SuperSitter

Our good friend Lisa Herranz came by Saturday morning wearing a SuperSitter T-Shirt, gave us the keys to her car (the same car we took Mari to the hospital in when Emilio was ready to come out), took a short class in Emilio-sophy and sent Mari and me out into the world to enjoy our first movie date since los abuelos were in town. We have taken it as a sign of Emilio's growing maturity that he is becoming a little shy around the non-Moms and non-Dads of this world, but by the time we got his favorite CD playing (Welcoming Children Into the World), he hardly noticed our departure around 10:15 a.m.. Lisa says he enjoyed a good, one-and-a-half hour morning nap and afterwards demonstrated a remarkable fascination with the ceiling fan and special talent for picking out clothes that match. There was some crying, but by the time we got back Emilio was soon smiling at all three of us and before long he was back in Lisa's lap as we showed her the famous "Little Potato" slide show.

The last time Lisa made an appearance in this blogspace, I realized that I didn't know if she had taken her husband Fernando Herranz's last name (we attended their wedding at Promontory Point last summer), so I asked her. She has. And as a reward for my asking (I experienced it as a reward, anyway), she told us a fascinating story about her maiden name, "Williams." As it turns out, her grandfather--who is from the part of Europe that is sometimes Polish and sometimes Russian--took the name "Williams" because his last name at the time, Wilensky, was threatening to keep him on the wrong side of a quota on Jews who could be admitted to college. This was in Brooklyn in the 1930s, folks.

We are very grateful to Lisa for volunteering to hang out with Emilio for half a day and for bypassing a paid overnight shift at the hospital in order to be fully energized for the event. Lisa is truly one of the most generous, positive people we know.