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.