Amazing, and Wholly Unexpected

Yes, that could be your reaction to seeing a new post so soon after my last post. (It's certainly Parie's.) But the title refers to what happened this morning. Parie had to go to Doc G.'s office (she's got a nasty cough) and I was feeding the boy. After we finished, I picked him up and was dancing slowly around the room, and noticed he was burying his head in my shoulder and chest, telling me he was a little tired. So I kept swaying slowly to some music I'd just popped onto the iPod (the new one by slowcore band Radar Bros.),and then eventually sat down. Sofian didn't make a peep of frustration at this. So we hung out in Mama's favorite chair (the recliner) and listened to more of the album (quite a luxury for me these days to just sit and listen to music without doing something else).

After a few tunes, I could tell his breathing was heavier and that he was more deeply asleep. So, I got up, brought him to his crib, and put him down. And there he stayed for nearly two hours.

The significance of this is that it usually takes a feeding from Parie or a drive in Bertie the Bio Bullet to get this boy to sleep. He doesn't just decide to nap out, it takes work. Maybe this portends to better self-soothing-to-sleep in the weeks to come?

Speaking of eating, here's Sofian and his new food plate/tray (with farm animals with their names written in French). (But don't get too excited about his spoon skills -- he's still quite happy just squeezing the food through his fingers for the time being.)

Hungry Hungry Sofian

 

Catching Up

Wow, I've been pretty awful in the blogging arena of late. For the most part, things have been pretty quiet around here... save for the exploding pyrex dish.





That occurred while Parie was making a delicious dinner for our PEPS Gang gathering last week. We quickly ordered pizza, and kept the babies out of the kitchen.

Sofian's been moving around a lot more, though still just doing the GI Joe crawl:

Ground Perspective

And he's experimenting with new surfaces:

Playing around the table

Parie's also been pretty busy finalizing the plans for our addition, which we're planning on starting this summer. So I'm taking over Sofian duty for a full day each week. Here's what happened at the end of Daddy Day Care last week - I plumb wore the boy out!



Other tidbits from the last couple of weeks:

• Our pals Megan and Lindsay (who are expecting in a couple of months) came over on Sunday night and brought dinner in exchange for loading them up with some baby gear that Sofian has grown out of (a swing, a bouncy chair, and the infant car seat). And they stuck around after Parie got the boy down to sleep, and the two of us went out on the town for awhile while Megan and Lindsay listened to our iPod's selections and graded papers. Sofian never made a peep. Parie and I went to a West Seattle pub with a lot of European and micro brews, and played some scrabble. We know how to kick out the jams!
  
  
• Sofian is still loving his Water Babies class at the YMCA, and Parie told me he was doing quite a bit of kicking in the water last time. I get to do the class this week with the boy.
  
  
• Some of the things he's been eating lately: lots of Purely O's (an organic brand of Cheerios-like cereal), mashed potatoes/parsnips with some garlic (we were worried he'd be turned off by the garlic, but he plowed through it), small chunks of carrot and broccoli.
  
  
• If Sofian crawls into either the kitchen or one of the other rooms, you can call out, "Where's Sofian?" a couple of times, and he'll come crawling back with a smile on his face when he sees you.
  
  
• I'm doing the South Beach diet (lots of protein) and have lost over 7 pounds, but man am I craving some carbs right about now.
  

How's That More Blogging Resolution Going?

Ahhhhhhh, welllllll... OK, maybe not so hot. But the past two weeks have been monster busy for me with freelance work (it's high time of the year for technology products, and I've been busy covering new stuff from the Consumer Electronics Show and Macworld for Amazon -- for example, the luscious new MacBook Air, for which I did Amazon's detail page content).

Both Parie and I have been settling into our new routines -- me working about 4 days a week, and Parie tending to the lil' guy at home (and going out and about with him, too). This week, Sofian and I went on an afternoon adventure to Ikea (now that's big fun!!!), and starting next week I'll be hanging with him for a full day to give Parie time to finish plans for our addition as well as just chill out a bit.

The biggest thing of the past couple of weeks is how much Sofian is moving around. He's doing the GI Joe crawl, and it's getting faster, but there's not much sign of him getting on his knees to crawl quite yet. It turns out, we hadn't been offering him the right motivation to get moving, as you can see from this video:

The Sweet, Sweet Cell Phone

I also want to show off this video from our most recent PEPS gathering (last week, at Ayana's) -- the babies have certainly come a long way since our first meetings, and it's quite a circus of movement.

PEPS Goes Crazy

I'll try to get back on track this weekend. But for now it's back to trolling news about Apple for my weekly Apple blog post at Amazon.

 

Dinner with Jeff and Kim

Our good pals Jeff and Kim (who are expecting at the end of the month -- check out their January Project Flickr photo album) came by last night for a long overdue get-together. Parie made a fanoozlin' fantastic manacotti dish that she got from watching the newest Jamie Oliver show (full of creme fresh deliciousness as well as healthy cauliflower and broccoli). And Jeff brought over his Nikon D80 digital SLR and grabbed some excellent photos at the table.







This last one was sort of shot by Sofian, who was helped in operating the clicker by Jeff.

Speaking of Jeff, I gotta get back to helping him finish up his latest book project (a bit of a baby shower present).

More Swinging

Mama loves to take pictures of Sofian in the swing at our nearby park. Here a sampling from the most recent photo shoot:





Note also that Sofian is wearing his new "lettuce hat" (as it looks like a leaf of bibb lettuce), which was knit by Aunti Keri. We love it.

 

He's In the Jailhouse Now

We got a late Christmas present to ourselves delivered today -- a baby jail! This should actually be a really good thing for Sofian, as he can roll around and practice moving himself without us having to fish him out from underneath the furniture when we take our eyes off of him for just a second (he's getting really quick at the rolling).

Baby Jail

 

More Christmas at the LemonDrop

Tutu and Tomtom (aka, Sofian's grandparents Ann and Tom McElligott) made their way north from Portland on the Thursday after the official day to share Christmas with the denizens of the LemonDrop. Sofian was gifted a motherload of board books that were thoughtfully and artfully researched and chosen by Tutu. Here's just a sampling:





The boy loves his books, and I think he's really gonna like these.

That said, here's Tutu with Sofian after opening his presents -- and he's back to being fascinated by the floor mat letters.

Christmas with Tutu and Tomtom

He also got a great set of Uncle Goose blocks, and Tomtom was showing him the ropes:



And here's the boy wondering what might be coming next:

New Year's Theme

A group of my friends (primarily from St. Olaf) have had a tradition of coming up with a theme for the coming new year on New Year's Eve. Some of the best have been Nutty and Nude in '92 and Take Your Passion, Make It Happen (stolen from Flashdance, and I think that was for '94). I got the proposal from Sue Unkenholz last night via email for this year's theme, and I'm all over it:

Why Wait in '08?!?

I'd say that works perfectly with my resolutions posted below.

 

Resolutions

I'm not usually one for doing the yearly New Year Resolutions list, but as a new Papa who leads a busy freewheeling freelance life, I've come to realize I need to be better about setting goals and to-do lists to make sure the things that need getting done get done. Also, 2008 is going to be a busy year for the entire family, with Parie leaving her job to be a stay-at-home-Mama while also completing plans for the addition to the LemonDrop and finding/negotiating with contractors. (I'm still going to be taking care of Sofian for at least a day a week, so that Parie has time to get the addition going as well as give her some downtime.) So, here are some things I'll set to blog to help remind me of what needs doing in the next year.

• Blog more. Yes, I'm going to do my concerted best to be much more regular at keeping you up to date with Sofian's activities and growth. I'm also hoping to get back to doing more regular political blogging over at Cracks in the Facade.
  
  
• Get out of the house more with Sofian. We need to be better at introducing him to the wonders that can be found in Seattle, from the Children's Museum to the Zoo to the newly rejiggered Seattle Art Museum to just walking around the Pike Place Market. He loves getting out and about, it really energizes him in a fun and exciting way.
  
  
• As a corallary to to that, we also need to get Sofian together with other folks, like his PEPS pals or just meeting Mama/Papa pals for coffee. He really feeds on seeing other people.
  
  
• Get out of the house more without Sofian. Mama and Papa need to do a better job at not being so housebound. We need to get out and grab a restaurant meal or go see a flick or just hang at a coffeeshop on our own without worrying about taking care of Sofian's needs. And while we need to do this together as much as we can, we also need to understand we may have to go our separate ways from time to time to get this accomplished, leaving the other home to hang with the boy but making sure the away time balances out between the two of us.
  
  
• And as a corallary to that, we need to get together with our peeps more often -- with and without Sofian.
  
  
• Lose 20 pounds. And that means more consistent use of the YMCA membership. And biking more (not just to work, but up the West Seattle hill to do errands).
  
  
• Be more conscious of our finances. While we're losing one half-time income and I'm hoping to more than make up for that with longer, more consistent freelance hours, we still need to be better about our finances, since we hope to pay for a decent chunk of the addition in cash. Plus, with the macro economy on shaky legs, it's time to start pulling in and stop feeding Sofian caviar-topped Purely O's.
  
  
• Get the LD addition started... first by finding contractors and then actually building it.
  
  
• Be more consistent in my usage of to-do lists to manage my swirl of work and activities. I've been using the online Remember the Milk to-do application, and it's been helpful. I just need to make it a daily practice.
  
  
• Niggling projects: organizing my British food magazine clips collection; making improvements to our Mac Mini entertainment system; creating a manageable system for keeping our shed organized; getting rid of the junk in the backyard; finishing up the top to our compost bin system; etc., etc.
  
  Oh yeah, and baby-proofing the house. I think that goes to the top of the list.
  
  
• Work hard to ensure a Democrat (Obama, Edwards, Clinton, Dodd, or Biden in preference order) is elected President in November. This is the first election that means something to the boy's future, and there's a lot of crap to work through after the last 7 years.