Day #3: The Beach

Okay, I really should just drop the pretense that all of these things happened on different days.   At this point I can't even remember which day we all went to the beach.

Here's how it went down:

I’ve been doing this weird thing with Elliot.  About a month ago I picked him up when I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he became fascinated with my nipples.  (It’s true that I do have abnormally small nipples; someone once tried to nickname me kitten nipples, but it didn’t stick.)

As I’ve explained in the past, Elliot’s way of exploring a new object is to extend his middle finger and poke at it.  He did this to my nipple, and for some strange reason I said “boop!” I have no idea why I did this, but he immediately laughed.  Then he poked it again, and since I’m a cheap laugh-whore I made the sound again, and got another laugh. 

Long story short, now he loves it when I don’t have my shirt on, he instantly goes for the nipple with a gleeful expectation in his eyes, and I am more or less forced to continue this weird creepy tradition that I’ve erected.  

I don’t actually think this is going to create deep psychological scars that lead to some strange sexual fetish when Elliot is older.  But I guess that’s my irrational fear.  So please reassure me next time you see me.

Yes He Can

But truthfully, not very well.

9/11 anniversary

This isn't exactly Elliot-related.  And yet it seems deeply so.

I've be reading a lot of the coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 circulating this week.  It was always moving delving into the stories of the people who didn't make it out, and ten years ago I remember being brought to tears a few times.  But nothing like my emotional response now.

Why is that?  I can think of one ten-month-old reason.

All of the "reflections" on 9/11 talk about how the events changed us.   We're so different now.  Nothing can ever be the same.  But no one ever mentions the simple fact that we would have changed regardless of the events of 9/11.

High school kids now have careers.  Immature twenty-somethings are now married with children.  Parents are grandparents.

How have I changed?  I can't read stories about widowed mothers and orphaned babies.  I mean, I can read them.  But halfway through the page starts shaking and my eyes blur up.

In his recollection of the days after 9/11, Roger Cohen did me in with this sentence:

A woman searching for her lost husband had tacked to a wall an ultrasound showing an unborn child who would now grow up fatherless.

So if you saw my crying in a public place for no apparent reason this week, that's probably why.  (If you'd like to do some crying of your own, try here and here.)

So in addition to asking how 9/11 changed us, we should also ask:  How have the changes in ourselves affected the way we look at 9/11?

Tahoe Day Two: The Boat

Okay, after an extended break, we are returning to our August Tahoe trip.  You may remember that on day #1 we took an overlong hike to the tiny Lake Genevieve.  On day #2 we realized there was a much more convenient lake, in which we had access to a boat.

At some point we realized that Elliot couldn't swim:

He could drive a boat however:

Later I waterskiied:

Apparently others skiied also, but no photographic evidence was obtained.

There's just some stuff I want to write down here so I don't forget it.  Like how he is filled with joy.  He was in the bath recently, and Hannah started pouring water from a cup . The tube of cascading water looked like a solid column so he tried to grab it.  When it seemed to disappear between his fingers, he was flabbergasted, delighted, amazed.

And here's the best part:  I sat there at the edge of the tub and thought, "That IS pretty incredible!"  For an instant I was genuinely amazed by how water can take so many forms.  Elliot's ability to take me back to that sense of wonder and curiosity is much more powerful than I'd expected.  It's pretty great actually. 

Here's another one: Smiling.  Elliot is great at smiling.  When he's in a good mood he smiles at people full strength, with a gale force, a gigantic thousand-watt smile.  He can charm the most ornery cynical NYC strap-hanger into a grudging chuckle.

And here's the interesting part --- I just recently noticed this --- he smiles at people regardless of whether they are looking back.   As adults we don't really do this.  We may smile honestly, genuinely, when we are truly happy.  But it's almost always AT someone.  When was the last time you put a huge grin on your face when you were alone?

When we adults smile at our loved ones we are, at some level, doing it FOR them, in full knowledge that they will derive pleasure from it.  Elliot doesn't do that.  He smiles purely for himself.  He smiles because he's happy, there's no other reason.

For Shame

I apologize:  I was in the middle of writing about a post about how we would be in the Catskills for Labor Day weekend without internet.  And thus no blogging.  But I forgot the cardinal rule of blogging: you have to click "Publish Post" if you want to publish your post.

Anyway, I will try to clear the backlog of vacation photos soon, along well as a number of other adorable pics.

Thanks for your patience...

Learning to Crawl

Watching elliot learn to crawl is like watching a glacier move.  

First he learned to sit.  Then he tipped forward and put his hands on the ground in front of him.  But his legs were still in front of him, which was an obstacle to crawling. 

Now, in the past few weeks he’s started moving one leg out to the side, while keeping the other tucked forward against his belly.  So then when he goes forward on his hands it looks like he’s holding some lotus blossom yoga pose.  

And the latest development, in the last few days, is that when he goes up on his hands, that leg tucked against his belly is starting pop backward into standard crawling pose. 

Hannah and I having been getting way too worked up about this.  When he gets into the crawling post we let out wild shouts, which freak him out, and he drops back into a sitting position. So once we can control ourselves he’ll probably start crawling. 

Lake Genevieve

For some reason we decided to take a hike on our first day.  It was supposed to be three miles each way, but ended up much longer because cars weren't allowed blah blah blah.  Anyway here are the photos:

Tahoe!

Okay, so of course I didn't do this in a systematic manner.  I didn't run around taking photos, with the intention of introducing this blog's readers to grandma Marie's cabin.

Here's the short version: Grandma Marie (currently 88) was roughly 8 when her father started building a small cabin overlooking Emerald Bay (according to legend, the most photographed spot in America).  It has been in the Ferguson family continuously ever since.

But first and most important: the lake.

And what lake would be complete without a beautiful mysterious lady?  Holding a baby?

Next: our first day at Tahoe.

Compartment Syndrome

The compartment in this case is our apartment, where we are trapped by Hurricane Irene.

Think about the action of grabbing a piece of food and putting it in your mouth.  This is actually a pretty complicated motion, and two months ago Elliot could perform none of the necessary components (which is how he ended up chopsticking his food.  For an in-depth explanation of chop-sticking, go here.)

In general, he is no longer chopsticking (except to explore intriguing places, like the inside of my nostrils, and the Mummy Ring page of Pat the Bunny).  He can grab a piece of food using what pediatricians call the Pincer Grasp.  But when he does this, something often goes wrong during the food's journey to his mouth.  He can't keep the morsel in that delicate spot between finger and thumb, and it ends up deep in his fist.

For a while this mystified me.  He had pincer-grab perfected, so why the problem?  Then I realized that pincer-grasping a piece of food is just the first step.  Moving it from table to mouth involves more than simply bending the elbow.  To eat a french fry, the hand starts facing down, grabbing the fry, but ends facing up, delivering it to the mouth.  It's the rotation that's the problem.

We don't think of it as challenging to keep one set of muscles still--- in this case, the ones that hold the food--- while flexing another set --- the ones that rotate the wrist toward the mouth.  But of course it's quite challenging if you've never done it before.

The muscles that keep the finger and thumb pinched together, and the muscles that rotate the wrist, are both located in the anterior compartment of the forearm.  (Don't worry, I had to look it up to remind myself.)

So the muscles you're contracting and the ones you are relaxing are literally on top of each other.

It would make sense that it takes an infant a while to learn how to do this.  So I'm trying to go easy on him when he rotates his wrist, all the muscles in his hand go wonky, and his neat pincer-grab turns into a hard-to-eat fistful of Cheerio.

P.S. Yes I will continue to plunder my medical knowledge to justify Elliot's stage of motor development.

P.P.S. Please order me up another hurricane if you are interested in more nerdy posts like this one.

Hurricane updates

I'll post a few times throughout the next day or so, although I suspect we're all getting worked up about nothing.  We live near the highest point in Brooklyn, so there's no chance of direct flood damage.  But I guess we could lose electricity or water, and that would not be fun.   Actually, it would be fun.  But only for about twelve hours or so....

I heard Amina is checking the blog today.  What up Amina, thanks for stopping by!

Courtesy of AGS

Hurricane!

NYU Hospital is closing down and we're getting a good chunk of their patients.  (I'm trying not to view this as tough guys who hang in there and wussies who bail out.) 

The point is, I have to work late tonight and can't update the blog.  But I'll have lots of time during the rainswept weekend when we're trapped inside. 

Here's a preview:

Are you talkin' to me?

Tahoe!

We're headed on vacation on Tuesday, and although there is internet in the cabin, I'm not sure I want to use it.   So no promises on blog updates from now through August 25th.

We will be bringing the camera, of course, so you can expect weeks of sickeningly beautiful photos of the Sierra Nevada upon our return...

SFW

People seem to enjoy watching Elliot eat, and occasionally gag himself, so I thought I would share more:

The Upstate Llamas

Their names were (are) Sugar and Coco.  Or is it Cocoa?

(thanks Lauren, for letting me steal these off Facebook...)

Elliot vs Yamaha: the dramatic conclusion

Elliot vs Yamaha Part 2

Elliot vs Yamaha: An improvisation in 3 parts

Okay, I haven't written much lately.  As of a few days ago, I could have tossed up a glowing, self-congratulatory post about how Elliot is sleeping through the night.  But then two nights ago Hannah had to get up at the not entirely benign hour of 3am.


(Meanwhile, I lay in bed and listened for crying.  An hour later Hannah still wasn't back, and I figured that she had fallen asleep in the rocking chair.  I tried to motivate myself to wake her up.  Get out of bed! I told myself.  Suddenly I felt the bed shift and I woke up.  I had been dreaming!  I had been dreaming about being in the exact place and situation I actually was.  Which is why all of this is in parentheses.)

Then last night we went for a delicious and not-at-all-calm dinner at Annie and Larry's.  Everyone loved Elliot, as usual, and he got all worked up and a little crabby.  We didn't get home until nearly 10:30. Then he woke up again at 4:30, and it took a while to get him back to sleep (again mostly Hannah's work, not mine).

So the sleep training is not going all that smoothly.  But there is more space in bed, it feels like we have a California King. . . . .

And we wonder why people think he's a girl...

Fair warning: I come off a little nuts in this video.

Bath part 3

Seriously, stop watching.  It's ridiculous.  You're obsessed.

Sleep

Ok, it’s time I addressed it.  

I’ve been putting it off too long. 

I have confession:  Elliot has been sleeping in our bed with us.  Ever since he was born.

Some of you know this.  Some of you saw my post a few months back, in which I proudly proclaimed he was sleeping through the night in his own crib.  And you assumed that he was still there.

But he’s not.  He kept waking up crying, and we dragged him back into bed with us.  We had good reasons --- there was no air conditioning his room, so during the heat wave it seemed cruel to make him sleep there.  But the truth is we love sleeping in bed with him. 

Still, we’re trying to get him used to the crib again. There’s an air conditioner in his room now, so Sleep Training 2.0 started this week. 

Hannah’s working this week and I’m not.  So last night I was on sleep duty i.e. I didn’t.  Elliot woke up a couple times.  I spent a lot of time holding him or sitting beside his crib, trying to figure out the right thing to do: pick him up or not?

What’s the best way to sleep-train Elliot?  On  the one hand, if you pick him up when he cries, he learns that crying gets him what he wants.  On the other hand, if you don’t pick him up, not only does he feel abandoned and alone, he can work himself into a frenzy which actually makes it harder to get him to sleep.  What to do?

I figure we’re still in the information-gathering phase.  I spent a good chunk of last night just sitting by his bed and listening to his cry.  I’m trying to learn to tell when it’s trending down, toward tired and sleep, and when it’s trending up, toward fury and rage. 

Here's another challenge:  he likes to sleep on his belly.  They learned this at daycare weeks ago, but we’re just implementing it now because, you know, the whole Back-to-Sleep-and-prevent-SIDS thing.

Putting him to sleep on his belly is tricky not because of the position itself, but because of how you get there.  In my arms he rests on his side, so putting him down on his side isn’t hard.  And in theory it seems like putting him on his back or his belly would be the same, but not so in practice.  

Picture it:  there you are, standing at the crib holding Elliot.  He’s lying on his side, pressed against your chest.  He’s sleeping peacefully.  But a good portion of that peace comes from contact with your body.  And as soon as you pull him away to lay him on the mattress, he reacts. 

He doesn’t necessarily wake up.  But some part of him twinges, and he tenses all his muscles.  He flings his arms out laterally, making it impossible to lay him down on his side.  Instead you have to commit to either back or belly while he’s floating there in space.  You have to rotate him into the correct position before lowering him smoothly onto the mattress.  All while his little arms are flailing.

Needless to say, I screwed it up a few times.  Once as I tried to put him down on his belly he managed to get a hand underneath himself.  He pushed hard, trying to roll onto his back, and reared up and nearly smacked the side of the crib.  I had to lunge to catch his head, and--- well, let’s just say that when I finally did wrestle him onto his belly, it was with a flop, not a sigh.  And he was wide awake. 

So that’s what we’re in the middle of right now.  In happier news, Kate and Ed are back in town for a few days, which is great.  Not sure when we’re going to see them, but given their addiction to Elliot’s company I have no doubt it will be soon. 

Bath Part 2

I really don't need to post all of this, there's nothing particularly interesting, he's just taking a bath.  And yet....

Bath: An exploration of water in three parts

NSFW

Mild profanity and disturbing infant behavior:

He's still trying to be a baby model