My New Year's Resolution: Regular Posting

Yes, it's been awhile. And this seems to be a continuing refrain. The last couple of weeks have been focused on getting out from under The House of Sick, and happily everyone's doing a lot better. And then last weekend we received a pre-Christmas visit from Sofian's North Carolinian grandparent contingent: Mamalama and Papalapa. So things have been busy. Here are a couple of pics and vids from that visit:

And in the midst of this (after the Barack Obama rally), the LCD on our camera fritzed out, and seeing that's the only way to see what you're taking a picture of, we haven't been recording too much of Sofian. But we have a replacement jetting its way here soon. And for 2008, I resolve to be much more regular in my posting to the blog (something that certainly cheers Parie - though I'd love to get her posting here as well).

 

Goodbye Poop Pail, Hello Biodiesel

As you know, we do cloth diapers here at the LemonDrop, and the soiled ones are stored in a "wet bucket" (water that's been treated with Borax) that we lovingly refer to as the Poop Pail. But future generations of Uptight Seattleites like ourselves might be able to content themselves with disposable diapers, happy with the knowledge that they'll be turned into fuel. Well, at least it's a possibility according to this story in the Toronto Star:

If a Quebec company has its way, dirty diapers normally destined for landfills will soon be transformed into a cost-effective, synthetic diesel fuel.

It's not such a stretch, says engineering and project management company AMEC, which is working on behalf of an as yet unnamed client to build a facility in the Montreal area that would use a process known as pyrolysis to convert diapers to diesel.
[...]
The initial plan is to convert about 30,000 diapers, about one-quarter of the diapers that end up in landfills in Quebec yearly. Piciacchia says that number of diapers will translate into about 11,000 tonnes of diesel fuel. The preliminary economic analysis pegs the cost of the fuel at 50 cents per litre.

Pyrolysis, also known as thermal cracking, involves heating up the diapers up in a closed, controlled environment at temperatures of up to 600C without air, essentially breaking them down thermally.

 

Sofian's First Christmas Tree Ornament

Thought we'd start a tradition of getting a new ornament each year for the boy. Here's the first:



Looks good next to our Obama '08 ornament:

 

House of the Descending Sick (plus Bonus Vasectomy)

It's been slow and creeping, but it's finally got its grasp on all of us: The Sick. Parie got it first coming home from our Thanksgiving travels. Then Sofian last week picked up a pretty heavy cough and fever, for which he as prescribed some antibiotics and prednisone. And finally, this weekend, I finally succumbed, and was completely useless and napped out today.

Oh, and I got a vasectomy on Thursday. From Dr. Snip (aka, Dr. Charlie Wilson). It was amazingly easy and quick -- took about 10 minutes, during which Dr. Snip and I had a pretty good conversation about 3G cell phone networks. In the days since, I've not had any complications or pain, so all's well. And Sofian gets to be a pampered only child.

Aside from illin', the big problem has been Sofian's sleep, largely due to the steroids in the prednisone. The first day (Thursday) we gave it to him late in the afternoon, which was a big mistake. I was out driving Sofian around at 2:30am trying to get him to sleep. He got about 6 hours of sleep the entire night. And each night since it's been a battle to get him to sleep, even though we've been giving him the prednisone dosage first thing in the morning. Tonight, I drove him around 7:30 and that didn't work. We let him hang out on the bed and play for awhile. Then Parie went out and tried driving him at 10. That didn't work either -- he fell asleep in the car, but as soon as he was being laid down in his crib, he woke wide awake and started screaming.

When he's feeling better, we're planning on getting much more draconian on his schedule and letting him cry things out. I'm looking forward to that, cos this is not sustainable.

 

Pingu!

These 5-minute episodes of claymation magic might just be the thing to introduce Sofian to the telly (when we're ready for that). Check out more about Pingu at Wikipedia.

 

Light On for Lights Out

The week following our return from our travels, Sofian has gone a few steps back in his sleeping habits. He's waking up once a couple hours after he goes to bed (between 9 and 10) and then once or more in the middle of the night (typically around 4am, though last night it was 2am). It's been playing havoc with our sleep (I've been comatose today after several nights of not getting enough REM), and we're hoping we can chalk it up to him feeling a little feverish this week.

But we also worry that his completely dark room has been playing a part in it, so we got the boy a Tykelight from Mobi. Resembling something out of Ghostbusters, it's actually a portable nightlight that charges on its a magnetic charging base (you have to take it off the base for it to light up, and it holds an approximate 10-hour charge).



We'll see if this makes any difference with his sleeping (so far tonight, he's been up and crying right on schedule). But it does make a big difference when I go in to try and soothe him. Before I had to guess if he was getting sleepy in the black-out conditions, but now I can actually see his face in the glowing blue light (we went with that color as we could get it quicker than the others - thus no orange as you might expect).

Thanksgiving Wrap-up

Last week we made a cross-country journey to introduce Sofian to his Great Grandfather Harry (and Aunty Judy in Minneapolis) and Great Grandmother Paps (in Florida). This was Sofian's first experience flying, and the first leg to Minneapolis didn't go too badly. We'd hoped that the ambient noise of the plane would help him nap, but that wasn't to be (and a harbinger of flights to come). But we were glad we sprung the extra cash for a seat for Sofian and his car seat.

Sofian was a gentleman while we were in Minneapolis, toning down his pterodactyl screeching, and he performed admirably with his blocks on the floor for Great Pa and Aunty Dudy. The three of us even got to drive south to Northfield for a quick tour of my alma mater, St. Olaf (and a chance meeting with fellow alum Doug Bratland at the Goodbye Blue Moon coffee shop).


Great Pa with grandson and great-grandson


Aunty Dudy and Sofian

Our next stop was Jacksonville, FL to visit with Parie's side of the family, including Step-Mom Annakay, sister Molly and her husband Jonathan and their two kids Natalie and Noah (who's the new kid on the block at just 3 months), and Great-Grandmother Paps (who was transported in from Montgomery, AL by Annakay). Sofian astounded them all with his laser beam-like focus on playing with blocks for 3 hours one day, and Paps definitely took a shine to him. I also got into my first fender bender ever, rear-ending Molly's SUV (no one was hurt and our rental car took all of the damage thanks to the SUV's trailer hitch).


Paps with granddaughter and great-grandson


Molly and Noah

And here's Sofian playing in an exer-saucer at Molly and Jonathan's, and having a great time exploring all the colorful doodads attached to it (he's so big, he was actually on his knees in the saucer, rather than bouncing on his feet).

Sofian Discovers a Colorful Toy

 

Health Update

Well, this post keeps getting later and later. Yesterday (Tuesday) started out early with Sofian waking up at 4:30am (and thus, his parents were up as well). We suspected the boy was out of sorts because of a cold/sore throat, and so we visited Doc G in the afternoon. He tested for a kidney infection, which came back negative, and then told us the boy either has a phantom infection that's causing a fever or roseola. If the latter is the case, the fever should end in a day or two and be followed by a rash. Last night was another tough night, with me driving the boy for about 45 minutes to get him to sleep, only to have him wake up on the transfer back into the crib. And he got up once or twice shortly thereafter, and then fully waking up at 4:45am, where I took over to let an illin' Parie get some more sleep. I did finally get him back to sleep, and was able to go to bed for awhile. The boy is now up and seems to be feeling spritely.

 

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig!

We got home from our travels late last night, and we're exhausted from our cross-country holiday tour with stops in Minneapolis and Jacksonville. We'll be posting more in the next day or so, but for now here's a very tired Sofian at the Jacksonville Airport from yesterday.

 

The Big Experiment

Tonight Parie had a girls' night out with Aunti Keri and Joy, leaving me at home to put the boy to bed. I actually volunteered for the duty, as Sofian actually took to the boob bottle last Saturday while Parie was having a spa day with Anne Gienapp. So the boy and I had some fun playing with blocks and bowls till 7 o'clock, and then did a half-hour of reading. It seemed like he was starting to wind down (some ear tugging, rubbing of the eyes), so I pulled out the bottle and it was going alright.

But then I think Sofian came to the realization that he was not going to be put to bed by Mama, and then the tears began to flow. I didn't want to force the issue of the bottle too much, so we did some dancing around his room and some bouncing on my quads (which are getting back into shape thanks to visits to the Y). However, it became obvious that this wasn't going to work, so we had to go to the tried and true method of putting the boy to sleep: driving around West Seattle. I actually rather enjoy these rides (as long as they're not at 3am). Got to listen to the last few minutes of the BBC news, and then some mellow jazz on the two NPR stations here in the Puget Sound area (we're quite lucky). And we were driving in a gentle rain, which helped turn Sofian toward sleep fairly easily. After a successful reentry into the house, the boy remains asleep. Fingers crossed...

 

Perfect for Shaming Sofian as a Teenager

Or maybe it's a reflection on his crazy parents. You make the call. Anyhoo, it's a good way to show off our new colorful interlocking foam play pad that Parie found. It's awesome, and I have a feeling that she'll be ordering more.

Fashion Disaster on the Disco Floor

Flashdance called... they want their leg warmers back.

Tidbits

• Our twice weekly Water Babies swim class is going swimmingly well, after some initial reticence from the boy. On his first exposure to the pool, just dangling a foot in the water would elicit screams of agony. Happily, on his third visit, some switched flipped and it was the funnest thing ever. Parie goes to the Monday class and I get to go on Wednesdays, and I'm very glad we've been able to both get this experience (especially since it's turned out so well).
  
  
• Speaking of the YMCA (where our Water Babies class is held, and of which we are now members), I took Sofian there this morning and did something amazing: I left him at daycare while I went to work out. Parie has done this now twice, so I wanted to give it a whirl. It was very strange just to plop the boy down on the play mat and scurry off. Unfortunately, the boy was a little too tired and melted down, and thus I was summoned back to the daycare room over the intercom.
  
  
• We're having the PEPS Gang (aka, our parents' group) over for dinner tomorrow night, and we're already getting the mis en place in place. As always, we're looking forward to having folks over. We really lucked out in getting placed with some pretty fantastic folk.
  
  
• You'll be happy to know that Sofian's poo has turned solid.
  
  
• Sofian and I walked over to the Delridge Community Center this afternoon to drop off our mail-in ballots. It looks like this will be the last election in King County to have staffed voting places -- it'll be going to all mail next year. So the boy will never know the joy (and the annoyance) of standing in line to cast a vote.
  
  
• We take off for our National Sofian Tour on Saturday the 17th. First stop will be Minneapolis, MN to visit with Great-Grandfather Harry and Aunty Judy, and then it's on to Jacksonville, FL to visit with Grandmother Annakay (aka, Ama) and Parie's sister Molly and her family (which now includes Noah, who's just about 3 months old).
  
  
• Here are some random pics:
  

Tutu and Tomtom Come to Seattle

My Mom and step-father, affectionately known in grandparentese as Tutu and Tomtom, came up from Portland last weekend and bunked down at the usual haunt, the Edgewater Hotel, which is where we did our visiting with them (as the steps to the LemonDrop are currently a bit of a challenge). Had some great meals at the restaurant (thanks to our server, Matt, who was delightfully friendly with the samples of wine), as well as great views out onto Elliott Bay and the Puget Sound.





And Sofaloaf is pretty comfortable around his grandparents, completely crashing out one afternoon.





I'm sure we might be getting some video uploads soon from Tutu, now that she's back in Portland.

 

Swinger

That's our boy. We tried him out in a baby swing at one of our nearby parks, and he didn't take to it immediately (this is sounding like a familiar trend), but he's certainly come to enjoy it after getting a few more swing sessions in.

Swinging Sofian

Here's the entire set of photos that Mama snapped.

Halloween with PEPS

We spent Hallow's Eve with the PEPS Gang over at Sammy Wammer's house of fun, and I gotta say I was very impressed with the costumes. I feel like we added another year of therapy to Sofian's tab with his thrown together frog costume while everyone else were gussied up in the real deal. Below, from left, we have Sammy Bee, Ayana Sweet Pea, Ellis Caterpiller, Frog, and Henry Lobster. (It's kinda too bad that Sofian wasn't on the end; it would have fit in nicely with this hilarious NSFW video from YouTube... you gotta wait till the end to get it).



Here's the lineup on the floor (Sammy wasn't too thrilled).



And here's Lobster v Frog:



Thanks to Beth and Pete for the photos.

Back in the Saddle Again

I was off for a quick jaunt this weekend back to Minnesota, where I hooked up with some of my college homies at our old stomping grounds of St. Olaf College. Ward Sutton (the taller best man in our wedding) was doing the keynote speech at Olaf's innaugural Making It in the Arts conference, and David Anderson (aka, DGA; also the shorter best man in our wedding) was going to be in the neighborhood (St. Louis as opposed to Brussels, Belgium). So that spurred myself and Kevin Lapp (read a poem at our wedding) to fly in from the Left Coast. Friday night, we also got together with Pastor Dave Christensen and his family (four daughters!) before heading down to Northfield. It was great to see the campus and the old town, and Ward was a rock star at the conference (as usual).

All this to say, I meant to post some videos to the blog before I left, but didn't get a chance to then or while on the trip. And so, here they are:

The Stick

Bang a Drum, Get It On

Why Can't Adults Speak in Complete Sentences?

And even though I was only gone for about 2 days, it was really good to come home and see the boy (and my lovely wife, to whom I'm very grateful).

On the Town

Despite a rather challenging day of Daddy Day Care yesterday, what with the night's sleeplessness combined with the day's naplessness, we ended on a great note by going out to dinner with the PEPS Gang. We went to Endolyne Joe's here in West Seattle, which is operated by the same folk who run The Coastal Kitchen up on Capitol Hill. Sofian was napped out before we headed out the door, and we feared the worst -- that one of us would be walking him out in the drizzly night while the other enjoyed a hot meal. But he perked up (he is a party boy, no doubt about it) and had a great time grabbing Beth's hair and jacket and, well, anything that he could grab onto. As we were leaving, we ran into another PEPS group of just Moms for a night out on their own. There's definitely a baby boomlet happening around West Seattle.



From left and going clockwise, there's me (Ags), Ayana (hidden by my hulking frame in her car seat), Rich and Angie, Ellis (hidden in the car seat), Amy and Matt, Sammy sitting in Lori's lap, Charlie, Pete holding Henry, Beth, Sofian, and Parie.

Sleep Delays My Life (Get Up! Get Up!)

Last night, Parie and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. I'm not sure what the official gift for the third anniversary is, but we celebrated with fish at Duke's Chowder House (which actually is a lot nicer than the name sounds). Sofian was great at dinner, being nice and quiet and flashing his smile to the neighboring tables. And then on our return home, after a day of just having about an hour's total of napping, he went to sleep pretty quickly at around 7pm. We watched some telly (Heroes and CSI) and called it a night right around 10pm.

Sadly, a sound night's sleep in celebration of three years was not to be. The Boy woke a little after 2am. He'd done the same thing the night before, and we chalked it up to him feeling a little sick (he's got a slight cold). Parie fed him then and he went back to sleep, but we didn't want to make this a habit, so I got up with him. Boy, was he bang wide awake. I did some yoga ball bouncing. Nothing. We sat in the chair for close to an hour and he played with my beard, and as soon as he started yawning and rubbing his eyes we got back on the yoga ball. This time it seemed to take.

For about 10 minutes.

So Parie went in and fed him and that took... for about 5 minutes.

So back to the ball and back to the crib. But that lasted for less than 15 minutes.

And so, the final solution: driving around West Seattle at 4:30am. Got to listen to a bit of BBC news and learned that the middle class is being squeezed, having to deal with rising inflation and having to pay for more medical expenses out of pocket. Sounds familiar.

Got the boy carefully extricated from the car and into bed a little after 5am. Only to have him wake up about 20 minutes later. At which point it was Parie's turn, and she stayed up with him from there on.

As I was driving around, my thoughts turned to this R.E.M. song (from which the post title is derived).

 

The Scream

Where's the mute button?

The Scream

 

More Videos from Tutu

Sofian's grandmother Tutu (aka, my Mom) has been uploading some more videos that she's captured over at our Daily Motion account (you can see them all at this link). Here's one from our recent visit to Portland:

Tutu and Sofian

And one that she shot back in July at the tree-planting portion of our naming ceremony:

Sofian tree planting

Which reminds me I need to carve out some time to get to editing the video that we shot that day.

 

The Week That Was

Another busy week in the life of The LemonDrop kids. Sunday night brought about the annual Columbus Day Dinner, where we got to meet Charlie and Patty's new son Alex as well as introduce Sofian to the rest of the gang. On Tuesday night, we had our PEPS pals over for our weekly dinner get-together, and Parie repurposed some of the filling we had leftover from the ravioli we made for Sunday into a colorful and very tasty lasanga (with beet/goat cheese on the bottom, sweet potato/sage in the middle, and sweet pea/tarragon/ricotta on the top). Here's the gaggle of parents and babies packed into our tiny living room:



Ayana in her throne:



Sammy munching on Ayana's car seat (I mean throne):



Sammy wearing a very appropriate lemon hat:



And a very happy Ellis (who was widely smiling throughout the night, though it might not show here):



We also gathered the PEPS gang over at Ellis' pad on Saturday afternoon for a swinging party... to puree fruits and vegetables into baby food. Yeah, we can still rock! But seriously, it's always great to get together with our PEPS pals (we missed Henry and his minders Beth and Pete) -- good folks, lotsa laughs, and very supportive camaraderie. And we came away with a lot of food to freeze.

Sofian is starting to come down with a bit of a cold, and he didn't nap much at all yesterday (even with waking up at 5am). But luckily he slept pretty soundly through the night and didn't get up until about 5:45 (yay! it was my turn to wake up with him). Unfortunately, Sofian likes to try out his pterodactyl voice early in the morning, and I did everything I could to keep it down (even feeding him a large bowel of oat cereal and apples) so he wouldn't disturb Mama. Alas, she was awakened by 6:30. But now he's down for a morning nap, and we're wrapping up our reading of the NYTimes on a delightfully foggy Seattle morn.

Finally, here's a vid of the boy captured by Parie earlier in the week:

Putting the Boy to Work

 

New Videos from Tutu

Sofian's grandmother in Portland, Tutu, just uploaded some video that she recorded when we visited her and TomTom a couple weekends ago. First one is a good example of Sofian's very excellent laugh these days:

Giggles

And the next two with Sofian demonstrating his grabbing skills (as well as licking skills):

Blocks2

Blocks3

Thanks, Tutu!!!

 

My Fellow Americans, Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

Well, I guess it hasn't really affected the national stage as much as it has the denizens of the LemonDrop. But a significant shift in policy has occurred at the LD: Parie is back on the dairy wagon!!!! It's been well over three months since Parie stopped drinking milk, eating cheese, and basically any baked good that was worth its weight in deliciousness. But a week ago, we tested out some dairy (with creamy curries at our local Indian restaurant, Maharaja) and then proceeded to add in some cheese here and there. The pinnacle was Thursday night, when we brought in a Corson Classic pizza from Stellar -- and no ill effects from the boy. So now we're feeling pretty safe in saying goodbye to oat and rice milks and reintroducing ourselves to the buttery deliciousness of Bakery Nouveau.

Well, we won't be going too overboard. Papa needs to lose 20 pounds (for starters, but that's a good initial goal), and today we joined the YMCA to help in that quest. Also, we'll be signing up for a baby swim class (called Waterbabies) and joining a couple of our other PEPS pals in the class. It should be fun, as Parie will be doing it on Monday mornings and I'll be doing it with Sofian on Wednesday mornings.

Our wild and wacky week has finally simmered down a bit. I'm still up to my neck in work that I'm behind in, but I'm chipping away at it. And Parie still is juggling various and sundry meetings. She had another one this morning, so Sofian and I went on a walk 'round the hood (with our usual stop at our new espresso shop, Bubbles -- looks like they need to update their site to reflect the new storefront). Here's a pic of the boy before we headed out:



And a video of him doing his bucking bronco routine at his mid-morning massive snack attack:

Bucking Bronco

 

Twitter

Yes, that's something I do after I have too much coffee. Twitter is also a new faddish way of microblogging that I've started playing with. Tonya Engst (an old officemate from my Microsoft contracting days and one of the lead players in the Mac-centric TidBITS news site) has a good summary of it: you can publish short messages of a maximum of 140 characters which can inform the world what you're doing at any given moment. You can post tweets from your PC or from your mobile phone via a web browser, and I do a combination. I'm using it largely to give updates on what Sofian's doing on days that I'm taking care of him, but I also update it with random thoughts and pointers.

You can see my most recent Twitter postings over in the right navigation column, or you can check out my Twitter page. If you sign up with Twitter, we can also follow each other -- the more the merrier!

 

Midnight Run

Here's a tip for new parents: make a list of all the 24-hour stores you might need (such as grocery and drug stores).

Last night, as Parie and I were about to turn the lights off, we both realized that it was a little chilly and getting chillier. Yepp, our furnace decided to take a vacation. Seems that the huge, thundering downpour from yesterday overwhelmed our crawlspace with water, and thus overwhelmed our furnace as well. Parie made two forays into the crawlspace (bless her, she's my hero), but couldn't get the heating element to join the cool blowing air that was coming through our vents.

We checked the baby monitor, which also shows the room's temperature, and Sofian's room was indeed getting chillier. I stole in quietly and added a couple of small blankets on top of him, and then started researching stores in the area that might have space heaters. Unfortunately, it was right at the time that Home Depot, Fred Meyer, Lowes, and even Wal-Mart (in faraway Renton) was closing. But then I remembered from an experience that fellow Dad Glenn Fleishman had years ago (when he drove the city looking for an all-night drug store for reflux medicine) that Bartell Drugs had a 24-hour store over in Queen Anne (which, for out of towners, is where the Space Needle sits). I called and they had a radiator-style electric heater, so I was out the door. I felt a little strange standing in line with midnight revelers buying cigarettes, beef jerkey, and shampoo while I held a giant electric heater box. "Looks like it's gonna be a cold one," remarked one.

Best $50 I've spent in some time. It worked like a charm, even on its low 600-watt setting (heating Sofian's room up to 72 degrees at some point in the middle of the night when we checked).

The next step is to get the furnace back in operation, and Parie is heading back down to the crawlspace to try a new tactic. Fingers are crossed.

[UPDATE] After a couple of trips to the crawlspace, it looked like hope was lost and we called the people who installed our furnace to set an appointment for them to come out -- the earliest being next Tuesday. Then Parie headed out for a meeting and I was feeding the boy some apples and oat cereal when I noticed it getting warmer than expected. Somehow, the magical fixes that Parie tried finally kicked in and we've got the heat is on!

Various & Sundry Pics and Vids

From the last couple of weeks. Here's the boy attacking some oat cereal:

Big boy breakfast

Completely napping out in his new Zutano zoot suit:



Visiting with Aunti Keri:



And trying to get a taste of my Smithwicks (down, boy!):

 

Catching Our Breath

As is typically the case these days, it's been quite the busy time around the LemonDrop, and thus my blogging about all things Sofian and parenting has suffered. Heck, just about all extra-curricular writing/creative projects have been dropping, with no updates on my other blogs (Cracks and One Egg), the bare minimum of blogging work done on the Amazon blogs (with just my weekly Apple update on the Electronics blog, and my time with the baby blog pretty much done for), and various and sundry tech/music projects sitting on the furthest back of backburners. It's the same old story -- trying to fit in loads of work in a smaller work schedule due to my Daddy Day Care duties two days a week. Of course, I'm not the only one trying to squeeze a schedule -- Parie's got two full days of work plus occasional meetings on her off days (during which I take over).

So, yes, things have felt a little overwhelming of late. But, the kid's pretty darned cute and pretty fun to hang around (most of the time), so I really can't complain too much.



Some tidbits from the last week or so:

• We've made arrangements for our week of travel during the Thanksgiving holiday, going first to Minnesota on 17 November to visit my Grandfather and Aunt (and anyone else who might be around), and then off to Florida to visit Parie's Grandmother Paps and her Sister's family (including Noah, the newest addition).
  
  
• We had our friends Jeff and Kim over for dinner last week, where we discussed their January Project at great length.
  
  
• Sofian is now eating oat cereal and peas, and we're doing combinations (apple & oats, carrots & peas). This morning for breakfast, we had him in his Tripp Trapp chair at the table while we had French Toast, and he was very curious about what we were munching on.
  
  
• Last weekend, we were down in Portland visiting Tutu (my Mom) and Tomtom (my step-father Tom) at their newish shindigs at the Willamette View retirement community, and had a grand time hanging out with the grandparents and introducing Sofian to the community. Tutu was very happy to see Sofian after not seeing him for a couple of months.
  

 

Quick Stats

Yesterday we took Sofian in to see Doc G for his 6-month well baby check-up, and here's the official tale of the tape:

Weight: 21 pounds (95th percentile)
Height: 29 inches (off the charts... seriously)
Head: 45cm (almost 18 inches; 93rd percentile)

He also had 5 shots, and he did pretty well with them -- some bloody screaming during the injections, but that ended within a couple of minutes being comforted by Mama.

We're rushing around this morning getting ready for our driving adventure to Portland, but I'll post more later.

[UPDATE] Here's two pics I captured on the iPhone -- Dr. Guerra checking Sofian's heart, and then his assistant, Val, measuring his noggin:

 

Pick-Up Skills

Sofian Playing With His New Toys

 

A Trip to Bizarro World and Back

We moved Sofian into his own room this last week (more on that a little later), and sleeping has been great for his Mom and Dad. But Saturday morning, Parie and I both woke up about 6am -- the time he usually wakes (if not a little earlier) -- but we heard nothing coming from the baby monitor. We started getting a little worried when we continued to hear nothing, and Parie even slipped in to check on him. As she crept closer to the crib, she still couldn't get a good view, as his face was obscured by a blanket. But she carefully peeled it away and saw that he was indeed breathing, and then returned to bed. He finally started squawking around quarter to 7. Normal service resumed this morning with a wake up shriek from pterodactyl boy at 6am.

 

Crossing My Fingers

I'm really hoping I'll become a soccer Dad, though I'll happily support him through just about any activity that tickles his fancy (excepting boxing, ultimate fighting, lawn darts, and Society of Creative Anachronism). Here he is practicing his ball handling skills:

Sofian demonstrates his soccer skills with the O-ball

 

The Tripp Trapp

Here are some unboxing photos of Sofian's new highchair, the Tripp Trapp. Parie was amazed that it came in such a small box, but she shouldn't have been too surprised since it was designed in Northern Europe, land of Ikea.







And here's the final product:



So far, he's enjoing it. It's a little tough getting him into the chair right now, as his legs bump up against the baby rail, but we adjusted it a bit today and things will hopefully go a bit smoother. Here he is enjoying dinner (from our fave West Seattle Indian restaurant) with us and Parie's college pal Martha, who stopped in for a quick visit while here in Seattle for a wedding.

 

Big Boy Eating

We've been giving Sofian some rice cereal just about every day for the last few weeks. The early attempts were messy and weird for the boy, and he certainly got constipated from the new food entering his system. But by this last week, his digestive tract seemed to be handling the cereal quite well and he was welcoming the opportunity to eat. Here he his in his new Tripp Trapp highchair:

Rice Cereal in the Big Boy Chair

With his advancements and his curiosity about everything that we're eating these days (see photo below with Sofian trying to grab some of Mamalama's creampuff at Blue C Sushi), we decided to consult several of the baby cookbooks we'd been given (from our pal Cara and my step-sister Maclaren) and push on with some vegetable matter.



We decided to go for a sweet potato, and we mixed in a little bit of breast milk to get it a bit more liquidy as well as add familiarity. So here he is from earlier today--he did pretty darn well:

Sweet Potatoes for the Big Boy

 

I Love It When I'm Predictable

Yepp, I beat Parie's prognostication and got myself an iPhone before her 3-month prediction. And it is sweet. Here's the first official pic of Sofian from it:

 

Sofian on the Lawn

Here's a muddy picture of the boy asleep in the jogging stroller, taken by my Treo (which I subsequently had to download into my laptop and then upload to Flickr).



Here's a better picture taken of Sofian when he and I were on an outing to University Village yesterday:



I snapped it with one of the demo iPhones on display (and sent it to my email account, from which I uploaded it to Flickr). Imagine if I had the power of the iPhone in my own hands, I could take pictures and videos and upload them directly to the blog, while I was still out on the town. Ah, just imagine...

 

First Full Day of Daddy Day Care

I'm typing this on the front stoop (thanks to our Wi-Fi router) as Sofian slumbers in his jogging stroller after a walk. Rather than try to tenderly extricate the boy and try to put him in his crib, I thought I'd just let the sleeping baby lie.

Today is my first full day of hanging with Sofian while Parie is at work. During the last month and a half or so, she's been going to DNDA for a half day, and Sofian and I have handled that pretty well. But now she's going back to 20 hours a week, which means 2 full work days plus a couple extra hours of work from home or off to meetings. And it's still a little dicey because:

a) Sofian is still, for the most part, refusing a bottle from me
b) He's also the boy who would not nap

The bottle problem is really the toughest, as it's required Parie to be on call as the milk supplier every three hours. We got a new bottle this week with a silicone top that mimics the feel of a breast, and yesterday Sofian surprised me by drinking down a short bottle's worth of milk. Alas, that was not to last, as today he just played around with it. When he'd start to get really fussy, I'd pretend to drink from it, and that made him laugh as well as intrigued him enough to try it again... only to start playing with it in his mouth rather than suck from it.

The kid is sleeping pretty well through the night, about 9 hours. But for the last week he's only been getting about a total of 1 hour of napping during the day from mini cat naps. When he's looking tired, Parie has tried to put him down in his co-sleeper crib, only to have him start screaming as soon as he's put on his back. Today, however, he fussed a bit after Parie fed him at our early lunch hour of 11 and put him down, but he actually slept for about 2 hours. And he's been napping after our late afternoon walk for about 45 minutes so far (about 30 minutes of it spent in the front yard).

So, all in all, not a bad start. It's gonna be a little tricky over the next few weeks of transition for me, in trying to figger out what amount of work I can do (I've already had to give up the blogging assignment on the Amazon electronics blog for tomorrow's big Apple iPod announcements). But I'm confident that both Parie and I will find our way. And fingers crossed, the boy will take the boob bottle.