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.