Back from LA

We're back from our trip to the west coast. Among other events, we went to a wedding celebration for Abby's cousin

and took in a Dodgers-Cubs game on Sunday.

Rather than post an entire chronicle of our trip, I figure that I'll write about a few main themes.

Long distance air travel with the kid

Our flights actually worked out ok. On the way to LA, Margaret had one sustained meltdown after sleeping for the first 1.5 hour. It probably lasted about 15 minutes, but who knows since, as Abby pointed out, time stands still when your kid is screaming at the top of her lungs. We calmed her down with a cookie that a stewardess dropped off and spent much of the rest of the trip feeding her graham crackers. In fact, one of our main lessons from the flights was the importance of food as a distraction. On the way back, she ate so many bagels that we started telling her that she was going to turn into a big bagel.

The other lesson is that it's useful if you can get the kid in her car seat. On the way home while checking in, we asked whether any free seats were available and, if so, whether we could grab the seat for Margaret. The saints at Alaska Air set us up so that we were able to get the one free seat on the plane in between us (they also piled most of the young kids at the back of the plane - they're not idiots.) Thus, Margaret spent the entire flight hanging out in her car seat. One of my colleagues suggested that trick since kids seem to be accustomed to being in their car seats, but like to squirm and exert their independence when they're on papa's lap. She slept for 2.5 hours on the way back and then woke up (and woke me up by yanking on my hair - I jerked awake to big blue eyes and a smile as she poked me) to eat her bagels for the rest of the trip. All in all, she was a real champ.

Jetlag with a baby

Our first night in LA, Margaret slept great. She woke up at 6:30 which would've been ideal had it been 6:30 AM PST. Instead, she popped up at 3:30 AM PST (i.e. 6:30 AM EST) which was the start of a difficult weekend for sleep. She never really got straightened out, but managed to stretch out her nighttime sleep spells for long enough that we weren't completely wiped out. It will, however, be interesting to see how she adjusts to the return to EST.

Thoughts about LA

I've been to San Diego twice, but this was my first trip to LA. After leaving, I'm torn about the place which seems to be a common response given some of the promo material I read in our hotel room about the "two faces of LA." On the one hand, the weather was amazing. Warm and sunny, but simultaneously cool with no humidity, bugs or any of the other things that plague places like DC. While filling up our rental car before returning it, I saw a weather report in which the weatherman forecasted 70 high - 56 low (+/- one degree in each direction) and sun for the coming week. Hanging out in the garden of Abby's uncle and aunt was unbelievable - a smell and feel in the air that was crisp but warm with lots of roses and other flowers. (A number of times, I asked people about whether the oranges in the gardens were any good only to get a nonchalant and apathetic shrug - I'd be eating those oranges everyday!) No concerns about whether it would get too hot or humid, no worries about whether it would be cloudy and rainy, just a sense of sun and comfortable warmth that permeates everything. Truly sublime.

But LA is also an abomination in some ways (abomination is probably too strong of a word, but basically LA has certain features that shouldn't exist in that area.) Flying across the western US, one sees nothing but desert (albeit interesting desert like the Grand Canyon which spurred other passengers to peer through my window past Margaret.) All of a sudden, one hits LA. And habitation. And sprawl. Sprawl that rivals Chicago in its scale from an airplane window. Homes, warehouses and, most of all, highways as far as the eye can see. At least, that is, until the smog that initially lies below the plane starts to envelope it at which point the distant mountains become less visible and the focus of everything becomes soft.

Then the traffic after leaving the airport. While driving in the HOV lane, I asked Abby whether all of the cars in the other lanes really had only one passenger. Yep for the most part, she said after checking a few.

And how are all of the gardens in San Marino so lush? Because they water them a lot. In the middle of the afternoon. Where do they get their water? And why, I wondered, do they water their lawns and gardens at the peak of the day's heat when the systems are clearly automated and could be set to water anytime including the middle of the night when the water would be much more effective?

The Cubs-Dodgers game

The Dodgers game that we attended embodied all of the problems with LA. People kept telling us about the beautiful setting of Dodgers Stadium. But to get there, we had to fight a traffic jam into the park since, it would appear, there's no good way to get to the park other than driving (so unlike Wrigley where we walked to almost every game or, at worst, took the EL.) The view from our seats (admittedly in beautiful sunshine) involved parking lots and dry, brownish hills beyond them. (Another gripe - the concessions were pathetic with lines that took an inning to get through.) I kept wondering about how nightmarish the post-game traffic would be. Luckily, despite the fact that we witnessed a good portion of a great pitchers duel, Margaret had a complete and utter meltdown in the 7th inning (as I told Abby's cousin Tyler, the whole game had been like watching a train wreck in slow motion since you could see Maggie getting more and more tired) so we left, with Margaret screaming the entire way until she got in her car seat and promptly zonked out, and beat the traffic.

Keep your fingers crossed

We had a nice dinner tonight since Margaret's daycare center had the "parent's night out" which meant that they'd watch the kids until 9:00 PM (!!!) while the parents went out to eat. Apparently, there was a dance party going on when Abby picked up Margaret, but as most of the lil' kids were, Margaret was a bit tired when Abby arrived.

But the big upcoming event is our trip to LA for the wedding celebration of Abby's cousin. We've got a non-stop flight both ways, but 5+ hours with a 1 year old is an iffy proposition regardless. We've heard good stories and bad stories, so we have no preconceived notions about how Margaret will actually behave. We're taking a bag full of food and books (Margaret really likes books - of course she does b/c she's soooo intelligent and inquisitive), but keep your fingers crossed for us nonetheless.

Cloud Peak

So the kid is doing ok today. We had a reasonably nice day with some minor tummy problems, but nothing serious.

What the previous post (and the cool PictureTrail thingy) got me thinking about was trips with my brothers. Below are some pictures from a trip to the Cloud Peak Wilderness with Steve and Maddie in the fall of 2004. Backpacking in Wyoming during the fall is a mixed bag since there aren't many other people, but it can be cold and snowy. We faced snow on about 1/2 of the days, especially during our hike out of the mountains. When we got to the car, it was covered by about 6 inches of snow. We brushed off the windows and drove out of the mountains with piles of snow all over the car. On the way down, we eventually reached a point where it was warm and sunny with absolutely no snow, except for that on our car. We could literally see people that we passed pointing with perplexed looks at our snow-covered car as an incongruous sight in the warm low lands.

(For those who are real baby fans and couldn't care less about my backpacking trips with my brothers, rest assured, we'll get back to documentation of the kid's life now that I've got this out of my system.)

A hike in Maryland

Today, we took a trip up to Catoctin Mountin Park in Maryland. It was supposed to rain in the morning, but we experienced one of the best days of the spring so far - sunny and warm, but with a nice breeze that kept us cool. While the hike was nice, the main issue was Margaret's gastrointestinal distress. After getting to the park, we went to the visitor's center where, as I was carrying her to get a map of the park, Margaret vomited. I didn't even notice since I was holding her in her preferred face-out position (lucky for me), but Abby said, "Mark, she just threw up!" As I apologized profusely to the National Forest Service staff at the center (she managed to puke in a pretty convenient spot, right in the middle of a clear floor), she spewed again (which has taught us an important lesson - always beware of a second occurrence of something like spontaneous vomiting.) We ran to the bathroom to avoid messing up the floor even more and to clean up the kid. Not sure what was up with her, we debated whether we should actually bother with a hike. It would've been a shame to drive for an hour without seeing anything, but if I stuck her in the backpack (our new mode of carrying her), there was the clear risk that her next target could be the back of my head. In the end, we decided to take the risk. Margaret slept for most of the hike and ended up sleeping for much of the day. Those sleep patterns, along with her lack of appetite, clearly indicated that something wasn't quite right with her, especially because she became a very cuddly baby, whimpering on my shoulder as I held her when she wasn't in the backpack or carseat. In general, Margaret is busy baby, not a cuddly baby, so that type of behavior indicates a problem. By the time we got home after another marathon sleep session, however, she appeared to be feeling better, but we'll see whether she's feeling ok tomorrow.

Beyond the trauma of baby barfing, one thing that this trip has made me think about is the difference in my outdoor adventures pre- and post-Margaret. Before her arrival, some combination of my brothers (Dan and Steve) and I took backpacking trips every year from 1995 to 2005. We hit the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, the Wind River Range in Wyoming, and the Beartooth Mountains in Montana, among other places including the trip to the Cascades with Dan in 2005 pictured below. But since Margaret's birth, we haven't made such a trip, and I'm not sure whether any will happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Abby's trip to Costa Rica notwithstanding, kids really mess with your freedom.

Moving Up

The other day, I had a conversation with Ms. LaDonya at daycare about who was in line to move up to the toddler room. "Well, Yuta is currently transitioning," she said. "And then Sebastian is next. And after him, it's Margaret's turn." Yikes! It's hard to believe that our little baby is growing up. I can remember when....

A comment on recent style trends - and something more!

I've recently noticed a trend in the style of women's clothing. Typically, I'm not very perceptive about style trends, especially for women's clothing. Regarding my overall sense of style, heck, I've been wearing the same basic clothes since I graduated from college. There was a period in the early 90s when my clothes were in vogue - I believe it was known as the "grunge" era. But just you wait, someday baggy flannel shirts will come back into style.

Lately, however, I've noticed a particular trend in women's clothing. It involves tops that are gathered just under the bosom that then billow out around the waist. My initial query to Abigail about this trend was: "Why is everyone wearing maternity clothes?" As my female colleagues at work later confirmed, Abby informed me that this is known as the "empire waist." Apparently, this is the style de jour for women's clothing. But I maintain that this is one of the most unfortunate trends in women's clothing over the last few years - almost everyone who wears such a garment looks pregnant. I have been told that this is a response to the tight-clothing movement of the last few years and that this style helps hide bulges, but I cannot fathom why one would want to appear as if she were pregnant.

Why, you might ask, is my critique of female fashion relevant for the kid, the dog or us? Well, it turns out that we're expecting another addition to the family. Sometime in October, Margaret and Maddie will face a new rival for attention. Admittedly, this is not the most tactful way to announce this news. But those who are avid readers of this blog (if they exist) will receive official notice at some point in the future and, due to their attentiveness, are now being informed before anyone else. And, to bring the post full circle, our readers should be pleased to know that the prevalence of the "empire waist" implies that maternity wear is much more accessible and stylish than it has been in the past.

Margaret and food

We all have a love-hate relationship with food at this point. Margaret wants to eat, but refuses to eat almost everything. Today, I bought some strawberries at the store, but all they got was an emphatic shake of the head. No taste, just a glance and a shake. (Regardless of what Margaret might or might not understand, she clearly knows what a shake of the head means.) Every time it happened, I'd shrug and eat the strawberry myself. This has lead us to engage in some preliminary tricks to get foods into the kid without her knowledge. For instance, I put strawberries in the waffles that she later devoured (waffles being a food that she will, apparently, eat.)

I figure that at some point, she'll have to get past this. Abby read that infants can be very finicky about what they eat since that's one of the few features of their existence that they can actually control. At the same time, they will eat what they need to maintain themselves so we shouldn't worry about malnourishment. (Lots of baby books have lots of advice about baby behavior, for better or worse.) But it is annoying to have EVERYTHING new rejected, regardless of how tasty we know it to be. And the rejection can often be quite unpleasant with lots of vehement vocal objections from the kid.

The primary beneficiary of Margaret's food aversion has been Maddie. After a meal, we plop the tray down for Maddie to clean. She's been the recipient of a wide variety of tasty foods and waits with great anticipation during the whole process.

A much better baby

Some hypothesized that Margaret's recent unpleasant behavior stemmed from a pending life event, like the eruption of new teeth or the onset of talking. Both are possible since she certainly has new teeth popping up everywhere - you can really see the molars coming in when she screams. (Incidentally, as we've bid adieu to cute toothless grins, we've also passed another milestone - no more Baby Bjorn. My back could still take it, but I wasn't sure that she was still comfortable. I'm really sad about that for a few reasons. First, it was a great way to move around with a low profile. Second, it really kept her confined in a way that she didn't really seem to mind. And last but not least, we got great looks from people as we walked around. Me and my little mini-me.) Regarding talking, while her "vocabulary" is still pretty limited, she clearly has things on her mind that she wants to communicate. Modulations of tone that accompany exclamations and declarations of all sorts. Admittedly all nonsensical, but she has lots to say.

Whatever the reason for her past misbehavior, Margaret has been much more pleasant recently. Sleep is still a bit of a problem as her alarm clock isn't ideal, but the unexplainable fussing and really, really bad prolonged middle-of-the-night episodes haven't really continued. And this past weekend was great as we spent lots of time messing around the house, park, etc. with lots of grins and few fussy episodes. One of our new favorite games is when I yell "I'm going to get Margaret!" and run up to grab her in the park. She doesn't seem to understand the real goal of the game since she usually "runs" aimlessly (if not at me), but it's fun nonetheless as she giggles uncontrollably when I scoop her up.

It's funny that I don't feel as compelled to post anything when she's being a good kid. I'll have to watch that this blog doesn't become a venue for venting my irritation with Margaret's foibles. While it's helpful to have an outlet when I'm annoyed with her, it can also obscure the majority of the time when she's really a pretty good kid.

Maggie loves dogs, but do they love her?

Margaret is very fond of dogs. Early on, she showed a definite interest in Maddie, something which was not reciprocated at all since Maddie has shown, if anything, a clear desire to avoid the kid. People often ask us "Does your dog herd the baby?" (since Maddie is a border collie) or "Does your dog let the baby climb on her?" The answer to any such questions is a definitive NO! Maddie does NOT like Margaret. She scoots out of the way whenever Margaret approaches and moves even more quickly when there is physical contact. Admittedly, this has changed a bit as Margaret has learned how to attract the dog (e.g. picking up sticks or tennis balls), but for the most part, Maddie wants to avoid Margaret as much as possible. Not in an angry or hostile way, just in a way that indicates that Maddie doesn't like physical contact with the kid and really views Margaret as an annoyance. (This morning, however, Maddie did allow Margaret and me to rest our heads on her in the bed. Which Margaret loved.)

But Margaret still loves dogs. Apparently, rejection isn't something that an infant can register (neither are admonishments from her Papa to eat, sleep, etc.) When we go to the dog park in the evening, I plop her in the midst of the dogs (only as long as too many aren't around, and only known dogs are there), and she has a blast. Bob (a chocolate lab) bonks her from one side chasing his ball. Then Buster or Sophie (two English springer spaniels) hits her from the other side almost knocking her to the ground. And Margaret is in heaven. The other dogs often give Margaret a cursory sniff, which inevitably elicits a giggle from Margaret, and often linger longer if Margaret appears to be a potential easy target for food as when she has just eaten a piece of bread.

Incidentally, one aspect of Margaret's presence that Maddie does love is the post-dinner high chair tray - Maddie has quickly learned to loiter to scoop up any droppings from the high chair and to lick the tray which we plop in front of her to do an initial cleaning for us. Margaret has not really learned that she can attract Maddie from the high chair by dropping food since we've worked hard to discourage such behavior. But as Margaret learns what really attracts Maddie (and Maddie correspondingly learns that Margaret can do things that appeal to her), their relationship should improve. But for now, we have fun watching every dog that we see, occasionally saying, albeit out of context, "Mah-eee!"

A list of grievances

Margaret has become very difficult lately. In fact, she's become so difficult that life in our household has become quite unpleasant at times.

Sleeping problems:

• On Saturday morning, she woke up at 5:00 AM. When it became clear that she wasn't going to fall back asleep, Maddie and I took her to the park so that Abby could sleep some more.
• Monday morning, she woke up at 4:00 AM and stayed awake until 6:00 which left just enough time for me to doze off and hit a R.E.M. cycle before I had to get up again. I didn't feel right the entire next day.
• Last night, she woke up at least twice, once around 11:30 PM and again around 1:00 AM.

What's annoying about the sleep issues is that she's been so good for so long about sleeping. The sudden "early rising" isn't a welcome change to her routine. It's gotten to the point where I feel it's necessary to go to bed around 9:30 PM or so to ensure that I can get enough sleep.

Eating problems:

• Margaret still refuses to eat ANYTHING that is put on her tray. Even things that she'll eat when they're mashed up and fed to her. If anything, her response to cheese/carrots/peas/etc. on the tray has regressed as she screams bloody murder when she faces a selection of finger food in front of her.

Misc problems:

• Margaret had two major meltdowns in her stroller over the weekend, both unlike anything that she'd done before. In the second, which was the only one that I witnessed, she bellowed constantly for about 1 hour. We eventually tried to take her out of her stroller, took her to the park, put her in a swing, pointed out the puppy dogs, etc. but nothing seemed sufficient. She still yelled herself hoarse. It was an almost unbelievably unpleasant experience.

But then again, we sat in the backyard tonight and blew soap bubbles that Maddie jumped up to bite which made both of us giggle. And a walk through the park at 5:30 AM on a Saturday morning as the sun rises isn't that unpleasant - it's pretty peaceful since, believe me, you've got the park all to yourself.