New Buddies

Owen and Noah

New Nursing Mommies

Joni and I met more than five years ago in graduate school.  We were both officers in the Associated Graduate Students in English (an academic club for geeks trying to pad there applications for PhD programs).  After bonding during a rowdy road trip to San Diego (this is before I lived here) for an MLA conference (think thousands of geeks from all over the world getting drunk and talking about books and Postmodern theorists), we decided, after more wine and inspiration from our ever-athletic new friend Carolyn (she was on the road trip too), to run our first marathon.  

So it should only be fitting that all these years later by a fluke of nature and chance, Joni and I would discover we were pregnant within a week of each other.  If you know me well, you know that I like to speak in metaphor and that I will try to make every situation into an apt metaphor about running.  For example, my students have heard again and again writing  is like running a marathon, etc. etc.  So after enduring months of training and 26.2 miles through the hills, beaches, streets and freeways of San Diego, Joni and I (years later) embarked together on our newest adventure--pregnancy, which is kind of like running a 40-week marathon, or at least training for one.  Umm ... Not really. To be honest, child birth is actually a heck of a lot harder than a marathon despite the reassurances I had gotten to the contrary from my fellow marathoner Angi.  

So after months of long distance prego marathon phone sessions and the intermittent visit to compare bellies and appetites, one baby a little early and one a little late, Noah Finn Nelson and Owen Vilppu Wilson had their first very sleepy visit in the wee hours of the morning a few days after Christmas.   They, of course, spent most of the time nursing.