James is 5 Months Old 2011

5 months!

James turned 5 months old yesterday and 22 weeks old today. He has developed a lot of personality in the last month.  He's excited to see us in the morning, and he turns to look when you call his name, though I'm not sure if he's recognizing the name or the "look-at-me" tone.  He loves patty cake, though he can't play it yet.  He finds my attempts to play patty cake with him hilarious.  He also likes peekaboo though he finds it less funny.  He's generally more fun, but he freaks out if we step a few feet away from him, and he gets super grumpy if he's teething or it's naptime, which is most of the time. He fights naps with every fiber of his little being, no matter how tired he is. Sleep is the enemy.

At the grandmothers constant instance we tried feeding him cereal and baby food to get him to sleep more.  They said it would increase the amount of time he slept at once at night. The pediatrician (and other parents we know) said it would not. Finally we tried it just to please our mothers.  I am here to report that it did not increase the amount of time he sleeps at night. We even tried feeding it to him at different times, but it didn't make a difference.  At first he didn't care for it, but on the second try he had a change of heart. He loves the pureed sweet potatoes and carrots. He opens WIDE and tries to grab the spoon from me to feed himself. For now though, we've taken him off the food again, since our sleep experiment was a failure. Now he stares at me whenever I eat like I'm selfish for not sharing.

Enjoying sweet potatoes (19 weeks + 4 days)

He's really good at grasping things and he can reliably pick things up and put them in his mouth, even his little pacifier.  He prefers the outside part of the pacifier for his teething to the gummy part for sucking.  He also grabs his giraffe around the neck and chews on the giraffe's ears and nose.

Writing our rent check (19 weeks + 1 day)

James is on the move! We used to be able to put him down on his activity mat while we put away dishes or something within eyesight.  Now, it's a bit more touch and go.  First he started scooting away on his back.  Then he started rolling over from back to front.  He does that every single time you put him on his back, even though he's not actually a big fan of being on his stomach.  And in the last day or so, he's started occasionally flopping back onto his back.  This means he can roll quite a distance from where you originally placed him.  He also regularly sleeps on his stomach now because I put him in his crib and then he flops over to sleep.

Scooting away on his back (19 weeks)

Rolling over! (19 weeks + 4 days)
This is the reason the bumpers went back on the crib.

Finally, James sits for a few seconds when I prop him up.  A week ago he would stay up for a second or two, but now he actually stays balanced for a while sometimes and manages to grab at things before toppling over. Look how pleased with himself he looks! My baby is the cutest.

Sitting by himself for a second (20 weeks+ 6 days)


Admiring the other handsome baby (20 weeks+ 6 days)


Football season has begun! (21 weeks + 4 days)


Not crawling yet, but looks like he's preparing! (5 months)

Bar Harbor, Maine 2011

Bar Harbor is beautiful, and the weather in summer is just perfect. You can walk along the main street and find lots of places to shop or eat.

Wednesday, Clark, Dan Allison, Jason, Chrissy, me, and Kevin at the Maine Sea Coast Mission


The view of the sunset from the Maine Sea Coast Mission


The main street in Bar Harbor with shops


Some of the cute stores


By the water


The harbor


Kevin by the water

Allison and Dan's Wedding 2011

This pretty much captures Allison and Dan

I just got back from a lovely wedding in Maine. The Poteet's welcome dinner the night before the wedding was nicer than many weddings I've been to, with a beautiful view of the water in Bar Harbor, local beer and good wine, delicious appetizers, surf and turf for dinner, and two desserts, including some of the best brownies I have ever had.

Wendy, Clark, Dan, Allison, Jason, Chrissy, me, and Kevin at the Welcome Party

Welcome Party dinner

The ceremony location was beautiful, with perfect blue water and mountains in the background. They wrote their own vows, which I usually love because it gives you a rare chance to peek into the hearts of the bride and groom in a way that the standard religious vows do not. Allison expressed her love in a particularly eloquent and touching way. Dan's vows were not only lovely but he also responded (impromptu!) to her vows to wonderful comic effect.

Allison's mother and brother

Allison and her dad- someone looks happy!

More vows-related hilarity!

I love that she's looking at us to enjoy the moment with her.

Allison and Dan exchanging rings

Big kiss!

Mr. and Mrs.! 

I can hardly pick one photo from the cocktail hour because it was similarly beautiful and fun on a dock outside. And they served a blueberry mojito that was even more delicious than I imagined it would be. I might have to learn to make it myself because now that I've had one, I can't face a future without any more. Seriously.

The dock is awesome, right?


Me, experiencing blueberry mojito joy


Walking on the dock with our friends

The reception was inside a tent with trees near the support beams and herb garden center pieces, which were lovely and brought the outside location of the wedding inside the tent. In my opinion, good dancing music is one of the most important parts of a reception because, at least for me, it divides the weddings I really have fun at, from those I enjoy more passively. These days, with little baby James to keep me busy, weddings are my super fun night outs, so it was great to have such a good DJ. Also, my friends at the wedding were really fun to party with all night.

First dance near the inside trees

Cutting the very pretty cake

There was something else about this wedding. It felt like fate. To explain, I have to go back to the beginning. Allison and I went to high school together in New Jersey but she was in the grade above me and I knew her through friends that were in band with her: Chrissy, Cate, and Wednesday. I only really started spending more time with her when she would come home from college and then later when I would come home from college. In 1999, her junior year of college and my sophomore year, she studied in DC for a semester, and that's when we became close. She's a great listener, she leans in when you speak, laughs big wonderful laughs when you're only a little funny, and touches your arm to stress a point. She has a political wikipedia tucked in her brain, and her idealism is surpassed by very few people. She is easy to love.

Here's where it gets a bit odd. In 2001, before we knew either of them, my now-husband Kevin, and Allison's now-husband Dan, left the east coast and went across the country to go to school at the University of Iowa. Kevin was at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and Dan was in law school, but somehow they ended up playing basketball together regularly.

In 2005, shortly after she met Dan, Allison told me she had met a great guy on Friendster. She told me about their first date in Boston and how she was excited for his next email. Later that day, I took a picture in Miami in front of a palm tree, which later I put on my Friendster. When I moved to Charlottesville for law school, Kevin saw the picture of me in front of a palm tree and thought I was cute. The first time Kevin and I went to visit Allison and Dan in Boston together, Kevin realized that he knew Dan from Iowa.

Did you follow all that? Ramsey, New Jersey; Iowa City; Boston; Miami; and Charlottesville. And then there we all were. I had known the bride for 15 years, Kevin had known the groom for 10 years. If it's one of those it's-a-small-world coincidences, it's a good one for sure. Or maybe it's meant to be.

Grandmas Rock 2011

James has two of the best grandmothers that a boy could hope to have. Both have seen him at least once a month since he was born, and though I'm not exactly keeping count, they've actually seen him way more frequently than that. Recently, however, James got a double-dose of grandma love. My mother stayed over Labor Day weekend to help me while Kevin went to Atlantic City for a guys' weekend. A few days later, Kevin's mom came to watch James so that we could attend our friends Allison and Dan's wedding in Maine. She had to do the night shift alone too! They are both heroes. They even both reported missing him when they returned home.

Nana Ana getting raspberry kisses from James

Grandma Kathy playing with James

Baby Cort 2011!

Trey and Sunny had their first baby, a boy, about a week ago!  They named him after the baby's great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, all "Frank Joseph."  Since the little guy is IV, or "the fourth" they are calling him "Cort" in much the way his father goes by Trey as a nickname for III. His nickname is also after a close friend named Courtney that they lost.

At 9 pounds 11 ounces, Cort was just one ounce less than James!  Cort looks slender though, whereas James looked like a little Eskimo marshmallow. Congratulations, happy family!

Post-Hurricane Irene 2011

In one week, James had his first earthquake and his first hurricane.  Though technically, by the time it reached us, Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm.  James was less well-behaved for the hurricane than he was for the earthquake.

Even though Hurricane Irene didn't reach Long Island until sometime around 9 a.m. on Sunday, the strong winds that had began Saturday evening.  We took the air conditioners out of the windows sealed everything tight and kept the fans circulating air until we lost power at 3 a.m. Sunday morning.  Most people wouldn't even notice losing power at that hour but I got up with the baby several times that evening.  He had a sleepover with us in our room in his play and pack, so that in case there was some damage to the house, he would be in rescuing distance.  I kept looking out the window all night and it was strangely eerie, almost how I would expect a movie to depict the time before a tornado.  That's why at 5 a.m. when I got a phone call that there was a tornado watch, I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Thankfully, there was no tornado.

A tree in our neighborhood didn't make it

Without power and thus no air conditions or fans it was hot hot hot. My guess was that it was quite comfortable outside but we didn't dare go outside or open any windows until we were certain everything was over. I think we were more cautious than we would have been if not for the baby.  Thank goodness for the battery pack on the breastmilk pump, since James refuses to breastfeed, and going cold turkey on feeding/pumping can result in mastitis and other medical complications.  We had no news of the hurricane except for some limited lookups on Kevin's phone because we didn't want to use up the power. We didn't know how long we'd be without electricity, so we tried to not even open the refrigerator. We had cranked the cooling up to high the night before because we were expecting to lose power and wanted to keep the food as cold as possible.  Luckily we had power back on by dinner time so we were able to make a hot dinner. Sadly, we lost power again RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JERSEY SHORE. So sad. So terribly sad.

We were lucky though because many homes in Long Island still don't have power.  In retrospect, I wish we had had this emergency radio so we would have known what was going on outside.  In a more serious emergency, or a longer one, relying on one cell phone would have been unideal.  Also, I didn't know the time all day. That's a minor issue, but one that a cheap wristwatch would have cured. (When  did everyone stop wearing watches? Definitely in the last decade.) Finally, I wish I'd made some food in advance that we would have been happy to eat for dinner if we hadn't gotten the power back. We had sensible hurricane supplies like milk, bread, cold cuts, and peanut butter (and of course wine and beer) but really none of that sounded appealing for dinner.  Next time I'd make or order some food the day before that works well as cold leftovers.

Tree close-up

Things My Wife Complains About #19: My Complaining

The other day my wife, without the faintest sense of self-awareness, said she was so tired of hearing me complain. This would be a little like Ahab telling his wife he's tired of her obsessing.

Understand that we carefully worked out a system, which neither of us follow, where she's free to complain, so long as she doesn't complain about me. In this instance, I was boldly complaining about some complaint that wasn't specific to me, though here my wife and I enter into philosophical disagreement. Consider the following statement:

"I can't believe you didn't make two bottles!"

To my wife, this isn't a complaint about me. It's an observation, or perhaps an expression of surprise. Possibly, it's a complaint about the nature of bottle making. When I point out that she asked me to make "a bottle," I'm accused of complaining about her complaining. Then my meta-complaint is met by the following question:

"Do we even have the same son?"

This is also not a complaint. It's an honest inquiry, or maybe a meditation on experience versus reality. At worst, it's a bit of humor designed to defuse the high-stakes game of bottle preparation. My wife stocks bottles of formula like she's preparing for Simulac armageddon. When I watch James, I only make a bottle if he's hungry, a practice so barbarous it's a wonder social services allow me to live at home.

At this point, I'm done meta-complaining. I say that, to the best of my knowledge, we do have the same son, who immediately commences screaming for seven thousand hours.

Possible Solutions!

1) Complain about her complaining about my complaining about her complaining

2) Insert James into the middle of the complaints, assuring he grows up to resent us both

3) Vow of silence (hard)

Hurricane Irene is Coming 2011

It's only raining a little bit right now, but we've been watching the progress of Hurricane Irene all day. We did the mandatory beer and wine shopping, and Kevin took out our air conditioners to seal the windows. I even vacuumed because I won't be able to if we lose the power, which will almost definitely happen since we've lost power in much smaller storms. We survived Hurricane James today (he was screaming all day from teething and took no naps), and he is now peacefully asleep in our room, so we can watch him during the storm.

Irene is scheduled to go directly over our town with 67-74 mile per hour winds. Nonetheless, we're not in an evacuation zone, so we're comfy on the couch with our aforementioned beer and wine. We have friends in similar situations in New York City, who aren't in evacuation zones, but are close to them, or close to the water, so we're hoping things go relatively smoothly for everyone. Especially since New York public transit was shut at noon today, so moving around once the storm begins isn't going to be possible. Not that getting on an underground subway was really going to work in torrential rains anyway. When we lived in Brooklyn, our subway stop would flood in the lightest drizzle.

Anyway, since we're bound to lose power, I'm going to leave you with one of Kevin's posts, in case we're offline for a few days. Stay tuned for the next post.

James is 4 Months Old 2011

Posing for the month shot with grandma

James turned four months old on Saturday and 18 weeks the following Wednesday. He had his checkup on Thursday and he measured 26.5 inches, and weighed just over 16 pounds. Once again, he showed no signs of reacting badly to the vaccines, or maybe he was grumpy but we didn't notice because he's always grumpy.  He had a little streak of sleeping for 5 hours in the right spot at night, approximately between 11:30 p.m. and 4 a.m., but that's over now and he's back to waking up every 3 hours.

I'm a model, if you know what I mean

Except for his teething, and his nap-fighting, he's often an agreeable little guy.  He can entertain himself for long stretches by hopping around in his jumperoo and spinning the rattles on it.  Or he lies on his back and punches at the stuff hanging off his activity center.  Occasionally, he wrangles objects into his mouth.  All of this requires that you sit there staring at him so that he doesn't get anxious and fear that you've abandoned him, so it would be a bit of an exaggeration to say he is engaging in independent play at this point.

New trick: putting his foot in his mouth

Favorite toys: His feet!, his crinkling teething elephant, his orange monster, his teething giraffe, and textured blankets.

Favorite songs: Itsy Bitsy Spider and Agony from Into the Woods are by far his favorites.  They make him giggle, and sometimes he tries to sing along to the latter.  He also enjoys Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Billy Jean, and Break My Stride. To be fair, this bad selection is not James's fault.  It not like he chose these himself off Pandora. There's just a very small universe of songs for which I know most of the words, and almost none for which I know all of the words. Kevin does try to expose him to decent Indie music, but most of that happens when I'm not on the James shift. I use that time almost exclusively for napping so I can't report on which of those songs he likes.

Not phased by the earthquake, but troubled by teething

Changes, Tectonic and Otherwise 2011

Tuesday was my last day of maternity leave and my last day with my law firm. I went into the office to sort out a few things with human resources. It was a little bitter sweet. I started working there in September of 2008, but since I also summered there in 2007, I've had a relationship with many of the people there for four years (some, whom I went to law school with, for even longer). I hope to stay in touch with some people, but everyone there is so busy that I'm not sure to what extent that will happen. My plan is to stay home with the baby for a little while and then find a slightly more family-friendly job.

With coworkers Victoria and Brian after passing the NY Bar in 2008

On my way back home from the office there was a 5.9 earthquake in Mineral, Virginia, that was felt in New York, and as far up north as Massachusetts. My friend Sarah in Virginia said her whole house rolled for what felt like quite a while. In New York everyone felt shaking and buildings swaying.

Except James and me. We felt nothing at all.

I was underground in Penn Station, and good news-- it's a total fortress. Not one solitary brick moved. The trains didn't even rattle a bit. I only knew an earthquake had taken place because the conversation around me changed from the imminent ten-year anniversary of September 11th to reports of an earthquake in Virginia, and the possible delay of trains while engineers in New York checked the Long Island Rail Road tunnels for aftershock damage. We were only delayed 10 minutes, so my guess is that it wasn't a very thorough check.

James was home on Long Island with Kevin. As Kevin said, "James, who wakes up when a bird flies past the window, slept through his first earthquake." Kevin grabbed him and got under the doorframe in our living room while James continued to snooze peacefully.

James place-holder photo, to be changed after I get photos from my camera ;)

[Update: Decided to keep photo since Michele liked it. Check the next post for a post-earthquake shot.]