Move In Day

Today Sam and I walked over to campus and watched the first year students move in. I'm sure I made some parents cry, as I held my baby and watched them leave theirs in the campus parking lot.

I love being in a place where we can walk everywhere. Sam showed off the folk at a Chinese restaurant tonight, doing his trick where he sits on my head and giggles. We also met some Chinese students on campus today. They wanted to know if he speaks Chinese. I said 他英文也不會說. I don't know if that's right, but it worked for them. At this point, he is strictly prelingual, or perhaps he speaks the universal language of babies.

Here is our father-son picture.

For this one, I tried to do the picture cut off just like Michael Phelps did for his SI cover.

5 months and going strong

Sam was born on Good Friday five months and a day ago. Today he visited the Rutgers library for the first time, and charmed his way through Emily's public library. It was fun to have him out and about. There's not much new to report. Parenting has been a big change, but so far it's been immensely rewarding. It does seem to me like the stakes on everything have gone up--there's just more pressure around jobs and scheduling and everything else. I'm often grateful for how healthy he's been. This could have been a much rougher start in so many ways.

I can tell I am stressed to be starting school (orientation next week, classes the week after). I was hired in world history, but will actually be teaching western civ, so I'm not sure how much my background has really prepared me for this. Greek, Hebrew, church history and the rest have surely helped. I will definitely miss having as much time with the baby. We should still have weekends and weeknights together, and hopefully the occasional afternoon.

New Cam for Sam (well, actually, for Em)

Sam is a lot of fun lately. Here he is (1) in his swing, which stills keeps him occupied, especially the bright lights, (2-4) self-portraits with dad at home, including a massive drool in #4, and (5) one of his first walks outwards-facing. He's so much fun lately. I just love to play with him. I can already see why parents are terrified of their kids growing up. He giggles, plays, and naps his way through the day, and then sleeps like an angel.

The camera is a cheap-ish Kodak c813. It's small, light, and takes pretty good pictures, so I think it was a wise choice. My camera is one of the chunky ones, so it won't fit in Emily's purse.

I'm still working on the big life issues. My dad claims this is another period (late 20s-30s) where you rework your life plan. In my case, it is mostly just trying to figure out what I want long term. (And what God wants, and how they go together, and what that looks like, and, well, you get the idea.) For a part-time job this year, the Buddhists appear to have come through where the Calvinists let me down. I have a part-time precepting gig for Buddhism where I will learn a lot and get some more experience. I hope it goes well. Taiwan is also back in the picture. The denomination will bring us out to interview. I'm not sure what to expect. I think this will go, but if there is a test for every call, this one is a doozy. I'm tired of thinking about it all. Blech! At this point there's not much I can do. I'll work hard on my job/s and keep talking too all parties.

Not much else to say. As I get ready for classes to start, I am thinking of those preparing to wed, wrapping up French, working on "it," and pursuing child adventures. It's been a pretty good summer, actually, and I'm looking forward to the fall. I think 2008-09 could be a fine year.

Riling the baby, napping the baby

Sam is growing. He's developing more noises and facial expressions and tricks. This morning I woke up earlier than usual because Sam was wide awake, smiling and chipper. He often does this with us. I tend to assume that once he is awake he won't go back to sleep easily, but Emily just picked him up, talked to him soothingly, and pretty soon he was asleep again. It always amazes me--one of my weaknesses as a father is that I can't get the baby down easily. My best bet to get him to sleep is a short burst of crying (where he wears himself out a little and realizes how tired he is), binking, and then napping next to him. It doesn't take long and he is fine once he's down, but it's not as graceful as Emily. She picks him up and he's out.

On the other hand, I also am developing the reputation of being the baby riler. I lift him over head, and play with him on my chest, and make him do little dances and acrobatics. It's a lot of fun.

There's not much else to report on Sam. It was very nice to have Emily's family here. They went to the beach and had a great time. Our apartment is now mostly set up and I am feeling more settled. Being me, there are still long range plans out there, as well as some short range ideas. I'm enjoying reading everyone's blogs. Someday I will get another non-baby blog, for now I am enjoying this.

Sam Pics

Here are some pictures from today. My brother gave us the Alabama outfit, and I wanted to record some pictures before he outgrew it. It really helps that he is cute. Tonight he was pretty good but it took forever to get him to bed.

Other updates:

• The Cat War has been resolved.
  
• I have a bike now that I really like. I'm slowly getting into the groove of things. I'm not used to having inclines, so that's quite a change.
• Emily and I are both fairly exhausted. I hope packing doesn't do her in. I think a few days at the beach for her and a few days of hanging out for me will be good.
• A book review is done and an article draft is close.

That's it! I hope everyone else is having a good week.

Updates

Having closed the book on July, we now head into August, which has good prospects. May/June was a bit hectic with grading, locking in the job, beginning the packing, and July started quite ugly with the move. Now, however, we are getting a bit more settled.

Today was my SAHD day, and I had Sam all day. We (the two of us, not Emily, who worked all day and squeezed in the 90 minute commute to work and back) woke at 10, goofed off some, and did some more unpacking. Sam took several extended naps during the day. We skyped with Mom, which I loved because Sam is occupied by the screen and I can get caught up with family. While he was napping I watched comcast's web tv service, fancast. We decided not to get cable for several reasons, but I have found that I can watch a fair amount on the internet. I've been into 30 Rock the last week or so, and have watched the first two seasons. I think being on the east coast makes the series a lot funnier.

We also took a walk around town. H-Town is pretty interesting. There's a large hispanic area, including a small grocery store, several restaurants, a bakery, and some shops. I like that there's some diversity here. It is also pure small town. No fast food or big stores in the town proper, but there are lots of antiquey, consignment type stores, and also a guns and ammo store, multiple little hardware/appliance places, and some cafes and delis. So far so good. We had a nice walk. I always get a lot of attention with the baby. Cars stop for us. Old people smile. Families talk to us. It is a different experience from when I walk by myself.

I also cooked dinner tonight. I like summer because I have time for these sorts of things. I was able to have Sam bathed by the time Emily got home. However, he didn't eat great off of the bottle today and was too distracted when Emily got home today to feed well. He is a very good natured baby and he smiles a lot. Emily and I are also realizing that he is HUGE. I told Emily that even if you are a very nice boy, it is not easy being big. He'll get bumped into higher little league groups based on weight, if there are playground accidents he'll get blamed because he's the biggest, people will assume he should be more mature than he is, etc. Well, who knows, just because he's big at 4 months doesn't mean he will be at 4 years or 10 years.

This week Emily's family comes and they'll all go to the beach together. I'm passing on the beach, in favor of staying home and working on little article projects. I need at least a little time to hole up and get things cranked out before the start of the year. I'll be teaching three classes: a first year class on the theme of mass violence, and then western civ 1 and 2. It will be a substantial shift from the work I've done in the past, but I think that CH will actually be a big help with all of this. And I like working with college students. They have a lot of possibilities and a lot of ideas and I'm always good at helping people generate options.

Not much else here to report. Here are some older pictures that didn't make it onto the blog before.