Sunday, December 30, 2007

Back at home after Xmas

We've made it back home after another grueling roadtrip. Actually, the trip back from CT wasn't quite as bad as the trip up since Teddy was more cooperative. He did cry from Baltimore to DC, right around the time that we couldn't justify a stop, and Margaret chimed in to get the stereo sound going, but both of them slept for a good part of the trip.

We have tons of photos. While I'm not terribly inclined to organize them too much, here is a basic breakdown.

Margaret showing off her outfit on Xmas Eve. (She was in a pretty fussy mood, so Dad used all of his powers to keep her happy.)


Opening presents on Xmas Day. Margaret had lots of fun with all of the commotion, although she didn't really seem to understand the significance of presents and lost interest after an hour or so.


But she did get to partake of peppermint stick ice cream, an Xmas tradition in the CT household.


Of course, we can't forget about Teddy who, just when it seemed that he wasn't getting enough attention, would yelp and cry to bring things back around to him.


And last, a movie of Margaret struggling with modern communications technology. As if her communication skills weren't handicapped enough as it is, she's also got this silly phone to deal with.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Xmas Eve in CT



We made it to CT on Saturday after a 10 hour trip that, pre-kids, would've taken somewhere between 6 and 7 hours. Given our recent experience during our trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, that time loss was to be expected. But we had the misfortune of experiencing more traffic delays in conjunction with fussiness which was very pleasant. Teddy, in particular, showed some real skill in being able to sustain a full wail.

Margaret had a grand time yesterday unpacking boxes and putting presents under the tree. She has no idea what the presents actually are as she showed no interest in unwrapping them. Once that connection is made, we won't be able to give her freedom to bring the presents out and probably won't be able to leave them around in her presence at all. But boy did she have fun with all the colorful presents! She'd trundle back to a bedroom saying "More" and "Oh boy!" only to reappear with another present that she'd toss under the tree (anything fragile there? who knows) before running back for more.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

More Maddie news

Today, I got a call from the vet who told me that something had come back positive in Maddie's heartworm test. My immediate thought was that she had heartworms which is very, very bad since the medicine to treat that condition is one of those that tries to kill the heartworms without killing the dog. But it turns out that she tested positive for Lyme disease. That doesn't mean that she has Lyme disease, but that she has evidence of the nasty little critters in her blood. I did pluck a few ticks off of her over the summer, so I suppose that's not inconceivable. Luckily, it doesn't sound like Lyme disease is a big deal in dogs, unlike with people. The disease can be similarly difficult to diagnose, but the vet's opinion was that it was worth putting her on a round of antibiotics given this positive test rather than doing additional, more accurate tests. Those antibiotics tend to clear up the disease in dogs (again, unlike for people) over a few weeks.

This may explain why Maddie has seemed a bit stiff lately. I chalked that stiffness up to her advancing age, but I suppose that it could be Lyme disease although she hasn't shown any of the severe symptoms associated with the disease (e.g. extreme lameness.) Hopefully, this treatment will help her recover some of her verve and vigor. Not that she's really lost it since she still loves to play ball (although we don't play frisbee anymore, leaving that pastime to poseurs at the dog park who Maddie would've put to shame in her prime.) But she has been taking more time going up the stairs and jumping into the car and onto the bed.

As for the kids, Teddy has started to display a disturbing tendency to cry inconsolably right around the time that I get home from work and start cooking dinner. We'll see if it continues at which point my dedicated readers can expect a full deconstruction of this behavior.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

A big day!



A friend of mine was in town today to give a presentation at work. When he asked how the kids were, I mentioned how one of Margaret's first words was "No." But she also didn't quite understand how to use it. "Margaret do you want a bath?" "No." Ok, that's reasonable. But then "Margaret do you want a cookie?" "No." So it wasn't quite clear that she understood what she meant.

Lately, her No's have gotten quite a bit more emphatic. One of the key times that this arises has been when she has a dirty diaper. "Margaret, are you stinky?" we ask. "No" is the inevitable response. "Do you need to go potty?" we ask thinking that might encourage an interest in the potty. "No." (She will sometimes declare that she's stinky, but when we ask her, will then deny it.)

But today, we got a new response for the first time. "Margaret, are you stinky?" I asked. You could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she considered the question. Finally, she responded "Yessss." Then, "Did you go potty?" "Yessss." "Do you need to go potty?" "Yesss." I had to capture this momentous event for posterity, so see the following video (in which I also prompt her to announce herself as a menance.) And, at the end of the video, I get a clear admission that she's "stinky."

But at the end of the day, I'm not quite sure that she understands the proper use of the word yes since later on I asked "Do you want to read another book?" "Yesssss." Reasonable. "Do you want to get in bed?" That certainly warrants a No, but I got a "Yessss."

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Kid and dog



I bashed DC pretty hard in my last post. But someone out there managed to beat even my currently low expectations. While taking Maddie and Margaret for a walk this morning (to let Abby sleep), we passed a house that had a nativity scene set up in their lower stairwell. With the exception of the baby Jesus. According to the note in the nativity scene, someone had stolen him. Lovely. Regardless of your religious inclinations, that's screwed up.

But on the upside, the Prozac for dogs already seems to be working for Maddie since she's doing a better job of dealing with the kids' fussing. She spent the entire day today with us on the main floor, although she slept for a lot of that time. For happier times, see the photos above of Maddie and Thing 1. As for Maddie in action, check out the following:

Friday, December 14, 2007

One of those days

Today was just difficult. Why don't we start at the end and work our way backwards...

The people two doors down invited us, kids and all, to their holiday party. We haven't gotten to know our neighbors very well since our time is dominated by other concerns (known as Thing 1 and Thing 2), so we were pleased to be invited and were excited to get to know them better. Since I didn't shave this morning because I decided to take the day off from work, I shaved just before we were going to leave. And managed to give myself an odd little nick on the nose (or as Margaret would call it, Noe-sss) which bled profusely and just wouldn't stop (a common occurrence with shaving wounds, but this was severe even though the cut itself wasn't.) Completely annoying - I couldn't go over to the party with blood dripping off my nose. Conveniently, Teddy decided to scream. So there I was running around with tissue paper attached to my nose while Teddy screamed, Abby tried to get ready to go, and Margaret messed around looking to get into trouble. In the end, I stayed home with a screaming Teddy and bloody nose while Margaret and Abby went to the party for 20 minutes or so, but boy was that a great end to the day.

Then earlier in the day, an "underemployed" friend of ours parked his car in our garage. His car isn't properly registered or inspected, so he needed some place to park it where the traffic cops wouldn't have access to it. In a fit of silly generosity, I offered to let him use our garage a few weeks ago, but he didn't take us up on it at the time, so we thought it might pass. But then he called up today and asked if the offer was still open. I told him that it had to be out by early January when Abby goes back to work so she won't have to look for parking at night when coming home, and he agreed, but it's still a pain to lose use of our garage for a few weeks, especially since the garage is great for loading the kids. This is one of those times when you ask yourself why you decided to be so generous.

Just before he called, I paid a visit to the DMV to get our car registration renewed. The DC DMV is a place unlike any other for the uniform (and wholly predictable) unpleasantness of the experience of going there. This time, the primary difficulty was that I had to document our new address in addition to getting the registration renewed. Although I took a stack of papers to try to verify our new address, I apparently didn't have the key document to show that we lived where we live. For example, our lease wasn't signed by our landlord since she happens to live in Italy. So that didn't count, although I could've "signed" her name to the document and they never would've known. Alternatively, I could've kept all of the registration listed for our old address and it wouldn't have mattered. But try to be an upstanding citizen and keep everything current and what happens? You get turned away by surly employees at the DC DMV. But I should have expected that outcome since it took four trips to the DMV to register our car the first time around. As Richard, our friend whose car is in our garage, said when I told him about what happened, "Of course you didn't have the right documents. What did you expect?"

Sometimes this city just gets annoying. A few days ago, Abby had to pick up a package from the post office that required a signature, but was addressed to Margaret. Now the signature verification requirement is a good idea in general since, damn this city, packages seem to disappear from our front porch. For example, the neighbors who were throwing the party tonight apparently dropped off a gift for Teddy shortly after he was born. Very nice of them, but we didn't get it (and we feel very bad for them that that happened.) Instead, someone else is using a towel with a monogram "Theodore." I hope they're enjoying it. And that they think about little Teddy every time they use it.

But back to the post office story, it seems that Abby could not pick up the package since she wasn't actually Margaret. "But she's my daughter and, in any case, she's only 1 1/2 years old so she couldn't sign her name anyway," Abby tried to point out. "But she's not you," was the response. "Where is she?" "In daycare!" The woman that Abby was dealing with almost sent the package back to the sender before a more reasonable USPS employee stepped in to sort things out. In hindsight, Abby should have just claimed that the kid in the Baby Bjorn was Margaret since who was going to check? Again, all of this just encourages us to lie. (My friends who live in Northern Virginia like to point out that government services are much more pleasant and efficient there than they are in DC. And no one ever steals a package off your front porch.)

Returning to events of the current day, this morning, Maddie and I visited the vet for a check-up. A few things have been going on in Maddie's life that have given us cause for concern. First, she gets very nervous when the kids cry, something that I've been meaning to write about for a while. This is problematic since, to be honest, the kids tend to cry and fuss a lot. Which is unpleasant for everyone, but especially, it seems, for Maddie. It's gotten to the point where Maddie doesn't seem to like to hang out with the rest of us and, when she does, will creep away when the inevitable crying starts. I actually thought about sending Maddie to get some R&R (relatively speaking) with the relatives in Philly for a few weeks. They're past the extreme fussing stage, so I thought that she might enjoy getting away from the "menace" known as Margaret (and, to a lesser extent, Teddy.)

The second development is that Maddie's vision has been deteriorating a bit. Nothing serious, but it's noticeable, especially when we play ball in the evening at the park. She has more trouble picking up the ball from a distance, and we invariably lose at least one ball since when she can't find it in the dark, neither can I. And when Abby is walking to meet us in the park and I ask "Where's Abby?," it takes Maddie a while to pick her up whereas, in the past, she would have taken off like a shot directly towards Abby (often before I even asked.)

I wanted to ask the vet if he had any suggestions about how to deal with these problems. For the first, he suggested that we try "Reconcile" which is basically Prozac for dogs and is primarily used to treat separation anxiety, although as he pointed out, it can be helpful for any type of anxiety. Now, I'm not too keen on dosing my dog with drugs just as I'm not a big fan of dosing people with drugs to deal with these types of problems. But it's gotten so depressing to watch Maddie that I figured we'd give it a shot for a month or so just to see if it helps.

Sigh. One of the things about Maddie is that when she and I go for walks alone in the evening, she's just like the puppy that she was years ago, prancing along and jumping up on things while inviting me to play. But toss Margaret into the mix (and to a lesser extent, Teddy) and Maddie becomes a much more tentative and obviously unhappy dog. Perhaps the real solution is to send Margaret to the Philly relatives for a few weeks so that Maddie can get some real R&R.

For the vision issues, the vet checked her eyes and said that he thinks that she's suffering from Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA). This is an untreatable genetic condition that, for dogs of Maddie's age, leads to progressive deterioration of vision with the end result of blindness. This is a very depressing diagnosis although as the link above describes, dogs with this condition don't experience physical pain and don't experience the same psychic trauma that people do when faced with a similar condition especially since the progression of the condition is sufficiently slow that the dog learns to adapt to it over time.

However, there is still a lot of uncertainty associated with this diagnosis. First, does she actually have PRA? Many of the websites that I found suggest that it's very rare in Border Collies and can often be misdiagnosed (which still leaves open the issue of what might be wrong with her vision and how that condition might proceed.) Second, how fast will it progress? Some resources suggest that it can proceed so slowly that things don't get much worse at all or, at least, the dog won't outlive the progression of the condition. To get more info about these issues, we might consult a pet opthamologist. Does she have PRA and, if not, what eye problems is she experiencing? How far along is she in the process and how might things proceed and at what rate?

In any case, any eye problems don't seem to be affecting Maddie very much at this point except for the nighttime rounds of ball. Her main issue at this point is how to deal with the kids, so we'll see if the doggie Prozac helps out on that front. And regardless of how things go with her vision, we'll deal with them. I was lucky that the first website that I read about the condition was the one listed above since that site has some good advice about how to deal with deterioration in vision of dogs, but if anyone wants to get us a depressing, but potentially useful book for Xmas, you could consider the one cited on that page. At the end of the day, this might turn out to be a boon for Maddie since the dog with eye problems is likely to get more sympathy than the petulant little kid.

Our day began with another depressing event. On our way back from buying diapers and Xmas tree lights at CVS (it seems that our Xmas tree lights only last a year and, lord knows, diapers don't last very long in our household), Abby spotted an elderly woman on her patio outside of her house. She had fallen and appeared to be completely disoriented. I went to help her, asking her whether she needed an ambulance. She wanted to get back into her house, but I wasn't strong enough to pick her up myself. We got a contractor from across the street to help me, and together we managed to get her inside the house. We asked whether she had someone to call or needed us to call someone, but she didn't want us to do so. She was still disoriented, but was thankful for our help and didn't seem to want any more. And to top it all off, I got a whiff of wine which the contractor apparently got in a greater dose. A completely troubling situation - we may check in on her tomorrow to see if she's ok and to make sure that she's not suffering from dementia or something like that.

The start of what turned out to be a very interesting day.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Because your Daddy loves you

We have a very standard routine when putting Margaret to bed. Following dinner, which invariably involves some sort of crisis when Margaret objects to the food that she's been given (often without trying it - "But I know you like peas! You can't live on raisins alone!"), we head upstairs, generally for a bath. As my previous post discussed, baths are not as traumatic as they once were. After the bath, we put on our PJs, a new word in Margaret's vocabulary, and then we read books. Lots and lots of books. As the actual reader of these books, one becomes quite the connoisseur of children's literature, as I think I've mentioned before. Good books have a number of characteristics.

First, a good rhythm. One of the recent books from the library that I really enjoyed was Hippos Go Berserk by one of the stalwarts of children's lit, Sandra Boynton. Not only does that book involve one of Margaret's favorite animals (Bippos!!), but it has a great rhyming rhythm. First page - "One hippo all alone." Second page - "Calls two hippos on the phone." Third page - "Three hippos at the door." Fourth page - "Bring along another four." And so on until the hippos all go berserk in a party that's more wild than any I remember from college. After which, the hippos start leaving and the cadence of the book changes. Still rhyming and rhythmic, but very different from the initial arrival of the hippos. Brilliant. I can see why the author is such a star among the kiddie set. (In my opinion, Abby could never quite get the cadence of this book, a problem that is present for lots of other books. Of course, such editorial comments only ensure that I'll be reading lots more kiddie books in the future. Whoops. But at least I'll read them right!)

The second key characteristic of a good book is one that induces responses from Margaret. For example, various Berenstain Bears books have facial expressions that Margaret likes to mimic. Or she'll point out characters such as Peter in "A Snowy Day" or the Mamas who show up in various texts. My parents brought us a whole series of books that were a hit in this respect entitled "Can You?" which involve photos of animals engaged in certain behavior along with questions like "Can You?" . . . "Stick out your tongue." Margaret likes the animals (another quality of a good book), but also likes to mimic them.

After working through a number of these books each night (I believe that I typically read Margaret more of them than Abby does - darnit another editorial comment that will come back to bite me - where's the "censor" button on these computers?), Margaret and I conclude with a book that someone out there gave us at some point: "Because your Daddy loves you." Now, this isn't a great rhyming book, and the pictures aren't that great. But there are drawings of a little girl and her Daddy which lead Margaret to point at the little girl and then herself when asked "Where's the little girl?" and to point at the Daddy and then me when asked "Where's the Daddy?" (which always gets a big bearhug from me after she does so.) What's really interesting about this book is the message that it's clearly sending to the Daddies of the world:

When you stop for ice cream on the way home and your cone
makes a big gooey mess, your daddy could say,
Now look what you've done!
But he doesn't.

He finds a paper napkin and he gets it wet at the drinking fountain.
He wipes off your mouth, then both of your
hands - one sticky finger at a time.

Basically, this is a book to prevent "child abuse," broadly defined. Of course I can't yell at Margaret after reading this book even if she's tearing up the house. Because her Daddy loves her. (I've been teaching her to say "menace" so that when I ask her "Margaret, what are you?" she'll reply "menace." She doesn't quite have it down yet.)

But the end is the best part. The Daddy carries the girl up to bed:

And then your daddy could say,
See you tomorrow,
or
Sleep tight,
or
Sweet dreams.
But he doesn't.
He says,
"I love you."

It's sickeningly sweet, but when we get to that last line, Margaret, knowing what's coming, "says" it too me, in her own garbled way. A few hugs and then she's in bed.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Thank you, Cousin Lizzie



The previous photos are the result of our attempts to get an Xmas photo of the kids for our Xmas cards. Going into this process, I envisioned tons of photos in which we tried to get the kids to sit still and/or to stop fussing. Luckily, they were both in a pretty good mood so we got a good series of shots. The ones above are a teaser since the best will be coming in our cards.

But the important news is that baths have become much more pleasant lately, at least for the oldest kid. In the past, baths have been a real chore - lots of crying and fussing with repeated complaints about soap and other stuff in the eyes. But recently, baths have been much more pleasant. I attribute the change to Margaret's cousin Lizzie. When we were last in Philly, Margaret and Lizzie took a few baths together. This was lots of fun and involved dumping water on one another. In the past, Margaret has not viewed this as a pleasant pastime, but when her older cousin does it, it's a lot of fun. So now, when we dump water on Maggie's head, we say "Like Lizzie!!" And Margaret not only finds this acceptable, she actually enjoys and encourages it. Thus far, this hasn't extended to other events (e.g. eat your broccoli - Like Lizzie!), but we'll see.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Our biggest fan

I called my Mom tonight (Thursday around 10:00 PM EST) and, during our conversation, she asked "Did you figure out what Margaret wanted?" "What are you talking about?," I responded. "Did you figure out what Margaret wanted when she was saying the F-word?" Now, I posted that story all of one hour ago, so my reaction was "I just wrote that. You've already read that post?" But of course, since it would appear that my Mom is our biggest fan.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, and we'll have to see if the other side of Margaret and Teddy's gene pool can keep up.

Margaret's new word


Our little angel revealed a new word in her vocabulary today. During one of her standard, pre-dinner meltdowns in which she requests food, she pointed at the shelves on which we store food and yelled "F*CK." "What did you say?," I asked. "F*CK, F*CK, F*CK," she kept yelling along with wild hand gestures.

Now what should I do in this situation? On the one hand, that's obviously a problematic word for a toddler to throw around. It's was pretty clear that she had a particular item in mind, something that she calls F*CK, but that others would call something else. (BTW, I don't know where she would've picked this up since Papa - the problem in our household - has cracked down on his cursing now that Margaret is a little copycat.) On the other hand, I didn't want to make a big deal about it since who knows what she would infer about a word that drew a big reaction from Dad.

So I ended up leaning out of the kitchen and telling Abby, "Guess what your daughter just yelled." Remarkably, Abby wasn't very accusatory about where the kid must have learned that word.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

By request, solo Teddy pics

It has been brought to my attention, by a long-time, devoted reader, that I haven't posted enough solo Teddy pics. Due to her ability to infiltrate any scene, Margaret seems to be in too many of the photos that also include the boy.



In other news, I complained about Teddy's recent tendency to, well, cry a lot in my last post. He outdid himself last night, putting on an impressive 45 minute crying session for no apparent reason. Luckily, just when it appeared that Teddy's eyes would pop out of his head due to the effort behind his wailing, our thoughtful first child provided an ideal distraction. In particular, she barfed in her crib and managed to do a nice job of rolling in it. Lovely. As I carried barfy sheets and poor GiGi, an unfortunate victim of collateral damage, down to the washing machine in the middle of the night, I wished that someone would remind me why we had kids.

Of course, Margaret yells "Papa, papa!" with a big grin on her face when I get home today, and it's all ok.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Xmas Tree


We bought a Christmas tree today after driving to Best Buy to pick up a new camera. Margaret was suspicious of the tree at first, but seemed to catch the spirit, although it would be nice if a residual aversion to the tree will remain so that she won't yank it down. And the new camera means.... new photos! Yeah! We haven't quite figured out all of the new camera's tricks so far, but we (really, I) agonized over it for a long time before finally deciding to get a little Canon.

More importantly, Teddie has started to lose standing in my book as the "easy" kid. Last night, Abby went out with some friends, leaving me with the kids. "Sure, no problem," I said. But then he cried for an hour straight. And he continued that behavior today, at which point I realized that he tends to cry a lot. In fact, his sleeping appears to have deteriorated over the last few weeks.

Margaret, on the other hand, was a little champ last night, adding her own commentary to the books that I read (over Teddy's cries) and then cuddling up with me today. Admittedly, she had a 101 degree fever this morning, but that just made her even more cuddly. She collapsed on my chest and slept for an hour this morning which let me read the paper in peace while making occasional requests to Abby. Could you get me a drink? Hand me the phone? Your laptop? Very pleasant!

And Teddy? He cried. And cried some more. Not due to a fever, but because he's a demanding little guy. He did grin and gurgle at his mom this evening. A real sweetheart when he's in her hands. But pass him off to me and he inevitably starts to scream and turn bright red. So I'll take Margaret (ideally with a fever, but also without one) at this point over Teddy. Geez, I'm fickle.


Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Margaret is a punk rocker





All of a sudden, Margaret has started to outgrow a lot of her clothes. As a result, the other day, she was wearing tight jeans and her Chucks along with a striped shirt. That outfit, along with her shaggy, unkempt hair (still no haircut yet) led me to say, "You know what? She looks like a Ramone." (Abby didn't really appreciate the likeness, but see here or here.) Of course, Joey, may he rest in peace, would've been wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket (and his Chucks probably wouldn't have been pink), but I think that we captured the basic gestalt of the whole thing. (Personally, I think that this would be a great Halloween costume. But not many people would get it. Then again, Mickey at Margaret's daycare was dressed up as a punk rocker complete with black fingernail polish, so who knows.)

Why, you might ask, are the above photos all funky? Were we also shooting for some avant-garde photo effect in the pictures? No. Instead, it appears that our digital camera is kaput. Which bodes ill for dedicated readers of this blog who really show up for the photos rather than my entertaining, insightful (sic) ramblings. Rest assured, however, that we'll be heading to Best Buy tomorrow to look at new digital cameras. After all, Teddy's starting to smile. A lot. Which must be documented ad infinitum.

In other news, we traveled to Ohio for Thanksgiving. We learned a number of lessons from that trip:


  • First, and most important, the readership of this blog is much more extensive that I ever would've imagined. I always figured that it just involved a subset of immediate relatives (e.g. grandparents, some siblings, a few aunts and uncles) along with a few other folks, but the audience is somewhat larger than that. Admittedly, it still involves extended family, but when my 18 year-old cousin comments on my blog posts, I know that I've tapped into something that is much bigger than me or this blog. Or something like that.

  • Our kids are pretty good travelers at this point. The trip to Ohio from DC, under ideal circumstances, would take about 6 hours. Our trip took about 9 hours each way. But 2.5 of those extra hours involved planned stops (i.e. a visit to P'burgh to visit some friends and pick up a marriage certificate - good news, we were officially married back in 2003 - on the way there, and then a stop for dinner in central PA with the Philly relatives on the way back.) In terms of fussing, we experienced about 30 minutes in each direction that involved sustained (and coordinated) fussing by the kids. They spent most of the time sleeping.

  • Margaret has a very strong "survival instinct" which leads her to avoid most new people. For example, everytime she was almost handed to my brother Steve, she would yell "No! No! No!" Luckily, he didn't take it personally. About the only people who she voluntarily will engage are my sister, her husband (Margaret ran to him with a big hug in parking lot of their central PA hotel - Joe said, "Wow, what a nice greeting." I pointed out that, after three hours in the car, she probably would've hugged anyone.), my Dad, and my Mom.

  • Speaking of my Mom, while Abby's parents are purveyors of fast food, my Mom appears to be the key source of sweets. Margaret's exposure to sweets has been pretty limited thus far, not due to any concerted effort on our part, but rather because we just don't eat many sweets. She would just as soon eat "pizza" or fruit rather than candy. However, on Thanksgiving, Margaret found out that she loves pumpkin pie, thanks to my mom. Then I caught Mom feeding her a chocolate chip cookie at my aunt and uncle's house. Now, I don't object to her eating such foods, but dangit, I should be the one who gets the adoration that accompanies sweets.
  • Tuesday, November 20, 2007

    Teddy's latest (mundane) trick



    In preparation for our Thanksgiving trip to Ohio later this week, we figured that we'd see if Teddy would eat from a bottle. The possible need to use a bottle in the car to calm him down, or if we happen to go "out" leaving him with the grandparents, might make eating from a bottle a useful skill.

    Needless to say, he took to it like a champ. He was a bit sloppy with lots of dribbling. And it seemed that, if anything, he was getting too much food. But he wasn't like some other kids that we've heard about who refuse to take a bottle. In those cases, we've even heard about the dad sending the mom out for the day to remove her from the picture. Teddy, as befits his generally easygoing nature, had no major problems.

    In celebration, Teddy produced three poopy diapers shortly after his first bottle feeding.

    Sunday, November 18, 2007

    A smiling baby



    No sooner do I call Teddy out for his disappointing lack of interesting facial expressions than guess what happens: He starts to smile. And not the type of smiles that are typically attributed to gastointestinal issues, although lord knows he probably generates those smiles too. Instead, honest-to-goodness smiles.

    It happened yesterday morning while Abby was holding him in bed. I leaned over and said "Bonk" while tapping him on the nose with my index finger. I did it again. He started to grin. So I did it again. He grinned again. So I kept going "bonk, bonk, bonk" accompanied by tap, tap, tap on his nose and, I swear, he started to giggle. At some point, I asked Abby, "Is he actually laughing?" "I think so," she replied as I kept bonking him on the nose.

    Just to verify that this wasn't a fluke involuntary response, I tried the same trick again later. That's the source of the above photos. Pretty cool. At Teddy's age, he doesn't interact with us very much. Doesn't watch his sister, doesn't seem to register the dog, doesn't really notice me. But now we may be reaching the point at which that type of fun interaction begins.

    In the meantime, here are some more photos of his sister including some of her with her free Cat In the Hat backpack that we got for joining (in desperation for new books) the Dr. Seuss book club and some from our return today to the Air and Space Museum (Margaret didn't last nearly as long as she did on our previous trip.) FYI, the two photos of Margaret and me looking pensive outside near the end of the slideshow were taken as we watched two squirrels fight near the museum. And the thing on her head in other photos is my camping headlamp (also called a "ding lamp" by those in the know). That, along with her backpack, would suggest a little backpacker in training. Since her mom has shown no desire to engage in that type of activity, I can only hope that Maggie has inherited the backpacking gene from her Papa.


    Friday, November 16, 2007

    Pictures and Pizza

    One problem with Teddy is the fact that, frankly, he's not terribly photogenic at this point. He's a bit spotty these days and just doesn't have the ability to work the camera the way that his sister does. Admittedly, he's only 6 weeks old, but the lack of a smile, or really any interesting face other than a slack-jawed, tongue-out blank gaze, is really holding back his presence in our photo collection. But it is tough when you're the second kid (we have tons of slack-jawed, tongue-out photos of Margaret) especially when your sister is so dang photogenic. (I went into a colleague's office the other day with a picture of Margaret that I'd printed and said, "You know, people are naturally biased towards thinking that their kid is cute. But you can't deny that this is one cute kid!" Naturally, he agreed, although I suppose he didn't have much of an option. We're currently trying to figure out from whom she inherited her smile. From me - ha! From Abby - more likely.)



    One clear part of my genetic code that Margaret has inherited is a preference for olives. Currently, olives are one of Margaret's favorite foods. My family universally likes olives. Abby's family universally (I believe) does not. My sister and her kids all like olives. Her husband's family does not. Or at least doesn't show the obsession with olives that infects my sister, her kids and my extended family - put out a bowl of olives, preferably black olives not the high falutin' kalamata kind, and they'll be gone in five minutes whenever anyone from my side of the family is present. Consumption of olives literally involves strategic actions by me and my siblings (and now, our kids) - you don't want to seem like a glutton by eating too many olives, but if you place yourself correctly relative to the bowl of olives and are discrete enough, you can surreptitiously get 20 or so olives. This is a longstanding source of family competition which, it so happens, is especially relevant around Thanksgiving when olives invariably make an appearance.

    So it seems clear that there is a gene in my family that leads to a fondness for olives even in the presence of conflicting genes from those who aren't as fond of them. Margaret likes them so much that she'll plead for more during dinner whenever they make a brief appearance.

    But she calls them pizza. Don't ask me why, but when Margaret has a craving for olives, or spots even one of them, she cries "Pizza! Pizza!"

    She also calls "Elmo" "Neemo." And a hippo is a "bippo." Given these persistent vocabulary problems, it's good that she's got that photogenic smile going for her.

    One last thing: Teddy and I hung out for around 30 minutes this evening while his mom read books to his sister and put her to bed. The entire time, he just lay there and looked around with big eyes as I held him while reading the newspaper. At a similar age, his sister NEVER would have done that. So even if he currently doesn't have the photogenic smile (or vocabulary, however flawed) of his sister, he's a really pleasant kid to have around.

    Wednesday, November 14, 2007

    The poopy baby

    As you may have gathered from my earlier posts, Teddy is a pretty easy baby, especially when compared to his sister at the same age (or now!) Of course, this impression partly arises due to our experience with babies since we don't jump at every squawk that he makes. But objectively, he doesn't squawk very much. Instead, he either eats and sleeps (napping and snacking, or nacking and snapping, we call it) or he enjoys lots of the contemplative quiet time that we have always read about in the books, but never experienced with his sister. For example, one book that we have describes the five S's which involve swaddling, side, shushing, swinging, and sucking to calm a fussy kid. We tried all of these tricks with Margaret with varying degrees of success. Swaddling worked ok - she was much calmer when we could keep her wrapped up so that she didn't bonk herself in the head. Swinging was key - for months, Margaret's longest episodes of sleep involved naps in the swing. And, given her continued fondness for the nuk-nuk, sucking has also been a winner. But with Teddy, we haven't had to employ ANY of those techniques. Nor have we had to walk him around the block to quiet him down (although he does nap well in the Baby Bjorn carrier.) The only thing that we've had to do with him is to put him to bed in his car seat rather than his crib. But, frankly, I don't care where he sleeps as long as he sleeps. And sleeping in the car seat is much more convenient for travelling since we're already bringing his bed along with us.

    However, the key dimension in which he "outperforms" his sister is his gastrointestinal performance. He's one farty, poopy baby. I don't remember poopy diapers as a signature event of Margaret's first few months, but that, along with his pleasant demeanor, will be a primary memory that I'll retain for Teddy. This poopiness involves two things: A) frequent poopy diapers and B) LOUD announcement of their arrival. We recognized this tendency early on: A few pooplosions (as we've started to call them) that startle you from across the room really get your attention. The Philadelphia relatives tell stories about how Teddy's cousin, Andrew, was so loudly effusive that they had to move him out of the room so that they could sleep. But when we were up there last weekend, they agreed that Teddy could give Andrew a run for his money. For example, Teddy's lying on my chest while I'm lying on the couch reading a book. "Ppthhh." "Did you hear that one Joe?" "Yep." Then five minutes or so later: "Pppthhhhh." "Was that you or him?" "Him. That's my boy!"

    Another example: Tonight I was changing Teddy's diaper before sending him down with Abby to watch "Project Runway." Now, I don't change many of his diapers. Partly this is because I'm not with him as much as Abby so I don't have to opportunity to do so, but it's also because I've changed lots of really messy diapers care of Margaret during the last month when Abby hasn't been able to pick up Margaret. I figure that kind of balances out.

    Anyway, I was feeling magnanimous so I plopped Teddy down in his bed, pried off a (poopy) diaper, and tightened up a new one. As I picked him up and started to carry him out of the room, he got a very focused expression on his face. Now, generally his expressions are very unfocused at this point, with random looking around and scrunched up faces. So I thought that he may be registering my presence. "Do you see me?," I asked. "Will you smile for Papa?" He responded with a look of deep concentration followed by "Pppthhhhh." Needless to say, I had to change him again.

    When I told Abby about his quick repeat performance of the poopy diaper, she said "Yeah, he does that a lot."

    Monday, November 12, 2007

    Birdland



    There are two reasons for this soundtrack. First, we heard this song on the radio on our way out of Philly this weekend after paying a visit to the Philly relatives. We were tuned into the UPenn radio station, and when this song started playing (right around the point where our tire blew out the last time we went to Philly), I said "Are they actually playing 'Birdland'? I've never heard this on the radio." Abby, being understandably ignorant of these things, was silent. So I proceeded to give a lengthy description (helps kill time when driving to DC from Philly) of who 'Weather Report' was and how this song was a big hit in the discos of 1977 despite it's jazz roots.

    Now the second reason for this song: Why, you ask, do we care? Well, we don't really except that my brother was stuck filling in for someone on a late night public radio show in Minneapolis. The person he was replacing apparently left him with a defective play list, so he was forced to wing it. Despite the focus of the show on techno music, something that my brother was not terribly familiar with, this song was stuck in my head so I said that I would have played "Birdland", and screw the response of the audience. But that song never would've entered my mind without the visit to Philly.

    More on the Philly trip later

    Friday, November 9, 2007

    It's hard to be a toddler

    Today, our morning began in typical fashion. Margaret woke up around 6:00, and I brought her into bed with us. At which point, she started to fuss and complain. She fussed when Abby read her books, she fussed when I brought her a piece of bread, and she fussed whenever anything generally "untoward" happened. About the only thing that kept her happy was Maddie. But Maddie gets very nervous around the kids since they're liable to start fussing at any moment which Maddie does not enjoy. It's a lovely predicament - Margaret is fussing so we call Maddie who doesn't like to be around when Margaret is fussing even though Maddie can quell the fussing. So you can understand the situation that we're dealing with these days.

    It got even better later in the morning. Maddie, Margaret and I went to the park while Abby when to an open house at our local public elementary school. Despite the notorious state of most DC public schools, the reputation of our local school is surprisingly positive. Since we're starting to think about Margaret's future education, and correspondingly are considering where we'll live long term, we figured that Abby would check it out. But this digression deserves a post of it's own, so I'll get back to the main theme of today's post. Fussiness.

    Once we all got back home, I put together an early lunch while Abby and Teddy hung out on the couch and Margaret wandered around in her usual way. At some point, that wandering degenerated into a display that I hadn't seen before - lying on the ground face down while kicking and screaming. A classic temper tantrum. While we watched Margaret voice her frustration with life, Abby noted that she'd seen this behavior once or twice before.

    The really fun aspect of that tantrum, and others, is that it wasn't clear what actually set Margaret off. Actually, the immediate cause of the tantrum was clear (me eating one of her graham crackers), but the reason for its severity was tough to understand. It turns out that once Margaret starts ratcheting up her cries, the underlying cause isn't important - fussiness inevitably begets more fussiness.

    Later, after a nap, we made the mistake of trying to get her photo taken for a passport. You would think that the photo guy and I were going to torture her on the stool given her response to being placed on it. Having two young kids of his own, the photo guy was quite sympathetic, but he also didn't want to hang around as she screamed every time he came near her and raised the camera. Margaret and I wandered around the store for a while before I finally got her to be reasonably calm on the stool. The photo guy gave me the camera, and I snapped the picture, although he told me that the passport people might object to the fact that you can't see both ears in the picture (dang anti-terrorism regulations.) But I think that both ears are reasonably visible, and I wasn't going to try for another one.

    We then had fussiness when shopping for baby clothes. And when driving home. And then screaming and arching of the back when I put her in the stroller to take Maddie for a walk. And then more screaming during the bath - you'd think that I was waterboarding her given her response to the bath. (Torture would appear to be an apt metaphor for what happens to her on a daily basis given her response to the various slights that she experiences and impediments that she faces.)

    All of this inevitably leads to plaintive cries as Margaret pleads for her pacifier while using one of her newest phrases: "Nuk, nuk." I have no idea how we're going to get rid of that dang thing.

    As for Teddy, he fusses in his own way, but he's pretty easy to placate. And he's working on his smile.


    In other news, Eleanor was in town last weekend, so here are some pics of that and other stuff:

    Saturday, November 3, 2007

    Nursery rhymes


    One of the new hits in our household is nursery rhymes. It all started with a board book that we picked up from Abby's Cali relatives during our trip there. Margaret enjoys them and has little routines that she goes through as we read them. "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker's man" gets hand movements and "Mary, Mary quite contrary" or "Mary had a little lamb" elicits cries of "Mary!"

    But what I find interesting is how odd some nursery rhymes are. For example, "Peter, Peter pumpkin eater" sticking his wife in a pumpkin shell is strange. Even better are the medieval geo-political statements that some nursery rhymes contain. My current favorite (care of Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever) goes as follows:

    Taffy was a Welshman,
    Taffy was a thief,
    Taffy came to my house
    And stole a piece of beef.

    I went to Taffy's house,
    Taffy wasn't in,
    I jumped upon his Sunday hat
    And poked it with a pin.

    Taffy was a Welshman,
    Taffy was a sham,
    Taffy came to my house
    And stole a leg of lamb.

    I went to Taffy's house,
    Taffy was away,
    I stuffed his socks with sawdust
    And filled his shoes with clay.

    Taffy was a Welshman,
    Taffy was a cheat,
    Taffy came to my house
    And stole a piece of meat.

    I went to Taffy's house,
    Taffy was in bed,
    I took a marrow bone
    And beat him on the head.

    For good reason, it seems that this one hasn't entered the pantheon of classic nursery rhymes. I'm not sure what's up with the recurrent robberies and ensuing acts of revenge and violence, or what the deal is with bashing Welshmen, but I suspect that dissertations have been written analyzing the political statements in Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Abby and I giggle about these odd entries. I'm pretty sure that Margaret doesn't get it.

    As for Teddy, he's still being a mellow kid and, frankly, isn't very interesting at this point. Except for his skill at creating poopy diapers, something that he does much more frequently (and more loudly) than his sister ever did.

    Wednesday, October 31, 2007

    The Great Pumpkin


    When we lived in Chicago, Halloween wasn't much of an event for the kid crowd since few kids lived in our neighborhood. Then in Pittsburgh, Halloween was also pretty low-key as since Squirrel Hill, our old neighborhood, had structured events that killed the trick-or-treating scene.

    Our first few years in DC were somewhat different. Apparently, Georgetown is a destination for trick-or-treaters from around the area, so the first year, we were completely unprepared and ended up shutting our lights off early and hiding out from them. The second year, we had more candy, but not enough. So again, we quickly ended up hiding out from the swarms. But even still, our old street was slightly out of the way, so we didn't get innundated with trick-or-treaters.

    This year, however, our neighbor warned Abby that she was always stunned by the amount of candy that she ended up giving out. We planned accordingly as we bought six bags of candy and stationed ourselves on the doorstep to hand it out. For a while, we had a grand time and things looked good - a smattering of visitors with parents who inevitably oo'ed and ah'ed over Teddy and Margaret (in her pumpkin suit.) Then, around 7:00, BAM. A huge run on our candy stock. Pack after pack of kids, all holding out their hands for candy. Looking up and down our street, you could see masses of kids going from one house to another. On the one hand, it was pretty cool since I got to comment on lots of interesting costumes and we got to socialize with various neighbors that we hadn't met. But on the other hand, we were also running low on candy. For a while Abby held out our basket to let the kids take their own candy until I pointed out that the more strategic kids were grabbing multiple items. Even after curtailing that behavior and getting restocked from our neighbors (including some from the haul that their kids accumulated), we ended up running out way too early. Something that we'll have to keep in mind next year.

    What was really interesting about the trick-or-treat crowd was its composition. Two groups were particularly notable. The first was minority kids. That I understand - other parts of the city aren't very safe at night while the density of housing and affluence in G'town makes our neighborhood a good target for trick-or-treating. But the other large group involved Europeans. This group was identifiable by the languages that the parents in the background spoke as their kids grabbed candy from us along with the Coo-coo-coo's that the French women bestowed on Teddy. I have two theories about why these guys like Halloween. First, as befits European social programs, they like it when someone gives them something for nothing (or for very little effort.) Alternatively, they really like events that involve us Americans getting up off of our fat asses, actually moving around, and interacting with one another. Alas, my former French colleague has quit, so I won't be able to sort out those theories with her. (Given my first theory, that's perhaps for the best since it would clearly lead to a heated lunch discussion about European vs. US social programs.)

    Saturday, October 27, 2007

    Our moment of fame

    Well, it's not a particularly good version of the photo (nor is the picture itself very good), but here's a copy of photo from the Post (which appears to show up sometimes when one links to the article). Rob and Reese are the stroller to the left, we're in the center, and Mariesa is in pink next to us. Maddie is milling around in the middle of all the dogs.

    We're famous, but are also all alone

    A NEWS FLASH!!! Following up on my earlier post, Margaret and I were pictured in the Washington Post in association with a story about dog parks. Our friend Mariesa is heavily quoted in the article ("Geez, I sound like a complete loser," was her reaction) and the author does clearly point out our park's location, as we feared she might. But Margaret and I, along with Mariesa and a few friends, are pictured in a black and white photo that, in the early Sunday edition, was on pg. A4. A slightly crowded photo, but there we are with Margaret looking right at the photographer. Apparently, we'll be on the inside of the Metro section of the actual Sunday edition, but it doesn't appear that they've posted our photo online. We'll see if our photo pops up online and will buy up some extra copies and scan a copy for our many fans.

    The CT grandparents left on Friday, so we are officially on our own. I suspect that we'll be able to handle it reasonably well, although some logistical issues associated with dogs walks and morning showers will have to be addressed. But after all, we're veterans at dealing with kids at this point. At least we like to think that we are. The whole experience of dealing with an infant is interesting since most people experience it only a few times in their lives, so few people are "experts" in the usual sense. However, once you realize that the kid's crying doesn't mean that he is really suffering all that much (despite the fact that the cry of an infant is one of the most unpleasant sounds in the world), you can handle them pretty easily.

    And Teddy has continued to be a pretty easy kid. He fusses a bit, as any infant will, but doesn't reach the sustained levels of fussiness that his sister achieved. And, frankly, for all of the difficulties that she caused (e.g. only sleeping in the swing, heavy reliance on the nuk-nuk), she wasn't a very tough kid. Upshot is that he's been a real champ and, despite out initial concern that it was only temporary, he's managed to keep it up. Admittedly, he does wake up at night, but he's pretty quiet about announcing his presence, so it doesn't bother me too much. And frankly, that's probably the efficient outcome since while I can change diapers, there's not much point in having me do so when there's not much else I can do for him.

    As for Margaret, her latest doctor's appointment put her in the 90th percentile for height and the 50th percentile for weight - still our little supermodel. Although the doctor did point out that the height-weight chart reflects lots of kids who eat lots of fast food (when she asked whether Margaret ate fast food, I quickly shook my head while thinking about Margaret's lunch of chicken nuggets, french fries, and pizza that she had the day before with the grandparents at the Museum of Natural History.)

    She also has a pretty good vocabulary. Her use of words is naturally a bit rudimentary, but she appears to be using substantially more words than most kids of her age. This may be partly a result of her love of books. One of her favorite pastimes is reading books. Every night, she lies with her head on my chest as we read through book after book. "Hand hand finger thumb" (dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum - it's amazing how catchy books stick in your head) is a new favorite. After every book, Margaret will sit back and say "Bu" (book with out the "k") followed by a heartfelt "peeze" accompanied by her rubbing her tummy (the sign language for "please".) This works for a while as her pleadings are so cute that I can't deny her, but eventually I turn out the light. She'll fuss and occasionally call for Mama (as if Mama would have a different view of the situation), before settling down.

    My suspicion is that Margaret will end up being like her Mama and her cousin Alex, both of whom were reading way ahead of their grade levels once they got to school. But I've also learned why Alex's parents have TONS of kids' books - it gets pretty tedious to read the same books over and over. Millions of monkeys, millions of thumbs. Millions of monkeys drumming on drums. Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum.

    Wednesday, October 24, 2007

    Pics with the Grandparents

    So the CT grandparents have been in town for the last 1+ week....

    Saturday, October 20, 2007

    Margaret (and her brother)

    So the person who is probably having the most difficult adjustment to the arrival of the new kid is Margaret. To begin with, there are physical problems that cause tension - due to her c-section, Abby can't pick Margaret up which makes it difficult to pull her out of danger in the house or at the park and also prevents Abby from changing Maggie's diaper (Papa is building up a big list of credits on this front) or putting her in her crib. We've managed to deal with this so far, but the bigger problem is probably the psychological issues that arise since Mama's time is dominated by this loud little fellow. It's hard to know whether Margaret is really aware of Teddy's demands on his mom, but she had been fussy. However, the life of an 18-month old kid appears to involve a roller coaster ride of giggling highs and screaming lows, so who knows what's driving her behavior.

    We do know one thing for sure - Margaret has experienced a recent growth spurt of monumental proportions. Other than really high spots, there are few lower areas that are out of her reach. Which is the source of lots of possible problems as she finds everything to be interesting. And many of her clothes no longer fit (in fact, if you're looking to get some clothes for her, don't get anything rated for less than 2 years.) While my left arm has built up strength due to the typical "parent crook", she's surprisingly heavy to carry around. Both Abby and I have independently noted how big she is now. As you can see when she's next to her brother in the pics included below. (Of course, Teddy is still pretty darn small at this point, although he's starting to plump up a bit. He still doesn't fuss a lot, but his weight gain isn't surprising given how much he likes to eat.)

    Margaret is also trying out her verbal skills like crazy. She's able to repeat almost every phrase that we toss at her. She doesn't necessarily understand what she's saying since when asked, she identifies almost everyone as "Papa." I prefer to think that she's just yanking my chain since she has to know who Papa really is (she has such a sense of humor), but when I point at Teddy or the dog and ask "Who is that?" and get a response of "Papa," I'm not so sure. She also babbles in "complete sentences" in her own special way. That is, we have a subject (of sorts) followed by some additional elaboration and an eventual "period" at which point her statement is done. All nonsense, but she's trying. Abby thinks, and I agree, that the transition to making sense will be rapid. All of a sudden, we'll have actual words and, very likely, full sentences. At which point, we won't be able to shut her up.

    Thursday, October 18, 2007

    Some pictures

    No one wants to hear my random ramblings, so here are some baby pics....

    Already exceptional?

    Today at daycare, we are told that Margaret walked around lifting her shirt and patting her belly while saying "Mama. Baby?" She's had some difficulties with the new arrival, but seems to be doing ok.

    Maddie is spending a lot of time in the background. Her attitude seems to be one of disbelief: You mean that these things can come in pairs? Poor dog.

    As for Teddy, he's still a pretty mellow kid. Unlike his sister, he spends a lot of time quietly looking around. I know that he'll get louder as he gains strength, but I can't complain about the fact that he really doesn't wake me (but not Abby) up at night.

    He went to the doctor yesterday. When she flipped him on his tummy to see how he'd react to "tummy time," he promptly tried to lift up his head. "Impressive," said our pediatrician. Then today, when placed on his tummy, he managed to roll himself over which is something that kids are typically able to do at 2+ months or so.

    Sigh. It's so difficult to be the parent of exceptional children.

    (More photos soon.)

    Friday, October 12, 2007

    An initial impression

    So the Cubs are gone from the baseball playoffs. Given their recent performance during September, we all had high hopes for their prospects in the playoff series. But things didn't work out as we hoped, so they're gone. As are the Phillies. Which removes the threat of an inter-family National League rivalry in the division series, but also means that there isn't a clear team to root for on the NL side of the playoffs. Arizona Diamondbacks? Colorado Rockies? I'm not sure I even know where those teams play (their general geographical affiliations notwithstanding.) Luckily, I have one remaining team for which my allegiance is clear - the Cleveland Indians. My dad's side of the family lives the Cleveland area, and my first baseball games involved trips to Municipal Stadium - the "mistake by the lake" - with my Uncle Mike to eat hotdogs and watch the Tribe play random teams in a gargantuan, but often nearly empty, stadium. The stadium was so empty that you could literally hear individual hecklers yelling. The end result is that I'll be rooting for the Tribe for the rest of the playoffs (although things don't look good after their performance earlier tonight.)

    What the heck, you ask, is this garbage? You show up looking for a post about the new kid, or perhaps the older kid, and instead you get a lot of mumbo-jumbo about baseball. The Cleveland Indians? Who the heck cares?

    Note first the change in the name of the blog. The web address is still the same, but now, while there is still the dog and us, we have kids. My goodness. Just a matter of time until we end up driving a mini-van. NEVER! (I recall a friend of mine from college who had long hair and vehemently, passionately, absolutely insisted, under pressure, that he would NEVER cut his hair. I saw him at a wedding a year ago at which point I asked him whether, given his current short hair, he remembered our discussion about his allegiance to his previous haircut. Apparently he did not, and he didn't seem too concerned about the changes in his world view. So one never knows.)

    I have lots of stuff running around in my head regarding the recent addition to the family, but I'll pass along my current impression of him: he's pretty easy baby. He doesn't fuss much. And when he does fuss, he's not very loud. Contrast this with his sister. By the time we left the hospital with Margaret, we had experienced at least a half-dozen or so episodes of bright red screaming which we had no idea how to fix. But Teddy will whine a bit, grunt, perhaps yell just enough to let us know that he's unhappy, but then he'll close his eyes and go back to sleep. This does cause some problems for feeding since we have to tickle, poke and prod him to make sure that he doesn't doze off while eating, but it also makes for a generally more pleasant baby experience. Perhaps it's us. Maybe we know how to deal with a fussy infant and/or we don't get as concerned when he starts to wail. But I can clearly recall early episodes with Margaret in which she was howling at the top of her lungs and no one, not us, not the nurses at Sibley, no one, had any idea how to stop it. So far, Teddy has been the complete opposite. When I mentioned to one of the nurses that he didn't seem to fuss very much, she said that he did cry a bit when she weighed him. Which involves stripping him of all of his clothes, tossing him on a cold scale, and generally causing him extreme discomfort. But if that's the threshold that's required to get a fussy response from him, then I'm fine (although he's currently complaining upstairs as I write this.)

    To see the difference between Teddy and his sister, check out the following video. Teddy is just chilling out in his bassinet in the hospital. In a similar circumstance, his sister would have been howling.

    A pressing issue - how to order pictures

    So I haven't been posting photos on Kodak Gallery lately. Unfortunately, this has deprived my dedicated audience of the stellar wit that I displayed in my descriptions of the earlier photos that I posted on Kodak Gallery. More importantly, some people don't know how to order photos.

    But this is pretty easy to fix. You can order physical copies of the photos that I post on Flickr using the following procedure:

    1) Create a Flickr account at Flickr.com. This is pretty easy.

    2) Look for my photos by searching for Manuz1234 (that's my Flickr account name) using the "Search, Flickr members" or "Search, people" in the Flickr search.

    You should then be able to see all of my photos.

    3) To order a copy of a picture, after clicking on a picture, you should see an "order prints" button at the top of picture (note that I believe that you need to be signed in to a Flickr account to see this button.) Clicking this should add it to your shopping cart (you may have to choose the size, etc.), and you can then have them sent to you by snail mail after choosing all of the photos that you want.

    By the way, we've ordered a few pics from Flickr and have been pretty happy with the quality. The key, from my point of view, is that Flickr is much more flexible for displaying pics on a blog than Kodak Gallery. And the blog gives me much more creative (sic) freedom than the captions on Kodak Gallery ever did.

    Tuesday, October 9, 2007

    It's a boy!!!

    As everyone who reads this blog probably knows by now, we had a boy! 7 pounds 9 ounces, 20.5 inches long (both a bit larger than Margaret) with (surprise, surprise) blonde hair and blue eyes. The nurses and doctors all seem to think that he has really blonde hair, but it's not nearly as light as Margaret's was. A first in what will certainly be a long line of things at which he cannot best his sister. Oh yeah, his name is Theodore Peter. We haven't decided if he'll go by Theodore or if we'll shorten it to Ted or Teddy. Some votes have also been cast for Theo, but that reminds me too much of the Cosby Show. One nice thing about Margaret was the plethora of nicknames that went along with it, but she has stubbornly remained Margaret, with an occasional use of Maggie. So we'll see what ends up as Theodore's main moniker. The whole experience has been very different from the first time around. I'll post more on this later along with some details about the birth, but the key difference is a much lower level of adrenaline leading to less general jitteriness. At least on my part. But you're not here to read about my deep insights into our second child. You're hoping for some pics! And here they are:

    Along with a bonus movie! Newborns sure are odd little creatures....

    Sunday, October 7, 2007

    It's go time

    Well, folks, we're approaching the arrival of Thing 2. I'm surprisingly calm, probably because, for all of the bruhaha last time, the doctors managed to pull Maggie out with nary a scratch. Then again, I have also come to realize that I recall very little of what it's like to have a newborn around, so I'll probably be in for a rude awakening (quite literally) at some point in the next few nights. But Grandma Mary from IL is here to keep up with Margaret, so we shouldn't have to worry about her for a while.

    Posts on this blog will probably be interrupted for a week or so. Or at least will be intermittent, with the key first post being the encounter between Thing 1 and Thing 2. Unless the hospital turns out to have wi-fi access, in which case, since I'll be taking my laptop to the hospital to do some "work," I may feel the call of the blogging muse at some point.

    Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'll send out a mass email at some point tomorrow with the end result. By the way, random strangers are again predicting a boy based on the way that Abby's carrying the kid. But that was such a bad prediction last time that I'm leaning towards the new one being a girl. Gentlemen, place your bets.

    Saturday, October 6, 2007

    Practice for Margaret

    We bought a doll for Margaret as preparation for the arrival of Thing 2. She generally likes it, but especially likes to spend time fiddling around with it in ways that she finds familiar. For example, last week after I got her dressed in the morning, Margaret pulled out her portable changing pad and a diaper. I couldn't figure out what she was doing until she plopped her doll down on the pad and started trying to "change" its diaper. More evidence that unexpected things are percolating in her little head.

    Tonight, she and Abby dressed and undressed the doll with particular attention to shoes and socks. Margaret was very distressed (and, given her cries of despair, appeared to directly blame us) that her shoes would not stay on the doll's feet. She has no idea what she's in for (do any of us?), but at least she knows what a baby is now.


    By the way, it appears that we have a name picked out for each possible gender. But you'll have to wait to find out what those might be.

    And it also appears that the Cubs will go down to the D-backs as its 4-1 in the 8th with the Cubs behind. Since both the Cubs and Phillies are not making good showings in the playoffs, I may have to turn to the more successful Indians as my team.

    Friday, September 28, 2007

    Cubs Win!!!!

    So my earlier post in which I claimed that the Cubs would win the division barring a "monumental collapse" turned out to be a bit more prescient that I expected - the Cubs let it get way too close for comfort. But at the end of the day, they pulled it out. So we may cram Maggie into a 12 month Cubs onesie tomorrow to celebrate since that's the only Cubs baby gear that we have on hand. And although it may be premature for such stuff, here's a song for this post:



    Now, we can only hope that the Phillies pull it out as well. Why? A) So brother-in-law/uncle Joe S. in Wynnewood will be happy. B) So my colleague Dave, who is also a huge Phillies fan, will be happy. And C) So that the Mets, rather than the Cubs, suffer a monumental collapse. Unlike most people, I don't hope for bad things to happen to NYC teams, but watching the Yankees lose 4 in a row after winning the first 3 against the BoSox a few years ago was a sublime experience (first time ever, in any sport, that happened in a 7 game series.) Same would be true if the Mets can lose a lead of 6.5 (or 7.5, whatever) games in September.

    But what would really be interesting is the inter-family tension that would arise if the Cubs play the Phillies at some point in the playoffs. But we'll deal with that conflict when (and if) it happens. In the meantime, Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!

    Tuesday, September 25, 2007

    Thing 1



    My nephew from the Shaker Hts. clan recently went to Abby's alma mater, Dartmouth, for a college visit. Apparently, he's quite the star. When the people at the dog park saw Margaret's t-shirt and asked if I had gone to Dartmouth, I responded "What, are you kidding me? Like an Ivy League school would even open my application envelope." In any case, they sent us a couple of t-shirts from their visit. Margaret is wearing the first. The second is slightly smaller and is labeled "Thing 2." So you can imagine what our Xmas photo will be this year, particularly given the festive color of the shirts.

    And some random thoughts:

    • Fittingly, Margaret and I read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" before I put her to bed tonight. My review: THAT BOOK MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! I don't even mean that there is a lot of nonsense in the book. After all, I would have anticipated lots of gobbledygook given my recollections of Dr. Seuss. But, OF, TF, RF, BF has absolutely no narrative thread. None. Just a bunch of completely random nonsense pieced together. I did like the rhymes and rhythm (and basically started "rapping" the book to her in my own way) which always makes a book more successful in my opinion, but some overall point would have been nice. Perhaps I'm being too much of a literalist. Naturally, Margaret had a ball. Until she started to conk out at the end (it's actually an astonishingly long book for something that doesn't have a point.)
    • The kid's outfits involve a very particular pattern depending on who dresses her in the morning. When Mama chooses the clothes, she tends to wear pink or purple and is much more likely to wear a dress. But when Papa chooses the clothes, she often wears blue jeans and green or yellow tops. The people at the dog park have quickly learned to guess the source of the clothes. The above photo illustrates a "Papa outfit."
    • Margaret has crushed another milestone for kids of her age: the what-sound-does-a-___-make trick. She's been working on it for a while, but now has the following animals down cold: dog, cat, cow, horse, sheep, lion, rooster, frog. Although interpretation of some of the harder multi-syllable sounds (e.g. the rooster or frog) does require some creative license on the part of Mama or Papa.
    • She has also learned the names of some of the dogs at the park. Bob (a brown lab who loves to chase balls) and Molly (a somewhat rotund, but very devious Border Collie who likes to edge away slowly while no one is watching before making a break for it.) She also waves goodbye to everyone at the park when we leave which gets an almost universally enthusiastic response from everyone sitting at the "dog" picnic table. The sight of 6 people sitting at the table, all waving wildly at us as we leave, is pretty funny.
    • The position of the kid relative to the kitchen counter in the above photo illustrates another recent development: Margaret's assistance during the preparation of dinner. Since Abby tends to get home after we've started the dinner preparations and since I'm the one who does those anyway given my comparative, nay absolute, advantage in that aspect of home production (geez, such an economist), in the past, Margaret spent a lot of time wallowing in misery around my legs while I cut stuff up and started cooking. Pretty annoying behavior. So I have started to plop her on chair, give her a dull butter knife to fiddle with, and push veggie remnants in front of her to mess around with. Since those remnants are obviously food, she tends to taste them, but most, such as raw garlic or onions, come back out pretty quickly. Still, she seems to be much happier. Up at the counter with Papa, messing around with important things - much better than being left on the floor by Papa's legs. And she seems to have a general affinity for messing around with "kitchen stuff" as I noted when I picked her up yesterday from the preschool room (yep, she was in the preschool room since she's obviously an advanced child) where she was fiddling around in the pretend kitchen. It looks like we may to have get her a kiddie kitchen set at some point. (By the way, I actually like cooking even though I tend to complain about always having to do it. A guy at the dog park who also cooks for his family summed it up perfectly: "It's something concrete that I can actually finish every day.")
    • I went to Chicago this past weekend to watch the Cubs last homestand of the year against the Pirates. Since they won the Saturday and Sunday games against the Bucs, it currently appears that, barring a monumental collapse (knock on wood), the Cubs will win the division. But the best moment of the weekend happened on Sunday. The Brewers (the team chasing the Cubs) had taken a 4-1 lead against the Braves through the 7th inning. When the manual scoreboard at Wrigley showed that the Braves had put up 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th to take a 5-4 lead, everyone at Wrigley started to do the "Tomahawk Chop." They then did it again when the Braves expanded the lead to 7-4 and when the score was posted as a final. It was pretty cool. As I told one of my friends at the game, "I've always hated the Tomahawk Chop, but I'll do it today."

    And another photo of Thing 1.

    Wednesday, September 19, 2007

    Recent developments

    Abby is pretty darn big at this point due to the new kid. S/he is also starting to yield some interesting bumps in Abby's tummy. Tonight, we played "Is it the head or shoulder?" as we tried to figure out what was bulging out. While she's scheduled to deliver on 10/8, let's all hope that it doesn't happen sooner. Especially not this weekend while I'm in Chicago for the Cubs last homestand of the year.

    As for Margaret, her new word is "No." She doesn't really understand the true meaning of "No", but she does understand that it is an appropriate response to a question. Thus, I ask "Would you like to go to the park?" and I get "No" in reponse. A quiet, lilting "No", but a "No" nonetheless. I'm sure that, in a short time, it will becomes an emphatic, definitive "NO!" But currently it is pretty funny to ask various non-sensical questions to get cute little "No" in response.

    Our current battle revolves around the nuk-nuk (known in some circles as the binky or paci.) We've been trying to wean Margaret of her nuk-nuk, and the caretakers in Toddler I say that they don't use it at all. In fact, when I asked Ms. Karen, one of her new caretakers, whether she ever used the nuk-nuk for Margaret, she seemed a bit surprised. "I never would've known that she used a pacifier," said Ms. Karen. "She plays great and naps well, all without a paci." But as soon as we leave the GSA building, it's "Maa maa", Margaret's universal cry for "I want" which, in this case, clearly means that she wants her nuk-nuk. I've tried to feed her saltines, take her by the fountains outside the IMF, point out airplanes and other kids. All temporary distractions. We always get back to "Maa maa" followed by petulant crying if she doesn't get her nuk-nuk. It's so unpleasant that I've been giving in recently, sticking the nuk-nuk in her mouth right after we leave the building. One of our friends at the dog park pointed out that she knew a kid with a close sibling who ended up using her paci until she was three. We hope that won't be the case for Maggie, but the impending arrival of No. 2 might give her some leverage in these types of battles.

    Here are some photos from our recent trip to CT for Grandma Nancy's retirement shindig. Including some photos from our visit to a corn maze.

    Wednesday, September 12, 2007

    Logistical issues

    My blogging muse has deserted me, as indicated by the lack of recent posts. I've been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson lately, which has made me reconsider my general writing style. A need to inject a certain level of agitation into the posts. Excitement. Odd and bizarre insights. Random tangential connections between our day-to-day life and the terrible and foul society in which we live. Indeed. (That's all a joke for those of you who haven't read HST.)

    But basically, there hasn't been much to write about. A Washington Post writer has been loitering around the dog park with the intent of writing an article about the contrast between NoVa (northern VA) and DC in terms of official dog parks. Ours is a very unofficial one that involves a core group of about 20 or so dogs (and 15 or so dog owners), so the writer has been heavily lobbied not to identify our location by name since we don't want to draw attention from the Park Service Police and don't want lots of interlopers trying to "join" our park group (this is Georgetown, after all, so we're pretty exclusive.) The writer basically understood, but today a Post photographer showed up to take some shots of the park denizens and dogs, ostensibly because our group is the "best looking" that the writer had encountered in her visits to DC dog parks. But of course - this is Georgetown, after all, where everyone, including the dogs, is beautiful. In any event, the photographer took some pics of Maggie with the dogs, so if they show up in the Post, I'll be sure to pass along a link.

    But some other more or less important details:

    (1) Kid no. 2 is officially scheduled to arrive on 10/8. That is THE date, since this one will be coming out the side exit as Margaret did. No name yet, although we plan to sort that out during our 7 hour drive to Connecticut this weekend for Grandma Nancy's retirement party. But we have spent the last week or so getting ready for the arrival in other ways. Getting another crib from the relatives in Philly, sorting the infant clothes (by size and gender), buying stroller attachments to handle a second kid, etc. Grandma Mary from IL will be coming for the first week (which basically means that she'll get to spend lots of time with kid no. 1 and the dog) after which she'll tag out with the CT grandparents until Abby gets back on her feet. (For those guys, we've rearranged the room in the basement to make it more inhabitable.)

    (2) I have no idea why the Flickr slideshows sometimes work, but sometimes don't. It's quite random and is perhaps related to issues on their servers. If you're determined to view the slideshows, my suggestion would be to hit "reload" a few times in whatever browser you're using. Eventually, that appears to get the slideshows up.

    (3) Our old Sunrocket phone number should now be back in action. As a glutton for punishment, I've signed up for another Voip startup, in this case VoipYourLife, and had our old Sunrocket number ported over. After some hiccups with the quality of the service and some time to get the porting done, we're all set. For now. Indeed.

    Do we have a baby photo for you baby photo junkies? Here's one of Maggie and her cousin Lizzie....