My friend Christine was in the waiting room at her local hospital in Vermont, when she glanced at the literature rack and saw a familiar face glancing back:
Christine thoughtfully grabbed a copy for us and mailed it right away. I’ve read through the brochure a dozen times, but it doesn’t indicate whether Susannah is meant to be the giver or the recipient of psychiatric services.
Any of you ever check out the logo for The First Years, makers of fine baby products? These guys make great stuff, but what is up with the logo? Is it just me or does this look like an infant and a toddler bouncing on a poor newborn?! What kind of monstrous design firm dreamt this one up?!
Hey gang! I realize its been a long bloggy dry spell. That is due in no small part to the fact that I have not updated the blog recently.
No major news stories to report here. Jonah is once again sleeping through the night. He had been doing that before, but then caught a daycare cold and produced more mucus than one might expect a 15 lb baby could do. But now he seems to be free of that and is again sleeping from about 8:30 to 5:30. Happy times.
Susannah is on a brief trip to the Pacific Northwest, so The Boys are left to fend for themselves. No problem — a little formula and we can all go to bed happy.
Susannah and I just got a great CD in the mail. It is called For The Kids, and it is a compilation of children’s songs sung by artists such as Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Cake and others. It is a pretty good listen, and I recommend it heartily for those with and without young kids.
Finally, you may notice that I have reverted to a contraction-free writing style. This is not by choice, but rather due to the fact that I have written a painfully inadequate web-based database front-end application to update my blog. This application blows up when I try to insert double quotes, single quotes, apostrophes, and perhaps semicolons;;; No, semicolons seem to be ok.
Happy birthday wishes going out to my brother Jeremy today, as he turns the big 20-something! As the old saying goes, “May your gut remain trim, your hair remain full, and all your muscles not ache so much when you do the things you used to do a year ago without so much as a second thought.”
In other news, Jonah has a new favorite activity. He LOVES listening to the women at day care speak to him in Spanish. Seriously, he cracks up laughing every time they switch to El Español on him. It’s maybe the funniest thing I’ve seen him do. Susannah suggested we just turn on Univision (Motto: ¡Sábado Gigante – ahora siete dÃas a la semana!) at home and have Spanish women speaking to Jonah all day.
Hello all! So sorry for the long absence in blog updates. I’d have written something sooner, if not for three small factors:
1. We’re all sick.
We’ve all been fighting off a cold of some kind for the past week or so. Jonah was congested, then Susannah had a sore throat, and in turn I had a runny nose. Then Jonah was running a fever, Susannah still had a sore throat, then I was congested and had a sore throat. After that, Jonah was just congested, Susannah felt mostly better, and I had a sore fever and was running a throat. Then Jonah was all better, Susannah’s sore throat returned, and I had boils, cattle disease, and one of the other plagues. Maybe frogs. We’re mostly all better now.
2. My computer died.
There was an unpleasant rattling sound coming from inside my ‘puter, so I performed some advanced diagnostics by putting my ear near the box. Turned out to be that the heatsink/fan unit was a little rattly. So I replaced the heatsink/fan. Now – and let’s pretend this is wholly unrelated – my motherboard is shot. So I’ve just purchased a new MoBo (that’s authentic geek speak there, folks) . This new one is a larger form factor, however, so I’ve also bought a new case. These should all arrive next week. My computer should be reassembled by next weekend. Woo hoo!
3. My mom is in Tucson.
Not that her presence here has prevented me from writing; it’s just minimized the necessity. She’s the main reader of the blog, so there’s less of a need to actually provide updates. Seriously, go check the comments of any previous posting. It’s all mom, all the time. Love you, mommy!
And yes, mom, the photos of all the kids are now online.
When I dropped off Jonah at daycare this morning, the two of us were greeted like celebrities. All the women there love Jonah, so he’s used to getting the ooh and aah treatment, but today when I walked in all the 5 and 6 year old kids looked up at me and said, “Look! That man’s wearing a Batman shirt!”
It’s nice to be loved.
There are a couple of new photos over at the photo site.
103 miles, door to door, from our house to what should soon be the Sims’ house in Gilbert, AZ. Here’s a picture of their new place, sorta. Of course, we’re very excited about them moving out to AZ. It’ll be great for Jonah to have cousins and an aunt and uncle so close!
Not much else going on here that’s very noteworthy. Jonah was having a little “tummy distress” this weekend, but he feels much better now that he has “pooped”.
I know you’re all clamoring for new photos of the kid, and some of you are even clamoring for a way to actually view the existing photos while at the office. I promise all of your clamors will soon be resolved.
We’ve come to realize recently that parenting is all about setting new standards; about reconsidering our own preconceived notions of what makes up ‘good enough’; about looking at just where in our lives we have set the bar, and then knocking it down several notches. Yes, our threshold for what qualifies as ‘acceptable’ in many things has fallen considerably in the past 7 weeks.
Consider dinner conversation. Last night Susannah and I were having dinner together at the same table at the same time. (Let me pause here for a moment, since that last line was newsworthy in itself). We took turns: one of us holding and feeding the baby while the other ate. As I was feeding Jonah, he released his last meal, reprocessed, into his diaper and kept on eating. Susannah remarked that this may be the only time in a person’s life where he can eat and poop at the same time. Three months ago we were discussing Kandinsky at dinner. New standard.
Or take this morning, for instance. I got up to feed the baby at 4:50. He was back in the crib by 5:50. My alarm goes off at 6:15. Ordinarily, I don’t know that I would have considered a 25 minute nap as ‘worth it’. Now? It is so worth it. Hell, I’ve taken a nap during the commercial break. I’ve set my watch alarm to wake me in 90 seconds.
The big beneficiary here is Mookie, the cat. It used to be she was not allowed on the table, on the counters, in Jonah’s room, etc. Nowadays as long as she’s not smoking in the house or stealing money out of our wallets, we’re happy.
Of course there are some areas where we simply will not allow our standards to drop. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping on the bus to work for instance. That’s creepy. I also don’t think we’ll allow Jonah to stand in the way of our waiting on line starting several nights before to get tickets to Batman Begins. I haven’t talked to Susannah about that yet, but I’m sure she’s in.
So let me first start this blog entry with an apology. I recognize that many, if not all, of you depend on this blog for the only source of Jonah-related funny stories. I’m sorry that I’ve been so delinquent in providing a new entry. And now that I am providing a new entry — one that is nearly entirely devoid of Jonah-related stories, at that — you’ll be just as upset as if I hadn’t updated at all. Let me start this blog entry with two apologies…
It’s not that I don’t want to open this little window onto Jonah’s world for you, it’s just that looking into that window would only show you a screaming baby and two very sleep-deprived parents. For thems what don’t know, Jonah has started sleeping in his crib at nights, as opposed to in our bed. It’s been a challenging experience. Much in the same way Sisyphus’ rock was a challenging experience.
Couple that with the fact that this one of two major crunch times at the office, and you’ve got a tired daddy. We’re getting ready for a big software test release, and we’ve all been busier than a pack of geeks crammed in a cubicle farm getting ready for a big software test release. Actually, we’ve been exactly that busy. In some ways, however, I think that between me and Susannah, mine is the easier job. At least I can sleep at the office.
So we’re looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend in Scottsdale. Jonah will get to spend some quality time with Grandma Jean and Grandaddy Jim, and Jonah’s mommy and daddy will take the opportunity to drink a glass of wine and sleep for 48 straight hours.
Hard to believe, but the following AMAZING SPORTS FEATS have all occurred within Jonah’s lifetime: