The world welcomed Benjamin Andrew Lewis in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007 – exactly two weeks before Christmas. More than a week late and weighing in an ounce short of 10 pounds, Benjamin is the latest addition to my growing extended family and the son of my sister Carolyn and her husband Phil way out in Cooperstown, New York.
If there is a risk that Benjamin will get scrouged out of his proper allotment of presents by having his birthday so close to Christmas, he’ll have his older brother Spencer, who was born on Christmas Day, to commiserate with. (Current) middle child Addie had enough sense to be born in June, leaving quite a few paychecks between the big present days.
December is turning into an eventful month for me and mine. In addition to the usual holiday festivities and the propagation of little ones in upstate New York, we also celebrate my wife’s birthday as well as Kari and my wedding anniversary (one year and going strong, yeah!). In the past month we have seen our own household grow by two, although one is a temporary circumstance. Coco, our newly adopted dachshund is the permanent one and while she settled in almost immediately, us humans (and our other dog, Walt) have been adjusting our routines to make room for her.
Just before Thanksgiving Kari’s mother flew in from her native Wisconsin for an extended stay into early next year. The purpose of her trip being two-fold: to spend the holidays with her two daughters and one son-in-law and to do a little reconnaissance to see if she might want to move “back east” to be closer to two of her children. I would never recommend visiting Maine any time between Nov. 1 and June 30, but if you are thinking of actually living here, now is the ideal time to visit. Anyone can see themselves living in New England during glorious summer, but it’s difficult to maintain the rose-colored glasses as you don the rubber boots day in and day out.
It has been great fun having Mary around, but so far the visit has not been very productive reconnaissance-wise. Bereft of a car and wary of the streets and sidewalks that have yet to clear of the alternating layers of ice and snow that have been forming since winter arrived early, Mary has been largely sequestered inside while the rest of us attend to our work-a-day lives. The dogs don’t seem to mind since having Mary around during the day means they get to spend their workday hours lounging on the couches rather than inside their crates.
Kari and I, having celebrated a year of matrimony, have already worked on our New Year’s resolutions, which involve  increasing the size of our own family by adopting a child as well as finding someplace to house our hopefully soon-to-be growing family.
Easier said then done, as adoption, not to mention homeownership, entails significant upfront costs currently,  and until circumstances change, not within our grasp.
But we have our goal, we have our motivation, we have each other and we have the next year to figure it all out.