A classic onesie from the baby shower...finally in action.  Thanks Tim.

A Dream

I'm pedaling a unicycle through the middle of a funeral.  Not the part of the funeral where everyone stands around the grave.  It's the part where they drive to the grave.  There's a row of hearses driving down a NYC street, and I'm on this superhigh unicycle.  And I'm pedaling between the hearses and the parked cars, but I'm really unsteady.  I.e. it's not like in the dream I somehow know how to ride a unicycle.  I'm scared shitless.

Anyway, like I said this unicycle is very very high.  Like so high that if I take my feet off the pedals I can reach down with a toe and touch the tops of the cars, half of which are hearses.  So this is actually helpful, because I can kind of coast, and bounce from car to car and not fall over.  And sometimes when I look down I see people I know, like one time my brother Aaron and his wife Daria are there, looking up, and they are very concerned for me.  "Get down," they shout-whisper at me.   And I'm like, "How? I don't know how I got up here and I don't know how to ride a unicycle."  And then I have this weird moment where I look down and suddenly my feet won't reach the pedals.  And I'm straining my feet down, because I have to reach the pedals to keep moving forward, but I can feel myself starting to slow and I'm getting scared that I'm going to fall. 

Then I suddenly realize that my feet can't reach the pedals because the pedals I'm straining down for are the pedals of ANOTHER UNICYCLE, like I'm actually looking past my own pedals to the pedals of another unicyclist, and that dude is right there on a unicycle beneath me, and not a small unicycle either, he's on a perfectly respectably sized unicycle himself, but his cycle is tiny compared with mine, and he's looking up at me trying to reach for his pedals (which the upshot is that I'm nearly kicking him in the head), and he's kind of swatting my feet away from his head like they're flies, which seems like a pretty natural response from him, but in my already vulnerable state this simple act of rejection, combined with the very far distance between myself and the already-high other-pedals, raises me straight into despair.

And that's when my alarm clock (i.e. cell phone alarm) goes off.  And I do nothing.  I'm still on the unicycle.  But I know it's a dream now.  And I have a kind of Inception moment, where everyone in the line of Hearses and on the sidewalks turns and looks at me, like I just ruined the party.  It's kind of a sad look, like we're saying goodbye, which we are.  I sit there on top of my unicycle, which has stopped being wobbly now, and I look at all these people.  I'm not sure how long I sit there, but my alarm is still going off and eventually I hear Hannah say "babe".  And I roll over and turn it off.

He the trendiest

Elliot's super-hip new european underwear.  It's a G-pant (pronounced to rhyme with "Kant" of course.)

A Wedding in Mexico

As you remember, we arrived in Cancun on Friday and had a relaxed meet-up with the family, seven of whom we knew and 133 of whom we didn't.

On Saturday, no official wedding events were planned.  Except for the wedding itself, of course.  The assumption was that people would roll out of bed around noon, mildly hungover, and begin coiffing and primping--- in anticipation of the evening's opportunity to get severely hungover.

We didn't follow that schedule.  We were awake at 6:45.  Elliot was excited to be in a new place, so he couldn't wait for his customary 7:30 rising hour.  As a result, we were downstairs finishing breakfast a little after 8am, many many hours before the wedding.   How were we going to fill this day?

We decided to check out the fabled Mayan ruins which have attracted so many generations of spring breakers to Cancun.  We got in our teeny red death mobile and headed a few hours South to the town of Tulum, which we heard had great ruins.

Elliot got a little hot along the way.

It turned out that several hundred other tourists had also heard of Tulum, which is a less than ideal way to immerse yourself in another culture.  There's something about camera-heavy swarms that prevents the mental time travel necessary to enjoy ruins.

Nonetheless, we did manage to shoo the other tourists away long enough to get a few photos that make the place seem relatively unDisneylandish.

We were all getting hot (there were almost no trees, I guess to recreate the Mayans' hatred of botany), and we were told that there was some shade on the beach, which was down a cliff behind the largest Mayan temple.

This ended up redeeming the entire experience.   Here's the view from the top of the cliff:

At the bottom we managed to snag a choice piece of shade from another set of tourists who were leaving (we ruthlessly edged out some locals to get it).

There seemed to be a calm area behind those rocks, which we thought was a good place to introduce Elliot to the ocean (again).

We think of the ocean tide as a binary, in-out kind of process.  But when I crouched down with Elliot I realized that it's much more complex.  There are all kinds of little eddies and ripples moving left and right, mini-waves rushing in and out.  When you're barely two feet tall, it doesn't take much of a splash to feel like you're close to drowning.

To the little bugger's credit, he didn't freak out or start crying.  He just got very focused, concentrating intensely on the motion of the water swirling about his calves.  I tried to get him to look at me but he had far more important things to do.

It was around this time that we noticed that Elliot was developed a slight sunburn on his forearm.  We had applied copious quantities of sunscreen, of course, and he'd only been in the sun for an hour or two.  But apparently when it comes to skin, Elliot is embracing his Scottish heritage.  Bad luck for him.

So we skedaddled back to the car.  Along the way we chanced upon an ancient Mayan tradition made new:

It was actually pretty awesome.  And it actually is an ancient ritual of the Mesoamerican Totonac tribe.  Although I think there was some technology involved, like ball bearings, that the Totonacans didn't have.  (feel free to read that wikipedia article closely and correct me on this)

That's it for the first half of the day.  Next up:  Danielle and Damien Get Married.

Andrea H: Hi, my name is Andrea H. If you have a Billing question or need to contact Customer Service, call 1-800-654-4173.  Otherwise how may I help you navigate Hertz.com?



Cameron Page: I would like to know if I can get a child car seat in Cancun, Mexico.  Thanks



Andrea H: have you made a reservation for a rental yet?



Cameron Page: Nope.  My decision to rent with Hertz will depend on whether I can get a child car seat. 



Andrea H: ok well to check availability you can either enter in the information on hertz.com and once you get to Step 3 you can click on child seat otherwise you can call reservations at 1-800-654-3131 to check availability at the location you are wanting to rent from. I dont think that will be a problem



Cameron Page: great thanks Andrea H



Andrea H: youre welcome



Andrea H: Thank you for using Hertz.com Live!



Cameron Page: And thank you for your service to American capitalism



Andrea H: no problem



You have disconnected.

My Cousin Danni

Okay, she doesn't actually go by Danni.

But she did get married last weekend, in Playa Mujeres, just outside Cancun.  We were there for four days, but I would have loved to stay longer.  Like a month longer for example.

The wedding was at a hotel-resort called La Amada, a handful of low-rise buildings ten miles north of Cancun off by themselves. Turquoise water, white sand like dust, and a massive pool with a swim-up bar.  What more could you want?

We had a disastrous start to the trip, when our car rental company (Hertz!  Hertz!) didn’t have a car seat that fit Elliot, even though we had reserved and paid for the car seat in advance.  When I mentioned my internet reservation to one of the employees, he raised an eyebrow like he was skeptical about this “internet” thing people kept talking about.  The seat they finally did produce was filthy, which meant waiting another twenty minutes  to deliver the car seat from another location.  Bright side:  I got to use the manager’s laptop to print directions to our hotel.

There are lots of VW Bugs in Cancun.  Maybe all of Mexico, I don’t know.  They all have that great putt-putt sound ripping from them.  People drive crazy there, but nothing like Boston.

We missed the catamaran snorkeling trip on Friday, which was probably for the best given the degree of stress and anxiety it would have produced.  Elliot has never been on a sailboat, and trying to coordinate face masks and flippers in addition to the diapers and pacifiers would no doubt have had us throwing each other overboard.

So we had a nice lunch at a local (i.e. we saw some Mexicans there) restaurant.  

Elliot had lunch too. 

Friday night was relaxed, we just met up with all the family, had some drinks, and took some photos, and listened to Danielle’s college friends tell embarrassing stories about her.  

And finally grandma Pat got to meet her great-grandson.

Later in the night, as the party got going, Elliot wore his protective earmuffs.  A big thanks to Kate and Ed for giving these to us, they came in more handy than anything else this trip. They happen to look at lot like DJ headphones, which people loved.  “He’s listening to his own music!” they would shout in our ears, over the blare of the actual music.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Going To The Beachfront and We're Gonna Get Married...

Elliot chewing on his tongue

Elliot's obsession with the camera has become so severe that if he even sees it he will stop whatever he is doing and try to grab it.  Yes, you can blame me for creating this pathology.

So getting footage of him chewing on his tongue like an old man required some serious undercover journalism.  But it was worth it.

Piano

Is this an "even then they knew" moment?

Jumperoo

Easter Weekend in Boston

We visited many more people than we took photos of.  (Sorry Sadhna and Dunan!)  But here's a quick tour of who we did snap photos of. 

In Cambridge, we hung out with Emily, Chris and Milo. 

Saturday night we went to a great bridal shower for Emily Brock, who I grew up across the street from in Newton.  We were too busy partying (and protecting Elliot from being smothered to death with love) to take photos.  But there are plenty on Facebook....

Sunday morning we went to the Unitarian Church in Lexington.   Carole was essential in maintaining an appropriately hushed worship.

That afternoon we went over to Jeff and Jessica's for Easter dinner.  Their daughter Miranda and her husband Jay were there, with their twin boys Lake and Finnegan.

The fabulous Andi Edison, a family friend since I was seven years old, was also in attendance.

Elliot found a fun place to play in the backyard.

We always knew the flowers were not safe.

He Gets Mirrors

Everlasting proof:

Spring is here

And the Brooklyn Botanical Garden knows it.

Daycare

Over the past week we've been introducing Elliot to daycare.  I was off work (yes, for those keeping track, it's been quite a while, meaning I have a good month or so in June when I'll be working non-stop) so I got the privilege of picking him up and dropping him off. 

We started Monday afternoon at 3pm.  I left him in Yvette's capable hands for about an hour or so.  They said he cried a little and then played and ate and was fine.  Tuesday he came in at 10am and stayed til noon.  (I frantically tried to get work done during this time.  It was precious freedom.)  Wednesday was 2:30 to 5:30, and by this point he was noticing the pattern and starting to protest.  Yvette's hair was, perhaps by coincidence, a little frayed around the edges when I picked him up that evening.

On Friday he smiled and gurgled at Yvette and Christina when I dropped him off, but there was a look of exhaustion in their eyes when we came back.  They love him and are excited to see him, their eyes still light up when they crow "Good morning Elliot!", but there's a hint of wariness now --- clearly they have heard the power of his lungs.

On the upside, they told us he slept for nearly ninety minutes in his crib, an event unheard of in our apartment. 

Tomorrow (Monday) Hannah will drop him off for his first full day of daycare.  Keep your fingers crossed....

A moment

He can help out when he's getting out of his patagonia now.  (his patagonia is what he wears outside).  He's gone in and out so many times, he knows how to help.  I just grab the cuff near his wrist, and he immediately draws his arm back toward, pulling it out of the sleeve.  It's the first sign he understands clothing and how it works. 

Also, he's finally started learning to sit, so recently when i was putting his patagonia on to go outside, he happened to be sitting up, and instead of making him lie down flat and physically shoving his arms into the sleeves, I just let him sit there.  I maneuvered the coat around him, exactly the way you would do with a three-year old, and for a moment I was struck by the fact that he's getting older, for a moment I saw the little boy he is soon to become.  


And honestly, it made me sad.  I've always said I can't wait until he gets to an age where I can play with him and read to him, but something gets lost too.  I'm already nostalgic for the vulnerable baby, completely dependent on Hannah and me, who is about to disappear.

Future Plumber?

A moment of terror

There have been very few scary moments with Elliot so far.  This is one of them. 

(Hannah would request that I find a bit of wood to knock on at this moment, but I’m sitting on the stoop of our brownstone.)

I was changing Elliot’s diaper.  It was a particularly brutal buttsplosion, and he’d been lying on his back, causing the green goo to work its way not just onto his back but up between his shoulder blades.  This had given him great relief, and he was happy, feisty, twisting and turning as he lay there on his back. 

I had his two little ankles in my left hand, lifting his butt in the air while my right hand swabbed poop from just below his neck line.  Did I get it all?  It was so far up there that I couldn’t quite tell.  I lifted his ankles, which were already high in air, even farther. 

For a brief moment no body part but the back of his head was touching the table.  He was at roughly 75 degrees, not quite vertical but nearly.  

Suddenly he spasmed, arching every muscle in his back vigorously.  This did two things simultaneously:  His back went from straight to C-shaped, which meant that instead of occiput down he was now face down, with his body extending at a Cirque du Soleileanly grotesque angle.  (try this: take your head and put it as far back as you possibly can.   That’s the position he was in, except upside down, with his face pressed into the table.) 

The second thing that happened was I nearly lost my grip on his ankles.  

The strange body posture was one thing.  It looked horrifying, but was ultimately not harmful.  As long as he was dangling from my left hand, he was could twist and turn like a gymnast and be fine.  

But if, while in that strange contorted neck-vulnerable position, if my grip loosened due to his kicking, and if at that moment I suddenly let go of him, and all 20 pounds of his body crashed down on those few ounces of spinal cord---

I'll just go ahead and not finish that sentence. 

It was a momentary terror.  Elliot reverse-spasmed back into proper position, and I barely had time to freak out before it was all over.  

As I’ve said before, I’m sure this won’t be the last moment of terror.  But based on this experience, I’m reeeeeeally not looking foward to next time.   

Bite off as much as you can and then more

I've been reading to Elliot.  We started with Faulkner, but he didn't like it so I'm trying these soft cloth books with no actual words.  They went over well, so he's now graduated back up to real books with sentences.

One of the things I've noticed is how he really wants to control the book.  He wants to hold it, he wants to turn the pages.  These books are as tall as he is, but he gets angry when I turn the page without including him.

A few weeks ago we had brunch with some friends, who have a 16-month old.  On the way back, the little boy was trying to push the stroller instead of sit in it.  I said something like How Cute, and my friend said, "Actually, I think he's mad because I'm helping him push the stroller.  He wants to do it himself."

Euclid proved (or just stated?) that two points make a line, and if you consider those two incidents points, then what kind of line can we draw?  Does the same impulse --- to always grab for something just beyond what you are capable of --- extend throughout the rest of childhood?  And through adulthood too perhaps?  Certainly the teenage years are filled with examples of trying things you're not ready for.

Seems like something I should be able to draw a lesson from, but I'm not sure what.  Do something you're not ready to do?  Do something impossible?

Maybe it's this:   If you take on a challenge that seems impossible, you may grow into it with time, and when you finish it will no longer be impossible.

Final learning to sit video

Okay, here's his current status, fully able to sit:

But as you know, he is obsessed with the camera, which means we still get moments like this:

Quick updates

He's got some weird qualities right now that I want to remember.  First, he likes having a piece of cloth put over his face.  He goes crazy for it, starts kicking his little legs and waving his arms up and down.  And then after a few seconds he'll get silent, and it's like a holy silence, like he's listening or praying or something.  I think he holds his breath actually.  And then he'll start kicking and punching and making those ecstatic gurgling sounds again.  Sometimes this turns into a real fit, like he'll go straight from super excited and happy to super pissed off.  But if you pull the cloth off his face at the right time, it's like he just stepped off the best roller coaster at Six Flags.

Second, he's sticking his tongue out now.  Licking stuff.  Used to be he wanted to put his mouth on things, put stuff in his mouth, and actually that's still a pretty popular activity.  But the new wrinkle is the tongue outside of the mouth.  I think he's just discovered that it's even possible, and he's kind of fascinated by it.

Which makes sense.  I mean, for all he knows his tongue is fifteen feet long and he just has to figure out how get it to work.  He spent four months on his back like a turtle, and suddenly the right combination of muscles let him flip onto his stomach.  So who knows what this tongue thing can do once he gets it working right.  He probably thinks he'll be able to fly through the air like a bird.

Museum Addendum

I left out the most iconic section of the Natural History Museum.. the animal dioramas!

It was pretty mobbed with elementary school kids on field trips, so we didn't stay long.

Feeding

Well, it's about that time.  Feeding time.  For at least a month Elliot has been staring at our mouths in fascination when we eat.  And ever since he's lost the fourth-trimester palsy, he's been reaching for our forks and spoons.  Also reaching for bowls of soup, cups of coffee. Needless to say things are getting dangerous. 

So we're giving the demon what he wants, in hopes of blunting his fury.  This is what he's usually like at the start of a feed:

But eventually he gets into it:

(btw, this is usually a two-person job; I much prefer it that way.)

Been a little sick over the past few days, so not posting as much.  But there's plenty in the hopper, videos and photos just waiting to be exploded all over the internet.  so stay tuned...

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Next year I'll grow a neck for you!

laughter = trust?

I've been spending a lot of time with Elliot recently.  For pretty much the past 3 weeks I've been the weekday caregiver.  Which is both awesome and exhausting.  I got sick last week and I don't think the timing was a coincidence.

One interesting effect is that Elliot laughs more around me.  He would always smile, but laughs were harder to elicit until recently.

It seems pretty clear that laughter, for an infant, is an expression of trust.  He is more likely to laugh with people he trusts.

Which led me to ponder:  does this remain true?  Am I more likely to laugh at the joke of someone I trust and feel comfortable with, than with a stranger?  (I'm talking about true laughter, not the fake nervous laughter that we often trot out for someone's terrible joke at a party.)

It seems to me that in adulthood history becomes more important than trust.  That is, if someone has been funny in the past, I'm more likely to laugh at something they say.

Put in infant terms, this is a kind of pattern recognition:  that face is the funny face, it's the one I laugh at.

Come to think of it, maybe that's all Elliot is doing, pattern recognition.  I think we're building trust, but really we're building a history of him laughing at me.

Get ready, cause this ain't funny

At this point, there’s no doubt.  He prefers one brand of pacifier.  I’m going explain how I know, but I probably only have about three minutes so I better type fast.

I had the one that Hannah and I bought together at Babies R Us today, and it’s this big bulbous thing, symmetrical from every perspective (top v bottom, left v right), which is obviously not the way one’s mouth is shaped, but the way they package these goddamn pacifiers you can’t check them out before you buy them, they’re trapped behind a yard of hard plastic, so you’re just trusting that Playtex or Gerber or whoever knows how to make a good pacifier.  Then you get it home and it's obviously a dud, but you're stuck with it.

ANYWAY.  It’s Anna’s birthday tonight, and Hannah is out boozing it up, or so I hope, because that will make me feel better for the nights when I go out boozing it up.  And there I am with Elliot, and at first I dared to dream that Hey maybe he’ll drop off to sleep at 6:30 like they say in the No-Cry Sleep Solution.  That’s when you’re supposed to put your kid to bed, 6:30pm.  What a fucking joke.  He lies there with his eyes open for a few minutes, staring at me like what are you kidding?

So we get up, and actually we have a nice hour together.  I pour myself the bottom fourth of this shitty red bottle we have sitting in the window.  I pull out the vacuum top and sure enough no pop at all, but I drink it anyway.  And I pull out a round of goat cheese that I took off the food co-op for a buck fifty, and I stand there in the kitchen holding him in my right arm and stabbing the goat cheese with Wheat Thins and drinking wine with my left arm.  And after a while this gets boring so I put in my headphones and I’m listening to Real Time with Bill Maher about the budget crisis, and he’s going on about how the government might shut down, but I know it didn’t because the program was recorded two weeks ago and I’m only just listening to it now.  Why didn’t I listen to it earlier?  Because I have a six month old, and that’s pretty much the answer I can give to any question you ask me these days.

So anyway, another hour goes by and I realize I told Hannah I might join her at Anna’s birthday thing later, with Elliot, but I can’t find my phone.  And it’s pretty goddamn hard to hunt for a phone with a baby under one arm, but I’m trying, and it’s getting later and later, because I keep taking breaks to watch old reruns of The State (how I got turned on to that show is another story for another time).  But so eventually I just have to put Elliot in his bumbo seat and dash about the apartment looking for the phone, going back over all the territory I already covered except more thoroughly, and with a clock ticking in my head, the How Long clock.  How long will Elliot sit there before he starts screaming?  And part of my mind is wondering if Hannah texted me a question like “Is Elliot still alive and well?” like an hour ago, and is currently freaking out because I haven’t written back, and I’m wondering what will happen if I don’t find my phone, like maybe an ambulance will just pull up in front of the house because Hannah didn’t want to take chances.

But eventually I find the phone, it’s behind a half-empty White Russian on the night table from weeks ago, which I thought I’d already looked behind, but phones are actually very very narrow and when you lie them flat they can hide behind even a thin sliver of cream and vodka.

There’s a text from Hannah asking if I want to come meet them at the bar.   I look out the window and watch a sad umbrellaless person run through the pelting rain.  I call Hannah and tell her Nope, we’re good here, I’m going to try to get him to sleep.

Which I do.  Try.

Here’s where that horrible pacifier comes in.  I know that getting him to sleep without the customary Real Live Boob that he is accustomed to is going to be a challenge.  So I get everything lined up in advance.  I have my three ounces of Real Live Frozen Boob Milk thawed and even warmed to near body temperature using the hottest water our kitchen faucet can produce.  I have the Co-Sleeper cleared of detritus (i.e my own dirty clothes).  I have the Sleep Sac laid out ready for his little perfect body.

My plan goes into motion.  I give him the bottle, he loves it, his eyelids start to droop.  I bring him into the dimly lit bedroom, close the door, and deposit him in the Sleep Sac. (It’s lying open on the bed, and it involves two snaps, one at each shoulder, plus a zipper that run from one hip to the other and circumnavigates the feet like Magellan did Cape Horn.)  He fusses a bit when put in the Sleep Sac, but knows the drill by now, and waits semi-patiently for the bottle to be reinserted after the Sleep Sac ritual.  Which it is.

Now he’s really in the throes of the Nod Fairy.  He can barely keep his eyes open.  He’s still drinking the milk, and I estimate there are about 1.5 ounces still in there, which should get me/him across the finish line.

The key is putting him in the Co-Sleeper while he’s still awake but very near asleep.  That way he knows where he’s falling asleep, he’s aware of it, but not so aware that he has the strength to protest.  Kind of like the relationship between television and American elections.

And so he keeps draining the milk, and I have to get him into the Co-Sleeper before all the milk is gone, otherwise he will get angry and the whole process has to start again. But damn it, his eyes are still open!  Maybe a few droops, a few long blinks, but nothing that would normally give me the courage to put him down.

But if i don’t put him down, and he drinks all the milk, then what do I have left?  I’m cornered, without ammunition and with an angry baby in my arms.  And my friend Timmy has said he would rather have an baby cougar than an angry baby in his arms.  (I never asked about an angry baby cougar.)

So i take the risk.  I put him down, and he starts fussing.  He doesn’t want to be put down in the cold crib.  But I pop that bottle back in his mouth and he gets right happy again. In fact, he closes his eyes and keeps them shut and starts to fall asleep.

So it seems like everything is great right?  But no!  Because now an even more serious dilemma faces me.  Elliot is asleep, or at least in the early stages. But he’s still got this bottle in his mouth, which I am holding.  Given his position in the crib, it’s pretty much vertical over his mouth hole.  Which means it’s dripping milk, plop plop plop, into the back of his throat.  All well and good if he’s swallowing it, but once he falls asleep for real, he’s going to stop swallowing.  And all that milk is going to collect in the back of his throat and he’s going to aspirate it into his lung and drown.  So no, things are not great.

The key decision for me now is, when is he asleep?  He’s still actively sucking, and swallowing, so we’re good right now.  But when has he gone from conscious awake sucking to unconscious asleep sucking?  When he crosses that line, I have to yank the bottle of death milk faster than a fireman smashes the window of a Hyundai illegally parked in front of a fire hydrant.

Generally speaking, constant sucking means awake and intermittent sucking means asleep.  Elliot stops sucking and I yank.  Now it’s time to---

OH FUCK!  WHAT AN IDIOT I AM!

We’ve reached the moment, of course, as any idiot would know, when you quickly substitute a pacifier in place of the milk bottle.  But I can’t find the pacifier. I thought it was in my shirt pocket, but I’m not wearing a shirt with a pocket anymore.  Now I’m wearing a hoodie sweatshirt with a kangaroo pouch.  I muffle through there but it’s empty.  I slap my hand along the night table, boom boom boom, nothing. I reach the other direction, to the bed, and DJ scratch my hand forward and back, hunting desperately along the sheet, failing.

He’s screaming now, of course, of course he is.  Why wouldn’t he be.  So I pick him back up. We’re at square one.  Together we walk around the apartment looking for the pacifier.  All I can find is the crappy one, that stupid symmetrical one, that un-human-mouth-shaped one, and I keep cramming it in his gaw hoping he’ll just shut up and take it, which he is not dumb/nice/accommodating/undiscriminating enough to do.

So I finally find this other pacifier, the one he likes, the one that conforms well to the roof of his mouth, and he drops off to sleep instantly. Like in a second.  Like so fast it feels targeted at me: he is spitefully dropping off to sleep like a shot, just to prove what an unprepared asshole I am.  You could have had all this, he seems to be saying.  It could have been so beautiful.  He mocks me with his angelic slumber and cherubic lips.

But so I put him down, and then begins yet another of the many chapters of getting this infant to sleep: the hand dance.

When I lie Elliot in the co-sleeper, with his little Sleep Sac constraining his legs, the only way he can display his narcoleptic discontent is with his arms.  And weirdly, if you can control the arms, you can control the mind.  If the arms stop being angry, he drops off to sleep and stays that way.  I know it seems like it should be the other way around:  if he falls asleep his arms will stop moving.  But trust me on this.  The arms come first, and then sleep follows. 

You can’t just pin his arms down.  That’s amateur style.  He doesn't like being swaddled, it makes him feel constrained, and he will open his eyes and scream in your face.  Neither can you allow him to flail.  This will make him feel out of control, and a panic spiral will ensue, with each flail compounding the sense of disorientation created by the previous flail.

What you have to do is allow him to windmill his arms, but in a constant, controlled manner.  Stable, rhythmic.  Smooth.  And you make him think it’s his idea.  You take the arm-spasm of a child lost in the black forest swatting away a bat, and turn it into the yawning reach of a happy safe protected child after a bath.

(Let’s leave aside for right now the fact that safe and protected is what he ACTUALLY IS, so why I have to go through this goddamn ritual to make him FEEL safe, when he’s never been anything in his entire life BUT SAFE, absolutely nothing ever to indicate a lack of total protection, is beyond me.  Let’s also leave aside the weirdness of the fact that I take the outbursts of infants personally.)

But so you let him grab your fingers with his little hands, and you let him push and tug, and his little arms windmill about, but eventually the steam goes out of them and they start drop.  Are you done?  No you are not.  Because actually this moment of overconfidence is the most precarious, it’s when you can carelessly stumble and drop your victory into the jaws of defeat.  I have done this.

His arms are somewhere in the air, or by his mouth, or resting against his chest.  But as he falls deeper and deeper into sleep, those arms will flop.  Wherever they are, they will drop until they are against the mattress.  And when they smack against that mattress it will waken him, and he will startle forward into consciousness with a mighty, righteous cry, like the dragon in the old tale whose gold was tricked away from him while he slept. 

So again, you must be devious.  You cannot allow his arms to plop against the mattress, no no no.  He may be asleep, but his arms are still awake.  And they are vigilant, these arms.  You must convince the arms that it is their decision to slowly, gently, smoothly, descend to the mattress.  You can touch his arms, that much is allowed.  In fact it’s surprising how firmly you can touch him without waking him.  But you cannot allow any body part to move too quickly, or he will wake up.  Lower his arm gently to the mattress and ever so subtly remove your fingers. 

And then tiptoe out of the room and pray.  

Staring at belly cast

A few weeks before Hannah gave birth, we participated in one of the strange rituals of modern parenthood, one confined to the hippie-cum-brooklynite demographic:  making a plaster cast of the pregnant belly. If David Brooks has not yet mocked this practice in an article or book, then he's not the conflicted pseudo-conservative I thought he was.   

The process of making the belly cast was painful and annoying for Hannah, and lots of fun for me.  When we were done we strung it with ribbon and hung on the wall of the nursery, where it remains today. 

Recently, I've noticed Elliot staring at it.  It took me a while to understand that he was staring at it because he was using the mirrors we mounted on his wall to do so.  (Thankfully I managed to snap a photo, because the geometry is just too complex to describe.   I had to hunch down and get behind his ear to figure it out myself.)

That white lump in the upper left of the photo is the plaster cast.  And that white lump in the lower right is....well, you recognize him by now.  (i spent a while considering that he might be looking at those dots on the wall, but extensive observation ruled that out.)

I don't really have any insight into why he likes to look at the belly cast.  Plenty of armchair psychoanalysis is possible, of course.  But I'm just here to record the phenomenon.

The Gift Wrap

There's a cliche about children out there.  We've all seen it in a movie, book, or TV show.

The child gets a fancy gift that cost hundreds of dollars.  He unwraps the gift excitedly --- then plays with the wrapping paper.

I had my own version of this experience with Elliot yesterday.  We have a petite doll hanging over his changing table.  Elliot is fascinated by it.  When he lies there getting his diaper changed, if I want to quiet him down all I have to do is give the doll a whack and get it swinging.

So when he was fussing recently, I thought I would try another strategy: show him the doll from the side, rather than from below.  After all, looking from below isn't the best angle from which to appreciate a doll.  Maybe he would like it even more if he could see all its details.

So I stood him up (yes, he's pretty much standing on his own.  Balancing, not at all.  But standing yes.) on the changing table, about six inches from the doll.  And he looked at it.  For about five seconds.

What he was really interested in, it turns out, was the piece of green wire bent into a hook, which we used to hang the doll.  When I gave the doll a whack and set it swinging, it was that green J-curve that his eyes fixated on.  His face curious, puzzled, fascinated.

I guess you can see the conclusions I'm jumping to.  He's interested in how things work! He's going to be an engineer! An astrophysicist! He's going to solve the Grand Unified Theory of Everything!

Okay, maybe that's premature.  We draw all kinds of conclusions about what babies are interested in based on what they look at.  And those assumptions are not always correct.

But what is it about the gift wrap phenom?  Maybe it's that kids want to see how things work.  The idea of a piece of paper wrapping around something else, clearly that paper was serving a function of some kind.  It was working.  And since kids want to learn how things work, better to investigate the thing that is serving a function (wrapping the box) than the thing lying inert inside.  

But as I've said before, I'm not a child development expert. 

Survival strategies during Mr. Mom week....

Elliot: He's Just Like You and Me!

We've been getting Elliot to sleep in a crib for the past week.  okay, it's not a crib, it's a co-sleeper, but for anyone outside the Park Slope Metro area that's an irrelevant distinction.

It's going about as well as could be hoped for a child who never, not one time, has gone to sleep without physical contact with his parents.  We've followed what the books say: create a ritual, play the same song, put on the same PJs (for those in the PSM area, it's actually sleep sack), read the same book, whatever it takes.

And its taken surprisingly little.  We started with naps, and the first few days of screaming he was going down quickly.  I distinctly remember the first time it happened, because I was steeling myself for a knock down drag out, and I was shocked when I popped the pacifier in and his little eyelids immediately drooped shut.

He learned the rules quickly, and rightly so:  as a baby your job is to survive and grow, so why waste energy crying over something you can't change?   There's no percentage in stubbornness.  You cry the first day, and the second day, and after that let it go and move on. There's plenty of stuff to cry about.

But he still wakes up in the middle of his naps with a terrified look on his face.  I have to say, it brings me great pleasure to lean over the co-sleeper, lock eyes with him, watch him recognize my face, see the sense of peace and calm that washes over him, and stand there until his eyes close sleepily again.

Also he's started chewing on his tongue.  He looks like an old man working a piece of gristle, mouth hanging slack, drool coming out.  Those cheeks bouncing up and down trying to catch up.  It's a sight to behold.

And, finally:  he's not interested in rolling over anymore.  That's so last week.  Skill mastered, now there's more important stuff to do.  So we put him on his back and he just lies there looking at us, like what the fuck am i supposed to do with this?  And then after a few minutes he start crying.

(He can still do it, though.  I was worried he had regressed and could no longer roll over.  But when he wants to he flips faster than a cat laid on her back and tied down with scotch tape.  which does not work fyi.)

Foot Finding

Talking

Here's a conversation between an adult and a child:

A: So, what did you do today?

B: We're lying on the bed!

A: Uh-huh.  What did you have for lunch today?

B: I like lying on the bed!

A: Okay, fine.  Did you go outside today?

B: Should we keep lying on the bed or get up?

Seems pretty nonsensical, right?  Those are just the kind of random comments that kids seem to make all the time.

And yet, listening to myself talk with Elliot last week, I was struck by how babyish I sound.  It's me who is making the silly comments, not him.

Elliot, on the other hand, has definitely started to understand what conversation is.  He makes a few sounds, then waits for us to reply.  And then he makes some more sounds.  It's clear that he is trying to converse, we just don't know what he's saying.

And there's no reason to think that Elliot is saying inane things like "Do you like lying on the bed?"  The only people who make dumb comments like that are adults when they talk to children.

So let's look at that conversation again, with the real names attached:

Elliot: So, what have you been up to recently?

Cameron: We're lying on the bed!

Elliot: Uh-huh.  What did you have for lunch today?

Cameron: Do you like lying on the bed?

Elliot:  Um, sure.  Did you go outside today?

Cameron: Should we keep lying on the bed or get up?

The Janis Joplin of Infants

Learning to Sit

Well, I was going to slowly post the videos we've been taking of Elliot learning to sit.  I figured it would take a while for him to go from no sitting skills to fully self-seated.

But it all happened over about two weeks, and those two weeks are now over.  He's not perfect, but he can pretty much sit on his own.

So I hereby present a selection of video from Elliot learning to sit.  This one is from about two weeks ago:

And this one is March 31.  Check out the core strength: 

He's even more stable now.  I'm just too tired today to film it.

Updates on Elliot

He’s doing a lot of Bronx cheers these days.  Burbling saliva out of his mouth.  Actually, lots of saliva from his mouth at all times.  It’s pretty dangerous to play the airplane game (you know, making him fly while you lie on your back underneath him), because the chances of getting a long trail of drool on your face are high.

His hand-eye coordination is getting better.  He can grab stuff and smash it into his mouth.  Each time he does it, he makes a “That tastes terrible!” grimace and spits it out.  I watched him stuff a wool hat into his mouth eight times in rapid succession, each time frowning and spitting it out.  He’s like that goldfish, for whom the little plastic castle is a surprise every time.  (Yeah I went through an Ani Difranco phase in college.  You’re shocked I’m sure.)

He’s stopped crying for no reason.  Which is nice.  But now he’s started crying just because he’s bored, or wants a change of scenery, or wants something new to play with.  That part can be annoying, but at least you can see his little personality starting to emerge from the fog of tummy troubs, sleepiness, and hunger and muddled the first few months. 

He laughs more and more each day.  He smiles more and more.  His curiosity seems to double and triple every week.  In short, he's the best baby in existence. 

Elliot while I sleep

This is another one of those long videos that will have to be posted in several sections:

Nice to find out what a weirdo I look like while I'm sleeping....

April Fools!

Well, I guess it wasn't much of a zinger.  I didn't receive any angry emails or comments.  For all I know, you were all silently judging me.  Or maybe you saw right through the ruse. 

I should have followed Hannah's suggestion, which was to say that I put Coke in his bottle and fed it to him.

Confession

This is kind of weird, so try to keep an open mind:  I gave Elliot some of my Diet Coke yesterday.

The reason it happened was that for the past few weeks I've been trying to teach him to drink from a cup, but he was never interested.  And then today he was suddenly really interested in my cup of Coke, grabbing at it and staring at me as I drank it.  So I figured, if giving him a little would teach him how to drink from a cup, it's worth whatever minimal effects there might be.

For what it's worth, he frowned every time took a sip.  But then he would go back for more, so he ended up drinking quite a bit, I would say maybe a third of a can.

This is an especially funny coincidence because of what I posted a few days ago at the museum, about not giving him Coke.  But actually, it was writing that that got me thinking about the subject.  Why do we have this strict rule that babies can drink nothing but breast milk?  Is it really so terrible to have a few sips of a carbonated beverage?

Okay, so Diet Coke does have caffeine, and that part does seem like a bad idea.  But actually, caffeine is a very mild stimulant that only works on specific neurotransmitters.  The official name of the chemical is methylxanthine, and it's been extensively studied, as you can imagine, and it's always been found to be safe.  I did a quick Medline search, and there are absolutely no studies out there showing detrimental effects from giving a baby a small dose of caffeine.

So I'm sure some of you think I'm a terrible father now, I probably shouldn't have posted this.  It really was just a one-time thing, to help him learn to drink from a cup.

p.s. I already told Hannah about this, so I'm not breaking any news here...