Zachary the booth babe

(Not sure how widespread the term 'booth babe' is outside of the video game [and automobile] industry, where it's thankfully a vocation in the decline.)

Zachary has had an active (and very Jewish!) weekend. Well, we've been active; he's been slowed down just a bit by his very tiny (but still congesting) cold that Meh mentioned yesterday. On Friday night, we hosted an informal shabbat dinner for friends K, J, and baby N. Everyone was well behaved, and N even got to try out our fancy new baby chair/booster seat. N is nearly 6 months old, but weighs only slightly more than Zachary (she was a premie, and is in the 3rd percentile for her age; by comparison, Zachary was in the 75th at his last appointment) -- still, the developmental advances are quite noticeable, as she looked around at us and perhaps most dramatically, has started eating some real food (once she remembers what eating is about -- the confused look on her face when the avocado first went in was priceless).

Saturday morning, we met friends D, D, and their son N for breakfast at an excellent pancake place fairly close by. Again, it was neat to see the developmental progress of N, who's nearly 2, even though I think the amount of energy required to keep up is just going to expand exponentially! In the afternoon, we went to some friends' sukkah (a temporary outdoor booth used to celebrate the festival of Sukkot -- see, I was getting to the 'booth babe' reference). It was a lot of fun, they'd asked everyone to bring something to hang in the sukkah. We arrived to find cards, toys, a pair of glasses, and yes, even the occasional gourd, dangling from the s'khakh. We added to the collection with an excellent keychain-sized Ouji Board that had been sitting in a cupboard for years going unused.

In typical Seattle fashion, it was raining, so we actually spent most of the time indoors, where friends of the hosts were playing fun klezmer-ish music on clarinet and accordion. It was fairly loud and high enery, which naturally meant that Zachary zoned out and went to sleep listening to it.

After coming home for a brief nap, we kept the active day going by meeting friends K and M (who again took some fine pictures) for our favorite kaiten sushi restaurant, where Zachary managed to sleep through the whole meal.

This morning was another milestone -- Zachary was sitting in mommy's lap in our room, spied one of our (of course high-contrast) bedroom wall ornaments, and started smiling at it -- then giggled several times. These were definitely his first laughs, and we're totally hooked!

Breastmilk is best...for pink eye?

My friend C told me about this great parenting magazine called Mothering Magazine (or, if you prefer, MEH-thering MEH-gazine). It has a natural perspective, and I found two fascinating articles there: Your Walking Medicine Chest and More Ways to Use Breastmilk. Turns out, the "medicine chest" really is on your chest. Some alternative uses for breastmilk (besides as nourishment) include treating:

eye and ear infections

minor skin injuries

diaper rash

sore throats

stuffy noses

acne

burns and sunburn

chapped lips

cold sores and fever blisters

insect bites

skin rash

warts

I started feeling sniffly last week, and prayed Zachary wouldn't catch my cold, but of course he started to sniffle two days after I did. He absolutely detested the saline drops we put in his nostrils, let alone when we tried to use the bulb syringe to clear his tiny nose. I remembered these articles, and also heard that breastmilk would help from the leader of my new parents' support group. Scott managed to procure a tiny syringe, and I squirted some of my precious commodity (don't say it's not precious until you've been hooked up to a pump for 30 minutes and produced a measly 2 ounces) into his gurgly little nostrils. Now, I did this right before Zachary went to bed last night, and he slept for 5 hours, and only woke twice last night in all. I heard no sniffling until around 6:30am. Coincidence? Perhaps...

Whether or not I will try this remedy on anything else is yet to be seen. I just keep having this image of someone cutting themselves and then a new mother running over exclaiming, "Put away the Neosporin! I have something even better!" as she fumbles with her shirt buttons.

The human body is truly amazing, but that is just creepy.

The Clan Selfon

(Hm, as a "clan", perhaps we should develop our own tartan or something?)

Mima's coworker was able to get us the contact information for the other Zachary Selfon's mom and dad, so I sent off an e-mail on Tuesday night. Wednesday, I was amazed to be greeted with multiple Selfon e-mails, hearing directly from no less than four relatives, and learning of many more! The topper was a great picture of the other Zachary, his newborn sister, and his parents. (I'll ask them if it's okay for me to post it up on our blog.)

The fact that our branch of the Selfon tree hasn't had a girl in 50+ years was more than made up for by four girl cousins (and one boy) in my generation in the Philadelphia Selfon branch. I needed to start building up a family tree just to keep track of everyone; Zachary even already has several relatives in his generation (the other Zachary is about 2 1/2, has a newborn sister, and there's another newborn cousin in New York). If I'm keeping count correctly, among the various rediscovered relatives are at least 9 currently with the actual last name Selfon (many others have gotten married and taken on hopefully less mangle-able last names). The top fun and/or ironic twists thus far include:

• The 'other' Zachary Selfon, and his sister Ella Selfon (Ella was also on our list for girl names!)


• Multiple Selfons living quite close to my brother in the NY metropolitan area


• A Selfon who married a Scott from Seattle (!) and now lives in Los Angeles. (She actually ran across our old wedding registry while setting hers up, and was convinced they'd mixed up her maiden name with her now-husband's last name.)

My current working theory is that, in relation to my generation, our great-grandparents were brothers. If I understand kinship rules properly, I think that would make everyone in my generation a third cousin, and in my parents' generation a second cousin once removed from me.

Even though it's designed more for diagramming fancy business processes and such, Visio actually worked decently well for constructing a respectable family tree thing without having to shell out for crazy expensive custom software. Right now I've put together at least partial reconstructions of the two branches, we just need to figure out how to hook them together.

Saturday morning, Meh's library is having a book club program. Zachary and I are planning to go along, and if I'm feeling industrious, I know that Meh's library has access to the scanned-in turn of the century census records, so we could do a better job reconstructing the Selfons of that generation. Hooray for rediscovered family members!

Crib assembly: Ikea it ain't

A long time ago, in a pre-baby family far far away, we ordered a crib and a dresser. We did a bunch of research, read all of the reviews, saw an enormous array of options in a Florida visit to see mima and papa (perhaps before they had even settled on those grandparent names?), and were disappointed and/or sticker-shocked by most of the options available in Seattle, but finally found the crib we loved, and a lovely dresser to match. This was in mid-June.

The crib itself was available immediately, but the dresser (and the bed's conversion kit) had a bit of a wait time (8-12 weeks). Okay, we thought, no worries; we're not putting baby stuff in the house beforehand anyway, plus the baby wouldn't be able to use it for a month or so. Zoom ahead to after Zachary, where piles of clothes are crammed into a shelf and we're desperate for storage space. My bi-weekly (that's once every two weeks, right?) phone calls to the store asking for an ETA have been answered "2 weeks", "2 weeks", "1 week", and finally "later this week". Finally they have it in stock, but the delivery company they use is "backed up" and it might take a bit longer, "...but you can find your own deliverers if you like". Thankfully, the delivery company actually gets back to me later in the week and schedules us to deliver it between 2 and 5 pm yesterday.

Yesterday I worked from home, and at (you guessed it) 5:40 pm, the delivery folks showed up. They actually did a fine job shlepping everything upstairs, and I was eager to get the crib assembled before Zachary's bedtime. Checking out the manifest, it didn't look too bad - 5 pieces of wood and a bunch of bolts with an allen wrench. I got to work.

Now for some reason, ready-to-assemble furniture has always been fun for me - desks, cabinets, dressers, CD storage carousels, I think the interior of my old townhouse was perhaps composed of 90% pressed veneered Swedish particle board. So, I jumped right in with assembly, noting a few typos in the instructions, but nothing too major. Then, disaster struck: one of the pre-drilled holes was misplaced, by like a half inch. I couldn't believe it -- this stuff has got to be assembly lined, plus it's supposed to be checked by both the manufacturer and the store we bought it from for defects. But sure enough, two pieces that should've been mirror images were not, and the bolts would not be coaxed to make up the difference. Defeated, I had to wait to contact customer support this morning. First, the crib manufacturer: "Sorry, you'll need to get the store to order you replacement parts." What? Why even offer a 1-800 number then? Next, I tried the store: "Hm, our warehouse manager isn't here, we can have him get back to you tomorrow." To which I replied, "Our baby needs some place to sleep. I'm drilling another hole. You'll work out a replacement part ASAP please?"

This evening after work, I bit the bullet, drilled the hole and completed assembly. In the process, I found another pre-drilled hole that hadn't been drilled all the way through. And a third that had been covered up by the lacquer/finish. Oh, and Meredith discovered that the dresser cabinet likes to pop open. But at least the furniture looks beautiful -- and the craftsmanship appears wonderful throughout, just some questionable finishing touches. And most importantly, Zachary now has a changing table that's at a comfortable height (pack 'n plays, while convenient, really get to your back after a bit), storage for his many cute clothes (including a new batch acquired this weekend with friends J & S), and a bed that's wonderfully cute and cozy! He's sleeping in it right now.

It don't matter if it's black or white

...or red. The general idea is that babies see (or are at least most interested in) these three high-contrast colors, which Zachary has proven time and again (well, the light/dark bit at least) -- his eyes lock onto and follow lights, shutters, our black picture frames, and of course his beloved sheep. Granted, scientific studies say this is all hooey:

Recent studies at the University of California in Berkeley have shown that infants as young as 2 weeks of age have color vision and can distinguish a red object from a green one even when these are perfectly matched in brightness. Infants' color vision is not likely to be as rich and sensitive as adult color vision since the receptors and nerves in the eye that are most sensitive to color (again, in the fovea) are not yet mature.
(http://www.ski.org/Vision/babyvision.html)

Whatever the studies say, he does love his high contrast colors. Of course, designers take advantage of this information to try to sell you the black, white, and red bedding that babies will "be able to get the most visual data out of". I think it looks a little Tim Burton / Addams Family for a bedroom, but hey, whatever floats your boat (or fovea). On the other hand, a book of common shapes that are presented in black and white sounds a bit more interesting, so Meredith had to grab the well-executed Black on White board book, along with its natural companion White on Black. (I'm going to pitch a sequel to the publisher that I'm titling "White on White". I think most of the cost would go into the binding; the printing would be negligible to convey the white polar bear in a blizzard. If you're wondering, Black on Black is already covered, though apparently re-envisioned as some kind of sci-fi series. I wonder how much input the illustrator had on that one.) Though the images all feel to me like either 70s-style silhouettes or rorschach tests (particularly that black butterfly on white background), Zachary definitely can stare at pages from the book for minutes at a time, as you can see. He's clearly the son of a librarian!

Easy Listening

We haven't really discussed the soundtrack of Zachary's world yet. But since we posted his own sounds yesterday, and he (and therefore we) spent Tuesday night sleeping to the melodious white noise tones of a radio played at decent volume while tuned to an empty FM station of static, let's discuss his current auditory repertoire.

First, there are the sleeping sounds. That "Happiest Baby" CD we got that I was making fun of? Totally works. Well, I can still make fun of tracks 1-3, which seem like weird low-fidelity scratched record loops for 10 minutes a pop, and don't appear to have any effect on Zachary. But tracks 4 (hair dryer) and 5 (rain falling on a roof) rule. We even brought the CD to Michigan and demonstrated its use in grandma's car. On multiple occasions. The hair dryer sound works wonders for calming him down when he's upset, particularly in situations where we can't really pick him up and do the shushing that Happiest Baby prescribes (e.g. when in a moving vehicle, and therefore strapped into a car seat). And the rain falling sound helps keep him calm and even asleep once he's fully mesmerized. Granted, both of these often have to be practically blasting (often volume "45" or higher in the car -- I know volume values are pretty arbitrary, but it's darn loud). So much for conversation on the road, but at least we've found a way to soothe him without having to repeatedly pull over. That CD has also found an honored place in the nursery, where the rain now helps keep him sleeping a bit longer at night. At least he lives in the right city for that particular sound effect!

Next, the awake and active sounds. Every day Meh brings out a few more CDs for Zachary to sample and dance to. Of course he listens to our own eclectic favorites; the "chill" tracks we played to soothe him during the first few weeks were English Renaissance chant (see, we're teaching him Latin already), a CD of classical lullabies, music from the Curious George soundtrack, and a CD of famous pop-music dads singing songs for their kids (often covering each other's tunes, which seemed kind of odd). And of course he's gotten a good dose of Balkan women's music (both via CD and then earlier this week via his attendance at his very first Dunava rehearsal. Meh reports that he spent his time there alternating between sleeping and flirting/smiling with all of the singers.)

On to the actual "kids" music, the Putumayo Kids world music series has some fun ditties (some recognizable, others downright obscure, like a 1960s Italian version of Old McDonald. I kid you not). Our personal favorite thus far is an excellent Laurie Berkner (I dig the website) CD sent to us by Zachary's Uncle Brian. This singer really seems to have mastered the children's-music-that-doesn't-drive-adults-insane formula, which as far as I can tell is:

1. Peppy without being overly artificially cheerful. Like she's actually having a good time and maybe even performing as much for the parents as the kids. They're the kind of tunes where if you were awoken to them at 5 am at sleep away camp, you wouldn't possibly think of bringing bodily harm to the counselor, cuz they're just so fun!


2. Participatory - lots of silly noises and words. I bet they'd sound even better in an accent with rolled r's. Perhaps Scottish?


3. Extensible [wow, weird to see an actual, legitimate use for an overused software term.] - if the CD isn't playing and you sing the song with your kids, you could easily see yourself making up 20 more verses on the spot.


4. Repetitive, within reason - keeping the song easy to remember, but not mind-numbingly droll (and eventually boring even for the kids).


5. Mildly intelligent / humorous for the adults - One of Berkner's songs, for no reason we can discern, has different names in each verse that we realized are the characters from Seinfeld. (We were tipped off when, a few verses in, the doodlebug "Elaine" goes to see her friend "Kramer".)


6. Surprising - just when you see where the song is going, and the kids' attention might wander (see #4), the song goes off into left field. Example: Berkner's got a tune that's all about farm animals, and it's chugging along, and just when you're comfortable, she suddenly throws in a lion and an elephant. Brilliant! Kids, like everyone else, are total suckers for the big five, regardless of if they're actually at the zoo or on safari.

You and me and the bottle makes three tonight

Last night, in honor of Zachary's 6-week (and Meh's 6-week-since-any-continuous-sleep) anniversary, we made our first attempt at a late-night bottle feeding. At around 4 in the morning, Zachary was squirming for food, so he and I headed downstairs, where I gave him a tasty bottle. He loved it! Didn't even need to do all of that craziness with warming it up or anything. On the plus side, it seemed to work quite well: no fussing, minimal extra air, quick to make some nice burps afterwards, and we could let mommy sleep. Well, for a good ten minutes at least; on the minus side, this kid has a serious appetite - he drained the bottle and still wanted more, so after a quick costume change (which made him even more vocal), back up to mommy we had to go. But as a proof of concept, the bottle worked out quite smoothly; we'll gradually start to expand this as we get closer to Meh heading back to work.

In the mornings, Zachary is sometimes fussy, but often quiet and alert. Well, alert at any rate; you can be the judge of how quiet he is from his newest audio recording (definitely a departure from his previous in-vitro record album, which was made in his amplified percussive electronica phase, when he was the artist known as "Ziggy"). This is him having 'tummy time' on his playmat, alternately looking at/calling to his favorite little stuffed lion and the cute little boy in the reflective mirror, all while trying to simultaneously crawl towards both objects at the same time (on opposite sides of him). While I don't think he'll have much success going in two directions at once, I suspect this kid is going to be mobile sooner rather than later.

There is... another

Several weeks ago, mima (Meh's mom) reported that someone in her Florida office has friends living on the east coast that are Selfons, whose first names were unfamiliar to me. Our family is pretty small, and our name of course fairly uncommon, so I'm fairly sure that these good folks must be related to us in some mysterious manner. (It's certainly a better chance than the infamous Sealfons, who've both won the Scripps National Spelling Bee and test LSD on rats. And yes, we have indeed confirmed that the Sealfons are relations.) My best guess so far is that these Selfons are related to the Philadelphia Selfons (one of whom had her own, er, jolt of fame a few years back). But the more bizarre report from mima's coworker was that these Selfons also recently had a baby, and that baby's name... is Zachary! Suddenly we're in the same boat with all of the John Smiths and Jane Browns of the world.

It's a little strange to think of Zachary having a doppleganger out there somewhere. Could even be parallel universe evil twins or something (we'll have to check to see if the other Zachary has a little goatee), though which is the 'evil' one remains to be seen at this point. :) Particularly with the family being as small as it is, it would be wonderful to contact or meet up with the other Zachary at some point, along with these other Selfon relatives we've never met.

Wardrobe malfunctions

Now really, how hard could it possibly be to button a onesie that has a grand total of three snap-on buttons? Yet somehow I always manage to be off by a button. It boggles the mind. Perhaps the squirming Zachary has something to do with it?

Then there are the sleepers with buttons all the way down the front - like even down to the feet, and on both sides. Those just mess with your mind, particularly at 4 am. I'm a huge fan of one of his sleepers that's just a long zipper and a single snap button at the top. That one rules. And will likely be too small soon enough week, ah well.

Tonight our good friend S came by to visit from out of town (with in-town friends M & K), bringing over tasty Indian food along with a lovely and very cute basket of baby bath supplies (washcloths, towels, a finger puppet, and a hand puppet) that are all whale-themed. It's great to extend Zachary's repertoire a bit beyond dogs and trucks -- thanks S & A! (Don't get me wrong, dogs and trucks are extremely acceptable. We're convinced that Carters must only sell dog-themed clothing for boys, since we've gotten so many of their clothes as gifts without any duplicates, and all manage to have variations of dog imagery on them. And they're all blue or brown. Or even blue with brown stripes.)

While we're on the topic of infant wardrobe, I'm still trying to decode the meaning of these "sizes" they have. Now one piece that we really liked was marked "0-1 month", and miraculously, the day that he turned a month old, it was too snug and became the first piece of retired apparel. But there are other pieces marked 6-12 months that he already fits into nicely, and conversely a few 3-6 month items that I swear even I could wear in a pinch. Plus there are "0-18 month" items, how is that supposed to work? I remember that when we were first sorting clothes with mima, we measured them up against each other and the actual sizes often had little to do with the labels. Since parents and doctors are always talking in terms of head-to-toe lengths of babies in inches (I like that it's still not considered 'height', even though that's what it is), is there a good reason the clothes don't do the same? If it works for guys jeans... I'd just hate for tall 1-month olds and short toddlers (or at least their parents) to start getting body image problems right off the bat.

One last wardrobe malfunction question relates to the most crucial item here -- the diaper. I can't speak for other parents, but we're seeing "blowouts" multiple times a day. In fact, that's often the first indicator that a diaper change is necessary, that Zachary's and/or mommy's clothes are soaked (somehow I've been mostly spared). Well, maybe that's actually the second indicator, occurring all too shortly after loud noises from Zachary's bottom. Is this just a fact of life, or are we not putting the diapers on correctly? With all of the padding and ribbing and layers of liquid-absorbing material, you'd think some part of that device was designed to help keep stuff from leaking out the sides? *shrug*

Now with more fiber

We returned home from our Michigan trip to find our entire neighborhood covered with construction signs, trucks, and equipment. Meh inquired while walking Korby, and the nice construction subcontractor folks reported that this is apparently Verizon laying their fancy new to-the-door fiberoptic network (what they call "FiOS"; I can't tell quite what it's supposed to stand for, or if it's just a made-up marketing term). It's meant to compete with cable as far as bandwidth and features and such. Ironically, during their extensive digging, hole drilling, and piping/fiber-running, they must've cut through their competitor's cable line, so we were internet-less and TV-less yesterday and part of today. Whoops.

Yesterday was the first day of Rosh Hashana, but unfortunately, I actually had to work through it. My group at work (and really the entire building) was involved in a giant epic office move, and I had to go box up all of my gear since I'd been out the previous week in Austin and then Michigan. On the plus side, we had a welcome back lunch for a coworker who had been working in Europe for the past year, so it was nice to have a little celebration. As to the moving, I think I'm a bit of a packrat at the office, and always rediscover really useless things when moves occur. (At MS, this is an endless process usually occuring once or twice a year, though I'd actually been in a stable office for nearly two years. It's also typically a bit of a shell game; my last four moves had been: literally across a hall; to a different floor; to the building next door; and now downstairs in the same building. All certainly at a per-office-move cost to the company that I don't even want to ponder.) Anyway, this move's gems were video recordings of lectures I gave back in 2001 and a pair of Xbox-branded castanets (gotta love weird marketing gimmicks).

In the evening, the three of us went to a lovely Rosh Hashana dinner hosted by our friends J & S (not to be confused with friends S & J, who are incidentally preparing to resume their world adventure!). Zachary actually slept for a bit at the start of dinner so we could enjoy apples and honey, some of my challah, and even soup, while he slept in a bedroom (on his SnuggleNest, of course). Dinner proper was a more impromptu affair served to Meh while Zachary had his own one-course dinner. We had a really nice time catching up with old friends (most of which were named Brian, I think we counted 5 of them?) and making some new ones, and were actually able to stay until like 9 or 9:30 pm before needing to head home to conk out.

This morning, the three of us did a mini-little service together before some (newly engaged!) friends from out of town came to visit in the afternoon. The service went like this: I went through the mahzor (high holiday prayer book) of my youth, found the parts that had melodies, and we sang them together. Zachary was at times fussy, but eventually made it through the service in one piece. Happy first service and New Year to him, and L'Shana Tovah to our family and friends as well!

On to Zachary's latest stats, as he had his one-month checkup yesterday! (Yup, also on the first day of Rosh Hashanah - synagogue definitely wasn't in the cards this time around.) Anyway, as of Thursday morning, he was:

• 22 inches long (50th percentile) [At a rate of 2" per month, I calculate he'll be more than 37 feet tall on his eighteenth birthday - take that, short Selfon genes!]
• 11 lbs exactly (75th percentile) [yup, I saw the scale level out exactly on 11.000]
• 38.4 inch head circumference (50th percentile)

The doctor was also impressed with his early social smile, good disposition (knock on wood that this doesn't change), and strong arms/legs - she thinks he'll likely be an early crawler, and that he has a few developmental indicators more typical of two-month olds. Such an overachiever already! (No bias here.) She also believes that there's a very good chance that his eyes will remain their current blue. The only part of the appointment that was a bit sad for Zachary was his second in the Hep-B series of shots. That put an abrupt stop to the cooing, and I could definitely tell the difference between this cry and the hungry/burp-me/change-me/fussy ones. The next appointment, where he's due for 4 shots, should be, um, interesting.

Zachary Hearts Sheep

We got a great pack 'n play to use downstairs for diaper changes/naps. One of it's many features (Fold-down changing table! Supply caddy! Also makes julienned fries!) is a rather lame little mobile with three stuffed sheep. The mobile doesn't even spin. The sheep, though cute, just hang there. Considering Zachary won't usually tolerate being put down, we mostly used it as a changing station to save us going upstairs.

That is until we discovered that one baby's lame sheep mobile can be another baby's crack.

I was trying to soothe Zachary during his early-evening fussiness, and nothing was working. He had been fed, was dry, and I had been walking, patting, and rocking him with no success. I donned the Moby wrap, but that only made him madder. Finally I put him down in the pack n' play on the off chance that he might not want to be held right then. I tell you, the kid went from whiny to cooing in nothing flat. He was completely transfixed by the sheep.

Now, as I said, the sheep are cute enough on their own, but I realized that Zachary can't even see the sheep as sheep. We see this:

Lying in the pack n' play, Zachary sees this:

I just don't get it.

It has been suggested that it is simply the black and white pattern that he sees and enjoys...sure, okay. Whatever. The important thing is, it has worked multiple times now when all else fails. And the best thing? Miracle of miracles, today after a short episode of sheep-gazing, Zachary fell asleep in the pack n' play...all by himself.

Score one for battery-free baby crack!

ImageStation, I Scoff at Thee

Recall my annoyance last month when Sony ImageStation's "twelve hour" maintenance cycle ended up spiralling into a whole weekend -- and right after we'd posted cute Zachary photos that family were clamoring to see. Today things got more annoying though, as they announced they're ending their service entirely, and trying to pipe all of their customers over to Shutterfly. Shutterfly is a fine service, but it doesn't let people see high-resolution photos (so they can download them, print them locally, or choose their own printing options), so I wasn't interested in using them. Therefore, I now proudly make the leap to everyone's favorite free photo sharing service, Flickr, which has no such restrictions. Of course, all of the clever captions from the ImageStation days will be null and void. Does Scott's extraordinary wit really enhance the viewing experience? Or can these images truly stand for themselves? Stay tuned.

In the meantime, the first two albums are now posted -- our pictures from Michigan, and a set of photos from grandma's camera (taken by a variety of staff photographers at the pidyon ha-ben and throughout the rest of the visit). Let me know if those links work, I'm still figuring out the whole permissions thing. Of course, you can absorb the full stream of Selfon photos (which right now just consists of exactly those two albums), I think here.

More pics to come; we're a little behind on the combinations of outfits-in-various-pieces-of-baby-furniture photo uploading.

Tuesdays with Maureen

(Sorry, couldn't resist -- plus the only reading material I had with which to occupy my time on the plane was the Northwest Airlines magazine, which had a big story on Mitch Albom. The article devoted a somewhat inconceivable amount of space to his discussion of favorite restaurants in cosmopolitan Ferndale, Michigan. For the non-Michiganders, if it's any indicator, the city's official website features a photo proudly highlighting their Old Navy store. You just can't make this stuff up.)

Yesterday was our last day in Michigan. It was a really nice trip, filled with so many loving family and friends fawning over Zachary, and for the most part decent if somewhat humid weather. We of course spent the most time with grandma (Missy/Maureen, hence the blog entry title), having fun at restaurants, home, walking, as well with furry uncle Gus (hm, does that make him my brother?), who unlike Korby, showed enormous interest in giving Zachary kisses at every possible opportunity.

For his end, Zachary did quite well -- no major meltdowns (besides being fussy at the pidyon ha-ben), did fairly well in the hotel, and on both flights, he primarily slept, occasionally ate, and less frequently was looking around cutely primarily at the various light sources. We got to successfully eat in several restaurants, Zachary discovered mirrors (as blogged about previously, see the cuteness to the left), we had a very enjoyable pidyon ha-ben, and Zachary got to meet his grandpa and see him almost every day we were there.

The flight back itself was less than perfect, a little more than 2 hours late once all was said and done. (That makes 3 of the 4 flights I took in the past week and a half late. The fourth claimed to be 30 minutes early, but by the time we taxied and got to the gate, it was still pretty much just on time. I could go on a rant about how planes should be able to make up time in the air, and airlines should be more intelligent about shuffling equipment when planes get held up, but I'll save that for a slow Zachary news day.) We got to the airport and through security fine -- we all got to take a spin in the new air puffer machines that DTW has in lieu of old-school metal detectors. A neat change of pace, though still lame that you have to drop all of your bags, remove your shoes, metal items, etc. Meh said that Zachary appeared to actually like the puffs. Then we walked the fancy McNamara terminal (one benefit of the direct flights; every other time we've had to use the aging Smith terminal) with Zachary, pretty much from one end to the other, since we had a bit of time to kill. I could've sworn one of the stores carried Mackinac Island fudge that sounded yummy to Meredith, but I couldn't find it. Ah well, eventually we parked at the gate for the long wait.

Funny story: when our plane finally did arrive at the gate (it had been delayed due to weather), I ran into one of our family friends from the pidyon ha-ben, who had been on the incoming flight! Small world.

Anyway, it's good to be back home, where we can hopefully start getting back onto a more normal sleep schedule after our initial 12:30 am arrival at home last night (er, this morning). We brought Korby home today, and he seems as crazy as ever. Meh reports that in our absence, our back yard's pear tree produced its sole pear for the year -- and Korby found and ate it. There's a nice smell of fresh pear out in that section of our yard, but we'll never know how the fruit actually tasted.

Who's the fairest of them all?

This morning, Zachary discovered mirrors. Our hotel room had two giant door-mounted ones, and Meh was walking around with him soothing him after another alternately eating/fussing night, and he got really happy and smiley looking at the mirror. I don't know if he was socializing with the cute youngster in the reflection, looking at a more interesting version of mommy, or just liked the patterns of light and dark, but he was definitely enthralled. He also in general seemed much more intelligently looking around and interested throughout the morning in particular -- this seemed a pretty significant advance from while I was gone (didn't see this yesterday since it was a weird early morning getting to the airport).

After our mirror adventure, we headed over to grandma's for Zachary's pidyon ha-ben (the popular alternate pronunciation, true to Yiddish, is the seemingly randomly modified 'pidna ben'). The rabbi was very nice (and had even lived in Seattle for a time), and explained the service to those in attendance, with a nice drash connecting it to a need to redeem the Israelites after the Egyptians' first born sons were slain in the 10th plague from Passover. The silver dollars used were big honking things from the late 1800s, pretty cool actually - but not tempting as an exchange for our son!

Zachary was actually possibly the fussiest he's been in public, but still managed to weather the ceremony quite well. Afterwards, he quickly went off to find his own private lunch while the rest of the attendees enjoyed the arguably more important element to any major Jewish event -- another magnificant brunch. There was a lovely chocolate cake from Costco, bagels out of our ears, and trays full of pounds of veggies, cream cheese, and tuna salad. I'm putting down good money that grandma will be offering these to other guests throughout our stay (and likely helping us put together a little picnic for the plane ride back).

In the evening, Zachary's aunt and cousin (if I understand the kinship rules correctly, that's actually his aunt-twice-removed and cousin-twice-removed) came over to visit and we all had a lovely time. Zachary of course went through most every outfit we brought over, but besides that seemed happy and looking around with his big blue eyes. And that wraps up a nice day with family and friends!

Boy meets Worldperks

Quick side story: at the first day of the conference, one of my fellow conference advisors showed up in a shirt that simply had the word "meh." on it. I'm, like, so ordering this shirt. There's also a matching flask, though that seems less likely to be useful in our current lifestyle.

For those wondering, no, I don't think I really caught up on sleep while at my conference -- had to be up by 7:30 am CDT (that's 5:30 am PDT) each morning, kept waking up every few hours even in the nice and quiet hotel room (occasionally with weird waking dreams that my pillow was actually Zachary and I'd been sleeping on him), and was running around helping coordinate the event all day. Granted, Meh and Zachary had the larger coordination adventure of trying to sleep/eat/drive/etc. without a third dance partner. It was so hard to be away from them, though Meh of course continues to amaze (a-Mehz?) me.

So at a little after 12:30 am this morning, I pulled into our driveway, returning from my flight back from Austin. (Despite successfully catching earlier standby flights when the conference wrapped up, the connecting flight was 2 hours late and thus arrived around 20 minutes prior to my original flightplan. Now add a ridiculously long taxi to the gate, SeaTac's little underground tram getting delayed, baggage delays, parking shuttle delays, and finally major construction on the freeway by our house narrowing things down to one lane. Ack.) After a quick unpack/repack, I kind of sort of went to sleep. Well, Zachary was fussing a bit, so I helped soothe him back to sleep first.

At 5:20 am this morning, we were back up, finishing our packing, and en route to the airport by 6 am. Good times! Check-in, security, and getting to the gate all went fairly well (though the tram system was still delayed and jam packed when the occasional tram did show up), and Zachary had a nice little breakfast before we got on the plane. En route, while we didn't get a whole row to ourselves, Zachary did very well on the flight, occasionally fussing just a bit but always talked down by the classic shush, patting, and/or feeding. I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of fawning from the crew and other passengers (though the couple behind us kept making nice compliments every time Zachary locked onto them as an interesting thing to look at while I burped him).

Our glorious plan of bringing earplugs didn't happen (perhaps next time), but I think we managed to pack everything else pretty well. I had the exact baggage I'd used before, Meh had a similar setup of a backpack and one reasonable-sized roller bag (the giant pallet-sized things people manage to carry on continue to boggle my mind), and Zachary was travelling light, with his stylish diaper bag, Boppy pillow, and car seat.

Zachary is one month old today! That means tomorrow is Zachary's pidyon ha-ben, an ancient Jewish tradition typically involving American silver dollars minted before 1965. Huh? But seriously, it's essentially a celebration for a newborn's one month anniversary -- many family friends are going to be there, and Zachary's grandma has of course organized an excellent brunchy smorgasboard. We're really looking forward to it. But for now, the long delayed sleep calls!

The Cheesecake Zactory

(Hm, looks like we've got a whole 'cheese' theme going with two straight blog entries now...)

Today, Zachary went to his first sit down restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory. Of course, he continues to order "off of the menu", as it were. But friends J and S were free and had suggested their favorite restaurant (it's quite high on our list as well). Cheesecake Factory has got everything we're looking for in a baby-friendly restaurant: not too far of a drive, semi-private booths, loud ambient noise, and fairly quick service once you wade through their tome of a menu figuring out what to eat. This was all mostly moot, as Zachary successfully slept through what turned out to be a lovely 2-hour lunch (where'd the time go?). He was only slightly fussy on the drive home before getting his own afternoon snack.

Early tomorrow morning I head to Austin as previously mentioned for a conference. (Incidentally, the temperature there today was apparently 83, with 98% humidity. Ew.) It's going to be very difficult for me to be separated from Meh and Zachary for four full days -- and an even greater challenge for Meh to be home alone. Again, friends have generously offered to bring meals, check in, and otherwise offer support while I'm gone, to which I again say thank you all so much. And Korby will be taking an early trip to the kennel-free dog ranch he stays at when we're out of town. (While he's happy to see us when we pick him up, he never looks back when we drop him off.) But I'll still feel better when I'm back late Friday night. Well, better until the next morning, when we all head out together on our first family road trip, travelling to Michigan bright and early on Saturday!

Zachary says cheese

Though some of his smiles are directed to mysterious patches of blank space over our shoulders, and some folks say these merely indicate gas, Zachary certainly has a great grin. Here are few of his mugs for the camera:

The 'Mr. Right' shirt was a new addition worn to a barbecue at our friends' house today. It lasted a whole hour or two before we had to change him. Ah well.

Poll Results

Final results of our first online poll:

Zach: 11 (37%)
Zack: 14 (48%)
Other: 4 (13%) -- Zac, Zackie D, Zed

Shabbat Shalom, Zachary!

Last night friend K brought us Chinese food and Scoot made challah for Zachary's first Shabbat dinner. It was the first time we said the blessing over our child that is said on Friday nights, and it was very special! Zachary dutifully emulated Ephraim and Menashe and sweetly slept right through it (I think that definitely counts as doing a good deed, which is one reason we bless our sons for these two brothers on Shabbat).

Zachary continued his peaceful repose long enough for Meh to actually eat her WHOLE dinner! Unfortunately, he made up for it by being persnickety in the wee hours of the morning.

We made kiddush with some homemade plum hooch my friend and fellow Dunava singer made, it was fantastic! I only drank a little of this strong and sweet delight, since I wasn't sure how it would affect Zachary at mealtime...though, I wonder if it would help with his sleep?