The Canadas

1998 Winter Happy New Year Esprit Arrives Good and Evil The New Teacher in the House Spring Home Improvement, Part 4 Spring Break Easter Open House We Turned Off the Boss Bill Cosby Comes to Pembroke Unions and Reunions Myrtle Beach, South Carolina The Delight of Our Lives Summer Father’s Day Esprit’s Midwest Debut Indiana Guests of the Guests Sewanee, Tennessee Fall Home Improvement, Part 5 Still Studying A Year of Firsts A Christmas Parade Esprit’s First Christmas Updated August 10, 2002 © Canadas 2002

Life with Esprit Having finished graduate school, started a new job, and bought a home in 1997, we thought we were pretty busy people. Then came Esprit, our first child, and we learned the meaning of “busy.” From her arrival on January 18 to her first steps in December, she had us hopping—and feeding and changing and playing and chasing. For us, though, there is no greater labor of love. We especially enjoyed introducing Essie to the holidays, which took on new meaning this year. At Easter, we celebrated her baptism with an open house. Halloween brought an opportunity for dressing up as a penguin and going trick-or-treating, and Christmas was, of course, simply wonderful. We spent the year not only getting accustomed to Essie, but also acquainting her with our lifestyle. She got her first taste of traveling, for example, when we took her to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I had a conference, and later made the trip all the way to Indiana, where she entertained her grandparents and met many of her uncles, aunts, and cousins for the first time. The three of us also took trips to Sewannee, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois. I continued working as an English professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, where I taught undergraduate courses in American literature and composition, as well as my first graduate course, Contemporary Issues in American English. In addition to teaching, I wrote articles on the Southern short story and literary sheriffs for a book called The Companion to Southern Literature. Both Lisa and I were also busy around our house, where we completed more renovations. While engaged in the biggest of these projects, a complete overhaul of the utility room, I cut part of my thumb off and had to go to the hospital emergency room to have it sewed back on.