Only 7 shopping days left...

(Granted, there are technically 15 until Chanukah ends.)

Now I know that everyone loves to listen to holiday music starting right after Thanksgiving (if not before), and particularly orchestral pieces, and more specifically all-new compositions that you can't even really sing along to. But what you were all really hoping for was a recording of the Prague Radio Symphony performing such Christmas music, preferably with a single Chanukah piece thrown in for variety. Well then, have I got the album for you – even better, it’s a double CD! Yes, 21 tracks of tastiness. And one of them (the strategically placed disc 1, track 4, Chanukah Glow) was composed by me.

Several years ago, I got somewhat annoyed with my community orchestra's sparse options for Chanukah music at their annual December "Holiday" (read: Christmas plus token Chanukah piece) Concert - they annually cycled between the same two or three pieces. The pieces themselves were okay (well, except for one in particular that kind of offended Meh, titled something like "Christmas Time Around the World", which was a medley of world Christmas music, and included a Chanukah song representing 'Israel'), but they were always pretty standard medley mashups of the same old tunes.

So I figured what the heck, did a bit of research, found some fascinating and less-known Chanukah folk songs and contemporary pieces, and put them together into a new piece I titled Chanukah Glow, which my orchestra graciously tried out and performed for it's 2005 Chris-, er, Holiday, concert. It was well received by the players and the 50-100 people that attend the community orchestra's concerts, but that was about it. Couldn't figure out how to get it published, or promoted to professional orchestras (who don't seem to generally play token Chanukah pieces at all!), or even professionally recorded. I figured that was the end of things.

Then earlier this year, I heard about an upcoming CD of new holiday music that had an open call for submissions. I put the score in the mail, and several weeks later heard that my piece had been accepted! The conductor was very friendly (and excited to be recording a Chanukah piece; the label's first holiday album was all Xmas), the piece was recorded by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) in the Czech Republic in May, and I got an e-mail today that it's now out and available! Look for "Holidays of the New Era: Volume 2" in stores or online venues near you.

• On Amazon here. (Where it's impressively ranked as a 164,000th-best-seller. The number actually keeps getting bigger as I write this blog entry. Should they even bother showing a ranking after, say, a few thousand?)
• On NuMusic (the publisher's website) here.
• Also available on Rhapsody, Napster, iTunes, and other online stores if you don't want to trudge through 2 CDs and 21 tracks just for my one little piece (though I'm sure based on what I've seen from this label in the past that the other pieces are excellent in their own rights). I won't be insulted if you bypass the stellar program notes and such. (Or you can even view them, as well as hearing the original community orchestra's recording on my website.)

And this concludes today's paid advertisement. Tomorrow: back to the cuteness of Zachary.

This flight is not yet rated

(Written on the second leg of our return flight -- Zachary's 8th flight overall, and likely his last for 2007.)

Today we took the long flight(s) back to Seattle from mima and papa's house. Zachary was amazing, sleeping the entire first leg, and spending most of the second leg asleep or happily smiling at the most random things (including, of all things, flight attendant announcements to sit back down for upcoming turbulence, and at times possibly in response to the sounds of a few other babies/small children on the flight having minor meltdowns along the way.) Incidentally, I was pretty impressed with all of the other babies on the second, 5 1/2 hour, flight; no major or constant tantrums. I think I most frequently heard the wails of a super cute red headed baby sitting up in first class. D'oh!

In my various travels, I've encountered plenty of different kinds of fellow passengers -- friendly, rude, celebratory, helpful, curious, moderately intoxicated, and of course asleep (whether pretend or for real). Often I end up sitting next to someone else from a related tech or entertainment industry (once I was next to the DP for Charlotte's Web, on his way to Sydney for some location scouting) - I guess that's the nature of flights to and from Seattle. But today's first leg featured, er, likely the most unusual (and perhaps most blatantly disregarding of usual etiquette) candidate from the "entertainment/tech" industries.

The flight was mostly full, though as I previously suspected, US Airways' regular coach seats were indeed far more generously spaced than United's non-Economy Plus. We again shared a row with a gentleman, but there definitely seemed like more room. I could at least retrieve our bags from under the seat without too much contorting. There was a initially an empty window seat in the row in front of us, but a woman sat down in it (in front of Zachary and Meh, and a seat off from me) right as the flight door closed. She immediately took out a large manilla envelope, and not at all discretely, pulled out and held up several large photographs that *cough* immediately tipped me off to her occupation.

Now I'm not one to judge, and I'm hopefully not that much of a prude; I've certainly seen other passengers around me say some inappropriate things, and watch some potentially inappropriate movies on their laptops and such, but I was not expecting to see large-format fashion shots of this lady in varying states of undress. Apparently she must be a nude/semi-nude model, and she decided to use the flight to work on her… demo reel? Portfolio? Home videos? The PowerMac came out even before takeoff, and she was opening and editing a bunch of photos in Photoshop (hey, at least she's somewhat tech savvy I guess?), then playing modelling videos of herself with the sound turned up. I honestly was trying not to watch; US Airways has a fun Cranium-branded trivia video that they run during their shorter flights, and that was keeping us entertained. But any time I glanced anywhere else, there was another bikini picture in my peripheral vision. I felt particularly bad for the guy sitting right next to her, and the other woman in her row who was occasionally holding a baby (that incidentally was otherwise sitting in first class - wow, several lucky babies on these flights!), and definitely happy that Meh and Zachary didn't have a view of this stuff. Privacy screen, anyone?

Our connection was through Charlotte. Top 3 random things about this airport:

1. White rocking chairs sitting in a long row in the main concourse. It's like you can be sitting out on your porch. Except you're indoors. In an airport. With lots of people with heavy luggage zipping by. Still, beats those tiny terminal waiting area seats.


2. The Cinnabon straight across from the aforementioned white chairs. Meh and I had to sample it of course. Yum.


3. Each bathroom at the airport is attended. As in, a person is waiting to offer towels, mints, soap, and conversation. Strange?

Anyway, a long second flight later, we arrived back home safe and sound, though Zachary reminded us once more of his dislike of car rides by crying most of the way home from the airport. Huge thanks to K and M for being our shuttle service, particularly when the parking structures I usually leave the car at ended up totally full when I called to confirm on the day we left. We had a wonderful time with mima and papa, but it's still good to be home. Now, off to sleep!

Zack's on the beach

Zachary has been having a lovely trip in sunny Florida! The weather has been fabulous, the company (mima, papa, uncle Josh, and a tasty brunch with great grandparents and cousins) has been excellent, the food always plentiful, and the outings have been simultaneously visually stimulating for him (antique fair, art show, and today the beach) and nice and relaxing for us.

Uncle Josh had Zachary in stitches today with a silly monkey imitation - Zachary kept throwing his head back and just laughing and laughing (see a picture of the evening show at the bottom of this post). Zachary also now likes being bounced on beds and ottomans (so long as there are happy noises accompanying the bounces), and giggles with each bounce.

The beach was lovely; mima and papa have an annual rental of these fancy dual covered chairs, which Zachary alternately layed out on or sat on my lap on while making mostly happy noises. We stayed mostly on the chairs to hide out from the bright sunshine (he also had his first experience with baby sunscreen, though we avoided painting the hands that so often end up in his mouth). But during one rare cloudy moment, we took him down to the beach (avoiding a small minefield of tiny man-o-wars) and he got to dip his feet in the ocean for the first time. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but seemed okay with the experience.

In the evening, we had a tasty thai/sushi dinner and then visited poppy and nanny. Zachary was a bit unhappy on the way there, but gave several happy laughs for poppy and smiled for nanny as well. The drive home was his last straw though, as he was very unhappy despite the entertaining sights and sounds of uncle Josh and mommy. But fear not, naked bathy time wrapped up his day on a happy note.

And boy are my arms tired

Zachary's first plane trip to a destination other than Michigan featured a little bit of everything, and felt somewhat like an epic film -- many hours long, and filled with drama, an unintentional plane stunt, unnecessary product placement, social class wars, several (under-)costume changes, and lots of cooing - both from him, the passengers, and the cabin crew.

We elected to fly on Thanksgiving to (theoretically) avoid some of the crazy crowds and, *ahem*, delays that we'd been hearing about earlier in the week. As there aren't any direct flights from Seattle to Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale, this also marked Zachary's first multi-leg trip, with a stopover in Chicago (we'd been nervously eyeing all of the delays there from earlier in the week).

The first flight was the longer one, and when we'd checked in, we saw lots of empty seats, including the one next to our two. Of course, when we actually got on the plane, a gentleman sat down next to us. Here's where things got a little ridiculous -- the front 16 rows of the economy section of the plane were virtually empty, while the back 20 were nearly full. United has this strange concept of "Economy Plus", where you pay extra money for the front seats of the economy section, which claim to give you more legroom ("up to five inches!"). (It seems more likely that they just squeezed the space down for the remaining seats.) But the actual "service" on this part of the plane is identical; it isn't business class or anything. So as people from the back started trying to spread out into these seats, the cabin crew kept booting them out - I guess if other people are paying $30-$50 for the upgrade, they figure they'd rather have the seats empty than deal with a free-for-all? But thankfully, the guy sitting next to us slickly kept his head down enough to escape their detection, and a few other, er, morally ambiguous souls snuck forward as well, but it was pretty silly to watch the seats go mostly unused.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful; a weak film offering, Meh and Zachary took a nice nap, and I had a moderately awful first airborn diaper change. (Note to self: some lavatories in A320 aircraft apparently have no changing table.) He was cute, vocal, and mostly happy (except during the aforementioned change), and flight attendants and other passengers kept coming by to say hello. The only flight glitch was an apparent near miss during our landing sequence; one minute we were on final approach, and the next, the engines were firing back up to full and we were ascending to make another try. The guy sitting in front of me reported that he looked down and saw an airplane had been crossing our runway and didn't quite make it across -- the captain said similar a minute later. Not quite as scary as last week's near-miss incident (also at O'Hare), but it added another 20 minutes to the flight. Never a dull moment.

It felt like it had been a week since I'd been at O'Hare. My bad, it had actually only been six days. Anyway, despite the deja vu, this did give me an opportunity to show Meh that librarian ad in person, and of course grab a quick posed picture. (Sorry for the blurriness, this was in the fairly dark, trippy neon light tunnel between the B and C concourses -- which Zachary incidentally was totally entranced by.)

The second flight (Zachary's sixth overall) was unfortunately a bit more "interesting"; totally full (even those economy plus seats), but everyone got on board and ready to roll with time to spare. Then we sat and waited. Apparently, the lavatory system was backed up, and they spent about an hour trying to fix it (with all of us sitting on the plane), before pulling the plug and switching planes -- this involved having us deboard, walking halfway down the terminal, waiting for the new plane to be serviced, waiting for our flight crew to come over, reboarding, and eventually taking off. Impressively, only an hour late. We were also subject to United's somewhat weird "Ted" flight branding, which even the flight crew couldn't quite explain to passengers' inquiries.

Zachary didn't sleep at all this time around; the film was the same, we had a much more successful diaper change in a more fully equipped lav, and Zachary and I hung out in the back of the plane (dodging drink carts and bathroom-bound passengers) for a bit when he had been getting a little stir-crazy in the seat. One flight attendant stopped to chat, and violated Meh's cardinal rule by first saying she had no kids, and then offering parenting advice. But it was a theme we've heard repeated again and again -- make sure to appreciate this time period in Zachary's life, because children move out of it so quickly. Actually, that sounds like an ongoing theme all the way up to the child's high school (college?) graduation. We're definitely trying to make the most of every moment with him, but as with everything else about being a parent, I'm guessing we'll only really understand and appreciate the advice when it's, er, too late.

After the plane landed, multiple passengers complimented Zachary on being such a good, well-behaved baby. (I think they didn't want to jinx it during the flight!) Anyway, we're now in lovely Florida visiting Mima and Papa (I think it's already 70+ degrees, and it isn't even 7 in the morning!). This morning we're having brunch with uncles, aunts, and Zachary's great grandparents. Not sure what plans we'll have for the rest of the time, but it's nice to be back on the ground and enjoying time with family.

Tastes like chicken?

One of Zachary's favorite pieces of clothing (okay, fine, one of *our* favorite things for him to wear) is a pair of green overalls that comes with a cute fuzzy gopher tied to a string in the front pocket. Zachary likes to put anything in the vicinity of his face into his mouth. Needless to say, the gopher ends most days well-loved, and soaking wet.

(Photo courtesy of our good friend K, with whom I certainly agree when she says he'll make you smile)

Marsupial Boy

Though we already mentioned the joy that our Moby wrap has brought us, I just wanted to point out the absolute coziness that can be achieved with this device. When Zachary is ensconced in his cozy pouch, I like to call him Marsupial Boy, or Papoose Baby.



He's so smushy!!!

Daddy's scratchy face

At last, the page of Pat the Bunny that has sandpaper for daddy's face makes sense and applies to Zachary's dad. During the shiva period, mourners traditionally remain in the home, don't cut their hair or nails, don't shave, and observe a few other restrictions. After these first seven days, the shloshim (meaning "30", as in 30 days) period continues, where the mourner gradually resumes their daily activities -- but the hair/nail cutting and shaving restrictions continue, along with curtailing entertainment, live music, etc. This means that for the first time in my life, I've got the beginnings of a beard; I'd never even tried for a moustache previously.

I'm not sure if Zachary likes it; at one point I was holding him and he got startled (coincidentally?) after brushing his cheek against my face. In the past, he has liked to fall asleep against my face, so I'm not sure if the roughness will hinder that. I'm also not sure if I like it; pretty weird to lick your lips and feel something else right over/under them, and it's a bit itchy at times.

The First 100 Days

The shiva period for my dad concluded this morning according to our rabbi; as my family debated earlier in the week, the math was actually a bit fuzzy here, though I think I now sort of understand how 7 days of shiva translated into Sunday through Friday morning: the day of the funeral is the first day, that same evening begins the second day (the Jewish days begin at sunset), so Thursday night began the 6th 'day', and shiva isn't observed on Shabbat, so that ends shiva on Friday morning. Regardless, as I've said before, it was very comforting to have friends and family come together throughout the days, for evening services, and to share stories both new and old about my dad.

With United being totally inflexible about flight availability, I headed back to Seattle on a 6:50 am flight. The connection was through Chicago, where I walked past a funny new ad for Sony's digital book reader that talks about the devices being "sexier than a librarian". I personally beg to differ of course. But never fear, some librarians are already taking offense, leading to this response from Sony. I think they've already adjusted the campaign; I'm pretty sure the ad I saw had something like "comparison may vary with your librarian." *chuckle* The second leg was oddly on one of the giant 777's - weird to be on one for a domestic US flight, though I won't complain about the extra space and like twenty audio channels and such.

Today Zachary is 100 days old! He's noticeably more active than when I left two weeks ago (though I, and the rest of our family, gladly got to see some of his increasing cuteness when he came to Michigan), and is very responsive to our faces. He and I had some nice play time on tummy, back, and sitting up today. We've noticed he's now often happy and vocal for extensive periods; Meh made this recording while I was gone. Zachary is even (sometimes) starting to master the art of laughing without degenerating into hiccups, though not in this particular recording.

Shiva Cake

One of the traditions regarding a shiva house is that no food that enters the house can leave; I believe this is meant to encourage people to come and support and comfort the family. Couple that with another tradition of friends and distant family sending food, along with all of our friends and family having a generous desire to help feed and support the family, and you've got a recipe for a lot of food. Like, far more than can be possibly eaten. We've received kind gifts of every edible variety -- enormous trays of cookies, chocolates, honey cake, mandel bread, danishes, cupcakes, bagels, chicken, fish, mediterranean foods, soups, salads, entire sliced loaves of bread, and even fully catered meals served by kind family friends. Fruit baskets of every shape and size (including my first first-hand experiences with the tasty sculptured fruits of Edible Arrangements), crackers and cheese, and even a salami or two have completed the experience. Needless to say, even at our height of 10 family members in the house, we weren't really making a dent. We keep trying to encourage visitors to "help" us by enjoying the wide array of food; Jewish guilt doesn't really allow for even bereavement to get in the way of concern about potential food waste.

Strangely, the largest quanity of any one item has been a funnel/bundt cake. It's really quite tasty, but the frequency is a little astounding: through the various trays and platters, I believe we've received three full cakes plus a fourth one that was pre-cut into pieces as part of a cookie tray. (We're also convinced that some tasty muffins we enjoyed this morning may have used the same batter.) My brother and I have taken to calling this prolific dish "shiva cake"; my mom reports that apparently one of the major caterers in town makes a single type of 'cake' (does anybody else think cakes usually involve frosting?), which may explain why we've seen it so often. We've tried to brainstorm creative ways to serve it so people will eat it; the fully intact ones lurking in the fridge didn't even have a chance. On a related note: among the deserts, other than the shiva cake, every one I've seen (even among the variety trays) was unique, which is quite impressive.

Speaking of food, I found this hilarious -- Jones Soda, which I believe is Seattle-based, recently announced that they're once again doing holiday-themed flavored sodas. I'm not sure how nationwide they are, but these are the folks that, in addition to letting random people mail in pictures for their bottle labels, have offered turkey-flavored soda each Thanksgiving for the past few years. Some people apparently actually seek this stuff out as more than a novelty -- scary. Anyway, for the holiday season this year, they're offering Chanukah and Christmas-themed soda packs. I'm not sure which is more funny -- the Chanukah offerings (and dig the packaging with the 12 tribes on the side) that include Jelly Doughnut and Latke (!) flavors [and even a "dreidl inside!"], or that the Christmas pack's Ham flavor is kosher. Good stuff.


Laughter is good medicine for difficult times such as these, so we've also occasionally cracked jokes about potential products we could market using the knowledge we've gained in the last week. In particular, the major preparation for the house was to cover all of the mirrors -- and when all of the closet doors are mirrored, this leads to a lot of mirror covering, along with worries about taping to painted walls and such. We came up with two excellent ideas, neither of which ended up panning out at the time, but which B and I may look at marketing in the future:

1. Shiva Spray. That spray-on snow that gets used around Christmas time on windows seemed like a good way to handle this. Of course, even though the local stores are already blaring Christmas tunes and have all of their decorations out and ready for purchase, we were apparently a little too early for them to stock the spray-on stuff.


2. Shiva Curtains. Again, since the mirrors are on doors, attaching them directly meant that they were falling off every time we opened a closet. (The end solution was to use some 3M removable sticky tape and lots of sheets/pillowcases.)

We also joked a bit about the opportunity for "shiva crashers," particularly with all of that food, until we had a very touching visit from one yesterday. Two of B's close friends in NY have a network of friends/business relationships across the country -- yesterday they called one who lives near us, instructed her first to assemble a fruit basket, and then to print out and personally deliver a condolence message. She stayed for the evening service, which I've been leading and have each night concluded by asking everyone in attendance to introduce themselves and share a memory of my father. When it came to her, she thanked everyone there for introducing her to a very special man she might have never otherwise known.

Hear (O Israel)

While of course deeply saddening and upsetting, my dad's funeral provided an uplifting opportunity to see the wide impact he'd had on his loved ones and the larger area community. Family, friends, veterinary clients and staff, staff and family from his incredible care facility, people from hospice, and many others attended, and we were so thankful to see so many come out in memory of my dad and in support of our family and each other.

For those who were unable to attend, the funeral chapel generously recorded the service (impressively quickly generating 2 CDs and a cassette in time to join a package containing other pertinent shiva/yahrtzeit information, all as we left for the procession to the cemetery), and is now offering it online here. (Oddly, the link doesn't work from my laptop, though this link does.) The rabbi provided a nice amalgamation of my dad's character from a discussion he had with us a few days earlier, and my brother's and mom's words were extremely moving and heartfelt. Many people who spoke with us afterwards, as well as in the next few days at our home, said that they felt the service had very effectively conveyed the nature of the man, his character, and his many gifts.

Sitting shiva has given us a good opportunity to reminisce and remember the man that my father was, as well as hear stories that had been long forgotten or never known to me. Meh and my brother's fiancee both got to learn a bit more about the man they didn't get an opportunity to know. It's also been a good opportunity to dust off old photo albums and recall more about our family and friends through 'history', with the dated 80s/90s-ness of our bar mitzvah albums (a few pictures might be good candidates if they ever publish a sequel to this great book I've got at home) joining with some truly 70s lapels and hairdos in our parents' wedding album.

We'd like to thank everyone who has been able to visit us at the shiva house (I've re-edited the directions in the previous post to correct for yet another unanticipated road named Commerce), and especially those who travelled great distances to be there with us. Also, a very heartfelt thank you to all of those who have sent these tremendous food trays (the hallmark of all Jewish occasions, whether sad or happy), desserts, fruits, flowers, cards, and other forms of condolence and support. The evening services have been a nice chance to assembly with family and friends, and the stories we've told and heard have continued to reinforce and expand our knowledge of my kind, compassionate, and loving father.

Veterinary signs

A local veterinarian, who had worked closely with my dad at her own practice when he retired (and even brought him to schools to talk to kids about animals and pets), heard the news and put these messages up on her office's street sign.

El milagro del ratón

(That's "The miracle of the mouse." It just sounds more dramatic in Spanish.)

To brighten the mood just a little bit, I wanted to tell of a family experience my mom's been sharing with friends. She and my dad received a wall-hung clock many years ago at one of my dad's veterinary conferences. The primary part of the clock is in the shape of a cat, and the pendulum at the bottom of the clock is a moving mouse that the cat is preparing to pounce on. The pendulum stopped swinging many years ago; the clock continued to function fine through multiple battery changes, just with a stationary mouse pendulum - my mom had even tried manually pushing it started, to no avail. Last night when we heard the news and were sitting in the kitchen, my mom looked up and noticed that the pendulum had, after many years, gone back into motion again. It's still functioning fine today. Whether this is a coincidence or some small sign in the form of a moving mouse-shaped piece of plastic is left to the individual to interpret.

Many family friends and veterinary clients have left heartfelt notes and shared stories of their experiences with and love of my dad via the chapel's website, which get e-mailed to my mom. Every story we read paints a fuller picture of this incredible man's life and his impact on those around him. Thank you again to everyone for their kind words, love, and support.

At peace

The last few days have been extraordinarily difficult for our entire family (both those at home in Michigan and on the two coasts), filled with sadness, planning, and making some of the most difficult decisions our family has ever faced. We visited multiple cemeteries and funeral homes; spoke with counselors, nurses, social workers, rabbis, and chaplains; sat with Dad while we told stories, laughed, and cried, both together and individually. Most of the initial preparations were finally completed by yesterday evening, and we all wished Dad good night, perhaps for the last time, before heading home.

Early this morning, we received the phone call that my father had passed away during the night. The three of us sat around the dining room table at 3 in the morning and told more stories about Dad, and how we knew his long and difficult journey was now over, and how he was now at peace.

Again, thank you so much to all of our friends, who have continued to support and console us in our grief. Here's the information we saw printed out just a few hours ago, displayed so officially for newspaper obituary submission:

• The funeral service for Stephen S. Selfon, DVM, will be held on Sunday, November 11, at 2 pm, at The Dorfman Chapel in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
  
• Following the burial, we will be sitting shiva (the traditional 7-day Jewish mourning period, where the family remains in the home, and friends of my dad can come and be with us) beginning immediately afterwards at our home, and continuing for the rest of the week (ending on Friday morning; the observation of Shabbat preempts shiva, and that would be the seventh day, reckoning by the Jewish calendar). Evening services will be at around 7 pm, or people can visit any time before that. [Directions and construction notes at the bottom of this post.]
  
• For those who would like to send messages to my mom and the rest of our family, you can of course post on this blog, on the chapel's website, or more formally send notes to our home:
  
  
  
  
• If anyone would like to make a donation in my father's memory, the suggested options are the Alzheimer's Association (our family's local chapter is the Metro Detroit one); the Michigan State College of Veterinary Medicine; or the charity of your choice.

Once again, thanks to all of our friends for their continuing support and love at this exceptionally sad and difficult time.

To Our House:
As I learned when my parents first moved to White Lake, street grids unfortunately don't work very well when there are ridiculous numbers of randomly placed lakes. Now throw in an illogical insistence on naming every street (even those perpendicular to each other) "Commerce," and a few giant construction projects blocking off roads around our house, and we've got a recipe for good times.

There is a season

As some of you know, I have been away from Meh and Zachary since late Thursday night, flying to Michigan to be with family as my dad's condition degrades. It has been impossibly difficult in so many ways -- seeing and being with my dad in this clearly terminal state, my brother and I trying to help my mom make final arrangements, and being away from my wife and son for an extended period.

We've watched with happiness and joy as Zachary continues to grow and develop, gaining new skills and understanding, reaching new milestones, and looking at the world with increasing wonder. Unfortunately, as a harsh and cruel antithesis, I've also watched my father's -- Zachary's grandfather's -- continuing deterioration, with increasing debilities and skill restrictions. These next few blog entries will by no means be intended as precursors to a eulogy or anything like that; the disease that is claiming my father does not and should not define who he was in life.

It seems an incredibly long time ago (and yet in some ways, like it was yesterday) that my mom noticed subtle and then significant behavioral changes, and that my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease -- nearly ten years ago, at the impossibly and infuriatingly early age of 48. Even now, he remains the youngest resident at his care facility (and doubly depressingly, many of the elder residents were more lucid than him, even when he was first admitted). My mom had cared untiringly and amazingly for him at home for an extended period as his facilities gradually faded, but he eventually required more professional care in a facility that has featured incredibly kind, caring, and respectful staff. I continued to visit when I could, though I feel not nearly frequently enough; on each visit, something more had been taken away -- recognition, motor skills, speech, walking. My mom's strength at dealing with the insufferable situation continued to amaze me.

One bright light as the disease has progressed is our family's friends, who have all been incredibly supportive, kind, generous, and have themselves shared in the grief of slowly losing my dad. My parents' neighbors have done everything from household chores, home improvements, and errands, to watching and caring for Gus. Our family friends actively include my mom in their activities, visit and interact with my dad, and have done everything in their power to continue to buoy up my mom, brother, and myself. And my brother, my dad's sister, and my bubbie have come to visit my mom and dad on multiple occasions as well. There have also been various attempts to put our feelings to paper; my brother wrote an incredible essay (that unfortunately has not yet been published), and I wrote my musical composition. And perhaps most significantly, Zachary got to meet his grandfather when we came to town for his pidyon ha-ben, even if neither of them may have had much understanding or perception of the event.

A little over a month ago, the disease's latest turn left him mostly immobile and first wheelchair-bound, then bed-ridden. This past week, his ability to consistently swallow disappeared. At least he does seem to be at peace, and he is surrounded by those who love and care for him (both family and many friends have visited as well).

Which brings us to the simply surreal logistics of planning for what comes next -- discussions with cemeteries, funeral homes, etc. I still need to process these a bit, but I can at least report that so much of the "built-in" process for Jewish end of life traditions is focused on caring for the living, the family left behind. Even with the incredible support structure we have both here and in the cities where our family extends to, it's comforting to know that there's an extended procured period for processing and coming to grips with the reality of a relative's passing.

Sorry to write such a downer blog entry, but many friends had been asking and wanting to know what was happening. If you feel a need to take some kind of action immediately, there's no more appropriate time; it's curently Alzheimer's Awareness Month, and you can donate on the Alzheimer's Association website. Beyond that, thank you so much to all of our friends for looking in on Meh and Zachary, and for your thoughts and well wishes at this difficult time.

The Princess and the Pea

Yesterday was of course Halloween, and thus Zachary's first costume opportunity (not counting his countless cute outfits, or the Pumpkin Push race this past weekend). Meh and Zachary swung by my office in the afternoon, where Microsoft (or more specifically, my building's amazing admins) had put together a massive family-friendly party, complete with a pumpkin-carving contest that demonstrated my coworkers are as good at sculpture as programming games (scary thought), cupcakes, arts and crafts, and a fully decked out lobby (corn stalks, haunted mirrors, etc.) Of course kids were racing up and down the halls grabbing giant troves of candy that coworkers either handed out or just placed outside of their offices. I really think office trick-or-treating is the most optimal way to get the most candy in the least distance and time (and while avoiding any problematic weather to boot). Apparently our executives' building is the best of all, with full size candy bars as far as the eye can see. Still, considering the amount of candy that Zachary will actually be eating this year, I think the more minimal candy sizes are quite acceptable.

The office was strangely warm, so he didn't last in his costume all that long, but here he is, in a very cute pea-in-a-pod suit. Mommy was a princess (hm, see a theme from the Pumpkin Push?), and the two were very cute together. (Incidentally, we ran into some coworkers whose daughter was in the same pea-in-a-pod outfit, but mommy as an accessory certainly helped out our cause.) We didn't get a picture of me in my 'costume', which was an abstract audio thing (Dolby sweatshirt, multiple headphones and headsets, cables tangled around my arms, CDs hanging from a 'chain' of speaker cable around my neck, etc.). Don't worry, nobody's missing much here -- a few coworkers joked that it looked like I'd just fallen into a pile of audio cables. I guess next year I'll have to return to more traditional costume-wear.

Once we got home, I gave Zachary baffy time while Meh got the house prepped and started passing out candy to the visiting trick-or-treaters. I also walked Korby, and got to see how several neighbors went all out (there was a tunnel/cave leading to one neighbor's house, and a scary amount of fake cobwebs in front of another neighbor's house) decorating for the occasion. We ended up having a fair number of trick-or-treaters at home in the evening; Korby was of course keeping a close eye on the candy and made a few plays for our pumpkins in the front yard when I opened the door too far.

Mini Microsoft

(For those not familiar, the actual Mini Microsoft [hosted right here on BlogSpot] is a blog by a 'secret' MS employee that cuts through the business-speak and presents an employee's comments on internal/external perspectives of our company. Granted, my attempts at humor in entry titles is pretty much dead on arrival when it's a pun that I have to explain. Ah well.)

Zachary received a colorful surprise package in the mail late last week (though strangely, the accompanying note was actually post-dated for today?). We opened it up to discover a wealth of small gifts welcoming him to "Microsoft's growing family" -- a Dr. Seuss "red fish, blue fish" bib (with the Microsoft logo at the bottom), a solid white onesie (with the Microsoft logo at the top), and a host of branding-free objects as well: a nice brushed metal picture frame that we can engrave his birthday information on, a Taggies rattle (with lots of tags on the sides and a reflective front that makes even funhouse mirrors look tame), a small rubber ducky from Microsoft's credit union, and even a super-cozy Nanny and Webster blanket (branding free, and all proceeds go to support children's charities).

It's really nice that my company's benefits department puts together this little care package on top of all of the other family assistance they provide. The rattle is already getting some good use - Zachary occasionally grasps it, and today Meh was tickling his face with the tags, generating a great series of laughs and giggles that I got to share on the phone. He's got the best laugh! Here's a new recording from the weekend, where he really thought what I was saying (or my expression? or perhaps just my face?) was the funniest thing in the world.

Slimy and Tasty

We finally got our pumpkins carved yesterday, we decided that a family portrait would be appropriate.

No, that's not a tongue protruding from Mommy pumpkin's mouth. That would be the "slimy" part of this post. It's a large slug.

I hate slugs. I have often said that I really don't see what purpose they serve in nature, besides being disgusting and eating whatever I plant in the garden. Okay, I suppose they provide food for some birds and snakes and stuff. I do like birds and snakes.

I was inspired to make Halloween cupcakes after reading M and K's latest blog entry. However, I have been doing entirely too much baking lately, so I chose a recipe from my Small Batch Baking book, which makes only 4 chocolate cupcakes. Now, this book is not to be confused with the Easy Bake Oven Gourmet, which has recipes for pint-sized desserts made in the aforementioned tiny oven. The cupcakes were a bit dry, though the peanut butter frosting was creamy and delicious! The sprinkles are tiny orange balls and black cats.

Zachary was determined to undermine my cupcakes today by insisting on being held most of the time. Here is His Crankiness in a cute, soon-to-be-too-small outfit.

I guess I shouldn't complain, since Zachary has slept through the night for 3 nights in a row!!! That's 7, 8, and 10.5 hours. We are dumbfounded, since we did nothing differently, but grateful for our first uninterrupted stretches of sleep since August.

Zack-o-lantern

Today was the 12th annual Pumpkin Push, a 5K race around Seward Park benefiting the Puget Sound Neighborhood Health Centers. Meh, feeling that having a baby a little over two months ago wasn't nearly enough of a workout, ran the race with friends R and S (of J and S). J, Zachary, and I people-watched from the sidelines, and cheered the girls on in the home stretch. The race (there's also a 2.5K walk option) is always a lot of fun - most runners show up in increasingly creative Halloween costumes; Meh was a princess (complete with tiara of course), S was a fairy, and R was a cat. Oh, and Zachary totally stole the show as an adorable pumpkin (costume courtesy of grandma). Other costume highlights included someone dressed as the furry Chewbacca (kids were posing with him for pictures after the race), a girl wearing the ultra-red Wendys hair, a family with a Superman dad and Spiderman and Boba Fett kids, and most impressively, a double-stroller dressed up as a pirate ship (the Jolly Jogger), with a family of scallywags pushing it through the race.

I'm always impressed with the early finishers, many of whom are in heavy-duty full-on costumes and dragging along strollers and other gear; this year there was even a guy with his dog in the top ten - the dog looked more winded than his owner. As a completely random non sequitur, you know it's already campaign season when, as the race concluded, a prop plane flew over the park and lake dragging a sign saying to vote for Ron Paul. Wha-?

Zachary was, um, less than happy throughout most of the race, as best depicted by this hilarious pre-race picture. But he did conk out as Mommy finished, and then slept as we all went out for a nice lunch (meeting up with friends D & D and their son N). In the afternoon, we got to video chat with grandma and her visitors from Maryland, great-aunt Ilene and bubbie. Zachary was smiley and seemed entranced with the images on the screen, though his own pictures were uploading in another window, so maybe he was just focused on himself? Anyway, it was great for Bubbie to be able to talk to and see him again - it's so much more 'real' than still pictures can convey!

In the evening, to top off a very full day, we went to a lovely charity concert that our friend L was putting on with several other classical singers. Zachary unfortunately started squeaking during the pre-concert announcements, so he and I spent the first half out in the hall, listening in through a cracked door (we actually got a pretty good view through a backstage door, though he developed the hiccups and loud, er, bottom-side noises that kept us from venturing back into the hall). During the second half, I was able to find a few hallway light switches, turned them off, and then he was able to fall asleep. We snuck back in to catch the last quarter of the concert; the clapping didn't really wake him up too much, and he sat there asleep and/or half awake, absorbing the lovely opera and Broadway pieces that wrapped up the concert. Now we're back home and exhausted, so I'm going to wrap this up - here's hoping he'll sleep well tonight with the long day of activities!

This hand is my hand

Zachary's developmental progress continues, with new milestones and emerging behaviors every day. He's able to hold himself up for extended periods, and wriggles in a practically-crawling manner. And the hand-eye coordination (or at this point, I guess just knowledge that hands exist and you have some degree of control over them) is quickly progressing - Meh gave him one of his favorite toys yesterday (hanging up above him in the picture below), and he grabbed onto it tightly and swung it around a bit. Meh also purchased some wrist-velcroed rattles that Zachary really seems to like; he gets a little jingle when he shakes his arm.

Meanwhile, daddy's developmental progress continues as well (though at an admittedly much slower pace): last night I managed to successfully give him a bath in which drying time didn't degrade into crying time. He actually started laughing as I was drying him off -- he sneezed, and when I said 'bless you', he thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Sleeping through the night is still a challenge; he's generally "up" one to two times a night, where "up" sometimes means wide awake and looking around/making happy noises, and other times means still asleep but making loud grunting/discomfort noises that get Meh or me up to check on him. Either way, the 3 am soothe is still a challenge, sometimes taking upwards of an hour to get him back down. We hear from a few friends with similarly aged babies that are already sleeping for 8, 9, or even 10 hours straight. Every baby sorts out their sleep schedule themselves I assume, but wouldn't 10 hours be swell?

Lastly, Zachary's big brother Korby continues his naughty ways -- trying to eat foods placed impossibly far back on the countertops, as well as things that aren't even remotely close to food products (packaging, a wicker basket, mail, etc.), knocking over garbage and recycling (causing us to switch to under-the-sink garbage, and garage-located recycling), and finding ever new and creative ways to escape into the neighbor's yard. Sure, you could blame it on older sibling syndrome, but it's a challenge trying to fix the behaviors. At least he seems to be starting to acknowledge Zachary's existence, occasionally sniffing and even hanging out near him (if only because that's also near us).

Bjorn to shop

A month ago, when we were first figuring out the best ways to carry Zachary while maintaining at least some individual hand control (and without completely destroying our arms, wrists, and backs), we tried out a few different options.

• The Maya Wrap was disliked by Zachary, even though it was accompanied by a comically retro PBS-looking DVD (that didn't really help explain the product). [Revisiting their website to grab the link, it looks like they've actually taken their wraps off the market due to the crucial ring breaking in some scenarios. Yikes.]


• The baby bjorn seemed interesting, but it's only really recommended once the baby can hold his or her head up straight. And even though Zachary had good neck strength early on, he mainly got angry when we made attempts to use it.


• The moby wrap worked fabulously, and became a mainstay of our hands-free Zachary operating procedures. (Incidentally, there's apparently now even a video for doing yoga while wearing the wrap. Scary.) The only minus to it is that it's cursed to get dirty; it's a giantly long piece of fabric that simply must hit the floor/ground when you put it on, and it's also a prime target for Zachary to spit up on. The wrap has spent as much time in the wash as in use -- though I suppose we could say that about anything else placed in his vicinity!

So today we decided to give the baby bjorn another go, since he's a bit older and sturdier, and we haven't figured out the positioning on the moby wrap to let the baby sit facing outwards anyway. Wow, such a difference! He didn't fuss when he was dropped in, and had the big wide-open eyes as we started taking a spin around the house. Then he discovered part of the carrier in close proximity to his face and started sucking on it. It was totally damp by the time I noticed what he was doing, ew. Bib inserted between baby and bjorn, he remained a drooler, but definitely seemed to like being able to look out, even making some happy giggling noises at times. He quickly demonstrated that it's his absolute favorite way to get around (see below). For now, at least.
With another dreary Seattle day in the forecast, we decided to take an excursion out to an outlet mall -- big open spaces, forgiving of potential crying, and of course lots of sense-engagement (for both Zachary and, um, mommy :-), without the beyond-hectic crowds of the local 'regular' malls (where the parking process alone often makes Meh car sick). On the way up to Burlington, we actually stumbled on an even more spectacularly promising outlet mall near one of the Native American casinos, right off the side of the freeway, and stopped to investigate. Zachary was cozy in his car seat, so to start we strolled with the, um, stroller. But when he got unhappy, we moved to the bjorn, and he just started smiling and laughing for a good twenty-five minutes! It was perhaps the cutest thing ever, and definitely among the happiest long-term periods we've observed in Zachary.

We ended up having a nicely successful shopping excursion in addition to just getting outside for a bit. Zachary apparently fits into some 9-month-old sizes now, so we grabbed a few new sleepers and such to keep him comfortably asleep at night. When we got home, Meh started organizing the new clothes and realized we already had received an identical style and sized item as a gift. Whoops! Time to review his full wardrobe, particularly the sizes that we thought he couldn't possibly be ready for yet. It's the amazing growing baby!

Blowin' in the wind

Strangely, the entire US seems to be subject to these kinds of things at the exact same time, but yesterday was another big (and apparently now annual) Pacific Northwest windstorm. We don't get tornadoes here, just crazy gusty winds. (And the occasional volcanic eruption or earthquake, but let's focus on one natural disaster at a time here.) Last year's (pictured to right) storm (70 mph in the city/115 mph in the mountain passes) knocked down fences, trees, and most importantly, caused some serious powerline damage all around the mainlines just outside of our neighborhood. (Incidentally, I find it hilarious that the Washington State historians have elected to call it the 'Hannukah Eve' storm, considering that Jewish holidays actually start at sunset, plus the minimal relative size of the Seattle Jewish community. Case in point: note that the spelling at the top of that article is 'Hunnukah'. Good stuff.) Plus it was really cold, so we were huddling in the dark -- wood-burning stoves with electric fans apparently aren't all that effective or safe without the fan running -- for a few nights before moving into the graciously offered house of some local friends who were out of town. In the end, power to our place wasn't restored for more than a week. And did I mention Meh was pregnant during this adventure as well?

So I was warily watching the swirling winds at my office yesterday morning (which generally has it much better than our house, which is near the lake and on a hill). Our building had a roughly 1 minute outage (should I be worried that MS doesn't invest in immediate switchover generators or at least UPSs for a completely electricity dependent company?) during our morning meeting, but other than that, I just saw things getting blown around the parking lot for the most part.

The drive home was where the fun began (as it was also during some of the heaviest winds of the day, which apparently topped off at 'only' 60 mph) - downed branches and giant piles of swirling leaves and debris grew in frequency as I headed up toward our place. Then I entered the 'live fire' zone, where branches were actively whipping off of trees and onto the sidewalks, roads, and cars. At one point I heard a giant thump right above me - I guess a branch or something went onto and bounced off my roof (didn't seem to leave a trace luckily). Traffic was snarled, cars were dodging falling branches and driving around the ones that were already down, and you could hear loud cracks every few minutes of a weaker tree giving up the ghost.

I made it home intact, where Meh and Zachary were having bathy (sorry, baffy) time after a tough traffic jammed drive of their own. Some of our heavy lawn furniture (already theoretically tarped down for the winter) had been tossed around like toys, so I tried to pick everything up in the still gusty winds. We started prepping to hunker down for the night, when a loud boom preceded all power in the house going bye-bye. D'oh, so much for making dinner for Meh. Our friends J & S graciously offered to bring us over some food - we have such supportive friends!

As it was still light outside, and Korby was moderately insane for a walk, he and I went out to investigate. The main power pole that feeds our neighborhood had been blown down into the road, and there were several spaghetti-looking strings of live wires covering various parts of the road and sidewalk. Luckily, the sheriffs had already blocked off the road north of us with flares, and were diverting people to the south - but I figured we should abort the dinner run based on the traffic situation (J & S, thank you guys so much!!). The neighbors' generators all spun up quite quickly; looks like folks learned from last year - where there were about 3 then, I counted at least 6 as Korby and I walked around. Our next door neighbors (who have two young kids) were extremely kind and generous, coming by to make sure we were okay and offering us a movie and/or warm place to hang out with them. In the end, we just ended up going to bed early (after a canned/dry food dinner, and after watching a little bit of a DVD on my battery-powered laptop), but Zachary was up and down throughout the night without his rain-noise-generator to keep him asleep. I occasionally heard large construction vehicles/machinery out on the main road, and then a few chainsaws, and (quite impressively considering the damage I'd seen) the power came back on at 3:40 am. Zachary slept a bit better with his white noise, though he was still up quite early in the morning.

Things seem a bit calmer wind-wise today, though now the wind has just been replaced with torrential downpours. (For the non-Seattle-ites: Yes, it rains here in the winter. But usually it just mists for months on end; 'heavy' rain is pretty rare.) In response to last year's storms, the local power company has put together a live updating map of outages; looks like we were quite lucky, as most of our general area was actually still out as of this morning (note all of the big red X's clumped in the northeast corner of Lake Washington). There are some impressive pics of some of the local area damage here. Thankfully we had our own trees trimmed fairly recently, but I really should start researching portable generators if this is going to be happening so frequently.

Songs in the key of Z

(Want more pics and info on Zachary's adventures in the maize maze? Check out K & M's excellent blog entry on the event!)

We've already discussed to some length Zachary's current music listening habits; his dancing time in the morning is often one of the best ways to calm down any fussiness, and we're actually getting pretty good at singing along with his tunes (even the foreign language world music songs). But I haven't covered our current Zachary-themed "original" compositions, both of which appear to be able to lodge themselves in your head for extended periods. I remember an NPR story a year or so back about these kinds of 'ear worms' (songs that get stuck in your head), I think translated from some German scientists who were studying the phenomenon. (Incidentally, there are apparently even websites specifically geared to suggesting songs that cancel these Ohrwurms out of your head.)

Song #1: Zachary David (Music and Constantly Changing Lyrics by Scoot)
I made this one up pretty soon after he was born. I envision it as a Blues Traveler kind of acoustic thing, with guitar and perhaps a harmonica. Or something. Someday maybe I'll even record it so we can *really* embarass him (and/or me). The rhythm also works with the name Korben Dallas, so if Korby is looking at me with the sad eyes that say he isn't getting enough attention during a performance of the song, I sometimes include him in the lyrics as well. Wow, that makes me feel like it's a lounge lizard act or something. Anyway, the (default) lyrics are:

Zachary David is a good good boy,
Zachary David, he's my pride and joy,
Zachary David is my little man,
Zachary David, he's as cute as he can [be],
Zachary David, is a good good boy (optional: "well uh-huh")

Incidentally, the lyrics are totally flexible and change frequently. This seems to be the version that I always come back to though, even with that totally weak rhyme on the fourth line. Should I be worried that my song essentially fits the standard limerick rhyming scheme?

Song #2: Bathy Time (Music and Lyrics by Meh)
This one has become Zachary's power ballad, particularly in the moments leading up to, well, evening bathy time. I caught Mima singing it, and I too hum it on occasion out of nowhere. Meh sung it to me yesterday on the phone, and apparently even Zachary got confused when he heard it while the tub wasn't being filled with water. Pure brilliance, demonstrating a true economy of language (only three words):

Naked bathy time!
Naked bathy time!
Naked time, bathy time,
Naked bathy time!

I think the melody really carries this one, with a nice ascending line at the end. Wow, music dorkiness at its finest. But it totally works; I sang it to him last night as we got ready for the bath, and he had one of the happiest, mellowest baths yet. I think he practically fell asleep. Of course I still suck at the towel drying bit, so he got good and angry with me before I was able to get him swaddled and to bed. I'll have to learn more soothing tunes from the master, and/or prepare a new song for the occasion ("Naked Towel Time"?)

My little monkey!

Hmmm...




Okay, so that's an ape. He's still my baby monkey boy!!!

Mr. Cranky the Cry Baby

Many of you have marvelled at how happy Zachary must be, I mean, look at how he smiles in all his photos! That's because we didn't take pictures of him when he was anything but adorably smiley...until now. Behold, Mr. Cranky!



Yes, Zachary becomes Mr. Cranky sometimes. Actually, more than sometimes. But, less than always! What I don't like is that with strangers, whether he is being Mr. Cranky or not seems to correlate with whether he is a "good baby" or not. "What a well-behaved baby he is!" they say when we are out and he is sleeping/quiet alert. So, if he was fussing, would that make him a "bad baby?" He's two months old, he doesn't know good from bad! In fact, he won't understand the concept of guilt until he is at least two years old. Anyway, his Mr. Cranky pout is beyond adorable. And nothing is as sweet (yet sad) as his tiny baby tears!

Here's to our very vocal, but still "good" baby!

Child of the corn

Today, Mima, Meh, and I took Zachary to his first ever pumpkin patch and corn maze, meeting up with friends K and M as we start to get ready for Halloween (arguably mommy's favorite holiday). The weather was glorious, perhaps even a bit too sunny at times (we'd forgotten Zachary's hat, but a nice thick cooking/crafting magazine [featuring impressively sculpted pumpkins] that K was giving to Meh served double-duty as a sun shade). The maze was pretty fun for row after row of corn - not too muddy, and large enough to get good and lost in. There were 'hints' sprinkled throughout (featuring the "history" of/thinly veiled product placement for a local Ford dealership, presumably the corn maze sponsor) that tried to help, though they were pretty sparse and I'm pretty sure some of them were just leading back towards the way we'd come in. We threw caution to the wind and wandered for a bit, before getting lost enough that I pulled a pamphlet off the ground that had the map on it and used it to help us get the rest of the way through. There were a fair number of more creative routes not reflected on the map that some wanderer had decided to plow through solid walls of corn, but so it goes. There was also a large crane in the middle of the field that kept going up and down; we figured it was offering views of the fields, but when we finally got to it, the teen up at the top wouldn't come down and said it wasn't available for public viewing. They apparently do a spooky version of the maze at night, which I think could be pretty darn creepy.

Afterwards, we wandered into the adjacent pumpkin patch and looked for the perfect family pumpkins. There were a wide selection of gourds and pumpkins in colors from yellow and white to green and of course classic orange. (Some of them were huge and/or rather sickly, and I kept finding excellent candidates for Pumpkin Darkly possessed pumpkins, should that novel ever need a film adaptation...) We eventually settled on 3 of increasing size ("baby, mommy, and daddy" said Meh) before Zachary started to fuss and it was time to head home.

Also today, we wrapped up the initial stage of decorations in Zachary's room. A fun set of alphabet cards (with a dizzying number of potential corresponding objects on each card - I've actually e-mailed the artist to see if there's a "key" listing which flowers, trees, etc. are represented by more obscure letters) adorn the wall behind his dresser/changing table. There's also a fun new mobile (one of the kinds with objects hanging in perfect balance from long impossibly thin horizontal rods) with cute dogs -- Zachary was mesmerized during his first change as they spun overhead (and one hit me in the head - time to move them up a little bit higher). We also put more traditional block letters of his name behind his crib, which Meh had painted and I vainly attempted to align in a zig-zag using a laser level (the notched holes in them were apparently less accurate, and a bit misbalanced, so it has that fun semi-chaotic kids look to it). But Zachary's room is now mostly done until he decides he needs to redecorate a few years down the road!

Tonight is another milestone; Zachary gets his very first babysitter! Mima has graciously volunteered to watch him while mommy and daddy go out to dinner and try vainly to recollect what this phrase "date night" means. :)

The full monty

Good lord, four days between posts? We're totally slacking off here - hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come, with yet another dead-end out-of-date blog. Incidentally, this week, we've been getting back in touch with all of the other new parent participants in the pre-birth class we took a few months before Zachary. The original class actually had a scheduled reunion, but it was right around the time Zachary showed up (we were apparently the last due date in the class, and were then too shy to point out to the instructor that the reunion likely wouldn't work for us), so we didn't get to catch up with them then. It's fun to see pictures of all of the other babies and discover that they're all blogging about them as well -- sounds like they're going to try for a reunion next weekend, which should be nice if we can make it.

Zachary is often the most happy when he's naked. He'll be fussing or crying, and if I start to get him ready for a diaper change, he's suddenly happy and smiling in that head-turned way that we all love -- even if the diaper turns out to be completely spotless. We've also mentioned how he loves bath time (and again, only yells at me when I start to cover him up afterwards). So Meh has been giving him a little bit of naked time every day -- and yesterday's session included a photo shoot in the buff. While I'm all for collecting embarassing photos to be shown to family, friends (particularly his, once he's a teenager), partners, spouses, etc., I'm not entirely sure what to make of Meh's minor obsession with Zachary's tush. The photos are cute and all, but I think we'll reserve them from public viewing (well, except for the one I actually posted, as above) for the time being.

Last night, Zachary went to his second 'concert'; Meh's Balkan women's choir was performing as part of the monthly evening Kirkland Art Walk at one of the local galleries. As with the sukkot (and orchestra in the park) experience, the music began (the style is often loud and bright, though some songs fall into the more 'soothing' category), and he zoned out then conked out, even sleeping through the frequent applause breaks. During the second set, he got a bit more fussy though, so we hung out outside of the gallery as he listened, wide-eyed and occasionally smiling. He continues to be so friendly and happy with strangers (Meh insists moreso than with her), cracking big smiles when he meets someone new.

Later in the evening, Mima arrived to visit for the weekend. Of course, she was accompanied by several cute new outfits sporting the latest in baby couture, that we look forward to Zachary modelling in the next few days. And it sounds like Meh, Mima, and Zachary are out perusing more activewear this morning! We're looking forward to a nice fairly low-key weekend, checking out a local farm's giant corn maze (maize maze?), having shabbat dinner with friends tonight, and Mima has graciously offered to babysit one evening so Meh and I can go have a (brief) date night out.

Big man on campus

Zachary turns 2 months old today! And, perfect timing, today was also his 2-month checkup. While we were of course a little worried about the 4 immunization shots that accompany this appointment, we were definitely interested in seeing how he's progressed in the doctor's eyes, and Meh and I even had side bets going about his current weight. (Meh wins, off by only 5 ounces.)

• Weight: 13 lbs 8 oz (90th percentile)
• Height: 24" (75th-90th percentile)
• Head circumference: 39.8 cm (50th percentile)

So it's not just my imagination, the muscle strain is indeed partially due to him getting bigger! But before you start working on the basketball scholarship applications, the doctor noted that baby growth patterns have nothing to do with adult size. It's too bad babies aren't a little more like puppies (well, in this *one* way at least), where you can sort of guess at adult size by the proportions and size of their puppy paws.

He did great, cooing and smiling at the nurse and doctor. We also learned that he really likes sparkly things, not just straight high-contrast lines. The doctor was again fabulous, friendly, and engaging quite a bit directly with Zachary; we got another wellness sheet afterwards with comments about his expected developments in the next few months, along with some suggested reading. (I don't think I'd mentioned this before, but on the suggested reading list, I saw that our doctor actually has written a book or two on the subject!)

The shots themselves of course made Zachary sad, but he brightened up again pretty quickly with a snack, and was happily looking at the corner of his car seat on the drive home. And on the plus side, he got these super cute camoflauge circular bandaids where he'd gotten his shots. We're all back home now, where he's enjoying a brief nap with (what else but) his sheep.

Laugh track

As mentioned before, Zachary's giggles and laughs have been somewhat unpredictable and tough to catch on tape (er, flash memory, but whatever). But on a hunch, I ran the field recorder while we were playing with his sheep this morning, and got at least one distinct giggle.

Unfortunately the rest of the day (and most of last night) was anything but giggling, so both Meh and Zachary are taking a nap at the moment. Well, he's occasionally still opening his eyes and looking around - last I checked, he was somewhere between dozing and reading the shockingly poorly worded warnings printed on the inside of the pack-n-play. (Examples: wild overuse of colons, horrendously inconsistent capitalization, terrible run-on sentences, and outright typos like "If you are without and owner's manual...".) It always boggles my mind how many companies will go ahead and pay to fabricate millions of units without running a basic spell check on their printing. Granted, in some cases (and likely the pack-n-play is one of them), they're actually just missing a native English speaker to begin with - reminds me of the often humorously translated English seen in Japan, or the Chinese efforts to clean up their English signage before the Olympics.

Anyway, the great challenge while anyone is sleeping in this house is trying to get other individuals to avoid disrupting the precious nap: keeping Zachary snoozing (or quiet and happy) while Meh sleeps, encouraging Meh to sleep when Zachary sleeps, and keeping the whining, barking, and pawing Korby away from both of them in either scenario. Today we've managed to juggle it so I think Meh and Zachary are hopefully getting some well-deserved rest, while Korby is distracted by repeated trips out into the yard, pats, dinner, and a nice long walk. Hopefully this will help give mommy and son a little respite from the long and tiring previous night.

He makes bath time lots of fun

I can't believe how time flies, but Zachary is already 8 weeks old today! Of course, one of the first things we learned during the pregnancy is that 8 weeks is not 2 months; that would be closer to 9 weeks (and his 2-month checkup is indeed next week). We've still been trying to more predictably replicate those first laughs/giggles, but he seems to find the most random things funny at the moment - a light, a face, his mobile... He definitely still does love his sheep though.

Another of Zachary's favorite activities is bath time, which we've tried to schedule at least most nights, since it definitely helps him chill out and sleep better for the first stretch. We have a small plastic tub (I think it could actually be used in a kitchen sink, but the concept of bathing a baby there still seems a bit weird to me), which we've used in the bathtub itself -- a tub within a tub, as it were. He looks around with big eyes and is generally quiet and happy through the scrubbing process. However, he seems to especially love when mommy or daddy join in and take a bath with him. Yesterday he and I played in the tub - we used a fun flashing disco rubber ducky that some friends got us, along with the more standard bath essentials (washcloths and soap), and he was totally smiley the whole time, and making silly faces and noises while floating around. The only part I haven't been able to figure out yet is how to get him dried off before he starts getting mad and hollering at me (I'm guessing he just gets too cold). I tried the immediate towel, the towel then wrapped in a second towel, and even the transfer from towel A to towel B when the first one is damp, but he still gets unhappy with me in the meantime. The next step is to try to coordinate the logistics of throwing a towel in the dryer beforehand to get it nice and toasty, though timing that to occur while filling the tub, and then rolling it up and getting it upstairs sounds like a world of trouble.

In furniture news, one of the two pack-n-play's is likely to come down this week; he's already outgrowing furniture (in addition to a growing pile of too-tiny clothes)! Well, maybe not outgrowing so much as the more 'official' crib is taking the place of the pack-n-play as his sleeping area. Still, it'll be the first major appliance to go into storage for the short term, so a momentous occasion for Zachary.

One funny event I had to share from earlier today -- we of course sort and fold clothes after washing them. (Incidentally, washing occurs much more frequently now than before Zachary.) Anyway, Meredith finished folding the jeans, picked up the pile to bring upstairs, and showed me that on the top of the pile she had placed a teeny tiny pair of Zachary's own little denim jeans, folded just like ours. Very cute (1-2-3-awww...).

The most unlikely Selfon

I've been continuing the genealogy research in my free time, and have been having way too much fun trying to find Selfons around the country (and indeed the world -- found a couple living in England in the 1830s, who are the oldest Selfons in the collection thus far). There have been nice e-mail conversations with the grandmother and parents of the 'other' Zachary Selfon, who sent along this picture (Zachary is second from the left). Since this ongoing search is likely of primary interest to me (and perhaps the other Selfons I've found, now tallying more than 100!), I'll spare our blog most of the details.

Except for this one bit of trivia:

My research has uncovered a series of potential relatives who are purebred dogs. Yes, a line of brussels griffons named Selfon -- one named "Selfon's Best Effort", and her mother is "Selfon's Bo A Number 10". The "Ch" before the mom's (and dad's) names apparently indicates they're champions, though of what competitions I can't tell.
For those wondering, no, I don't think they're any relation to Korby or Uncle Gus. Okay fine, maybe like twentieth cousins or something. Alas, Geni.com doesn't seem to support entering pedigree dogs as your relatives in their family entry system.