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...