Friday, January 23, 2009

Listening to him cry

It is so hard for our boy to fall asleep.

The Masons would admire the pre-sleep ceremony put on by Mama and I. The ablutions, the incantatory recitation of "Hand Hand Fingers Thumb", the bouncing, the delicate dance across the room towards the bassinet. The hope, the desperate silly hope that fate will smile on us and he will sleep...



The wails and rending of cloth when his eyes pop open the instant his head touches cloth.

Back to the ball once more. Bounce in the dark. Bounce in the whiteness of the rain on the roof, the fan, the air filter. Bounce a million miles from any other person, alone, you and him in the middle of a city where everyone else, every person, every baby, every dog and fish, even the toll collectors have drifted to sleep.

There is our little fighter, so tired, burning bright as a star in the center of a dark blue, slumbering universe . Just me and him, bouncing and bouncing away the night.

Mikaela adds: "We went to a sleep class with a child sleep specialist. Its nice to know that there are other parents out there, like us, bouncing in the dark."


So here we are, on a sunday morning, and beneath two-black out sheets, the anti-cat net and the hopeful gaze of his mama, Asher screams.

Not the "I'm bored! Enterrrrtainnnnn meeee!" he's adopted at three and a half months. We're well beyond that now.

This is the screaming of a soul in pain. To my ears anyway. As I sit in the dark and night runs like honey on the kitchen table towards early, early morning.

"Is it the dark?" I wonder, bouncing away with my pinkie in his parched mouth, dry from the snap inhalations and rasping cries.

"Is it a hidden thorn in the feet of his footies? Is it the pain in his ears from the wailing he doesn't know comes from his own mouth? Does he see things I can't see anymore?"

What causes those arms to stay stiff and wave sleep away? Why is exhaustion the only pathway to sleep? Why little boy? Why?


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Inauguration Day- All is well

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Inauguration Day

Papa is moved by our new President's call for renewed citizenship. Asher, not so much.

Yet.


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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Piglet Pile Part Deux

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We got our ducks in a row again. For a second time the San Francisco Grand National Sit-Off was held. Last month's silver medalist Mighty Milo Richtel had home field advantage for the second go round.


Kai "The Klassy Kalm" White was expected to repeat his championship performance, a devastating display of sitting for an extended period of time and staring at his hand. It set a high bar.


As expected Myles Marcus went out first. He is a boy with many gifts, but being propped on a couch piled high with babies and then staring out at two-dozen addled adults giggling like hyenas and snapping pictures on their iPhones, well this is not among them. Amazingly, Angela and Cooper are not too worried about that.


The infants continued to fall, left and right, down they went. At one point, so many kids were unable to go on, they were plucked off the couch nearly at random. Morgan ended up with Ajay; Kai ended up in the arms of this reporter. It took literally dozens of seconds to sort it all out.

As 3 minutes stretched to five, the parents began to drift off to the next entertainment. Except for four parents locked in the combat.

The surprise performance of infant sang froid came from Asher "No Nickname Comes to Mind" Temchine, who shocked his parents by sitting in the same place for three minutes without screaming like an air raid siren.

To no one's surprise, Milo continued to sit. As competitors fall away, so do words. How do you capture "The immutable One" when he is at his best? A rock? A bag of foam rubber? Maybe a sack of oranges?

But Asher stuck with him. As Milo slowly slumped, Asher stayed right there with him. All the way down.

In the end, it was a draw. As exciting as this may make it sound, it actually got kind of boring at the end there and I was really faking being excited. Yeah, I said it.

So we just scooped him up and got a cupcake.

Happy birthday Sarah!





In Response to a Query

I received an email from a pregnant friend with some excellent questions to be asking while pregnant and I thought I'd share my answers here.


I'm hoping to solicit some advice from you, as I am starting to get pressure from my family to hurry up and register for baby gifts. Cheryl, I bought that Baby Bargains book, which has be FANTASTIC helping me sort out things like cribs, car seats and strollers (though if you have words of wisdom on those topics, I'll still take them!)


Baby Bargains was excellent.

From Mikaela: There is a page in there with what you need for the first three months. It is a calm port in the storm of consumerism and worry. You don't even need a crib for the first three months, for example.

After a lot of hemming and hawing, we went with the Ikea Gulliver crib. Cheap, sturdy, up to European toxics standards and allowed the use of a standard mattress. of course we then had to get fancy and get an organic cotton futon made, and have been fighting with Matsu Futon (they suck but are nice bout it) since.

We went with a newcar set, the Graco snugride and bought bases for every car off Craigslist. I am pretty lackadaisical about giving advice on the baby stuff except for two topics: home births and used car seats. I am super pro-home birth as starting point and I vehemently oppose used car seats and used motorcycle helmets for the same reason. It is the EPS foam which protects the kid and the brain pan in a crash, and they are fragile materials, especially if they are abused. Or dropped. Or used to store bowling balls. None of which you know if it is used. Everything else… whatever! Have fun. Buy stuff with whatever option comes in fuzzy. That is my advice.

I'm still at a complete loss for other necessities. For example, how many bottles do I need if I plan on mostly breastfeeding for the first 6 months, but may pump so that someone else can feed the baby on occasion?

That sounds like us and we bought to bottles: an adiri bottle and a glass bottle with the neoprene cover. We like them both. The real trip is the amount of bottles you need for the pumping. Mikaela can give you a sense of numbers but it feels to me like a corner of the kitchen is given over to them.

Do I need warmers and sterilizers?


Need a warmer? No. You can warm milk after you take it out of the fridge, and leave it out for several hours. We warmed a bottle once by putting it on the dashboard and turning up the defrost. Not a great success but Asher drink it. When I give him a bottle (admittedly not too frequently these days) I just put it in a bowl of hot water. I think Mikaela sterilizes everything by boiling it in a pot of water. Save the counter space for a cappuccino maker. That will definitely come in handy.

Are there big differences between the different popular bottle brands? Glass vs. BPA free plastic?


Just be prepared that whatever you buy, you’re kid will like the other thing. For a week. And then they won't anymore. Sigh. So don't get attached. I think the adiri and the glass are best options.


From Mikaela: As long as it is the "good" plastic, don't worry too much.

How about those nipple pads? What kinds do people like and how many do you use in a day?

Pass. I don't know from nipple pad.


From Mikaela: The ones called soothies are like cooling and make you feel better. For the anti-leaking pads, I bought organic hemp ones. Don't use the disposables. Just make sure they're soft and machine washable. I think 6 to 8 pairs will cover you.


Boppy breastfeeding pillow versus that firmer one that goes around your whole body?


I know Mikaela prefers the one that is c-shaped, the Boppy, and doesn’t like the one that goes all the way around her back. It is called the My Breast Friend and really should be avoided for that reason alone.

Really key though: a glider. Hunt around for a used one though. They’re hella ugly but you’ll be spending time –a lot of time- sitting in it and not too much time staring at it in aesthetic judgment. It is a tool. A blue gingham covered tool.

From Mikaela: We didn't pay more for the reclining one (we got it for $50) but there are those who love them. Our friend Ailish spent the last month of pregnancy in hers.

And what other accessories have been really helpful to you? Like those little swingy chairs for newborns?


What I love the most is the pilates ball. You will do a lot of baby bouncing. And either it will be your arms or your legs doing the bouncing
or it will be the ball. Let it be the ball.

From Mikaela: And this is nearly unanimous from parents we know, where everything else Ben is about to mention depends on what flavor of baby you get.

Key purchase: the vibrating bouncy chair. Hugely important for some babies, like my niece Olive. Asher wasn’t made a catatonic champion sleeper in the bouncy chair the way some kids are. But nothing does that for him really and the bouncy chair is reliable.

The bumbo’s are adorable when they get a little bigger.

The swing is worthy c-list purchase. I recommend getting the ones that swing side-to- side and then allow you to change the carrier’s direction so it swings front-to-back. Get the least offensively colored one you can find. NOTE: all baby stuff like this come with Fun Enforcers, garishly colored Chinese plastic protuberances festooned with just insane looking happy puppies, ducks and monkeys that blink, rattle, vibrate and bobble. I think they are horrible (except when I love them) and nearly all of them can be easily disconnected (and quickly re-connected when necessary)

White noise machines, do they work? (we actually don't have a radio anymore thanks to iPod so we can't make our own)


Wrong there! We use our iPod as a white noise machine and I have collected or created a panoply of horrendously unnatural and grating noises that somehow make newborns stop mid-screaming fit and then fall asleep. I’ll burn you a few cds…

Anything unexpected you'd recommend?


Miracle blankets and a five foot length of stretchy organic bamboo fabric to bind your kid like a burrito. It could. Very well. Save. Your. Life.

The digital baby monitors are pretty much the only way to go if you live with any babies within 6 miles. Otherwise they pick up every other screaming crying baby whose parents also bought the monitor on sale at Citikids Baby News (the awesomest name for a kid’s store in the world) I would recommend the painfully expensive Phillips DECT monitor but the talk-back button just broke. Not cool.

Also, what turned out to be a waste of money?


All the pacifiers he spit out immediately. G-Diapers. Do not buy any copies of Goodnight Moon. You will get four. Same with Curious George and Babar.

I know you all are busy, and there's no huge rush, but if you have a moment and some good advice, I would be VERY grateful. I feel like I've entered a whole new realm of baby product hyper-consumption about which I know nothing! :)


Happily, this doesn’t have to be true. You can become an open maw for every plastic piece of crap Babies R’Us can fit on their sales floor. We have actually bought very little and think of ourselves more as a section of pipe than a dumpster. We get stuff from other people and send it on to other people when we’re done. The really special favorite onesie might get pulled out for my brother (Nothing to declare, no news here, but someday, you know, who knows?) or us (see previous parenthetical) Everything else, from the swing to the bumbo to the glider is fully here today and gone gone gone the next. Stay out of Babies R’Us and never ever read parenting magazines, look at what your least consumingist friends have in their houses and wait to inherit it.

And sleep now. Man, should you ever sleep now!

And here is a picture of Asher:
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