The Doctor-Deanses

2003 - It's 3 AM at Villa Silvistrini. I'm ankle deep in the Adriatic with a group of American women I met 24 hours prior. The water is inky black but tantalizingly warm. I just want to jump in but it's dark, see, and there might be things in the water and I'm just not sure and SPLASH. Gina has whisked off her dress and plunged headfirst into the ocean. I stayed dry and safe. Gina got the better story.

One of my earliest memories of Gina pretty much sums up the girl I would come to love and adore and later challenge to a game of topless ping pong (her daredevil atttude is infectious). I wasn't the only one bewitched by her on that trip. Her future husband Robin (the one boy among seven women) fell hard for the saucy fashionista and left his native London to marry his girl and make Buster, one of the cutest boy babies on the planet.

We finally got a chance to visit the Doctor-Deanses this past weekend in Chicago and crash at their lovely home in super cool Wicker Park. We ate lemon cookies and killer falafel and tried to barter Harlow for root beer float cupcakes. We met a fellow cute boy in a hat with a baby who beat-boxed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Apparently he is kind of a big deal. We shopped at Paper Doll and Sprout Home and Penelope. We gave our babies a bath together and got to know each other as parents. Not surprisngly, she is a kick-ass mom. This mom got her ass kicked by the baby in the pack-in-play 2 inches from the bed. Constant crying and nursing made for a very sleepy train ride into the burbs to hang with the Vickers on Saturday. We partied with the neighbors - well, Caleb and everyone else did as I crashed at 9 PM. And Sunday came Christmas. The whole family piled in the car and went to Ikea where I bought fabric and picture frames and weird Swedish crap that you can't buy online just because I could. I'm not sure if there has ever been retail therapy more effective. We had just enough time to catch Max's soccer game - and his awesome 2 goals - before we hopped the plane back home with our loot. And as it is 9 PM, I think I may have to go to bed again. Getting old makes me sleepy.



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