toby of the day, 12.18.2007 part 2

As if our bedroom wasn't looking dishevelled enough, our walls barren except for the water damage as we try to dry out and flatten the pictures that were hanging on them, we've decided to truly make it a "bed" room. Toby has a very fancy mattress. no pbde's, all natural, organic, but with a little waterproofing for accidents (for example, unanticipated bedroom rainstorms). it is also incredibly hard, cold, and uncomfortable. I've tried adding extra blankets and padding (though not too many for fear of the evil SIDS), moving it closer to the heater, sleeping on it with him, but no luck. he's so averse to it, that the other night he was up every hour. so tonight, we moved our extra twin bed into the bedroom. the twin bed was previously available in case jon or I really needed to sleep, we could sleep in a different room. I have taken advantage of this only once, but it was the most luxurious 7 hours of sleep ever. it turns out that the twin bed is only barely smaller than our full size bed, which means that about 85% of the space in our bedroom is now covered by beds. it's like we're in an orphanage. or one of those crazy bouncy castles they have at kids parties. regardless, toby really likes the new bed. it's very bouncy, which he quickly discovered and, with our help, he spent 30 minutes jumping up and down giggling. and then he slept, like a baby. not the not sleeping kind of baby that we are used to, but the kind of baby that actually sleeps for many hours in a row. Optimist that he is, Jon believes it was just a fluke. I guess we’ll find out tonight.

toby of the day, 12.18.2007 part 1

Lately, we've been experiencing some exciting happenings in our bedroom. Before your mind wanders too far with that thought, let me say that the first bit of excitement involves the contraption toby is pictured with. We recently bought a new-fangled humidifier. By new-fangled, I refer to the fact that the humidifier can measure the level of humidity in the room and adjust it's output to let you achieve whatever your desired level of humidity is. this assumes that you want it more humid, up to 65% humidity. so we plugged it in, and it said 67%, so it just sat there, because, it it's mind, the job was done. Jon, who had been eagerly awaiting the humidifier to clear up his dry skin and my tendency to shock everything I touch, assumed that it was broken ("there's no way that the humidity in here is 67!") and pushed a few buttons until he had reprogrammed it to just run continuously until all the water in the tank was gone. it began gurgling, and we went to sleep. Now, I have to admit, that during one of my many rousings to feed or quiet toby, I thought that I heard dripping, but assumed it was just part of the gurgling, and quickly fell back to sleep. then around 6:30 am, jon stepped out of bed. after briefly wondering why the floor seemed wet, we turned on the light to discover that it was, essentially, raining in our bedroom. we have lived in this apartment for four years, doing little damage aside from an occasional nail in the wall or scuff mark. in 6 short hours, we had made it rain in our bedroom. jon had to mop off the ceiling. apparently, it really was 67% when we fell asleep. and, by the end of the night, it really was 85%. and, we now know, 85% is too high. so if anyone knows anything about concealing water damage, feel free to let us know.

toby of the day, 12.16.2007

So tonight was one of those times when we really felt like parents: we attended our first function where the only thing we had in common with the other people there was toby. it was a potluck dinner for toby's daycare, with the parents of the three other kids (including the day care provider). Overall, a friendly bunch. But it was a little weird. Sure, we all probably share similar politics, this is san francisco after all, though we were all too polite to discuss them in mixed company. and we all apparently like organic food. and if all else failed, we could always tell stories of kids doing the darnedest things. but it was still, well, awkward. And it made me think of how this is only the beginning. For the next 18 years, we will be attending innumerable functions where toby is the common denominator. and if we move, there's the strong possibility that many of our social contacts will be derived from this parental pool. I know that sometimes this works out really well. My parents do have friends who are the parents of my brother’s or my friends. Actually, now that I think about it, they mostly keep in touch with the parents of my brothers friends. I'm not sure what that says about me. . .in any case, in addition to the few where it works out well, there are the many other examples: the religious fanatic mom, the dad who could only talk about scuba diving, the woman who couldn't understand why anyone would want to read anything but danielle steele (or why anyone would ever read during the summer). As a child, my friends and I would hide or dawdle to get a few extra moments of playtime, assuming that our parents, like us, were having the time of their lives, drinking tea and chatting about all those things adults have in common. I have to say, the day toby's best friend's mom shows up talking about jesus and romance novels I may just disown him. But until that day, we'll just hope that he manages to introduce us to at least a couple of keepers.

toby of the day, 12.14.2007

Jon has been reading a book where chefs describe the details of their last meal. He usually reads before bedtime and transitions between fist shaking grumpiness (e.g. Daniel Boulod) and teary-eyed glee (e.g. Helene Darroze). On the one hand, it has meant that I have been reading the same page of the New Yorker for almost a week because each night I’m distracted by a new revelation from the book, but it also means that we’ve been thinking about our own last meals. When I suggested that bresaola might be part of mine, we decided to have a quick dinner of cured meats at A16. As luck would have it, they didn’t have bresaola. But we did get some extra wine from the women at the table next to us. We’re not sure if our neighbors were they were swooning over toby’s adorable smile, or if they were just drunk, but we finished off their carafe of nero d’avelo. Looks like this whole baby thing is really starting to pay off.

toby of the day, 12.13.2007

Today Jon discovered that toby doesn’t like fat drunk men on the muni. Maybe he sees too much of himself in them. He bawled like never before on the way home from day care after a man tried to make him laugh. Then the other muni patrons tried to help, and he just cried more. One woman offered him a ferrero rocher chocolate. But to no avail. In the end, jon and toby got off a stop or two early and suddenly all was well. Perhaps his stranger anxiety has arrived.

toby of the day, 12.11.2007

Today toby ate his first solid food, paper! It’s a relatively simple carbohydrate, I guess. We had always imagined the first solid thing he would eat would be rice cereal. But no, tonight toby took things into his own hands, literally, and ate a chunk of the paper wrapper for my chopsticks at dinner. Hopefully, rice cereal will be his second solid food, but maybe we should hurry on that, just in case.

toby of the day, 12.9.2007

Yesterday, toby’s maternal grandmother arrived for her second visit. Describing her as ecstatic to see toby is actually a bit of an understatement. Toby has been showing off all his new tricks: rolling, looking cute, drooling, giggling. Hmmm, actually I think she got to see the looking cute trick during her last visit, though you might say he’s getting even better at it. fortunately, that trick never gets old.

toby of the day, 12.8.2007

today toby rolled over! From his back to his stomach! He’s been working at it for some time now, and he usually, with considerable effort, gets about half way there, and then rolls back onto his back. We thought that he might never manage it, what with his enormous cloth diaper impeding his momentum. But this time, he very quietly, and I might even say gracefully, just rolled over. It was pretty cool. Now we just need him to fetch our slippers and the newspaper and we’ll be all set.

toby of the day, 12.01.2007

As of yesterday, Toby has taken to grunting and grabbing his ankles as he is getting his diaper changed. While this indicates that he’s one step closer to his dream of becoming a circus contortionist, I can't help but worry about the dangerous territory he has now entered. One of my greatest fears before becoming a father was, obviously, projectile poop. With his new body position, one can easily imagine the distance his poop could travel. I fear that it’ll be only a matter of time before we write about this again. Needless to say, I’ve removed the family photos and toothbrushes from that end of the changing table.

toby of the day, 11.26.2007

For the past couple days, my mom and dad have had a great time watching Toby be himself and engaging in the eternal battle to keep his face free of drool. Much of our time was spent remarking on how chubby his little arms and tummy were. I had to change toby’s diaper this afternoon so put him up on the changing table. Then my mom walked over and remarked, “Let see how big he is!” I shot her a quick glance and felt mildly uncomfortable. “Well, okay, but just remember it’s cold in here…”. It turns out that she was mostly curious about how chubby his legs were, since she had only seen him with his extra large pants until then. But in the process she started telling me about our genitalia when Micah and I were babies. Needless to say, that was kind of weird. I can’t wait for the day when I get to relay this information to toby. Maybe tomorrow.

toby of the day, 11.24.2007

Today toby’s paternal grandparents arrived for their second visit. Toby has gained 10 pounds since they last saw him. They try to come up with polite adjectives to describe him, ‘strong’, ‘big’, ‘healthy’, but we know the word they’re working around, we can see the elephant in the room, the big chubby elephant. Regardless, they’re excited to see him, since he’s now so interactive, even if they can’t pick him up for too long.

toby of the day, 11.22.2007

happy thanksgiving! Today we just lounged around at home. Toby worked hard investigating all the crazy toys on his new Genki hand-me-down (pictured here), while we watched football, cooked up some squab, and mostly had a grand old day. Enough said.

toby of the day, 11.21.2007

Tonight we met carlos and tracy and carlos’ sister for drinks at the orbit room where I had my first martini in 14 months or so. It was delicious. Usually I drink martinis with a little olive juice, and find it difficult to not drink many of them. And then find it difficult to walk, speak, or do much of anything the following day. This time I had just a martini with extra olives. I’m not really sure why. Jon believes that I was trying to sabotage my enjoyment of the martini. But if that was my plan, it didn’t work too well since it was still tasty. Toby was somewhat unimpressed by the orbit room, perhaps because our favorite cross-eyed bartendress wasn't there. Now she makes a mean martini.

toby of the day, 11.19.2007

We had lunch today with our friends carlos and tracy from Austin and their adorable 7 month old daughter Isabella. We never really get to compare toby to other babies, which is mostly a good thing, but sometimes it’s exciting to see how he stacks up. For example, Izzy now sleeps from 7pm to 7am. It sounds blissful, since Toby on the other hand has recently reverted to sleeping in 2-3 hour chunks. And, even though they only met briefly, it looks like Izzy taught toby a new noise. He’s been making this excitable shriek just like the one she made when she met him. Apparently, she really likes babies. Toby doesn’t yet really know what babies are, but he clearly knows a good sound when he hears it. if only he could learn from her how to skip out on his 3:30 am snack, we'd be all set.

toby of the day, 11.18.2007

Today Toby was involved in two exciting things. First, we all took our first bath together. Toby was very excited, splashing a lot and sliding all across the bathtub. He was very alert of the fact that both of us were in the tub with him. Sarah made a not so startling discovery, that Toby’s butt floats like Styrofoam. Well actually, all of Toby floats pretty well, but his butt is particularly buoyant. Like his personality. Our second discovery was that Toby gets super excited and giddy when you puff air onto his face. He gets this wonderful look of surprise then bursts into laughter. And it appears that it never gets old. You could spend hours puffing in his face and getting shrieks of laughter, at least until you hyperventilate.

toby of the day, 11.17.07

Today the family attended the wedding of jon’s labmate Evren. It was at the Log Cabin in the Presidio, and Toby took his first taxi ride to the event. Our driver was kind of a jackass, since it was clear that didn’t know where the hell he was going but somehow he was still comfortable with charging us for his multiple wrong turns. I guess he felt that he had earned it by giving us a lovely tour of the presidio. Toby gave him a piece of his mind toward the end with a little screaming, though probably that was more upsetting to jon and I than the driver. In any case, Toby was a big hit at the wedding with all eyes on him. We suspect he would have been an even bigger hit had he not pooped on his rather adorable overalls minutes before the taxi arrived. But it’s not nice to upstage the bride, so it probably all for the best that he had to change clothes.

toby of the day, 11.16.07

Today we took Toby in for his 4-month check up. He weighed in at 19 lbs and 4 oz., sans his enormous cloth diaper. I think it was the enormous diaper that was throwing off our guesses at his weight since we all thought for sure he'd clear 20 pounds. anyhoo, after charting his growth, our pediatrician walked into the room exclaiming, “EL GORDO”! We all had a good chuckle, since we knew that Toby, well, to put it delicately, he has a lot of junk in his trunk (and his belly, arms, neck, and cheeks). Unfortunately, it seems that toby is also starting to remember things at the pediatrician. This time when the nurse gave him the sweet sweet sugar syrup vaccine he seemed to recall that it was followed by the not so sweet poking vaccines. but once again he seemed to forget about them pretty quickly, I guess we’ll see if that’s the case when we do it all again in a couple months.

toby of the day, 11.10.07

Today is toby’s 4-month birthday, and he’s reached a milestone in cuteness. He’s been playing with his tongue a lot then smiling at the world. His tongue moves in and out as if it had a mind of its own. However, he does one thing that, if not curbed, can lead to a dent in his cuteness factor. He’s taken to scratching himself on the head and forehead, in particular with his mischievous left hand. He’s left a series of cuts on his forehead. He scratches himself primarily when he’s tired or hungry, which is most of the time. We try to deter him by putting our face between his hand and his forehead, but that can only work for so long. Our care provider said that people have been known to put mittens on kid’s hands for this reason. But given that he’s exploring with his hands and fingers, it seems detrimental to have him work his hands as if they were lobster claws during this formative time. He might be forced to become a puppeteer because of his lobster hands. So, we let nurture run its course and keep his nails trimmed. That way we protect his face, our faces and his future.

toby of the day, 11.05.07

Today I went to san diego, you know, just for the day. Because that’s the kind of savvy business traveler I am. Somehow when I was 7 months pregnant Jon and I wistfully imagined taking our 4-month old son to a meeting of 30,000 neuroscientists would be a great idea. In retrospect, this was one of the silliest ideas we’ve had in a long long time. So today, instead of taking his first flight, toby happily stayed at home with his dad while I went to san diego for less than 12 hours. Mostly it was a good trip, and despite my extreme sleep deprivation, I was able to appear reasonably coherent with only a few instances where my eyes would glaze over while people asked me questions, and only one instance where I looked down to discover I was leaking milk. That’s why it’s always important to bring a sweater, even to southern California during fire season.

toby of the day, 11.03.07

As you may have noticed, toby is a big boy. He also wears a really big diaper. Consequently, it’s tough for him to wear pants. This weekend we went in search of pants that would fit over his thighs and diaper, and found that fitting his width requires pants that greatly overestimate his height. But I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before jon’s and my height genes kick in and his legs start to grow like beanstalks. Then the pants will fit perfectly. Or we might just buy him some MC Hammer pants instead. Hammer time!

toby of the day, 11.02.07

yesterday jon and I submitted job applications, my first, Jon's fourth (though you could say it’s the first that he would actually really like to get). tonight we went out to celebrate. In the past, celebrating things was both easy and fun with my trusty friend alcohol. It’s soooo much more complicated these days. There’s the whole toby needing to eat and me being full of alcohol-infused milk problem. And of course, the fact that I’m crazily sleep deprived, after a couple beers I really just wanted a long long nap. But the beers, food and company were all good. Maybe we just need more practice. And sleep, beautiful sleep.

toby of the day, 10.31.07

today is Halloween. When asked by our day care provider if there are any holidays that we celebrate, I answered without skipping a beat “Halloween!”. She looked as us a little strangely, and jon tried to make up for it by talking about how in japan new year’s is an important holiday but it was too late. Of course, now that Halloween is here, you might expect that we would make toby a costume and have prepared a pumpkin and bowl of candy, but because we’ve been incredibly busy, we have none of those things. Even the cats are costume free this year. There was no bowling squid and octopus. Next year though, we’ll have his seahorse costume all ready to go. I swear.

toby of the day, 10.28.07

Today we headed to Livermore for a wedding. Toby is wearing a tuxedo shirt, vest and a bowtie, though no one can see the bowtie because it’s hidden under his extra chin. and tonight is his first night sleeping away from home. We worry he might get spoiled by the large hotel bed, I think it might even be queen size!

toby of the day, 10.25.07

tonight (and of course by "tonight" I mean 10 days ago, since it's now november 4th) we tried the new izakaya in our neighborhood. We had expected to not like it because it appeared too fusiony (edamame hummous, salmon “ceviche” in endive cups) but it turns out that much of the menu is traditional grilled or fried izakaya fare. Just very very poorly executed. I figure they can probably fix the problems with the service, and the fact that there are multiple things with the same name on the menu, and they could hire an 8th grader to teach them how to use the formatting tools in Word so that the menu isn’t just a mess. But the dry, bland food is going to take more work. Fortunately, this means that our neighborhood is still in need of a good izakaya, so jon’s dream of opening one is still alive and kicking.

Patience

Parents always say that one thing that kids will teach you is patience. I never doubted their words and welcome the change of disposition. And I got to feel it in action the other day. We woke up a few days ago and Toby had this enormous buggar in his nose. I tried my darnedest for a few minutes to try to get it out, but my fingers weren’t right for the job. I dunno how many of you out there have tried to pick a baby’s nose, but it’s pretty hard. Their nostrils just aren’t quite right for adult fingers (look closely at posted picture). I watched the buggar come in and out of sight in his nostril as he breathed heavily, just taunting me. I then tried to use his hand and fingers to lodge it out, but again to no avail. I then began conjuring up plans to get it out using chopsticks or other household utensils, but the image of Toby accidentally getting a frontal lobotomy prevented me from going forward. I figured that could wait for a few more years. So I just waited it out. And eventually, it disappeared. I dunno if it landed on my shirt or on Sarah’s nursing top or in somebody’s mouth, it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that I didn’t have to wait very long to become the most patient fathers in the world.

toby of the day, 10.20.07

Today we went to a party at the very cute lenodle-mogooms houses. There were lots of babies there (well, if you consider 4 to be lots, which we do). I always thought that once I had a baby I would be better at guessing the age or gender of other children. But either because I’m grossly inattentive or because our baby is aberrantly large with a head full of hair, I’m still terrible at it. So I’ve mostly settled on saying things like “my, that’s a nice baby”. Afterward we briefly stopped by the besmorf house where they were preparing to watch some ultimate fighting pay-per-view thing. Toby wanted to stay and cheer on the spider while he kneed his competitors in the head, but we had to go home to our sakoolley house instead.

toby of the day, 10.19.07

Toby has recently started to grab things and bring them to his mouth. The grabbing part is still a little clunky, but once he’s grabbed on, the item, be it a finger, sock, toy, or your shirt, is covered with drool in seconds. So far we’ve mostly been offering him soft things like socks and blankets. But someday we could give him other things without too much anxiety since California just became the first state to ban phthalates from children’s toys. So as long as we don’t have to move out of San Francisco, Toby’s liver, thyroid, and testes may be safe, at least from this class of unpronounceable chemicals. Although we could always move to the EU since they banned these things like a decade ago. Then toby’s liver would only have the delicious wines, beers, and sweet sweet lambics to contend with. mmmmm, lambic.

toby of the day, 10.15.07

Today as I sat at my desk at work trying to get some stupid analysis program to run and wishing that I were still at home curled up on the sofa, a rat ran across some molding above my head. I really hate my job.

toby of the day, 10.14.07

Tonight, toby went to sleep with a pacifier in his mouth. Prior attempts at the pacifier resulted in him sucking on it briefly before it would pop out. And prior sleeping attempts have always involved him feeding multiple times first. Unfortunately, while the pacifier was cool, because it meant that he didn’t eat a lot before bed, I was stuck with a lot of extra food, which was, well, uncomfortable. In other news, toby’s new favorite inanimate object is an American analog set poster. When he sees it, he just goes crazy, smiling, giggling, babbling, even cupcaking. I almost feel sorry for his previous love, the halogen lamp. Almost. Then I remember that it’s a lamp.

toby of the day, 10.13.07

Today we went to Berkeley so jon could stock up on meats at Berkeley bowl. It only took us 20 minutes to get there (plus of course another 15 minutes to park), which is in stark contrast to previous visits when, while sitting in traffic, we could see ducks waddling by faster than we were moving. Toby quickly tired of the store so he and I spent much of our time out front waiting. It turns out that lots of people talk to you when you have a baby. More specifically, lots of people talk to me. Even back when I was younger and wanted to appear unapproachable I was always the person tourists would ask for directions. Now that I have a baby I am apparently more approachable than ever. Jon always says that no one ever talks to him when he carries toby around. I talked to 4 people just during the 20 minutes I sat outside of Berkeley bowl. I also have a list of suggestions that people offered while I was pregnant. For example, according to a toothless woman on the bus, I should have taken toby swimming when he was 6 weeks old. Maybe we’ll do that with the next baby. Although by then, I’m sure we’ll have even more suggestions.

toby of the day, carole of the day, 10.10.07

Today toby celebrated his 3rd month birthday making him 1/4 year old. We didn't do much to celebrate it, aside from adorning him with kisses. We also celebrated jon's mom's 60th birthday today. Though again, celebrate is a bit of a stretch since really we just called her before we went to work. But we did send her a nifty gift, Jon wrote and recorded a handful of songs about some of the quirkier moments in his upbringing, like the time he got caught stealing RATT's 'Invasion of your privacy' tape from Tower Records in Tokyo. This is the cover we used for the CD we gave to her. See how we put toby to work. we tried to put lulington to work, but as you can see, she was less cooperative. Since we can't figure out how to post the song here, maybe one day we'll post one on our myspace page, a page which is almost as closely guarded a secret as our netflix queue.

toby of the day, 10.06.07

Saturday we packed Isaac and toby into a prius and headed to Napa. We had tasty wine and barbecue at Barber’s Q, followed by some not so exciting wines but a nice view of the hills and of a frisky fence lizard at the Robert Sinskey vineyard. After that we consumed lots of sips of wines and dollars of toby’s college fund at our favorite wine store, and finally we wandered through the ever famous Napa Cajun festival, because who doesn’t equate Napa and Cajun. It was a quite a lovely day, although, ultimately, I think that toby and I have the same complaint about trips to the wine country: they involve too much time in the car. Naturally, my way of voicing this complaint in through my soft and melodic voice, while Toby states his opinion through more of a grating scream reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard (I wonder what the modern description of this is since chalkboards are now obsolete?). Anyhoo, in the process of enduring his cries, we did discover that when hungry, sleepy and stuck in a car seat, toby will take a bottle even from me. So in the end, it was even a day of learning. Huzzah!

toby of the day, 10.05.07

Well, we made it through the week. Toby seems to have taken to the new daycare just fine. Jon too. And I’m getting there. While I admit to some procrastinating on Friday, looking for more and more things that“ needed” to be done at home before dropping him off, I did eventually manage to do so, and with only a few tears shed as I wandered past the construction workers on the corner. I think our only real disappointment is that the boy that we had imagined Toby hanging out with, a wavy haired one-year old who spent much of his time staring wide-eyed at the wall, a boy we believe could one day star in the sequel to ‘dazed and confused’, had his last day on Friday. In his stead is a cute and curly haired but hyper-verbal 2 1/2 year old who likes to discuss the rules of sharing and the dangers of bouncing on the bed. Definitely not a stoner boy. Overall the place is nice, small (4 kids total), and friendly. We do feel a little young relative to the other parents, whether that’s real or just a consequence of them wearing suits and not New Pornographers t-shirts and fraying pants, we’re not sure. But really that may just be a persistent issue of self-perception or self-deception about our new roles as parents, or a consequence of being a sloppily dressed academic. Maybe we just need to get our corduroy jackets fitted with elbow patches.

Survival of the Politest

After almost three months with Toby, we still can’t figure out who the hell he looks like. Some of his features are sort of Sarah’s, some are sort of mine. Some are sort of both. Take his eyes for example. For the most part, they are more like Sarah’s than mine. But his right eye has more Japanese characteristics than his left eye. It’s a little narrower than its left counterpart, and the fold on his right eyelid is less pronounced. His nose is a little of both of us. The tip of his nose is roundish, like Sarah’s, but his nose is wide, like mine. And he hasn’t even started picking it yet! (Though I have). A principle in genetics is that within each individual, genes from each parent battle it out. For example, genes for growth that are paternally contributed vie for expression against maternal genes that try to suppress growth in utero. But, when we think about how our genes are sculpting Toby’s appearance, I like to imagine his maternal and paternally contributed genes bowing at each other, letting each other express themselves equally (see image by Sarah). Kind of like Japanese society (at least, superficially). I guess that means Sarah is Japanese after all.

toby of the day, 10.01.07

even though daily posting is really is the best way to verify the continued existence of ed, I'm moving toward less frequent posting, hopefully more than once a week, but less than every day. anyway, this week we begin transitioning toby into daycare. After spending 2 1/2 months at home with him, I’m actually not ready to hand him over to someone else. We could be in for a rough week. Fortunately, I don’t work using Tai Chi to make Chinese steamed buns, because my tears would make the buns salty and sour and I would be fired. Of course, then I wouldn’t have to send toby to daycare because I would be out of a job. Which would be ok because jon would be making so much money using kung fu to play soccer, I could just make buns at home. that would be awesome. mmmm, steamed buns.

toby of the day, 9.29-30.07

On saturday we had Isaac, Kevin, and Jess over for brunch. Then went to see patty & jason’s new version of their old house. It’s powered by the sun. On Sunday we had to make a trip to babies r us to buy the one kind of nipple toby seems to like. Though not as scary as we expected, it was still unpleasant, so to recover we took our zipcar over to route 1 and did a little hiking up some bluffs overlooking the ocean (toby’s first hike) and went down to the beach (also a first) where toby quickly replaced the lint between his toes with sand. We decided that with all the other firsts he was experiencing, we would skip his first viewing of naked men doing handstands (actually, a first for all of us), so we stayed on the clothed end of the beach.

toby of the day, 9.28.07

hours sarah spent at work: 4 ounces toby drank from a bottle: 6! jon’s level of frustration: low! Through insight, trial and error, or just sheer luck, jon hit on the winning combination today and toby is now quite adept at drinking from a bottle. I hope they can both remember how it worked when they try again tomorrow, but for now we can celebrate. get wendy her party hat!

toby of the day, 9.27.07

hours sarah spent at work: 0.75 hours sarah spent at the coffee shop around the corner because her computer hard-drive at work was being wiped clean because it had, among other issues, parts of German Windows on it: 1.5 ounces toby drank from a bottle: < 1 jon’s level of frustration: still high today was pretty uneventful. I think the biggest happening is that we somehow stained part of our coffee table with a pizza box. as I said, pretty uneventful.

toby of the day, 9.26.07

hours sarah spent at work: 2.5 ounces toby drank from a bottle: < 1 jon’s level of frustration: high, and not just because I keep forgetting to mention that there is a new link to pictures (september photos) over to the right. The day according toby: Breakfast. Nap. Snack. Laid on blanket, wiggled all limbs. Talked a little. Laid on tummy, got frustrated. Snack. Nap. Discussed favorite lamps. Snack. Watched mom eat lunch. Snack. Nap. Take bath. Change clothes. Mom is gone so dad offers strange bottle as snack. Explain I would prefer mom. Still offered bottle. Explain more loudly. Still just bottle. Yell loudly. Get tired, nap. Wake up. Hungry. Still that stupid bottle. Yell. Dad uses telephone. Apparently mom is buying an external hard-drive to back up all data before computer is wiped tomorrow because of a virus incurred during her time at home. Yell some more. Mom returns. Smile, laugh. Snack. Snack more. Sleep well, dreaming of victory: Toby-1, Jon/Sarah-0

toby of the day, 9.25.07

hours sarah spent at work: 3 ounces toby drank from a bottle: 2 jon’s level of frustration: lower! This evening we met with toby’s future day care provider. She has a lovely lamp that toby was quite enchanted by. Whether the fancy lamp will merit us handing over a hearty chunk of our income remains to be seen, but so far we’re optimistic.

toby of the day, 9.24.07

hours sarah spent at work: 2.5 ounces toby drank from a bottle: 1 jon’s level of frustration: medium This week I’m beginning to transition back to work. Unfortunately Toby prefers his food directly from the source, and so instead of eating while I was gone today, he pretty much held out until I returned. Thus, I suspect the next few days will showcase an exciting battle of wills. How long can toby resist the bottle? How long can Jon tolerate Toby’s not so demure requests for non-bottled food? How long can I stand to be at work? We’ll keep you posted.

toby of the day, 9.23.07

Toby accidentally attended his first street craft fair when we went to the pharmacy today, complete with stained glass sun-catchers, hemp clothes, and overpriced pottery. Toby bought a couple of t-shirts, one with a dragon (for 6 months old), one with a rooster (for 12 months old). Of course, upon closer inspection at home, we determined that they are exactly the same size. Those crafty craftspeople!

toby of the day, 9.22.07

Today is Saturday, which in many ways is no different than any other day except that jon is home and showing off all the things he can do. For example, toby and I slept in, jon cleaned the fish tank. Toby ate, Jon swept and mopped. Toby and I took a nap, Jon recorded some music. Toby ate again, Jon showered and looked for job postings. Toby and I did some kicking on the floor, Jon mixed down some songs. Toby put his hand in his mouth, Jon put his foot in his mouth.

toby of the day, 9.21.07

here, toby is holding a milk towel with mickey mouse silhouettes on it. During their visits, each member of my family threatened to someday take toby to Disney world. And though they weren’t surprised that we were against Disney world, given our anti-consumerism/ anti-corporate ranting, they were, well, surprised that we were against Disney world. I’ve been thinking about it since then, and I realize that while we dream that toby will always prefer totoro to mickey mouse, and Nausicaa to Aladdin (and yes, I see the irony of this comparison since Disney distributes Miyazaki’s work), kids like Disney world, and I admit that I did too when I was young. It’s normal. Moreover, I imagine that my parents didn’t dream that I would, for example, prefer the dead kennedy’s and the subhumans over Woody Guthrie, so as much as we’d like toby to follow our crazy off the grid lifestyle, that doesn’t mean that he will or should. He’ll probably also want us to buy a TV that was made more recently than 1981. So I suppose they can take him, but the TV stays, at least for now.

toby of the day, 9.20.07

Number of shirts we went through before finding one that fit toby today: 3, he sure is a big boy. mid-morning naptime: 9:47am activities/milestones: toby can now hold his head up really high when he lies on his stomach, which also means that lying on his stomach doesn’t immediately result in screams of frustration like it used to. It sure looks tiring, especially with those little arms holding up such a big head, and of course all those extra chins.

toby of the day, 9.19.07

Number of times I wish that I hadn’t set myself up to come up with something clever to count every day: 14

mid-morning naptime: 12:13pm

activities/milestones: toby slept until 10am this morning, recovering from spending 4 hours trying to sleep in his own bed last night. Of course, 10am is his usual naptime, which greatly complicated the morning and made him somewhat ornery until a nap in the swing set him straight. This afternoon I made my first trip back to work to get some information from Kathy before she moves to Boston (stopping in Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Israel, and Europe on the way). Work is hard, especially after not thinking for 2 months. It doesn’t help that Kathy is the smartest person, well, maybe ever. After she ran through information on solenoids and digital I/O’s and Matlab functions, she asked if I had any questions. I realized then that the entire time I had been singing to myself a little song about toby wearing pajamas that I wrote this morning. Needless to say, I couldn’t come up with any questions, though I’m sure I’ll have a ton once she’s on the other side of the world. Now that I’m back home, my head hurts and I need a nap. I was only gone an hour. Work is hard.

toby of the day, 9.18.07

number of wardrobe changes today: me-2 toby-3. time to get more quarters. mid-morning naptime: 10:03am activities/milestones: Today, Mimi from my lab brought us lunch and toby, as a gracious host, decided to show her the magic of wool diaper covers. In particular, how they not only fail to provide a barrier between you and a soggy diaper, but also, once wet have the lovely smell of wet wool. Genius! This evening toby slept for the first time on his own mattress. For a little while anyway. After his first feeding at 3:15am he made it clear that he much preferred to be wedged into our full size bed than stretched out but cold and lonely on his. of course, with him back in our bed, his spacious mattress looked pretty appealing to both jon and I.