Playing Hooky, and Sam in Cinci

I am skipping a family event of Emily's today, but I have been blessed to do so. My job today is to begin apartment hunting, write some letters, and do whatever other work I see fit to do. I'm working on a book proposal (very boring academic book with niche audience) that I hope to finish by the end of the summer.

In terms of Sam, who is the ostensible reason for this blog, we are working on figuring out how to travel well with him. Emily's family is amazingly wonderful--I have great in-laws. And yet this fatherhood thing is throwing me a little, because I am not always wanting to share him. For the last two months on most mornings I've been able to spend three or four hours uninterrupted with him. He alternates napping, a bottle, and some playtime. I really look forward to it. Here I worry that our decisions are being judged (use of a bottle, how I get him to sleep, etc.), even though this probably isn't the case. It is an interesting time, because I am reminded again that (1) Sam doesn't belong to just us, and (2) many people have hopes and dreams for him, and (3) eventually he will be able to decide these things. Emily's family is aesthetic, athletic, and a bit more gregarious. I think under the proper conditions I could be a cave-dwelling, lethargic ascetic (which is basically the academic lifestyle).

What will Sam be? I have no idea. He may get some of the artistic genes. He has runners, and swimmers, and football players in his extended family. He is already a big talker (at least for a baby). On the other hand, he's still sleeping about 18 hours, and both of us really need 8-9 hours of sleep to be functional. He's pretty happy to face-watch, and he naps well on a couch or in your arms. An interesting thing about being around family is that you are aware of how many different gifts adhere to the same lineage, and how different habits and customs there are that he may adopt.

Mirror, Mirror...

Uncle David recently gave us a gift card, and Emily spent part of it on this mirror for babies. At our last appointment, our pediatrician suggested that babies like mirrors and mobiles. (Sam is already a huge fan of mobiles, which he actually often enjoys more than this parents.) He likes the mirror also, and is rapidly becoming the world's youngest narcissist, although of course we think he it is all deserved.

The Baby's Smile... Priceless. Getting the Baby Here: 17 Grand

Yowzers! We just received the full hospital bills. $12,000 for mom and $5,000 for baby. (Insurance should pay most of it.) The only things that were at all different from other births were that he needed antibiotics for Strep B ahead of time and Em had an epidural. $17,000? What? The doctor was there for, like, 60 minutes max, and they charged $17,000? We checked in Thursday at 11:30pm and checked out before noon on Sunday. Healthy mom and healthy baby. $17,000?

Tummy Time Continued

Sam is making more faces and smiling more. Baby-adult interaction is different than any other action. He will make unlimited eye contact (think of a staring contest, but more fun). At the same time his face can change nearly every second as he cycles through curiosity, concern, joy, and glee. It's definitely a big change over the first weeks.
This is his "smile." Okay, I have to confess other babies can actually smile better. His smile has that wide-mouthed baby bird look to it. He sort of opens his mouth as wide as he can, moves his head around, and makes a guttural baby cry of joy.
Here Sam is having tummy time on the couch.
This is possibly my favorite new picture.
Here you can see the back of his head and his hair. We still have no idea what he will look like. Hair is brownish and eyes are still blue.
More later... I have some very nice Sam looking at the baby in the mirror pics.

Keeping Things In Perspective

We're both pretty high on the stress charts lately. There's the new baby, the lost uncle, sleepless nights, job possibilities and moves in our near future. I have to finish grading 30 exams by Friday, and then we'll get in a car with the cat, who we took to the vet today and is sick tonight, before driving 10 hours. It's hard to stay optimistic. And yet there's this:

My Little Study Buddy

We've talked a little bit about the baby's sleeping, but ours is also part of the challenge. Our current solution is that Emily and I usually go to bed around 11 and she gets mediocre, feed-the-baby-every-three-hours sleep until 7. Then I take the baby until she wakes up late morning (so usually around 11am). It's not great, but so far it preserves our sanity.

Usually in the morning I give him a bottle at some point (Emily pumps once or twice a day) and often he naps next to me on the couch. He loves to play in his pack 'n play, but actually sleeps better next to me. This is when I can get a couple of hours of work done if I try hard. Right now I am in the midst of grading.

It actually makes for a pretty good morning, and I feel like we get a lot of good bonding this way.

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Heidi asked where we'll be in the fall, and it is looking like a (actually very beautiful) part of northwest NJ. My affinity for the Garden State has been heightened by Sam's birth here. At church a few weeks ago we were presented with this statement. (Sam goes to a church with connections.) Anyway, it made me laugh at the time and when he has a room someday I expect it will go on the wall.

The Fall

Some of you have heard my dramas about next year. PCUSA funding for mission has largely evaporated, and it would have been January at the earliest when we might go. In the meantime, I have heard of at least one classmate/student who is self-funding and the coworker for our presbytery partnership will probably leave official status (presumably because the person will have four kids either in international school or college). A bit discouraging...

In the meantime, I have been trying to prep for next year. I had an on-campus interview at Big Name Div School, but I found out today it's a no-go. (I don't feel bad: basically everyone I know has been rejected by this school at one time or another.) I am now accepting at Very Nice Liberal Arts College for the coming year. I feel a bit guilty that Taiwan is not in my immediate future (although still possible in a year or two), and also somewhat sad to be leaving theological ed. I'll update when I know more, or when the papers are signed. I really hope everything works out. It's not that our life has been so unstable, but it would be good to have a 2 bedroom (or, miracle of miracles, a 3 bedroom) apartment or house next year. Time will tell...

Thank you all for your patience. I am really bad at nailing things down, and it is physically painful for me to close doors. I would feel more ambivalent if I didn't love (probable) new colleagues, or if I hadn't pursued a similar road 6 years ago. Here's hoping God is in the details, and that the coming year will bring growth and new ministry for the three of us.

The Baby Does Not Like Evening

So, for about a week now, our cute little baby has turned into a monster around 6 or 7 at night. We aren't really sure what to do about this. In my experience:
(1) if we hold him he cries
(2) if we check in on him periodically he cries (although sometimes he quiets briefly while we come in), and
(3) if we ignore him he cries

I am currently at home with the baby and have opted for #3. He's been fed, he's been changed, and he's been held. None of that is working for him. I don't think this is gas. I think he's just really sleepy and works himself into crankiness and doesn't know how to fall asleep.

Not knowing what else to do, I basically check in on him every so often. He is clearly very, very tired. A couple of times he has fallen asleep (briefly) on his own. Once I went in and talked to him, and he drifted off, only to wake a couple of minutes after I left, again in full-throttle wailing.

This is vexing. Emily checked out some books yesterday, which all give contradictory advice. (Who knew that babyiologists are as contentious as theologians?)

Most of the time, he is an energetic, cute, bouncy, friendly, sweet baby. But in the evenings, not so much...

Doctor Visit #2

We went to our doctor's today. Sam is 11lbs 14 oz. His head is in the 91st percentile, while his weight is in the 85th and his height is in the 58th. I'm not quite sure what to make of that gigantic head...

He also had five shots and some medicine. He was one angry, angry baby. Not happy at all. If looks could kill...

More news will come as we hear it. For now, he, at least, seems fine.

Baby Pics

Here are some recent pictures. This is me with my hands full. Usually if Theo sees I'm holding Sam he won't come up, but this time he decided to visit.
Here is Sam heading out for his first rainy day, complete with a little windbreaker Emily picked up off of Craigslist.
He is our little boy after his bath. This might be his cutest picture ever.
Sam's interacting a lot more lately, including making more noises, moving his mouth, and showing us little smiles.
And here he is this morning looking very happy, bathed in giraffes and watching his mobile.

Uncle Don

Today I am thinking about Emily's family. In the last two months one daughter (Emily) has had a baby and the second just graduated from college. Lots of change.

And then yesterday we found out that her Uncle Don had died. We're not entirely sure how, although we don't think it was intentional. Don was the youngest child, the boy, and the comedian and the artist of the family. I told Emily that I feel a little bit about Don as I felt about her grandfather. I had only met a small piece of what remained of her grandfather, since he suffered from severe dementia. With Don, he has been an alcoholic for a long time, and while I knew his sense of humor I never felt like I met him as he was. I think that for us, a generation removed, it is hard to get the measure of his life and even who he was.

This will be hard for the whole family. It's so hard to make sense of his life. How much of the alcoholism came from self-medication for earlier injuries and ailments? Why didn't he ever find some enduring vocation? How long as the alcoholism that marked him in recent years been part of his life?

The family has been trying to help him for a long time, which hasn't been easy. He did a stint of rehab. Before that, he had left once waiting for a room to open. He showed up several times at family occasions drunk. He needed help, but I think he was also ashamed to do the things to needed to to get it. He made efforts at change (a new location). The family did what they could, but I know they'll grieve for him. This was both expected and unexpected, preventable, but probably only by Don himself.

Depending on the schedule I'll probably either drive Emily and Sam to Ohio in the next few days or we'll go together in about a week.

Speaking of the Cat

So tonight the cat was outside and I heard some barking. I looked out on the porch and sure enough a dog was chasing our cat. This is actually the second time it has happened. The dog owner explained that her dog sometimes races off before she can get the dog on the leash. It's not a huge deal, but it was a frustration.

I got down there and could not find the cat, and the dog was still racing, racing back and forth. At this point I realized, "oh, my baby is upstairs, I probably shouldn't be down here by myself." So I went up and fetched a flashlight and Sam. When I got back down the dog owner had found Theo, in a low hanging branch about eight or nine feet off the ground. She corralled her dog and I told her I could probably get the cat out of the tree once the dogs were gone.

At this point, I saw my neighbor Kenny and asked him if they could take the baby for a few minutes. (Thank you Kenny and Jennifer.) I got a basket and managed to get Theo out of the tree. He was fine. This was actually the best-treeing he has ever done (not too high, but out of reach of the dog). Kenny and Jennifer had taken good care of Sam--he seemed drowsy and pretty mellow. He was actually pretty unaware of everything, which is good.

The short of this is just that it is a new world for us. We can't "run out" for ten minutes. I think we are handling it well, but it is a big change. Sam has actually been very good today. He went to the library with Emily, he fed well and seemed happy. He did some fun cooing and mobile-watching. He is a model baby, and we want so badly to be good parents to him. On the positive side, the cat has remarkably improved over his first treeing seven years ago, so maybe we can be good parents after all...

The Baby and the Cat, Walking, and Other Stories

Sam and Theo get along relatively well. There have actually been no baby-cat incidents. Occasionally, if Sam is doing his "high pitched" cry (which is actually sort of cute, in contrast to the "full chest" wail) Theo will come over and check on him. The picture above was on Theo's own initiative. He also peeks over the edge of the pack and play sometime, especially if one of us has been using the mobile on it (which basically looks like a giant cat toy to him).This picture is posed, or at least I just set Sam down next to Theo and snapped some pictures. Theo took it in stride.
Here is an image of the infamous "tummy time." This is where he is supposed to practice his body movements skills (=flailing around for a few minutes).
And here is the father-son duo on one of our occasional walks. I like using the Snuggli, although I worry that head support isn't great. Sam, however, enjoys walks and they tend to put him to sleep fairly quickly.
And here we are...