the end of another era

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

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.)

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

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

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

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

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

more about where we are now

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

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

Introducing Dracunculus vulgaris!

(Thanks to the nice folks at carnivorousplants.org)

Garden mystery

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!

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

First real crawling today!!

Dad ramblings

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

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

2007-04-09 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

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

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

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

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