There is magic in the air.

Ever since Gaibi and I got together, it seems there have been these benevolent forces behind the scenes, pulling the strings and making it all cohere in ways that defy explanation.

Lets begin with the present. Our new roommate, Jan, moved in about one and a half months ago from down the street where she was living with former partner and their mutual daughter, Jayda. When Jan split with her partner what she wanted most was to be near her daughter. Our house is about 65 feet from the door of where she was previously living, and it just so happened that our roommate, Emily, was moving out to go work on an organic farm in northern California. Well Jan's new partner, Ernie, recently found out that his roommate had been criminally unfair to him as regards rent payments and essentially had to move out of his house without warning. Luckily we have the space for him to sleep until he can secure a new place to live, and he gives us free firewood and another male in the environment (Isaiah's gender is not pronounced enough to count yet). Furthermore, while our other roommate, Jenny, went away for a single month to do a yoga teacher training in upstate New York, it just so happened that Gaibi's sister Katrina needed to kill a month on a budget while waiting to leave for a gardening internship in Alaska (I know, they have garden's in Alaska? The summer there gets 22 hours of daylight at its peak, can you imagine the possibilities!?) So, with the exodus of two of our roommates, we were able to be of great service to three people who truly needed the space.

Today Isaiah is seven weeks old and we find ourselves rifling through the pictures and anecdotes for evidence that the time has really passed. These days he's not so much the larynx-centric milk-fiend that he initially was on the nights that i would come home from work. Each day those precious little windows through which my authentic son shines in between frequent feedings are open for ever-so-little more time, affording opportunities for gazing and adoration that bring into stunning clarity the true value of life.

What many people don't appreciate, I think, is the loneliness of fatherhood. Here is this wonderful little being, 9 months in the making for whom you have been waiting and pining with bated breath, only to find out that as a non-breasted being that your ability to satisfy him is shockingly small. As the father, your job is more akin to that of a producer in a recording studio. The mother is like the musicians, actually contributing all of her creative energies to the project of sustaining an infant. Meanwhile, the producer's job is to provide the optimum environment in which the music of life will be made. I come bearing juices and teas for Mama, cooking up grand feasts full of color to insure optimum breast milk and changing CDs upon request. For those slivers of time where Isaiah is not merely awake but present and even happy, I hold/bounce/rock/cha-cha around with him until hunger hits him like a bullet from the inside and he launches into full-shriek, demanding milk with all the patience of a Cuban dictator.

Meanwhile by day, I reprise my role as Teacher Derek in a cute little non-profit daycare around the corner that has been there since 67'. However, the stakes are up in this episode as I have been promoted to 'lead teacher' position. This effectively means that in addition to taking responsibility for the life of a brand new child, I have also managed to take on 19 more 2 to 4 year olds - and their families. It also means that I dress in button-up shirts, enforce more rules in a week than i would prefer to in a lifetime and still come home shaking sand out of my shoes and putting stain-stick on my marker-flecked wardrobe. The days are long, often bordering on 'excruciating', but nothing replenishes a weary heart like having a strawberry-blondie of about 3 feet drop a crumpled dandelion into your hand. "That's for your baby," she explains with an irresistible twinkle.