Chris & Grey

Peter's Christmas Wishes

2009-12-12T06:55:00.006-05:00

Peter has been home sick all week and I tried to do some of the activities that he was missing at school. So, I had him write a letter to Santa. Here it is! I think it's pretty wonderful for 3-years-old!

He also "borrowed" our camera and did a study of the house from his perspective-- not without interesting results.

Click here to see his entire "portfolio."

This morning Peter turned the porch light on and said, "I like to leave it on because if anyone is lost they can come to our house. And if they don't have anywhere to sleep they can sleep in my bed. And if they are scared, I'll cuddle them."

My first "Tri"

2009-10-17T10:23:00.027-04:00

Why I want to "Tri"

I have a lot of runner friends who do marathons which I think is awesome. I'd like to do a marathon but you'd have to spend soooo much time -- er, running. I don't actually like running. I figured marathon was out.

Last summer, my friend Micol told me she was doing a triathlon. And I thought: Wow! You have to be so well rounded. You get to swim in a lake or an ocean. It actually sounds fun. But Micol was a competitive runner in college and is built like a superhero. At the time, it didn't occur to me that it was a sport that a normal person can do.

Then, I started meeting some normal people who do it...

After about a year of having a secret desire to be a triathlete (and feeling self-conscious about the extra weight from my pregnancy) I picked out a race and started training.

I found a wonderful book called Slow, Fat, Triathlete: Pursue Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now. Her massage is that a fat, slow (and in my case, older) person has just as much right to train and compete as the skinny person who will win the race. She's a very inspirational writer -- and she's funny. I heartily recommend this book everyone whether your goals are athletic or not.

A 10-Week Journey

I made a training program for myself and started checking workouts off my training sheet. Every time I completed a workout I felt a bit like a superhero. I need to say here how thankful I am to my husband and father-in-law. Every checkmark on this page implies childcare support. A LOT OF IT. Thanks!!!!

My friend, Michael Cooney said of running something like, "I love running -- but the first 15 minutes of any run sucks." I found that comment INCREDIBLY helpful. It didn't help me fall in love with running, but it did help me get through the suckiest part. Every time. :)

Somewhere along the line, I decided to enroll in a swimming class. I used to be on swim team (during the Reagan Administration) but I never really learned any technique before this class. I'm finding that swimming builds nicely on my long-standing yoga practice and that swimming is my strongest event.

The Big Day

When we arrived at Island Beach State Park, it was 40 degrees. This didn't worry me nearly as much as the surf report which called for chop. I had chosen this event because it gave me the most time to train before the end of the season. It was short (.25 mile swim, 10 mile bike, 3.1 mile run). And the bike & run course was FLAT. What I didn't respect when I chose the event was how dicey the Atlantic can be in mid-October.

Standing on the beach, I couldn't tell how bad the surf actually was. I was too excited. I was thinking, "In 2 hours, I will be a triathlete!" Mythical. I was in the last wave to start: over 40 women and over 50 men. Everyone was super nice. I think when you are facing the ocean you feel less like you are competing against each other, and more like you are challenging nature. The starter sounded and we ran into the ocean. The course went out a long way before it turned to run along the shore. It way was over my head long before the turn at the first buoy. Then I got hit by a big wave. It threw me down but the water was deep enough that I didn't hit bottom. I had never been thrown by a wave so far off shore. It knocked my goggles off. I swallowed a bunch of water and threw up a little. I was petrified. I stopped swimming and considered turning back. I wanted to cry. 10 weeks of training. I was so sure of myself a second ago. Swimming is supposed to be my event. One of the over-60 ladies I had been speaking to on the shore put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I was OK. Yes. I was OK. A little panicked, but OK. I started swimming again. I got hit by a second wave that took my goggles off. It wasn't as bad the second time. I felt so thankful that my friend Micol had lent me her wetsuit: at least I wasn't fighting to stay afloat! After I rounded the first buoy I rolled onto my back. I started doing a move I learned in my swimming class called "sculling." It's really a wrist conditioner, not so much a stroke. I was getting nowhere fast. But I was able to look at the sky and let my breathing and my heart rate come back down. When I relaxed enough, I started doing backstroke. Before long I passed the next buoy. I picked my head up to survey my progress. To my surprise, there were still a bunch of swimmers behind me. Some of them were from the previous waves! I turned over a resumed my freestyle. I finished the swim in 18:48. It was a little less than twice the time it would have taken in a pool.

I felt a mix of emotions coming out of the ocean. The overwhelming one was: "I survived." But I also felt a little discouraged. I was still shaken by the panic and I was disappointed at my swim time. I know I wasn't dead last -- but I was worried I wouldn't make my goal of finishing in under 2 hours. I had pictured myself running out of the ocean to the transition. But I was walking with barely enough wind to thank the volunteers.

When arrived in the transition area, they were playing Kirsty MacColl's "In these Shoes" which is one of my all-time favorite songs. I was a big shot in the arm for me. I was singing along with Kirsty and taking extra time to regain confidence. They time your transitions in a triathlon. (Transitions are the "costume and prop" changes between the 3 sporting events.) And even though I took double what I took in T1 practice in order to regroup, my transitions were strong-- it's an old theater skill, after all. I've probably had a lot more practice than most athletes.

By the time I started biking, I was back to feeling AMPED. I was warmer. The day was warmer -- and downright gorgeous. I was happy to be outside. I was sure now that I would complete my race and determined not to let time get me down. The bike course was out and back. Lots of people passed me on the way out. I kept reminding myself that I have a clunky old mountain bike and I shouldn't sweat it. I started singing "Boys from the County Hell" to get my cadence up. After the halfway point I could see how many people were still biking out. Some of them were young, fit looking people too. The swim must have killed them. My bike time was 41:26. Not a record in the cycling world-- but 3 minutes under my personal best!

Chris was waiting for me at the beginning of the run. I told him I'd see him in 40 minutes. By now I was absolutely elated! I was cheering on random racers -- especially other woman. I kept shouting "Hooray for the Ladies! All the Ladies!!" I was thanking all the volunteers. I wasn't thinking about time AT ALL anymore. Only how happy I felt. I said before that running isn't my favorite. I ran a 5K before I was pregnant and came in at 45 minutes. I was second to the last in the whole race that day. So, imagine my surprise when I completed my run in 35:16! I could not believe it!!

Overall my time was 1hr 41min 40sec -- well under my 2hr goal. And I wasn't dead last. Not by a long shot. Oh, and my best sporting event was, far and away, the swim. Panic and all.

So, next up: the One Hour Postal Swim in January and Escape From Ft. Desoto in April. Anyone in the Tampa area have a bike I can borrow? Or, better yet, care to join me? You have six months to train...

Winter greetings

2009-04-01T19:17:00.001-04:00

Peter's winter greetings from Chris D'Amato on Vimeo.

Pete Sounds

2008-12-05T13:59:00.002-05:00

Sir speaks!

"A good day for ducks"

Singing the Kipper theme song

A package from Oklahoma

2008-10-18T14:07:00.001-04:00

Chris writes: An unknown lady in Oklahoma sent me, with no explanation, a copy of The Timewaster Letters, which turns out to be an absolutely cringingly hilarious collection of fake letters and their real responses. It's exactly the sort of thing that appeals to my sense of humor.

Either Mrs Lott knows me way better than I know her, or one of my friends put her up to this.

C'mon, fess up!

Wow, it takes pictures too

2008-10-13T11:57:00.001-04:00

Just emptied out the digital camera and found some snaps from the summer. Here is the boy in Dad's car:

Yesterday it was beautiful outside. A perfect fall day. Peter fell asleep in the hammock with me and we stayed there for ages. Just before he woke up, his mom came with the camera. This was one of the happiest hours of my life.

These and more are posted on our picasa web albums page.

Summer pictures round-up

2008-08-09T08:18:00.001-04:00

Daddy's been abusing the video camera a lot, so there are fewer pictures this summer. Still a lot, though, and we just uploaded a bunch. Sorry, we usually don't have time to select just the best ones.

The pictures below and more are available on the "all the kid pics" link which appears on the right.

Going to the Y

2008-07-28T10:25:00.001-04:00

Here is a short video of a happy boy who is about to be taken to his favorite place, the pool at the YMCA. He's talking a lot these days.

Link to video

Garden of earthly delights

2008-07-28T09:57:00.001-04:00

Chris types today.

We are managing to do a little more than just survive this summer, and it's been great. We installed a fence in the backyard to make space for Peter to play. . I feel very cpable now that I have mastered some basic operations with concrete. And we've done some gardening too

Our tomato plants have grown a lot, and have so far provided us with exactly one perfect, delicious tomato. Maybe we will get some more. The zucchinis were looking very promising, but then we learned the hard way that zucchinis need way less water than tomatoes do, so next year we will not be planting them next to each other. The eggplants have made a lot of foliage and a couple of very elegant-looking blossoms but so far no veg. Stay tuned for an update. Peppers are popping and herbs are healthy.

G has planted a lot of stuff for butterflies and hummingbirds, but I will let her blog about that the next time she has time to herself. Should be sometime before 2018.

I would like to post the video I made of "out" hummingbird. G hung the feeders and made homemade bird-juice, and carefully kept them topped up for weeks before we finally saw a hummingbird. But once it showed up, it stayed. Maybe with a partner. We see them every day now, prety much everytime we go outside to watch for a little bit.

Hummingbird visit from Chris D'Amato on Vimeo.

I made this video with our handy little Flip camera, attached to the feeder hanging bracket with a visegrip. Anybody know what kind of hummingbird this might be?

It seems like there are two of them in our yard, they look very similar. They like to perch on the twigs above the feeder, so we get to inspect them a lot more that I ever did before.

Somewhere I have great pictures of this amazing caterpillar that appeared on one of G's herbs, I will see if I can find it.

Meanwhile, I better get back to work. Expect to see more blog posts during the second half of the summer when I have schoolwork to do.

Peter's new train set

2008-07-08T06:13:00.001-04:00

Peter has been enjoying Thomas and Friends cartoons, so we bought him a little wooden Thomas which instantly became his favorite toy. He would carry it everywhere and even took it to bed, and he spend a lot of time playing with trains and trucks on a little Matchbox playset someone gave him.

So the other day we found a train set on craigslist for him. This is a time-lapse video of how he spent the day.

He is absent from the video only when he was physically dragged off for naptime, meals, and socialization with his cousins Thomas and Molly who were visiting from North Carolina.

Peter's new train set from Chris D'Amato on Vimeo.

More babies

2008-05-20T05:43:00.001-04:00

Andrew and Farah have some new pictures of Amelia up. She is adorable. Looks like most of Andrew's genes are recessive, thankfully.

She has been a very avid crawler, taking an early interest in one of her mom's favorite sports. They are lucky parents, track stars have very low equipment costs. That's what we are trying to steer Peter toward soccer.

A few words

2008-05-20T05:36:00.001-04:00

You should visit (yes you) so we can all go to Fosterfields together. We know all the animals by name except the chickens. It's great. Yesterday Peter went and stood by the back door and said "cow" until his mother took him to the farm.

He's talking more and more, and mixing sounds with signs. Still working on the final consonants, so we are Ma and Da. His favorite nocturnal raptor is an Ow. He loves when he can say words correctly, like "boo-boo". And he will kiss your boo-boo for you if invited, with a little smooching noise.

And he has been signing some complex nouns, like bird+bath and the sign for chicken which is a bird, pecking. His mom sees a lot of sentences from him but I had my first the other day at the farm when he said "pigs, sleeping."

Roadtrek RV for sale to good home

2008-05-14T17:25:00.001-04:00

Click to Play

A walkaround of our 1994 Roadtrek 190 Versatile

Peter vs the safety gate

2008-04-27T09:55:00.002-04:00

Here is a short video showing the child being creative.

It was a great safety gate for a while.

Everything's coming up ... roses?

2008-04-26T07:38:00.002-04:00

Wow, I have posted a lot of videos lately. The thing I hate about videos on the web is that you have to watch them in real time, you can't scan them quickly and ignore the boring parts, like you are doing with what I am writing right now.

Spring is here. Crocuses then daffodils then tulips came up all over our yard, which continues to be miraculous to me. The dracunculus vulgaris has also reappeared, much to the dismay of my lovely wife.

She's a great wife, so I tolerate her idiosyncracies, which include a dislike of cars that catch on fire even a little bit and an inexplicable antipathy to giant flowers that smell like rotten meat and attract hordes of flies during the hottest days of the summer.

So, if anyone would like to adopt little Draco please come to our house with a shovel and a bucket.

Free range chickens

2008-04-06T17:15:00.001-04:00

We got a new toy, about which I will blog in the fullness of time, but in the meanwhile here is a short movie of Peter with chickens and some little girls. We went to Fosterfields yesterday and had a great time.

There are a bunch more clips from the day, which you can see if you follow the link to the google vid.

Sometimes you must love the internet

2008-04-01T06:08:00.001-04:00

Several great Alan Watts lectures, animation produced by the South Park guys.

Nick plays KCRW!

2008-03-13T04:57:00.001-04:00

With Lizz Wright on Morning Becomes Eclectic, one of our favorite music shows!

A day in the life

2008-03-06T09:15:00.001-05:00

Here's a snippet that captures several hours of life in our living room on a typical weekday. I set the webcam to capture one frame every second then I ran them together using virtualdub. I removed a couple hours where nothing happened except for the cat walking through once in a while.

Oh man, I just got a great idea for the next version. Check back soon.

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary

2008-02-15T08:15:00.006-05:00

Sir's climbing abilities are advancing. To his credit, he did ask for help getting down.

His favorite spoken word of the week is "Daddy."

His favorite signing word of the week is "cold." Chris and I were talking about cold at the dinner table and Peter jumps up and signs "the ice cream is cold" then runs to the window and signs "outside is cold." I gave him popsicles last weekend because he was cutting molars. Later in the week I was asking him if he wanted a cracker in the car and he said he wanted a popsicle. We don't know the sign for popsicle, so he pointed to the popsicle stick on the floor (alas, there are many things on the floor of my car) and signed cold. I knew exactly what he was talking about.

All of a sudden he started to ask to watch "Blues Clues" a lot! His request coincided with him actually playing Blues Clues. For those of you who don't know the show, the characters find a series of clues and try to figure out the answer to a puzzle. The first time I saw that he was "playing" was when they asked "which of these piles has 3 things?" Peter signs "the bananas" and the actor says "that's right, the bananas." I thought-- this must be a fluke. Maybe he just saw bananas on screen and signed that coincidently-- but the other piles were all things that he knew the signs for and when he signs just to say things that he recognizes, he'll sign the whole picture. Then I thought, well, he's seen this episode 100 time and he memorized the answer-- but then we got a new Blues Clues DVD from the library and the first time he watched it, they asked "which animal goes above and below the water?" and he signs, "the dolphin." I had no idea they could know all this at such a young age!

Yesterday, I wasn't planning to put him in baby-sitting at the Y -- but he saw the other kids playing with the toys and begged to go in. When I left, he ran off to make some pretend phone calls. I had no idea that pretend play started so early! When I came back to get him, he had made a friend. The sitters said this little boy was crying when his mom left him and Peter went to console him. They continued to play together the rest of the time. I ended up leaving him an extra half hour because he wanted to play with his friend. Sniff! He's growing up so fast!!

My Endorsement

2008-02-04T14:01:00.001-05:00

I encourage you to ignore this and I hope you will feel free to disagree, but here it is:

I sent money to Barack Obama the other day. I want him to be the next president.

I don't think I know him very well, but I have never heard him say anything idiotic or reprehensible. I don't mean to damn him with faint praise, I think that's extraordinary these days.

He seems to match my priorities well:

I think the best way to deal with America's foreign problems is to stop making them worse. There are no meaningful foreign threats to the physical security of Americans that can't be fixed with honesty and intelligence.

I think that our top national priority should be to restore and promote America's "soft" infrastructure: an educated population, unafraid of penury, full of optimism and enthusiasm. Such an America would have nothing to fear from anyone or anything.

I want to be proud of America again.

no no no!

2008-02-01T07:09:00.000-05:00

I've written before about Peter's spoken vocabulary. All of the words I listed before are "baby talk" words. Now he's said his first "real" word. I don't know how to describe the difference that I'm getting at-- but if you heard it, you'd know what I mean. Anyway, the word is: NO! He goes around the house demonstrating all the things he's not allowed to do saying no, no, no. He also says no to food he doesn't want to eat or activities he doesn't want to do. Sometimes he just says it because he knows he says it well and he's pleased with saying it. I'm trying to get him to say yes instead with little success.

He made his first sign language sentence this week. He pointed to the radiator and asked, "Hot?" then he went and touched it and said, "No. Cold."

Last week he clearly needed to go potty and I asked him if he wanted to go. He said no. Then I asked him where his potty was. He pointed to the guest room. I'm thinking that he's confused because there is no potty in the guest room. I tell him it not there. He tells me it is there. This continues a while and I drop it. Later I was in the guest room and I find that he'd hidden a bag of poopy diapers in the guest room. He knew.

bragging about my fella

2008-01-03T08:12:00.000-05:00

They did an article about Chris' school in the local paper and featured Chris as a model teacher. Check it out!

recommendation

2007-12-18T07:23:00.000-05:00

We really love "Signing Time!"

It was created by the family of a deaf child. It has so much heart and wonderful music. Peter really enjoys it-- and actually, Chris & I do too. We found the whole series at our local library.

At first, only Chris & I were learning from the DVDs but after Peter had been signing for 3 months or so he started learning from the DVDs. I know this because lately he started signing a bunch of words that I never taught him. I can also tell a difference in the the way he watches. It's like you can see the wheels turning in his head.

I've started using some of the songs at the sing-a-long I lead at the library. Several moms said those are their kids favorite songs -- and I see them really learning the signs too.

milestone

2007-12-17T20:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Peter made pee-pee in the potty for the first time. Today he made his first poopy in the potty. After he learned the sign for potty he started telling me that he had to go. My mom said that I should take that as a sign that he was ready for potty training. I borrowed a potty from a friend. The next time he told me he had to go I tried sitting him on the little potty-- he seemed afraid to sit on it, so I put it in a corner and let the whole thing go. Weeks later he pulls it out of the corner, sits on it and signs for me to undress him-- but when I came to take his clothes off he signs for me to take him upstairs to the grown up potty. I did. And he sat on it no problem-- but no pee pees came. Chris said he would have a hard time peeing in front of his Mom, so yesterday when Peter asked I let Chris take him to the bathroom and it worked! Today he was able to make it work with Mommy in attendance.

childproofing defeated

2007-12-13T12:14:00.001-05:00

So, Thursday 29 November I go into the kitchen to see if we had marmalade, or if I needed to add it to my shopping list. I was in there less than a minute. I hear a squeal from the dining room that sounds a little too happy. I come back in and Peter is in the middle of the dining room table eating the salt. I'd never seen him climb before and instantly he is an expert.

Monday 3 December, I slammed the index finger of my dominant hand in the car door rendering it useless for a week. Wouldn't you know it? Peter proceeds to defeat almost every bit of baby proofing we've done that week. He easily climbs the barrier to get to the stairs. He climbs my accordion to get onto a side table that has an interesting antique lamp. And he's figured out how to pull climbable things over to unclimbable things so he can reach them.

Fortunately, he's pretty good at climbing down stairs and tall objects and he seems to remember which things I've told him are hot -- but still, he really can't be left alone now. And he's so fast. The same week as the salt incident he ran away from me at the pool and almost jumped into the deep end before I could get there.

He's starting to really get into books now. He really listens and signs all the words that he knows and asks about pictures of things that he doesn't know the words for. Hours of fun. Last week he asked me to read "Goodnight Moon" to him in the middle of the day. When we got to the part where you start to say goodnight to everything he started crying. He was inconsolable until I made it clear that he didn't really have to go to bed.

He's signing all the time now. He signs to ask for what he wants, when he sees an object he recognizes in real life or in a picture, and also when he hears a word he knows either in conversation or in a song. Chris and I were making a curry and looking for fish sauce at our local grocery. Peter starts signing "Fish" just to be part of the conversation. We like to watch Northern Exposure, which has a moose in the credits. Peter will start signing "Moose" now during the opening scene-- before the music has even started to let us know that he knows there is going to be a moose.

He's extremely verbal now. He'll make long streams of sounds-- like sentences. Sometimes the sounds sound like words. Sometime they don't. He is very good at imitating the musicality and flow of the way he hears people talk. It's very disconcerting to hear how he hears me and to see my gestural life mimicked.

Small creatures talking

2007-12-10T05:38:00.001-05:00

We had a great weekend. Boy news first: I was on record as being dubious about the whole infant sign language thing, but I am a believer now. The kid talks all the time.

He talk about what he wants: eat and drink have been consistant for a while now, but he's starting to get more specific and increasing his vocabulary. In the kitchen this weekend, we saw him ask for a banana for the first time. He's was pointing but we kept not understanding, so he just made the sign for banana and our jaws dropped. It's not one of those signs you can easily misinterpret either, you hold up your index finger and make a peeling motion with your other hand. He said it clear as day.

He also likes to talk about what he sees, which mostly means lots of animal signs. Anything large and quadrupedal gets the horse sign, but that's not bad. The difference between horse, cow, donkey, and moose signs are pretty finicky. He came to visit my high school class on Friday and impressed everyone by correctly identifying the animals we found with google image search.

And to think that without sign language I might have no idea how much goes on in his head! I might not have known he could tell a cat from a dog, much less a picture of a dog from a picture of a horse! Credit to his mom, again, on this one.

So here's me, psychology grad, certified teacher, didn't know anything at all until this kid came along.

Yesterday Peter went to visit my folks while Grey and I went to see the Golden Compass. It was great! I found it much more emotionally involving than the rest of the epic fantasy type movies (Narnia, Star Wars, Hobbits, etc.) and I thought that the seditious themes were portrayed fairly true to the books. Any more overt and it would have been caricature, there is so much less room for imagination and subtlety in movies.

I'm writing a lot this morning because my lesson is coming hard, but at least I am getting something done, right?

Us, you, and your mailbox

2007-12-06T08:50:00.001-05:00

I really love how a blog post lets you reach your friends in a way they can ignore without hurting your feelings. Here's another time I am relying on this feature.

If you are reading this, you are one of our friends. We want to send you one of our new Christmastime cards. We have probably lost your address. Can you help?

Would you consider filling in this obnoxious form to tell us where to send your card? It's completely private and will make it much less likely that we lose your address in the chaos of Chris's inbox.

Here is a picture of Peter from Halloween that I really like.

Things I learned this morning

2007-12-06T07:35:00.001-05:00

My morning commute is often a time for reflection and contemplation, a quiet time on cruise control with coffee and a bagel.

But this morning I learned three new things:

1. There is at least one coyote living in Boonton, NJ

2. A Cadillac at 60mph can brake and maneuver more abrubtly than you might think

3. Coyotes are extremely nimble

Metacognition and armored bears

2007-11-30T06:16:00.001-05:00

The nice thing about a blog post, I guess, is that friends and family can ignore it easily without hurting the originator's feelings, unlike an interjection around the dinner table or even an email in the inbox. This may be a candidate. But at the moment I am going to test the idea that when I feel like blogging I should blog.

A have a break in my routine this morning because I am going to a workshop at Rutgers instead of teaching at high school. I got up early and finished my grading early so I have been reading.

Let me link to two articles that might be really interesting to parents and teachers.

From an online journal called Cognitive Daily: What's the best way to praise a child? Be specific.

From Scientific American: The secret to raising smart kids

And now for something completely different, a link to another article I enjoyed reading this morning.

The Atlantic Monthly on the movie adaptation of His Dark Materials: How Hollywood saved God

If you enjoyed Philip Pullman's books you will enjoy this article. And mmmaybe the movie too.

time is getting away

2007-11-26T17:07:00.001-05:00

Peter is growing so fast and no one is managing to write anything down. He's an expert walker now. He was doing <5 steps starting in August. September 27th I was going to an evening training class for our new job. Peter and I teach Mom-and-tot swimming. Peter was going to stay home with Daddy and I was trying to slip out before he noticed I was gone. He did notice, however, and just walked down the driveway after me. Daddy counted 27 steps before he lost count. Peter on fell when he tried to go up stairs. Daddy was the only person who witnessed the first big walk. Now he's pretty much unstoppable -- unless you put him in bulky shoes or very uneven ground. I saw him thinking about jumping today.

Peter was a cowboy for Halloween. He managed to keep the hat on for a few minutes.

He's almost swimming on his own-- kicking me to get away. He can jump in from the side, kick, put his face in & blow bubbles -- but not on command.

His spoken vocabulary includes:
mama, dada, bye bye, all done, hat, hot, hi, hey, woo woo (meaning train), juice (only understandable by me)

His signing vocabulary includes:
milk, more, ball, eat, drink, all done, bye bye, hi, no**, kitty, dog, mouse, fish, rain, snow, train* , hat, hot, up

*his own version, but clear and consistent

He can't make the fingers for cow, donkey and horse-- but he knows all of those signs are on the head, so he ends up signing hat for these. He also knows that the sign for shoes involves putting hands together. His version looks more like his version of ball. He's working on signing bird and airplane -- but they are still a work-in-progress.

Yesterday he almost went potty. We borrowed a potty from a friend. He knows what it is and what it's for-- but when I brought it home he was afraid to sit on it, so I put it in a corner and decided to wait. Yesterday he pulled it to the center of the room, opened it, closed it and sat on it. Then he stood up and started pulling on his clothes to let me know he wanted them off. Then he took my hand and led me to the bathroom and pulled on his clothes again. I took off his clothes and sat him on the toilet. Nothing happened. So, I demonstrated going potty and then sat him up there again. Nothing happened. I took him in his room to get dressed and he sat on the floor and peed. Close!

Our friends Rob and Molly introduced us to the great family band Dan Zanes and Friends. We've seen them twice now. They are great to see live if you ever get a chance. Here's us with Father Goose at Jewsapalooza.

talking with hands

2007-08-19T08:06:00.000-04:00

I've been teaching Peter a little sign language. I started around 6-months when he started pointing and being inquisitive about the world around him. Somewhere along the line he started repeating signs to me -- but only in a monkey-see-monkey-do sort of way. There were a few times between 9 and 10 months that I thought he might know that what he was doing was actually a word. On his 10-month birthday, I knew for sure. After breakfast he threw a tantrum and I asked him what he wanted. He signed "more eat." I gave him more breakfast and all was right with the world. Pretty damn cool!

The boy is pretty much an eating machine. He's had Indian, Ethiopian, Turkish, Japanese, Mexican, etc. He'll try anything. If he doesn't like it, he'll usually take it out and look at it and try it again. Very game child. I'm expecting a growth spurt anytime now. He shot up to almost 20 lbs by 4-months-old, and now at 10-months-old, he's not yet 22 lbs. He's got 6 teeth now. The bottom 2 came back in April. The top 4 came last month. He's biting, unfortunately.

Oh, about our NC trip. I need to mention that Chris and I slid down this waterfall. Very scary!

We also rode ATVs. I only almost tipped mine over once.

Hell's kitchen

2007-08-18T08:10:00.000-04:00

We have been feeding the cats in Weehawken while Nick and Zoe are up north for Emily's wedding. They have a nice new apartment around the corner from our old place.

Anyway, we drove out Thursday evening and decided to take the xbox through the Lincoln tunnel and have dinner at our old favorite Ethiopian restaurant in midtown. I felt like a rube in the big city after all this time as a suburbanite, I even had to pay cash at the tunnel, but the old driving skills came back quickly. It's almost hard to believe that Weehawken was home for five years!

Anyway, we enjoyed our meal and Peter was a real good sport. He tried everything but the spiciest dishes and he charmed the socks off the staff.

(I reminded Peter that he now has an Ethiopian cousin whom he will get to meet some day! Any of our friends who also know Magda and Paul in Toronto will be thrilled to know that Yonas is now at home with them. He's just the same age as Peter and looks just as handsome and just as active.)

After dinner we crossed the street to walk through the playground because Peter was so interested in watching the big kids. We watched the kids on the jungle gym and the basketball court, and we saw regular folks (not fund managers and consultants) from every culture you could imagine all taking care of their kids together. It was a great big-city time on a hot night in the middle of August. The kind of thing that makes you think you might like to live in New York after all. Momentarily.

And there was this super cool fountain with jets that sprayed every which way in an inpredictable manner. Peter thought this looked like the coolest thing in the world. I was being a scaredy cat but G reassured me, so we stripped off the boy and let him crawl right in. He had the greatest time chasing the jets and getting sprayed and playing with the big kids. The other kids were so nice and careful with him it was amazing to see. Much more kindness and consideration than I would have expected from kids anywhere.

I got these pics with my camera phone, and we met a photographer who was there with her 19-month old son. She snapped a couple pictures and we might see those some time too, but for now I want to post these lo-fi pictures because it was such a good time for all of us.

Of course that diaper got soaked but I didn't want to expose a naked baby in post-giuliani NYC so I just let him drag it around.

Most everybody was pretty impressed that our little sack of spuds was so game for an adventure. But that's how he is. It makes me happy, despite the down side that all parents will understand.

Of course, at the end of the adventure we discovered that our diaper bag had no fresh diapers in it, but we wrapped him in a towel and he was fine. We bundled back into the Scion and escaped back through the tunnel, past the old neighborhood, and back to suburbia. I carried the sleeping baby upstairs and we all went to sleep together. A good night had by all.

more smokies

2007-08-12T07:41:00.000-04:00

There was a lot of rain during the week but most of the time it didn't spoil the fun. The picture below is a happy memory for me. We were all playing down at the creek and Peter was having a great time in the water. Grey and Picot decided to hike upstream with the tubes and I bundled Peter in a towel and headed back to camp. On the way, the heavens opened and I scampered for shelter. By the time I got under the canopy Peter was out like a light. I tucked in the towel around his little feet and sat down in a camp chair.

It felt like we sat there for hours, he slept and slept and I kept him warm and listened to him breathe and watched the rain in the forest.

Eventually Picot and Grey returned from floating down the creek in the thunderstorm. Picot gave me a beer and we sat for a while longer. Good clean fun.

Here's Picot and Suzie and us and Peter and Maeve. Myrina and Daphne ran around with pals all day long and had a great time.

Here's G and Maeve upstream on Deep Creek.

Camping with an infant is a lot of work but it was very rewarding for all of us. Peter had a blast every minute of the day, and slept well at night.

camping in the great smokies

2007-08-12T07:27:00.000-04:00

This morning I am sitting with the boy while his mom steals a couple extra z's. He's watching a signing video and I will see if I can blog a little about our family camping trip.

We took the van, of course, with the biggest load-out ever -- even bigger than our cross-country trip where we lived in it for four months. In retrospect, we could have done without the stroller, but the exer-saucer turned out to be indispensible.

The rear bunk area of the van makes a comfy refuge when the bedroom doors are closed. Unfortunately it's not really big enough for the whole family at once, so I would decamp to a tent after lights-out.

We camped at the Deep Creek Campground in Great Smoky Mountains national park. We redezvoused with Picot and Suzie Floyd and their daughters Myrina, Daphne, and Maeve. That's Picot below, with Maeve and Peter.

The campground is near the Cherokee reservation, along the banks of Deep Creek. The water was colddddd but beautiful. It was great for swimming and playing in. We carried tubes upstream and floated down past the rocks and over the rapids. We fell in a lot. It was great.

Peter thought the whole thing was great. He has mostly stopped eating sand but once in a while he tries to eat a rock when he thinks we aren't watching. He loves the water and doesn't seem to notice the cold.

Better post while I can!

autocross pics with boy

2007-08-10T05:57:00.000-04:00

We are back from camping and we need to blog about that, but in the meantime here are some pictures from last month's autocross.

Click on the image for more.

shed days

2007-07-23T06:15:00.000-04:00

The new shed is up in the back yard, there are some good pictures of my dad and unk with Peter.

Look, picasa web albums has a new obnoxious flash slideshow!

the end of another era

2007-07-23T06:11:00.001-04:00

I'm selling my BMW. Not, I hasten to add, because I think owning a 4L V8 is environmentally irresponsible. A certain amount of irrational exuberance is all that makes the human condition bearable.

I was never really a giant-BMW kind of guy anyway, or at least I never thought I was, but I admired its massive competence and tank-like construction. I loved the black-leather-and-fake-walnut interior experience and the science-fiction way you can go as fast as you want without noise, rattles, and a feeling of imminent crashing death.

On the highway it was never happy going less than 80, and the back seats are not kid-seat friendly. So our Cadillac sedan will be my new commuter and family car. It's a good car, more comfortable if not more responsive, and for motoring thrills at least it's got a big ol' American 4.8L V8.

I will hang on to my BMW CCA membership because they run a great autocross. Me and Dad and my uncle and Peter went yesterday. I was going to drive the mini but the mini's ignition crapped out so I was driving the family Omni racecar. We had a lot of fun. Peter loved the noise and the crowds.

I spent half the time standing in the sun, picking up cones that people knocked down, and the other half of the time in the Omni knocking down cones. It was great.

This morning we are leaving on our camping trip. The van is loaded to the gunwales, but I am still thinking of things we need to bring. Watch this space for updates, or if you have the technology, my facebook page. It's easier to update that from the mobile phone.

on the road again

2007-07-21T06:57:00.001-04:00

We are preparing for our family road trip to North Carolina. Today I hope to replace the cooling unit in the van's propane fridge, a surprisingly expensive part which is supposed to be easy to install.

I have already documented other modifications to the van to accommodate His Majesty, and yesterday I mounted a little video screen for his viewing pleasure. Wiggles vids are his favorite, but we also get some mileage out of Blues Clues and the Muppet Show.

Our early aspiration to keep his pure little mind unsullied by TV was ditched in short order when we realized there were greater developmental advantages to be gained by having parents who are not nuts.

Today's other project is to mount personal speakers on his car seat so that he can hear the video soundtrack. I also have high hopes that this might permit me to hear fewer Wiggles tunes myself in the car. For 700 miles there and 700 miles back. That's a lot of Wiggles.

OK, it's almost 7am, better post and get to work. We are also expecting a flying visit from Paula, Dennis, and Simon, driving past on their way to someone else!

self feeding (well, sort of.)

2007-07-07T10:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Peter's 9-month birthday. I gave him a bowl of yogurt to celebrate-- then, I stripped him and hosed him down. And the deck. It's lucky that this stage of development happened to coincide with summer.

Now Peter has been on the outside as long as he was on the inside. And he's not the only one who has been growing and changing. I've lost huge parts of what I considered to be me. I thought of myself as a type-A person. Always on time. Always the over-achiever. All of that is gone now. I believe it's part of my journey to have that all taken away from me. The latest thing is that I see the boy has inherited big parts of my personality. Now that I see them on someone else, I can see how these traits are NOT going to make him happy. But, he's mostly happy now. So, maybe he'll be the new-improved version.

For more pics and a little movie click here. I tried to capture him in the act of eating, or even playing with the utensils. However, as soon as Peter sees a camera he has to pose. Candids seem impossible. Every movie that Peter is not strapped down for ends with Peter crawling towards and grabbing for the camera. Already moving away from the tao. Poor guy.

wheels for sale

2007-07-06T07:21:00.000-04:00

For some reason I have been hoarding wheels and tires so we will see if craigslist is any use out here in the country. You want Scion, you want BMW, we got 'em.

Will trade for mini tires, the bomb is still running on the ones I fitted back in '00. And at the moment it's got more scoot than grip, which is unusual for a mini I suppose.

I feel a little guilty that I am using my child for commercial purposes, but here's the picture I posted for the BMW wheels:

Big job update

2007-07-03T09:44:00.001-04:00

It's morning again, the boy is napping on my back in the ergo sling. Great device. He had some green beans and peaches for breakfast. Chunks, he will basically not accept "baby food" anymore.

Spent yesterday getting some yard supplies from a kind family who are moving to a condo. We got a deck furniture set and a grill that hooks up to the natural gas supply on our deck. So that was nice. Also a pitchfork, adze, maul, and mattock. Just in case we ever need those.

We are also trying to get an 8x10 potting shed from Mendham to here. It was prefabbed in Vermont and is very well built. It comes apart easily into sections but I think we all underestimated the mass of an 8x10 wall made of 2x4's and plywood. It's in great shape, but we discovered an incipient colony of carpenter ants within the structure so much of the day was spent in removing them. Watching them frantically trying to evacuate their egg cases made me wonder what kind of a karma burden I was taking on. Oh well, circle of life and that stuff.

Boy is stirring. Must post n scoot.

Busy lazy summer

2007-07-02T07:39:00.001-04:00

Me and the family have been working hard on all kinds of things. Dad and unk helped modify the van to accomodate a family of three. We made space for his car seat and repositioned his mom's chair to keep him company. I replaced the house battery and the linoleum on the floor, and made a new deck that can double as an emergency daddy-bunk.

The boy likes the van a lot. The rear bed section works great as an infant-containment system, although he managed to put his chubby little fist through the screen on the passenger side. Not his fault of course. I think that having the van will be a big help for us on a daily basis, it's great to have a little house to bring on day trips. And if he falls asleep and we need to park somewhere we have a bed and bathroom and pantry. Soon we will have a fridge again as soon as I manage to order a remanufactured cooling unit.

So I have posted some new pictures on Facebook. Anyone can see them. I've been having fun with that service lately, a bunch of friends are using it and it's fun to see what they are doing with it. So, if you're my friend, go ahead and try it out too!

This morning I am watching the baby while G gets a few extra z's, the boy has a cold and he was snotty all night, poor little bug. Poorer mom, who was stuck with primary care duty. Whenever he is really unhappy nothing will do for him but his mom.

Later this morning my ever-useful father and uncle will help me move a ton of garden supplies, including an 8x10ft shed, to our house. It will be a lot of fun, and I'll try to post some new pics.

OK I better post'n'scoot. Seeya.

Pinky & the Brain

2007-06-26T07:20:00.000-04:00

There are probably eight or nine other people like me, who will think this is hilarious.

more about where we are now

2007-06-25T09:44:00.000-04:00

Peter started clapping on Saturday. He recognizes all his family members and claps when they enter a room. Somewhere in the last month he stated crawling up stairs. He cannot crawl down stairs.

He offers his food to other people (and random inanimate object). The other day after he offered my breast to his toy monkey and then to me. On the other hand, while we were at the library one day he pushed another baby down and took his bottle. And this Saturday at a picnic he crawled onto another family's blanket and ate all their baby's puffs. So much for sharing!

He's always very active. He tries to stand on his head while nursing. He also sits up and crawls and throws himself around in his sleep. I've been taking him swimming at the Y since he was 4 months. He LOVES this. He gets really excited when we start walking down the hall for the pool. He can stand on his own for longer in water then on land. He's not at all afraid of getting his face wet. They have a bunch of cool squirty elements in the pool, which he loves to play with. He's extended this "fun with fluid mechanics" play to his bottle, and breast milk. Funny: I can barely pump him a bottle with a pump. I can't express ANY milk manually, but Peter can work me like a cow.

We are trying to teach him simple signs. A few times he made the "milk" sign, tho he usually just tries to pull my shirt up. Not ideal -- but, at least it's clear. He does repeat simple phrases like "all done" and "bye bye." And he waves. He knows that he's "Peter" and I'm "Mommy." He knows if he says "Mamamama" in a pitiful voice he can get my attention.

perpetual motion machine

2007-06-23T08:57:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed that there hasn't been a lot of blogging since Peter started to crawl. This is because in the moment that Peter first crawled, life totally changed. I have been feeling like Roger Rabbit in this cartoon. You read in science fiction and fantasy books about "magic doors" -- where you go through the magic door and life on the other side is totally different in an instant, and there's no going back. Baby learning to crawl is a real-life magic door. (Auto accidents are another, but that's a different story.)

Peter has started inquiring about the world around him. If he hears a sound (we have live near the train and the fire house, so there are some big sounds that interest little boys) he indicates the sound as if to ask about it. Also, if he sees a creature move, he points and makes inquisitive sounds. Taking him to the zoo is FUN now. He gets sooo excited. Hearing Peter laugh is the best sound I know.

Peter also has started feeding himself. It's a giant mess -- but I get to feed myself at mealtimes now. :)

This week Richard Grunn ( a fellow member of Zuppa del Giorno) and I had to busk at a conference. So, Peter got dragged to his first theatre-related event. He had a big time. He thought the juggler was about the coolest thing he ever saw and laughed heartily at the stupid sounds that Rich could make with his face (Rich is also a foley artist).

Chris' last day of school was Monday. So, now we have a lot more Daddy in our life. This is a wonderful thing! Pictured right are Chris and Peter taking a nap together. I actually got something accomplished that day -- tho, I don't remember what because my brain got left behind somewhere in the birthing process...

Mystery resolved

2007-06-18T18:58:00.000-04:00

Introducing Dracunculus vulgaris!

(Thanks to the nice folks at carnivorousplants.org)

Garden mystery

2007-06-16T10:29:00.000-04:00

This thing has been growing by our deck for a month. Last week two big spears started growing. This morning one popped open to reveal what looks like a giant fly-trap! Flies are swarming around it now. There is a big bulb at the bottom of the "blossom" that looks like a digestive organ. There is a faint not-pleasant odor, and the thing seems intent on pretending to be carrion.

What the hell?? A giant carnivorous plant in Bernardsville? Can anyone identify this?

Self-propelled!

2007-05-15T13:17:00.000-04:00

Because I was home sick I avoided a "Cat's in the Cradle" moment: I saw his little butt the very first time he did a real crawl across the floor.

He scooted in four-wheel drive without even thinking of it in order to capture the cat toy from the other end of the room. Having grabbed it, he whipped it around to the evident delight of all the floor-dwelling creatures in the room.

So, we are one step closer to my dream of having a child and cats that mutually amuse one another.

When I went to change the child earlier I found our big cat on the changing table. Normally she will not tolerate the boss's proximity but this time I put him down and she hung out. He grabbed several double handfuls of cat and she was very calm until she decided she needed to be somewhere else.

milestone

2007-05-15T13:07:00.001-04:00

First real crawling today!!

Dad ramblings

2007-05-15T12:54:00.000-04:00

Let's start with some uncommented and out-of-context kid pics!

Today I am at home sick. The doctor says it's some kind of opportunistic infection to which I was made vulnerable by allergies, or allergies to which I was made vulnerable by some kind of infection. Anyway, it sucks. I am coughing, snotty, and have a rotten sore throat. I can only croak intermittantly and I curl up into an unattractive Monty Burns posture when I cough, because the relevant muscles are so sore after four days of this.

Yeah I know, it's not childbirth, get over it. More to come as we all get older. A great opportunity to ponder the limitations of the flesh.

Anyway, it was cool to be able to see a local doctor for $5. He was a nice young guy, unhurried and competent. It's good to have insurance when you need it.

He gave me some drug samples, wrote a couple of prescriptions, and listed some OTC meds he thought I should buy. Guess how many different medications? If you guessed seven, you are correct. One bottle of prescription nose spray cost $77.

I tried some of the drug cocktail yesterday but I still wasn't feeling much better, just dried out and dissociated from the cough syrup. In the evening I started gargling with cayenne pepper. This is touted as a miracle cure on various websites -- I found it more effective and much less unpleasant than the $15 chloraseptic throat spray, but not an instant cure.

The $77 nose spray is supposed to start working after a week or so, but it seems to me that most illnesses are going to start feeling better after a week or so no matter what you use, right?

What has helped instantly with the sinus problems has been regular use of G's neti pot. This produces instant relief, lasting for some hours, for the approximate cost of a teaspoon of salt. It'll never catch on.

In family news (from the Dad's perspective) we've been having a wonderful time as spring unrolls across NJ. The leaves are out and the season is truly underway. We were delighted to see tulips in all colors appear in our back yard, and the sadness of seeing the blossoms drop off has been largely assuaged by the joy of seeing all the new green.

Much of the initial green was an agressive hegemonising weed swarm that tried to eat the back yard. I beat it back with a shower of harmful chemicals to maintain the sanctioned monoculture. At this point the insurgency is in its last throes but I remain prepared to deliver a surge of more 1,5,8-disbiphenoxypropylacetate if stability is not achieved in a couple weeks.

Now it's mostly grass back there, and probably even safe for the baby to sit in. Or it would be, if he did not have the impulse to grab and eat anything smaller than his head. Although we're cool with the idea that he is going to eat a certain amount of dirt and bugs, there was an incident with a stick last week that raised some choking concerns.

We planted some flowers and some herbs in the boxes by the side of the house and they seem to be thriving. We buried a bunch of other things in the dirt around the house and they are displaying a more varied set of behaviors. I've discovered I quite like yard work, once I get into the groove.

Home remedy update: I'm now sipping a cup of hot isotonic saline with a half-teaspoon of extra-hot chili powder steeped in it. It's effective on the sort throat and actually pretty tasty. Not at all like the yucky medicinal deadening of the Chloraseptic. Next time maybe I will try chicken broth instead of the salt water.

Well, wife and child are home from the Mommy and Me hike at Schiff so I better sign off. It's been nice blogging at you, hope I get to do it again soon. Now go update your own so I can read it!

mamamama

2007-05-02T11:33:00.000-04:00

Peter is 7-months-old now! So much goes on:

He's been making a scary amount of progress with locomotion and grabbing. He did his first 360 roll April 14. It took him a while to figure out that he could use this skill to get anywhere in the room. He seems to have radar for the things in the room that are expensive, dangerous or both. So, he'll roll straight up to the computer cord and either eats it or try to pull the computer onto his head.

He doesn't seem to be very interested in crawling. He's much more interested in standing. He will try to pull himself up with any object. He doesn't yet have a good sense of which objects work for this and which don't. (e.g. side of the crib, good. kitty, bad.)

He will sit, throw himself forward into the crawling position, and then try to stand rather than crawl. New this week: he learned how to get back to sitting after throwing himself into crawling position. He used to hit the crawling pose, fall onto his stomach after his arms tired, roll onto his back and yelp to be sat up. This weekend I saw him combine this set of skills. He rolled over to an object he wanted, rolled to his stomach, pushed up through crawling position and back to sit.

He can also scoot on his butt when he's sitting. He surprised me with this one two weeks ago. It was raining and I sat him in the middle of the bed to close the window. I figured it was safe: queen-size bed and only long enough to close the window. Wrong! He scoots to the edge of the bed and dives onto the hard-wood floor. Bad Mommy took him to the doctor. He cried the whole way, then proceeds to flirt, coo and giggle at the receptionists, nurses and Dr. -- who are all like, 'Why are you wasting our time, lady.'

Today, I actually saw him scoot himself & his rocking chair across the kitchen to try to pet the cat while strapped into his chair.

Over the last week or so, he's been making consonant/vowel combinations-- rather than just vowels. So, we've heard our first mamama and bababa and full blown baby talk words like abagaba.

He has 2 teeth now: bottom front. The first one came in April 17 and the second one on April 21. He can bite quite hard. a couple of weeks ago, Daddy sported a band-aid to school for all to see.

Over the last month we traveled to Florida, Maryland and Philly. Peter had his first trip to the beach, rode his first merry-go-round, saw King Tut's stuff and watched St. John's cream the Navy at croquet. By the way, if you want to crash parties and be offered lots of free champagne, show up wearing a cute baby! Click here to check out all the new pictures of the young prince. No croquet pictures yet -- they are on Aunt Gretchen's camera.

family days in florida

2007-04-09T11:21:00.000-04:00

2007-04-09 Florida

Today I'm just linking to a big pile of baby pictures from our holiday in Florida. Mostly he is just sitting around looking cute.

We are having a good time, today we are going to the zoo with the boy and his cousins.

Right now he is being carefully and comprehensively licked by his cousins' dog Tigger. I think it's about time he had someone else drool all over HIM for a change.

so many things

2007-04-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

Peter will be 6-months-old tomorrow and so much is going on! This is a great time. He can entertain himself for small stretches -- but still stays where put.

His well baby visit went fine. He weighed 19.5 lbs and measures 27" putting him in the 75th percentile for height and weight.

Today he discovered the joy of splashing in the bath.

Yesterday while Peter was sitting in his high chair, he grabbed the table cloth off the table and pulled the whole thing in his lap-- including the pad and the napkin holder with all the napkins. He was very pleased. See above.

Yesterday he was also able to put his toes in his mouth for the first time.

Last week he started sitting so well! He's very straight and he really only falls when he reaches for something way out of his reach. Look at the difference between his sitting at 6 month vs. at 3 months:

Sunday, he rode in the shopping cart for the first time. Very cool. Now, I can get rid of the infant car seat. Woohoo!

Two weeks ago we went to California to visit my folks. Peter sure enjoyed the warm weather and playing with his Mimi and his Papa, who is very creative and funny. We have lots of California pics which include riding the train at Griffin Park, swimming in Mimi & Papa's pool and driving the big, red car. See below.

We've also been playing with food. We started doing this because he was watching us like a hawk whenever we ate. At first, he seemed happy enough to get to play with a spoon-- no actual food was necessary. Now, it depends on his mood. He may cry if you don't give him food, he may just play with the spoon or he may continue to play with his toys and not notice adult mealtime. You never can tell. Drinking is another story. I CAN'T take a drink without him begging. Though, most of the time he's happy to just put his mouth on my Nalgene bottle without actually getting in water.

Click here to see all the Peter pics.

fun and danger with DHMO

2007-03-20T13:50:00.001-04:00

My students were very impressed today because I let them work unsupervised with dihydrogen monoxide.

The common substance has many remarkable properties but it's also a little worrying to see how many dangers it's associated with.

Consult the dhmo faq for more information.

milestone

2007-03-14T21:52:00.000-04:00

Peter turned over from tummy to back for the first time today. He's 5 months and eight days old. The baby book says most babies do this by pushing up with their arms and use the weight of their head to torque them over. Peter gets his legs up underneath him and pushes off.

new favorite comic

2007-03-10T10:30:00.000-05:00

xkcd is "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". What's not to love? Go check out some of my faves here.

things that only mom cares about

2007-02-23T10:56:00.000-05:00

I figure I better start writing this stuff down before I forget-- though, I'm not sure this is interesting to anyone but me.

Yesterday, Peter played with bath toys for the first time. This week was the week he started playing with his feet. His binocular vision and ability to reliably grab the things he wants to grab happened in the last couple of weeks. This week he started showing a real interest in toys. He’s having more fun with them and also being frustrated with not being able to do what he wants with them. Before I could get him to hold a toy, but he just didn’t care. He loves “The Wiggles.” He’s started to kick a lot. He enjoys kicking things that make noise – this probably started last week. I started putting him on a bolster to make tummy-time more enjoyable (see video) about 3 weeks ago. Since then, he’s been less fussy about tummy time in general and seems to be better at playing in that position. He wants to practice standing all the time now. He’s been practicing since he was maybe 2-months-old (see, I’ve already forgotten) but now he’s really keen on it and wants to be able to do it on his own. He can sit by himself for a very short time, sometimes. He stood for a microsecond by himself, holding on to his crib the other day. He doesn’t like the Johnny-Jumper yet.

Two things I want to remember if we have another child: wear Chris' flannel pajama top with the top 2 buttons buttoned for winter night-time nursing to protect boobies from fingernails and cold. I can file the child's nails while he watches The Wiggles.

exotic family getaway

2007-02-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

For some reason we had a long weekend off at school, so the D'Amato family took a very exciting trip to Philadelphia. We stayed overnight in a hotel in the city center, next door to the Reading Terminal Market.

The trip included many firsts for the child: first long car ride, first time sleeping away from home, first swim in a pool. All these challenges were met with aplomb and every sign of enjoyment.

Mom and Dad enjoyed the change of scenery and the hustle and bustle of the big city. Philly is great, and the market is like an amusement park for us. Great fresh food and ingredients and interesting things and all kinds of people. We planned our visit around our meals, of course, we had soul food in the market for lunch, then a late dinner (for us) in Old City, and breakfast at the market again.

Our evening out in Old City is worth telling about. We went back to the belgian bar we stumbled into last summer. Back then, my heavily pregnant wife could not manage the moules and frites but this time we made up for the missed opportunity. I had a great sour beer, Duchesse of something or other.

The boy, of course, came along with us. Now that bars and restaurants in NY, NJ, and PA are smoke free it makes the whole adult world a lot more family friendly. The kid loves to get out and look at new places, and be admired by strangers, and when he gets tired or hungry it's easy enough to hide him under a blanket. We're pleased with ourselves that we manage to get out and about, showing him a good time and taking care of him while doing some of the things we enjoy doing.

This little picture came from my phone and it shows how much fun we were all having. Maybe G will write more about our trip later.

On Saturday we went to see Andrew and Farah, we had a great time hanging out and talking about babies and fussing over Himself, who was very well behaved.

So here is the summary of our trip:

Lunch: Ribs & collards at Delilah's in Reading Terminal Market

Dinner: Moules and frites, some beer too, at Eulogy in old city

Breakfast: Egg and pepper sandwiches, coffee, croissants at the market

Lunch: Pho #36 (beef eye round and brisket), avocado smoothie, iced vietnamese coffee at Cafe Viet Hoang at 11th & Washington

Afternoon snack: Cupcakes from Flying Monkey and an Amish organic cheese pastry that we brought from the Market

Dinner: Quesadilla and a goat burrito at the Caballitos Cantina on Passyunk

Breakfast: Andrew's white boy bacon and egg breakfast

And on our way out of town, a quick cheesesteak at Jim's on South St.

And since every cup of coffee I have ever had in a vietnamese restaurant has been exceptional, I bought a couple of the little brewing doodads they use and I've been experimenting with them this morning. This is possibly the last coffee-making apparatus I have not previously owned. Watch this space for updates.

nun better!

2007-02-12T20:27:00.000-05:00

Today Peter and I went with his Grandpa Nick to have lunch with the Sisters of Christian Charity.

The good sisters gave Peter many blessings and our Peter gave them many smiles.

Peter's Nun visiting costume includes a sweater knitted by my yoga student, Pat Zimmerman, a shirt from Grandma Paula, khaki pants from the Rob & Molly collection, socks from Anne Klein --the yoga student, not the designer, and shoes by Kim Kash. The terrific chair came from Aunt Pat.

Click here to see another picture and a very short video of Peter in his Nun visiting costume.

Last week we had a visit from my dear friend Gretchen Jacobs. In these pictures Peter is sporting an outfit that Gretchen got him in the South of France.

Click here for more pictures of Peter and Gretchen.

no longer safe

2007-02-09T09:33:00.000-05:00

We have 2 grey cats: Stretch & Stumpy. 90% -- maybe 99% of the cat pictures on the blog are of Stretch. There are two reasons for this: one, Stumpy is shy and, two, as much as you don’t like to talk about “favorites” in a family, Chris is Stretch’s favorite and I am Stumpy’s favorite. Chris does more blogging than me, so you’ve seen lots of Stretch.

We expected Stretch to get on well with the baby and Stumpy to be afraid, but it turned out to be the other way around. Stretch will have nothing to do with the baby, and Stumpy loves him. Even when Peter is screaming or crying (Stumpy is terrified of loud sounds and usually hides under the nearest piece of furniture), she will sit by him to make sure he is OK.

At first Peter couldn’t see the cats. Babies see mostly contrast and because the cats are grey, they just blend in. My mom said that she can’t even see my cats most of the time. A couple of weeks ago he saw Stumpy without my telling him that she was there. He pointed at her and laughed. Last week he pet her by himself without my guiding his hand. This morning he reached out and grabbed her fur. Poor Stumpy is no longer safe!

Click here for more pictures of Peter & Stumpy.

i guess he's ours

2007-01-31T09:15:00.000-05:00

Saturday we brought the boy to Northlandz. "What is Northlandz?" you ask. Northlandz is a 1-mile walk through one man's model train fantasy. The display also includes a doll collection, an organ collection and some "fine art." In short, it wants to be House on the Rock when it grows up.

Now, as a rule, young Peter has NO interest in standing still. He wants to be walked, strolled, bounced or danced. But he was held in rapt attention by this display -- so much so that if they sold a year’s pass, I’d get one.

This sort of display is not for everyone, but Chris and I love this stuff! We spent much of our honeymoon collecting places like this. The fact that Peter is interested shows, if there was any doubt, that he’s ours.

li' bubba

2007-01-30T09:01:00.000-05:00

It got up to 40 degrees F this Sunday. So, I took the boy into the yard to model some of his new duds.

Hat is courtesy of Grandpa Nick and jacket from Uncle Dairy. Overalls by Pat Charney and shirt from the Rob & Molly collection. And tho you cannot see them, shoes by Kim Kash.

I've started putting shoes on him because he's learned to kick his socks off. I just turn around and the socks are gone. So, in the interest of not having to buy more socks, he's got to wear shoes.

He'd wear nothing at all if I would let him.

Sigh. Maybe we'll move back to Florida...

Click here for more pics.

big week

2007-01-27T06:17:00.000-05:00

I am blogging from my thinkhole this morning. A wiggling baby is on my lap, a jealous cat is giving me the hairy eyeball, and my main computer is churning its way through a third attempt at a windows reinstall. Yes, the computer with all my schoolwork etc on it. It crapped out midweek for reasons obscure and slightly worrying. Any other week it would have been a complete disaster but the kids at school had just begun to present their biography projects.

My work and data are safe but this means hours and hours lost to reconfiguration. On the other hand, this is a good opportunity for me to start training my son. If he can do XP reinstalls by the time he's 6 I can start making money off him.

I've started teaching my weekly class down at Rutgers, Demonstration and Technology for Science Education. That's been fun but preparation is a lot of work. I'm trying to get the students to do as much of it as possible -- conveniently in line with modern pedagogical best practice, don't you know.

I made this logo for our class website, which I am very proud of, based on the Rutgers football logo of which we've been seeing a lot lately.

Check out our class website if you are desperately bored sometime. Click on the logo to visit dtse.org.

kid video

2007-01-21T11:45:00.001-05:00

watch out, grandparents

2007-01-15T17:46:00.001-05:00

Here are some pics from January that'll have you reaching for your hankies. Click on the picture to see more. This is a raw pile of pictures, non-grandparents are advised to wait for the highlights.

Or click here for a slideshow in your browser.

more sling fathering

2007-01-07T08:29:00.000-05:00

There are not many posts on this blog about mothering, because mothering happens all the time. Mothering happens instead of blog posting I guess. Fathers make posts on this blog when they have schoolwork to avoid. Or to be charitable, when father is warming up for schoolwork.

This is how the boy has been going off to sleep at the end of the day lately. I put him around my neck after dinner and walk laps until he falls asleep. I feel proud of myself for being such a useful father, but then of course G takes care of him for the next eight hours or so.

om for the holidays

2007-01-07T08:25:00.001-05:00

As many of our blog reader are aware, the friendly and progressive community of Greenbelt MD somehow exists happily just outside the event horizon of the moral black hole that is our nation's capital.

Otherwise the locals are fortunate for many reasons, but the latest good thing about Greenbelt is that our friend Kim has founded a studio of yoga there! She and husband Michael have been great pals of ours for ages. We just wanted to give a shout out to them and wish them the best of success and satisfaction with the new undertaking.

You can see more about what they are up to at GreenbeltOm.com

december favorites

2007-01-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

December Faves

A short list of baby pictures from last month. Gotta keep the grandmothers up to date!

Click on the picture to see the rest.

back to the grind

2007-01-02T04:58:00.000-05:00

I'm back in my work-hole in the early hours of the morning, preparing my first lessons on work and energy. The child is asleep in his carseat by my feet, where I hope he will remain for another hour until I have to get in the shower.

G has been up a lot at night to feed him lately. He was sleeping soundly through the night but we seem to have entered a growth spurt which means more feeding. Although G can top him up without getting out of bed, constant feeding means the difference between deep sleep and a night of dozing. It's been hard on her, but she continues with patience and loving kindness. Thank crap for moms.

(oops, a noise comes from the basket at my feet. cross your fingers.)

We all had a great break together, our little family and our extended family and friends. I even felt closer to my absent friends across the big pond, thanks to Christmas cards and blog posts. For me it was a much needed recharge after an extremely busy few months.

The other teachers tell me that this time of year is easier. Even though we are facing an uninterrupted stretch of school, they say that by now you know your students and they know you and you should be in a more comfortable groove -- if not a rut. I'm starting with a positive attitude, and I'm going to try to be a little easier on myself and on my customers in the weeks to come.

Here's a couple of random kid pics from the vacation. In this one he's wearing the blue bear outfit from Aunt Pat. Not sure what he is looking so alert about, but these days he is getting a lot better at seeing what's going on.

We sat him on the floor and propped him up and he sat, very wobbly, for much longer than we would have expected. He seemed to enjoy the new perspective. I think the pose gives him a certain air of mysterious wisdom.

Well, the basket remains quiet so your crossed fingers must have helped. I gotta get back to work. Grey wants to write more posts so keep your eyes peeled if you're a blog watcher.

Love and good wishes from me, and the rest of the family, to everyone else going back to the real world today.

new year’s wish

2006-12-31T22:58:00.000-05:00

The New Jersey Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary near our house has a holly tree. One of the naturalists there told us that one winter day a particular species of bird will come at eat every berry on that tree. It’s supposed to be something to worth seeing – but because it happens so quickly, you have to be very lucky or very diligent to catch it.

Last night Chris and I watched a documentary on ABBA. At the height of the band’s popularity, Agnetha Fältskog, the blond vocalist, decided she wouldn’t tour anymore because she wanted to stay home with her baby. Her husband, Björn Ulvaeus, the band’s guitar player totally didn’t get it. He figured, they had a Nanny, what difference would it make if they left the kid with her for a few days here or there?

The thing is, you don’t know when the birds will come to eat the berries – or when baby will take his first step. The only way to be sure to be there, is to always be there.

So, here is my New Year’s Wish: May you have the luxury to be there for all of next year’s unmissable moments. And may you have the serenity to be fully present for each of them.

Happy New Year!

christmas with cousins

2006-12-31T08:26:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday we had a great Christmas visit to Aunt Pat's farmhouse. My cousins Beth and Craig were visiting from distant North Carolina with their kids Thomas and Molly. Now, the actual relationship between their kids and ours is somewhat more distant, but at this point I am going to officially designate them as cousins, in the theory that you can't have too many cousins, certainly not when they are as sweet as Thomas and Molly.

Here's our little sausage with the lovely Molly.

Thomas was very pleased with the circuit-building kit we brought him, even after I told him that I am a teacher and the toy was probably educational. We promptly built a light-sensitive alarm. The kid is so smart and so quick it's a little scary.

We all had a swell time together. Our child was great. He seemed to have a great time being mauled by his cousins, who thought he was loads of fun. Me and G went away feeling very wealthy in the family department.

modern dad skills

2006-12-30T08:25:00.000-05:00

OK, now that I no longer travel and my workday schedule is completely predictable, I have become the owner of one of the most advanced communication tools that will fit in your pocket. I finally replaced my beloved but aging Nokia cell phone with a shiny new Treo 680. It's a combination phone and Palm Pilot PDA which I bought in order to help organize my busy life. NOT to watch South Park and play solitaire during meetings.

But incidentally it does play excellent solitaire and thanks to the efforts of many smart people I have also got it to play the same videos we download.

Now, I can make full use of every second of the 9 unoccupied minutes that I am currently wasting each day.

This morning, while walking the child in a darkened room in order to soothe him, I was able to watch a whole South Park episode. Not only is this entertaining, but it's important to my professional development that I remain up-to-speed on popular culture so that I can relate to my students. So you see, I really have my students' best interests at heart.

Talk to me before you decide to buy a Treo though, there are issues.

first christmas

2006-12-30T08:08:00.001-05:00

He's not old enough to decide which holiday to celebrate so I guess it'll be the one with the tree and the holly which we celebrate in the middle of winter.

The boy has displayed every sign of great enjoyment during our holiday season together. Below is a picture taken in a sleepy moment, with the bear that his Aunt Sarah sent from London. He's still very much working on the grabbing-and-holding skills, but he latched right onto the bear.

His looking-at-things skill set is developing nicely. In the picture below he is also enjoying the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium with swimming fish and bubbles in a real water-like fluid.

The aquarium was a very welcome gift from Mark and Lauren and Allie and Joe down in Tampa. Last night it enabled us to enjoy a nice meal while His Majesty gazed enraptured.

If you are interested in uncovering corporate conspiracies, please look into collusion among Fisher Price, Energizer, and the makers of Advil. The new generation of infant toys consume vast numbers of D cells, and moms and dads must get tons of headaches trying to change the batteries. Maybe it's just because of all the lawyers we have here, but the batteries are sealed behind multiple phillips-head screws. From what are we protecting the precious flowers of American youth? Batteries haven't leaked for decades, and even when they did, the result was scarcely more toxic than mayonnaise.

my other baby

2006-12-24T09:49:00.000-05:00

I’ve always wanted to learn to play the accordion. So, I’m just home from the hospital taking care of the baby and I think, “Perfect! I’m home with all this time on my hands and no one but baby Peter to annoy.” So, I call my friend Andrew Krystopolski and ask him to teach me.

I met Andrew when he brilliantly created music for a play I directed called Silent Lives. Andrew is a polka enthusiast. Andrew is so Polish he has a pierogi hanging from his rear-view mirror. Andrew studied accordion at the Acme Accordion School. (I’m not making this up.) Andrew is just the person to teach me accordion. He says yes.

Problem: You don’t really have any time on your hands when you are home taking care of the baby. I consider it a good day when I’ve found time to brush my teeth! Also, you can’t hold the baby and the accordion at the same time.

So, it is going very slowly. I’m playing scales and exercises from a book from “Ernest Deffner, Inc.” Chris notes that it is no coincidence that my accordion book came from someone named Deffner. Sigh. But I am learning a song from my favorite new band The Decemberists. Their accordion player is also a chick.

I was warned that mockery never stops when you play the accordion. Already the baby cries when I take the instrument from its case. Last week, the cat even started eating my sheet music.

christmas in high school

2006-12-23T05:38:00.000-05:00

Isn't it great to see young people enjoying themselves and having a good time with each other. Maybe someday I will see this in my classroom!

My last unit on momentum & conservation went fairly smoothly, and it certainly was a cause for celebration when it ended.

grandparents

2006-12-07T05:56:00.000-05:00

Here's a couple of pics from thanksgiving that I just found.

My mom and the kid with a hat

G's dad

G's Mom and the boy with the cool giant bug thing

hop on pop

2006-12-07T05:02:00.000-05:00

We got a bunch more baby pictures I am going to get up soon but right for now here is a picture of domestic bliss at the end of the day.

Last night we had a bit of a family adventure. First, we went to the wilds of western NJ to get fingerprinted at the mental hospital. Yeah, really. I needed to get printed for the school. The hospital was an attractive place actually, at the top of a hill with a beautiful view over the lakes and valleys, pretty even in December. The complex was large and old-fashioned, quiet and only a little creepy, and I easily found the room where they did the fingerprinting. There was a little guy with a giant humming machine, obviously developed with homeland security spending. It looked like something from Torchwood. There was a glowing red window on the front and when I touched it my fingerprints leaped up on the screen, and presumably were instantly beamed to Dick Cheney's bunker.

Then we drove off toward a nice little country pub where we had a good burger a few years back. We found it transformed into a nice little country bistro with jazz and a fancy menu. We had moules and frites, and the boss rode the whole dinner in the sling on my chest and was as good as pie.

On the way home, in the pitch dark of the country roads, I braked hard to avoid a deer and we heard another one thump into the side of the car. We were probably going 35mph at the time. I felt really bad but since I am a physics teacher I know that the deer only hit us at the speed of a running deer so it's possible it limped off. There was no sign of trauma on the side of the big old sedan.

OK now I gotta get back to work on practice questions for tomorrow's Circular Motion exam.

in black and white

2006-11-22T05:06:00.000-05:00

These wonderful pictures are by our friend Darlene, ably assisted by her daughters. We had a great night out last Friday socializing with them and other physics teacher families.

So, my test on dynamics yesterday produced a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth among scholars at the high school. I workshopped it down at Rutgers last night and the expert consensus is that it's a great test -- in fact, it's great enough to be three tests. So I will cut it down a little for next time I suppose. I may have erred in my judgment of how much students enjoy physics tests.

up and running

2006-11-18T07:49:00.000-05:00

If you couldn't see pictures on this page yesterday it should be OK now.

If you've ever thought about running your own blog I can't recommend Picasa highly enough. It's easy and free. Just download the free Picasa from google and use the Blog This button to post.

And if you ever wondered why you should bother, I can tell you from personal experience that your family and friends will really enjoy your efforts.

I am in my thinkhole this morning, took the kid down at 6am to give G some alone time. It's 8am now and he's just stopped fussing for the first time. Oh wait, here he goes again. Bye.

smiley baby

2006-11-18T07:45:00.000-05:00

Like I said before (below) we've been cooking a lot in the evenings. The boy will often sit in his bouncy chair thing while we do so and watch the goings on with evident enjoyment. We got a couple smiley pics on Monday this way.

He seems to smile at me a lot. This seems like a sound evolutionary strategy for the young of the species: gotta charm dad. Mom'll love you no matter what, but in the jungle you better get dad on your side.

We've been reading the Sears baby book lately and this seems best suited to our particular style of scientifically-informed pragmatism blended with our desire to raise an organic free-range human with a healthy balance of humours.

OK now I really gotta get to work on lessons. You wouldn't believe some of the lab reports I have received.

a night out in ... mendham?

2006-11-17T04:11:00.000-05:00

Before I get to the baby pics, here's a nice one of my mom from our last Friday night out in Mendham. A new cafe opened up across the street from the library and Nick and a pal were providing music. We trooped out en famille (with Kim from Greenbelt too) to try the fancy evening prix fixe menu. My mom was happy because she was sitting next to her grandson, who was in a basket on the floor and didn't make a peep all night.

Grey was happy because she got to eat an entire meal without someone attached to her!

The restaurant staff were very anxious on their first big night (it felt like being an extra on Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares) but the food was much better than on most of those shows. I had sweetbreads and a steak and a nice creme brulee. Oh that reminds me, I have to call up the doctor's office and get the results of my cholesterol tests.

slinging hash

2006-11-17T04:04:00.001-05:00

This is a picture of G peeling carrots with the boy in his sling. We've both been having good luck with the sling. It takes a little while to get the hang of it, pun not intended, but it's comfortable for us and the kid seems to love it. I raked all the leaves in the back yard while wearing him.

This week we have been mostly cooking our own meals from our new favorite cookbook. So far we have made baja fish tacos, pan-roasted chicken with chipotle-orange glaze, pork stew with plums, and a bunch of other things. We love this book. It's real cooking with real ingredients but you can get the meal on the table in time to have a few minutes of socializing before you fall asleep on the couch.

By the time you read this I will probably get up another post with the latest baby pictures. I am up early this morning because himself was not kind to his mom last night and I am taking the 3am-6am shift while I work on my lessons.

grandpa nick et al

2006-11-10T09:39:00.000-05:00

By popular demand I am finally publishing a better baby picture!

We've been short on pictures for a week or two but I snapped this one yesterday when dad visited. The kid is now estimated at about 11.5 pounds.

Me and G have been enjoying two days of teachers' convention. I should be catching up on a lot of schoolwork but so far, not so much.

high school halloween

2006-11-01T05:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of me, in 6th period, discoursing learnedly on Newton's 3rd law. A student snapped this with his camera phone.

Yesterday was Halloween and G loaned me her old punk jacket and dressed me up out of the 80s. I found an old Billy Bragg concert T from a million years ago. The kids got a kick out of it and it was fun for me too. I even snuck in a lesson: punk bands took over the world because they said anybody could make music, you didn't have to be an expert or a genius. I told them science was the same way: sure, you need experts a geniuses but anybody could do it and enjoy it and get something out of it if they try.

I've had the hardest time making them think and evaluate for themselves -- most of the time they just want to give up an answer and be left alone. But yesterday in my punk persona I got a rise out of them with a problem about Newton. "Are you just gonna believe what the establishment says is true, or are you gonna figure it out for yourselves? Do you trust the man even though his laws contradict your common sense? Well?"

It worked good. We had some fun.

It's 4:30am and I am working on a lesson about universal gravitation. The boy is down here in the basement with me this morning because he was fussing all night and G needs a little sleep before I abandon her for the day.

child and dad

2006-10-30T05:37:00.000-05:00

Every day there is another outfit I have not seen before.

why we work

2006-10-30T05:09:00.000-05:00

Most of the weekend was delightful around our house. I didn't get caught up on my grading or on my parent contacts but we had lots of quality family time together. We took the child on a shopping trip and did very well on an expedition to a local family-friendly restaurant where we got a hearty breakfast for overworked and underslept mom and dad.

The child continues to develop in personality. He likes the car, fortunately, and most of the time he will ride happily as long as the car is moving. He likes being rocked in his car seat. He likes to be laid across my lap on his belly and to be played like bongo drums.

quick snap

2006-10-25T06:07:00.000-04:00

Just a quick entry on my way to the shower. Started the new unit on dynamics and so far it's going a lot better. I get to spend more classes on rollerblades anyway. The school has put in a purchase order for the first shipment of equipment I requested, which is very encouraging.

The boy is thriving. G needs continued rest in order to get back to normal, say the midwives, but in general she is doing very well. We continue to more or less cope, and even made a homemade dinner this week!

Here's another picture by my uncle, from our visit to my folks this weekend.

more grandmothers

2006-10-22T06:24:00.000-04:00

Me and G had to weasel out of a family dinner on Friday because it was scheduled for the late hour of 6:30, which is about 10 minutes before I usually fall asleep after a day of high school.

As a result, the child has been grandma-deprived which is a shame. Grandma Paula, pictured, has also been invaluable to the new parents. Last weekend she left us a pot of homemade stew that kept us going through several hungry nights.

But we are going to make up for that this afternoon with our first trip to grandma and grandpa's house, over the river and through the woods to Mendham. Mom's making manicotti.

But for now I really need to concentrate on a unit plan for dynamics.

lifestyle notes

2006-10-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

We are about to take our first family trip to Wholefoods to buy grownup food and eat at the cafe. We have packed our first diaper bag.

At the moment the child is asleep next to me in my basement office, lulled to sleep by the dehumidifier.

In house news, nothing much. Grey selected a nice bed for us, which my father and uncle heroically delivered and set up for us this week. It's from Indonesia but we think it looks real nice with our old American house. Now the co-sleeper is a lot easier to use in the middle of the night too.

OK, now we are off to Wholefoods.

all the pictures

2006-10-21T16:15:00.000-04:00

I am going to maintain an album of all the baby pictures. Don't worry, nothing graphic!

Peter 2006

Click above to view the album.

the pumpkin outfit

2006-10-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

One of the child's grandmothers has remarked on the dearth of recent baby pictures so here I am on the case. Photo credits in all cases go to Richard D'Amato.

Grandpa Nick has been of exceptionally good value lately, taking the kid for many walks in the beautiful autumn weather. In addition to painting the dining room while I was working.

Grey's mom Jill was a lifesaver in the first week after we were home from the hospital. She was a huge help with all the new logistics and provided a lot of moral support to clueless new parents.

Me, I've been faking my way through fatherhood with about as much success as I've been faking it as a high school teacher. In both cases there are plenty of things to enjoy.

G is continuing her recovery. She's having a hard time with a muscle in her leg which is making it tough to get around and even sit comfortably. The doctor promises slow improvement.

today we are a week old

2006-10-15T10:53:00.000-04:00

This one reminds me of one of my favorite Pogues albums.

This expression is a little more ambiguous.

We are having a nice day around the house. I am in my hole making a test for kinematics.

on the road again

2006-10-14T09:41:00.000-04:00

And hey, guess what's on the road again? Believe it or not, my life has been so full and so exciting that the rehabilitation of my ultimate dream car has not made it to the headlines.

Thanks to Pete of Midnight Auto the old bomb is back online and breathing fire. Don't look for a link to Pete's website, he operates out of a barn in Sussex County. High tech communications for him is a phone with buttons instead of dial. But he can sure tune an engine.

Also major props to my dad and uncle who made the whole thing possible while I was finding a job, buying a house, rewriting curricula, etc.

The mini is now kitted like a real racecar with an engine that should be a lot more reliable than the one that it came with. I will get the tech specs up at some point, but suffice it to say that it is no longer a fast car. It's a seriously fast car. It's a little monster in fact.

These pics are from a car playdate with my father's 59 Alfa Giulietta.

Here's our backyard from the perspective of the garage doors.

Yes, we are doing what we can for the ecology of the planet. We all know that humans will not address the disasters caused by petroleum abuse until the world has reached a crisis point. We try to help bring that crisis point closer so that we can all get to work.

down in the thinkhole

2006-10-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

Most of the pictures from Labor Day will never be seen on the blog of course, but this one is kind of special and perfectly suitable for public appreciation, I think. We weren't planning to document the labor and delivery but our doula brought her camera and snapped some wonderful shots. Ladies, when you visit you can ask G for the whole slideshow. Guys, we can go do something else.

Lots of these pictures will be useful in years to come as behaviour-shaping tools for our precious offspring. "Play quietly or we will show you pictures of your birth!"

Should be loads of fun on prom night when he brings his date around, too.

No seriously, the pictures are wonderful and miraculous but I find them too emotional to look at very often.

It's 8:30am on Saturday morning and I am sitting in my basement office (my thinkhole) with the boy in his car seat at my feet. I turned on the dehumidifer next to him and he is sleeping very peacefully with the hum in the warm basement air.

We all had a rough night last night, not much sleep. G has very kindly been letting me sleep on the couch on school nights, and last night I tried to return the favor and let her get some extra sleep, but the boy had lots of complex needs that we did not understand well. He rarely slept for more than a few minutes at a time. I emptied four diapers and bounced him a lot but still there was not much rest had by anyone.

But I've been down here since 6am and the boy is sleeping sweetly and I hope G is getting some well-deserved z's in the meantime.

Rough week at school. I have turned kinematics into a baffling ordeal for most of my students. But they are all very happy for our new little family, it is very touching. It makes me feel bad when I can't give my students an interesting and well-organized lesson, but I suppose it's an accomplishment if we just get through the day together and make some human connections.

four days old

2006-10-11T04:33:00.000-04:00

There are a few updated photos on the online album.

It's 4am and I am going back to work today so I am up to make some lessons. Of course the boy has had me up for a while before this. So far I am coping fine but let's see how things are going around 8th period today.

It's been great to be home with G and the boy and I am sad to be leaving for the day. But G's mom is here so she will be OK and the boy has been a lot happier now that his milk supply has come on for real.

We've been receiving notes and good wishes from everybody. I hope I get a chance to follow up on these renewed contacts since it has made me so happy to hear from folks I was on the verge of losing touch with.

Well, I've got a cup of coffee and the cats are circling around my keyboard. I am ready to start the day's work, better get to it. Thanks for all the nice comments from emailers and visitors to the blog here, it really means a lot to us!

Peter Casmir D'Amato

Peter Casmir D'Amato 10/6/2006

2006-10-08T19:37:00.000-04:00

Born by natural delivery 7:30pm on Friday 6 October. 9 pounds 0 ounces, 21.5 inches long. Mom and baby healthy and happy after 22 hours of labor.

Peter Casmir D'Amato

Oct 8, 2006 - 8 Photos

a week behind

2006-09-30T07:08:00.000-04:00

This is the only picture of both of us (all of us?) from last weekend's baby shower. Thanks to Gretchen for the snap.

Last Saturday was G's blessing ceremony at our house, followed by a trad baby shower at Maple Ave on Sunday. Traditional in the D'Amato sense meaning tons of food, and a million things that people knitted. I think my mom made the blanket in the picture, and Aunt Zoe made the perfect bear. There is a little dinosaur outfit and Gretchen's mom Joan sent a Starfleet uniform. Watch this space for a picture as soon as he's big enough to fit in it.

I made it through another week of school. I was not the world's most interesting teacher this week, but to be honest how fascinating can kinematics be? Most of the time I had a good time with the students, which is what makes the biggest difference to me.

cat moment

2006-09-23T08:06:00.000-04:00

Ilsa, Weehawken, 2001. Never got brushed enough.

old and unfocused

2006-09-23T07:51:00.000-04:00

No, I was talking about me but I guess it describes this picture too. I should be grading exams but instead I am going through pictures with the new version of Picasa, which is great.

I survived a full week at school and taught a complete unit on Introduction to Force and Motion. I thought my test was too easy but most students found it challenging enough.

This weekend G is having her blessing party and baby shower, and tonight I am clearing out of the house so as not to interrupt the flow of yin energies with my raging yang.

The pic is of Shona, Kate, Owen, and Chris on the steps outside our old house in Weehawken. I guess this must've been in 2000 or so. I wish it was better focused. Even more, I hope we all get to do something similar together in the future!

G is still smaller than most RV's and she is being very brave. I am keeping both vehicles full of gas, and I am starting to worry about my substitute lesson plans.