbara Jean, and her right fist is named after my maternal grandmother, Eileen Patricia.

This photo was taken by Suzanna when Devon was about six weeks old.

"It takes me to new places..."

The night after Devon was born the three of us were chilling out in our own beds at the birthing center room, in the dark, listening to a mellow mixed playlist from my ipod. Some of the music we played is what we still play everynight at bedtime: Ray Lamontagne & Lucinda Williams. Music has been an important part of each day in Devon's life since that night. Some of her favorites include: The Chicago & The Producers soundtracks, "It's de-lovely," Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions especially "Buffalo Gals," "Froggie-went-a-courting," & "Pay Me My Money Down," The Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans, Aretha Franklin & Ray Charles doing "Spirit in The Dark" live at the Fillmore West from 1971, and just recently we start everyday with "Good Morning, Good Morning" from Singing in the Rain. Suzanna plays a mean piano solo on Devon in the middle of Lyle Lovett's "You're not from Texas (But Texas loves you anyway)." Every couple of days we play her something else to see what she likes. Last week she really starting kicking in excitement to Beck's "Where it's at." In Duke Ellington's memoir, "Music is My Mistress," he writes that music "takes me to new places and experiences." Hell yeah!



My dear friend Katie Jo (AKA SuperKate) made me promise to sing to Devon as much as possible, as it is one of fondest childhood memories of her parents & grandmother singing Beatles & older standards to her. So slightly off key & a little pitchy, dog, I do. And as much fun & joy it is to dance around to all the pre-recorded music mentioned above, nothing compares to the glint in her eye when she sees & hears me singing to her. Nothing like live music, baby! These photos are from a beautiful time in Devon's life when Kate and her wonderful husband Andy lived in "the bunny house" on Ohayo Mt. Road in Woodstock and one summer day mad with sunshine when the supertalented Andy played guitar and sang to her. She couldn't get enough of his elegant performance.

Cue the FLASHBACK music now

Bringing it back to the Birthing Center, Northern Dutchess Hospital, Rhinebeck, NY February 5, 2007. The morning after the birth this image was taken, the little burrito with the punk hair sleeping peacefully on her bed between Suzanna Mommy & Michael Daddy in our beautiful room, chillsome Husdon River wind doing it's best imitation of antartica blasts howling around outside, us inside resting together, dreaming of what's next for the new pack.

Devon writes her First Short Story

Excerpts from Devon's first short story, written on her mom's laptop in Maine:
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Baby's First "Solid" Food: Sweet-Potato-Breast-Milk Soup

Zen Baby

She is my personal guru

My feelings summed up beautifully by Keith Richards in a 1989 Playboy interview:

“The kid is your little thing, and you think, Goddamn, I helped make that And it's all full of purity and innocence, and it's just smilin' at you and wants to kiss you and hug you, and all it wants to do is just feel you and touch you, and you never felt so loved in your life. It's that bit of love you gave your own parents, the bit you don't remember -- your kid gives that back to you. And you realize, 'I've just been given the first two or three years of my life back.’

“Its a vital piece of knowledge; its like a missin' piece in a jigsaw puzzle. You should keep that, instead of showin' them off - "Hey I made this" -- because they made you. It's a reverse thing, because they give you that little bit, that important bit of living when you absolutely don't know shit about nothing. Everything's a positive. 'Cause once you start to remember things -- from that moment, you've gotta start making judgements. But in that early period, that first year or two, you can be whoever you want to be, the freest bird on this planet, just as if you were born a mole or an eagle, a jackal, a lion, a gnu -- gnash yer teeth -- or anything.
What children do to you is grow you up, make you think, What the hell am I gonna leave behind when I'm gone?”

She's happy to be here, she's happy to be anywhere

So it begins on a thunderclapped hard rain August night at one of the many family compounds, the McAlevey Camp on Hall Road overlooking Bonney Eagle Lake in Buxton, Maine. Beautiful little Devon asleep in her Winnie-the-Pooh bassinet that T-Pop (AkA Leadfoot Roger, my father) and Nut-Nut (my mother Patty) purchased so we'd always be ready to come here anytime.

Suzanna (Mommy) hard at work on her laptop, earning some money for the pack so we move around the various Northeast family compounds at our free will, with Glory zonked out on makeshift dog bed, resting after two walks thru the forest, several impromptu swims & a long barking session aimed at a rock. Daddy drinking a Heineken & making a blog. Cross that off the never-ending list.

Devon is six months old at the start of this thing so we'll have fun F-ing with the timeline of her life. We'll start now, on this eve of dead Elvis' 30th anniversary, and move in & out of time with plenty of flashbacks from the first six months.

Today, before the storm, Devon napped on my chest as I lay spellbound reading The Kite Runner, and when she awoke she popped her head up and looked straight into mine eyes, gave me a slight half asleep smile, then slammed her head back down on my chest and stayed there for a bit, giving herself time to fully wake up and letting me dry my eyes at how unbelievable these moments are every day.

Later we cruised down to the arts district in Portland and went gallery hopping. Although she preferred the passing cars on Congress Street to the art, she actually had favourites inside the galleries. She went crazy for Matthew Mahler's work at the new Four Walls Gallery (http://www.fourwallsgallery.com/artists/matthew/matthew6.htm), kicking and waving her arms everytime we would stand in front of another of his colorful canvases. I really dug Michael Medel's silver landscapes, reminding me of the wildreness of my dreams.

Tomorrow we head to Pemaquid to another family cottage by the sea to hang with Suzanna's parents but not without first introducing to the most sacred of American tradition: shopping. We're pitstopping in dog friendly Freeport. On the road again.