Lines may be longer than they appear

Zachary seemed to sleep much better last night, thank goodness. Today was our last day in Los Angeles, and the city apparently saved its nastiest for last. But we also had a lovely (heh, it's been a posting, so I can use that adjective again!) morning with Meh's good friend's parents in their wonderful home. Not only did they generously offer us their guest house, which was quiet, secluded, and nicely darkened when the lights were switched off (all of which led to better Zachary sleeping time), but they also gave us breakfast and let us introduce Zachary to their animals this morning. Yes, they own a pair of goats, chickens (whose eggs we had soft boiled as part of breakfast), two donkeys, and a very special bull named Willis.

Zachary seemed to reserve the same look of monkey-like curiosity for each of them, but it was certainly a lot of fun for us to visit with them. Willis in particular is like a giant multi-thousand-pound dog in the way that he likes to be pet and licks whatever part of your face/hands/arms he can get close to (even if he has to wedge his head sideways through the slats in his pen to do it).

After breakfast and animal visiting, we packed up, said goodbye and thank yous for their generous hospitality, then headed through Malibu Canyon (passing some impressive damage from those large fires during the fall, and miraculously so much greenery so soon afterwards) and on out to PCH to drive along the coast back down towards the airport. Everything was great with the drive and dropping off of the car, until we hit LAX itself, where I noticed disastrous looking lines spilling out onto the outdoor skycap areas for one terminal (thankfully not ours). Things ended up being nearly as nasty at our own terminal. While the line we got into to check our bags spiralled back on itself about 5 times, the initial entrance to the line was at around the middle of it - so the line ended up being significantly longer than it looked when we joined it. Check-in was being handled in a pretty ludicrous manner - one giant queue of people for 35+ check-in kiosks, with an agent yelling at people which kiosk numbers were free, and most of the kiosks ending up sitting vacant for minutes at a time. (The guy yelling which kiosks were free appeared to go take a break when we got halfway through the line.) And this was the line for people with electronic tickets who had already checked in! There's simply got to be a better way.

Anyway, after standing through that queue, we had the security line to contend with - nearly as long, and again with seven lines splitting out of one without much rhyme or reason. Meh was told to remove Zachary from the Bjorn to take him through security, so there was more juggling of bags and baby, and I walked through with him. And at the gate, there was no place to sit because of a bunch of folks sprawled out sleeping on 4 or 5 seats. Now I understand needing rest in the middle of a long long haul connection, but we'd been in lines for the better part of 90 minutes, so it was slightly frustrating. On the plus side, I was called up to the ticket counter as they started boarding the plane -- they'd bumped Meh and me (and of course the seatless Zachary) up to the economy plus section, so at least we had a bit of room on the flight back. Zachary was again stunning throughout the whole ordeal, keeping his cool so much better than daddy was! He was also totally cracking up on the flight itself, much to our delight.

Game day

We've had a phenomenal rest of our trip to southern California! (Note to self: Meh says I completely overused the word 'lovely' in the last post, so I won't use it at all in this one. Well, except in this note.) Zachary did wonderfully, other than having trouble sleeping in a strange place, which one might expect I suppose. But even with this issue, when we moved from hotel to generously offered guest house for this last night, he seems to be doing much much better.

Saturday was a jam-packed day for the little man. After another somewhat sleepless night (perhaps a bit better than the first night?) was compensated somewhat by a very tasty breakfast at our inn, we checked out and headed out for our first meet-and-greet of the day. This was very exciting -- several months ago I'd mentioned that we'd discovered the existence of another young Zachary Selfon living on the east coast. Since then, my research has turned up a rather large family tree, with more than 130 of us around the country and world. An aunt of the other Zachary lives in LA, and we were finally able to get together and meet up for, er, second breakfast (one can never have too many breakfasts!) in Venice. It was so nice to finally get to meet newly discovered family (based on my best guess, a fourth cousin once removed and her husband), and we all had a really nice time sitting at a cafe and chatting.

On the way to our lunch, since we had a little extra time to kill, we decided to hit Surfas, a giant commercial kitchen supply store that was on the way. (I had at first thought the name was just a smooth and stylish commentary on the fact that food preparation requires surfaces. But no, it's actually the founder's name.) Zachary of course chose the opportunity to dirty a diaper, so we had to retreat to the car for a diaper change, and then Meh was mortified when we snuck back to the store with dirty diaper in hand looking for a garbage can. Thankfully, there was an inconspicuous one outside. Anyway, the store itself was a phenomenal collection of anything you could want for a restaurant or for pastry decorating (the latter being one of Meh's favorites). We saw tons of specially shaped pastry bag tips; cutlery/plates/measuring utensils of all sizes and materials; food coloring, nonpareils [those tiny decorative sugar balls], and glitter of all colors of the spectrum (Meh had to get some edible sparkly purple glitter and pink nonpareils); and even baby-shower themed decorettes [fancy sprinkles] with duckies and rattles (Meh got some excellent dinosaur-shaped ones).

Then it was on to lunch (hm, third meal of the day already?) with a bunch of friends, generously hosted by our friend E. We spent a nice relaxing afternoon catching up, chatting, and enjoying tasty food. After a brief visit back to friends T, S, M, and M's house, we headed onward to friend J's birthday party/game night - a fun evening of Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, and Boulderdash, with organized teams, a big scoreboard, and everything! Zachary was again very happy the whole time - Meh reported he was just looking around and smiling during her Trivial Pursuit game (yes, Meh and I were split into separate teams, likely so she could kick my butt, though we never ended up duelling). During my Cranium game, he was getting very tired, so any celebratory noises startled him into crying and I had to run out to a quiet room to soothe him back down. We bailed soon after round two, with Meh's team in the hunt at 1-1 and my team already likely out of contention at 0-2.

For our last stop of the evening, we headed to the beautiful home of Meh's elementary school friend's parents. We'd originally intended to stay with the friend herself, but she and her two sons had unfortunately gotten ill over the past few days and didn't want Zachary exposed to anything, so to the guest house we went! Zachary thankfully fell asleep quite quickly, we'll see how he fares this round...

Haunted Mansion

Nope, no trips to Disneyland this time around; just a friendly little ghost we know who isn't named Casper...

Zachary "the Jetsetter" began his fourth trip (flight #9) yesterday as we flew down the coast to the City of Angels (which in my experience is more and more frequently also the city of permanent gridlock and outrageously bad driving) to visit our many Los Angeles friends, most of whom had not yet met him. Surprise, surprise, the flight was late to our gate and thus late departing, with no reason given. Ah, the glamour of travel! Zachary was again great on the plane, despite it being a rather cozy 2+2 seats across little commuter jet. In between snacking and occasionally napping, he kept flirting with the flight attendants, the woman sitting across from us, another woman sitting behind us, etc. Oh, and towards the end of the flight, he made a really poopy diaper with a strong bouquet, when it was too late to change him before landing.

Once we disembarked, got everything in order, and got Zachary aired out, we headed to our cozy hotel to check in. Zachary had some lovely playtime before we headed back into the city to attend a yummy take-out kosher deli dinner at the home of friends T and S and their daughters M and R. Several other friends joined us and we had a lovely time catching up and introducing Zachary, though he refused to go to sleep at his appointed bedtime in their darkened guest room. We eventually said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel, where he was grunty most of the night despite the portable noise generator (aka my laptop), and eventually ended up in bed with us.

Today we were pretty much 'free' during the day, so I was determined to find something cozy for us to pass the time doing. On our last trip (when we were about 2 1/2 people), I'd attempted to find a nice park or estate with gardens, and we ended up at a somewhat smallish and sad one in Hollywood, with an impressive but totally fenced off and closed-to-the-public estate. This time I'd remembered the lovely Graystone Mansion I'd visited back in college (friend J reminded me what it was called), so we set off for the Hills of Beverlee to find it. After passing increasingly impressive private homes, then mansions, then estates, then principalities, and finally a few small self-contained countries, we arrived at the park entrance. It certainly didn't disappoint, with amazing manicured lawns, pools, and a beautiful mansion (unfortunately the interior was closed due to filming), and we had a really nice visit.

There were only two challenges: First, some misinforming park rangers -- yes indeed, Graystone Park has rangers, which is a little weird to see in a pretty urban park, but why not in Beverly Hills? Anyway, Zachary was asleep in his car seat, and I immediately remembered that there were quite a few stairs to deal with. The ranger insisted there was a paved sloping road we could use. He didn't mention that road was still scattered with varied sets of stairs, so after lugging the stroller containing Zachary (no longer asleep of course) down a few sets of stairs, we gave up and pitched the stroller back into the car. Which brings us to challenge number two -- somehow we'd forgotten about this bright glowing thing up in the sky that was the likely cause of the splendidly warm weather. This thing (let's call it "the sun") doesn't really have much impact this time of year in Seattle, so we'd naturally forgotten to bring a hat for Zachary. Our strategy to keep him from getting too much exposure? Draping the bebe-au-lait over him whenever it got too sunny. My attempts to do this made him look like a very stylishly patterned ghost, and I joked that he was haunting the mansion. Meh had better success draping it over him as more of a sun shade, and we completed our tour with Zachary's most lavishly served snack (and diaper change) yet, right next to some pretty fountains with butterflies fluttering about. On the way out, we stopped by a few artistic designed gardens, one of which had a pond with an enormous number of turtles sunning themselves while fish swam around; Zachary was fascinated by both.

Had lunch at an excellent new-ish kosher steakhouse (gotta take advantage of these dining options while I can!) before heading to a mall for some good pseudo-indoor time and casual shopping. We then met up with friends C and R for a lovely dinner in the always baby-friendly Cheesecake Factory before heading back to the hotel for an 'early' evening (~7:30 pm), including the return of hotel naked baffy time!

A Grand Day Out

(Cue the Wallace and Gromit music?)

Today was our greatest father-son challenge yet, with a full day of activities to occupy our time -- we were out of the house from 9 am until nearly 6 pm. Other than almost leaving his bag at a restaurant, I think we managed to do pretty well and have a nice day out.

At 9:30 am, we went to that 'Gigglers' class I'd attended with him for the first time a few weeks earlier. Again, I was the sole daddy (Meh indicates she hadn't seen many in past classes), which was again only slightly awkward, particularly when the day's conversation started with the often negative aspects of how the relationship had changed with the women's partners since their babies had come onto the scene. One of the moms told me that her husband had just been waiting for another guy to attend and hang out with (are we going to go discuss football or something?), so she was pleased to hear that I should be at class all month. Anyway, we had a nice time and Zachary of course took his first of many naps during the class.

Then, as we had a little extra time before mommy's lunch break, we decided to squeeze in a snack for Zachary. But Korby was also running low on dogfood, so to kill two birds with, well, maybe one and a half stones, we drove over to the pet store a mile away from the class, then sat in the lot and had a bottle (insert joke about open containers in a vehicle) before going in to pick up food. The pet store people were very nice; while I was able to lug the 35 lb. bag of food to the register, they had someone bring it out the to car for us.

Next it was on to mommy for lunch. Incidentally, Zachary has become the master of falling asleep in the car 5 minutes before we arrive somewhere. I feel really bad waking him up, though whether it's via picking him up or trying to take the whole car seat, he's a light enough sleeper that he often wakes up in the transition. Of course, later in the day he would prove me wrong... Anyway, he was very happy and kicky to see mommy and her fellow librarians!

And lastly, the two of us went and visited friend/coworker D and his young daughter S for a playdate. She's a month or so younger than Zachary, but again the differences in these young babies are tremendous. She grabs her feet with her hands; I've never seen Zachary show any interest. She rolls over in one direction; Zachary doesn't do either direction yet, since that twice occurring object-induced front-to-back roll. The playdate began rather undramatically; Zachary was conked out from the ride over, and disproved my previous concern by staying asleep in the car seat as I brought it inside. Next the four of us went out for a belated lunch (at 3 pm). As we were walking, S conked out in her stroller just before Zachary woke up hollering to be out of the bloody thing. I got him out and got the stroller resituated -- a women opened her second story window, leaned out, and asked if she could help with anything for the baby. Only in Capitol Hill!

So we had a nice fatherly lunch -- now two hours into the playdate, the babies hadn't actually seen each other awake. We headed back to D's house, where Zachary had a snack, and finally the two were awake at the same time. S actually showed some socializing interest, but Zachary seemed mostly interested in putting his hands in his mouth. The one near interaction was when she waved her hands in front of his face and he almost put one in his mouth. It's particularly interesting since he's so smiley and flirty with grownups (particularly of the female persuasion). But go figure, I guess he goes for the older women or something.

Anyway, we tried out a few fun and decidedly low-tech toys from a class D, R, and baby S had taken -- sleigh bells and shakers (Zachary looked at them but wasn't really interested in holding them); pieces of colored shiny metallic ribbon that both babies were entranced by; the placement and slight rolling of the baby positioned tummy-down on a ball (Zachary didn't care for this); and lastly, a fun little two-grownup-requiring square of fabric with the baby placed in the middle and the four corners lifted into the air to provide a swinging hammock. Zachary really enjoyed the back and forth, and was smiley and even a bit giggly. After a fun afternoon (well, at least for the dads!), we headed home in time for rush hour traffic, and got home at around 5:30 pm - just enough time for a little dancing before naked baffy time and sleep. A nice full day for a young boy!

Zack in the Hat

(Hey, Scoot, proud of the title?)

When I was pregnant with Zachary, I got used to strangers feeling that they could say just about anything to me, regardless of whether it was their business or not. Questions about everything from the baby's sex, due date, and my food cravings, to comments on the same (including frequent unwanted sex predictions) were a daily occurence. However, I expected these probes into my personal business to lessen once Zachary arrived. I was so wrong. People felt they could ask me anything and everything about my pregnant body, and they think it's just as acceptable to make comments on how I raise my child.

The best example of this so far (though I have no doubt that it will continue through Zachary's childhood and probably beyond) has been the frequent comments on whether or not my baby is wearing a hat. The first time this happened, I was walking into Target with Zachary in the bjorn, and a woman exiting walked past me and muttered under her breath, "(gasp!) No hat!" I couldn't believe I had actually heard it, but I had. Another time, I was taking the elevator up to my car after our new parents' support group, when an older gentleman commented on the chilly day. "A stocking cap would be good on a day like today, wouldn't it?" he said looking at Zachary's bare head. I wanted to tell him where he could go shove his stocking cap, but I am not that type of person.

The truth is, I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do. I found myself questioning whether maybe Zachary should be wearing a hat, and now I find myself putting one on him whenever we leave the house, to head off the comments (no pun intended).

But then a couple days ago, someone saw him indoors in his fleece, and the comment was, "Yeah, you're a little warm in that jacket, huh?" Grrr.

Zachary and the Sea of Z's

One of the ongoing great mysteries of young babyhood is sleep - how it works, why it often doesn't, and how to get more of it (for both baby and parents). Granted, I can't really complain, since Zachary has been effectively getting up 1-2 times per night (generally at 3 am and then 5 or 5:30 am) for the last month or more at this point. (Another effect of sleeplessness: short term memory loss. What were his sleep patterns like previously, and when did they change? I honestly don't remember. I have a vague recollection of him being up every 2-3 hours. I'm convinced all of this selective memory is part of our genetic make up, to make sure we forget enough of the tough parts to ensure families don't all stop at one child.) And I really shouldn't complain because, when he's waken himself up, Meh nearly universally manages the soothing back to sleep.

Anyway, two nights ago (or was it three nights ago? You see?!?), Zachary miraculously managed to keep himself asleep all night. Yes, 12 hours of snoozing goodness, from 7 pm to 7 am. Meh actually woke up a few times herself, a little concerned at this turn of events, and had to go check on him to make sure he was indeed still just blissfully asleep. Last night he had reverted though, and actually was squeaky even earlier in the night on a few occasions.

So what changed? What did we do differently? And how can we repeat it? In some ways I feel like a baseball player, developing a series of superstitions in an attempt to recapture that elusive no-hitter. Fear not, we're not avoiding sidewalk cracks (challenging with a bjorn or stroller in front of you), keeping strange talismans, or refusing to change clothes until Zachary repeats his feat (quite the opposite with the frequency that he spits up), but there are still plenty of little things to tweak: the timing of the bath, the number and quality of daytime naps and feedings, the nighttime soothing routine, the amount of time we let him settle himself to sleep before going in, etc. It really is a bit of a laboratory experiment, but if it can be done once, it can be repeated. We hope!

In like a... turtle?

(No lions here, except of course in Zachary's Laurie Berkner tunes.)

Happy new year to everyone! So New Years Day rolled around, which happens to be my birthday. I had no idea what was planned for the day, which of course made me immediately suspicious that there might be a surprise party in the making. Meh had taken dramatic steps to hide the whole thing from me, but I think the whole absence of some kind of event, even something low-key like our night-before's festivities, made me guess that something was up. Well, that and accidentally walking in on Meh working on the invitation last week. (Honestly, I just saw a list of names in a text document - I wouldn't have thought twice if she hadn't practically pushed me out of our office!)

Still, I didn't know what or when things would be happening -- though when my mom took Zachary and me out to look for a new watch (for me) and Meh said to be back by a specific time, I had a feeling... The mall was thankfully mellowed out from the holiday craziness, though the trip itself was a pretty dismal failure. (When you explain what you're looking for, what kind of store shows you a watch with a $2980 price tag?!? Then other stores laughed us out of the door when I mentioned the price range we were looking for. Jeez, who buys these things?) Side note - we got halfway through the mall when Zachary's grandma noticed he had one sock-free foot. We figured all hope was lost of its recovery, but I retraced our steps back the way we came in, and sure enough, the tiny piece of white cloth was sitting on the ground (next to a jewelry display that I guarantee housed pieces costing less than that blasted watch). This makes me two-for-two on recovering lost Zachary clothing items; I rescued a dropped shoe from the Target parking lot a few weeks ago. Of course, now that I've pointed it out, I'm sure he'll lose an unrecoverable piece of clothing the next time I take him out.

So we drove back from the mall. Scanning the street outside of our house, I didn't see an obscene number of cars, so I wondered if we were maybe doing something later in the evening. Zachary was of course sound asleep in his car seat, as he often is during/after car rides. I pulled into the garage and carried him inside, still in the car seat. It was then that I noticed the balloons, and a few seconds later, a group of friends standing around the corner yelled "SURPRISE!" Zachary's eyes flew open - his first surprise party. I thought he might cry, but he just looked around wide-eyed and took it all in.

The party was wonderful - Meh had made it Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-themed, complete with magnificent turtle cupcakes (served on a tray Zachary's grandma had brought as a Chanukah gift for Meh), a yummy cake, and TMNT napkins, plates, and balloons. Rounded out with snacks, drinks, tasty appetizers, and dips, it was a wonderful surprise -- and a great opportunity to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in weeks (or in the case of a few friends from our new years eve party, perhaps sixteen hours). Hooray for Meh for planning such a wonderful and tasty party!

Out like a lamb

A very happy new year to everyone! 2007 ended in style last night, with us all conking out by around 9:30 pm (Zachary by 6:30 pm, after another audience-attended 'naked baffy time') - we're party animals to the end. I was particularly impressed that my brother and aunt Jen flew back into NY at 9 pm and were still planning to attempt to make it to a friend's party. (In the end, sounds like they just went out and watched the fireworks at their local park.)

As I was joking to friends at our low-key gathering, we were certainly able to hit the major highlights - the ball dropping in New York (live thanks to CNN - tape delay is totally lame), tasty food, and good friends. Plus 9 pm is the start of my birthday in my 'native' time zone, so we were able to start the birthday festivities before falling asleep. Friends M and A had brought their 3-year-old daughter J, who was certainly the life of the party; I think she managed to simultaneously exhaust all of the many adults in attendance with dancing, playing, and surprisingly precocious conversation! We made a few attempts to put on a video that might entertain her, but both Faerie Tale Theatre and the Muppet Movie appeared to scare her as soon as the singing stopped and they moved into plot. The newer Fantasia fared a bit better, though an ethical debate erupted about whether it was right for a policeman to stop a hungry man from taking an apple that had rolled off the fruit stand and onto the ground. Ah well, it was a wonderful evening, and we were so thankful to have so many friends and family with us (grandma in particular has kept Zachary enthralled throughout her visit!) over the past week, and last night in particular to welcome in the new year (or at least come within a few hours of doing so).

Cake for Breakfast

We had a lovely Shabbat dinner last night with Grandma, Brian, Jen, and M and K. I had to work all day, so everyone got together to make a wonderful meal, including excellent salmon by Uncle Brian, yummy green beans and salad by M and K, and of course Scoot's amazing challah. We also ordered one of my favorite cakes from Hoffman's Bakery in Kirkland: the Princess Torte. I know, it's named after me! It's also quite delicious and the flavor friend J used as inspiration for our wedding cake (well, one of the flavors, anyway). And, I did indeed have some for breakfast this morning. K took some photos, which we can only hope will show up on M and K's blog soon! That is, if we are cool enough to make the cut.

Zachary is having a great visit with Grandma and Brian and Jen. Grandma has a knack for getting Zachary to scream with laughter (much like Uncle Josh) by making silly faces and noises! He was a bit angry during nap time today, and when I peeked in at him, he was arching his back so much that I thought he would roll over onto his tummy...but he didn't. His new favorite place to nap is in the center of Mommy and Daddy's bed (after a snack, of course). He leaves a tiny Zachary-shaped imprint which makes us happy come our own bedtime.

Rollover Plan

The Selfon brothers both reached milestones in the last twenty four hours -- one auspicious, the other perhaps a bit less so.

First, the big news -- Zachary has officially rolled from his front to his back! Meh got him to accomplish this feat last night (day 138) by waving a colorful remote control in front of him, then gradually moving it over his head. As he followed it with his eyes and head, he eventually tilted and then tipped over onto his back. She called me inside (from another fruitless round of leaf raking and bagging) and Zachary was able to reproduce the flip for me. Then we attempted to make a video recording, and the results were, er, a little less definitive. But honest, it did happen - twice!

Zachary's grasping is also getting more sophisticated; today while mommy was reading to him, he started grabbing board book pages. With some encouragement, he even starting flipping them. Granted, he was flipping them backwards (and with the left hand no less), but it's a start. We'll have to work on reading more of the Hebrew board books while he's on this right-to-left kick.

Meanwhile, Korby has apparently reached the ultimate expression of his one great skill: Houdini-ing himself out of our yard. I've continually patched a variety of sections of our gradually failing encircling fence, but today he found yet another mysterious hidden portal to the outer world. Usually, this portal has just led to the neighbor's fully fenced yard, so he's still contained, and within a few feet of us and our porous border. But a few times in the last month, he's somehow found an exit from that fenced yard. (Incidentally, I've walked the full perimeters of both fences at this point and can't figure out where he's getting through.) With the tremendous help of fellow dog owners in the area, I've usually found him soon afterwards -- his favorite haunts are the junior high school track and the spacious park down the road from us.

But this morning, at 8:30 am, he was gone once more - and multiple circlings by car and foot of our neighborhood, the park, the junior high, and surrounding area were unsuccessful. 90 minutes of ever-widening searches later (again, featuring some very helpful fellow dog owners), we thankfully received a phone call that someone had retrieved him and was holding him. Korby had travelled more than two miles as the crow flies -- which likely means five or more miles as the Korby roams. Thankfully, he hadn't crossed any major streets, but still, we think it's likely time to just give up and invest in a tree-wrapped leash for him.

Zachary and the Sunshine Band

Who needs contemporary music? That great disco hit, "Shake Your Booty," from the *cough* year that I was born, is Zachary's clear favorite - Meh has made it a runaway hit with him. Any time Zachary's unhappy, it cheers him up. Any time he's already happy, he may just explode with a giant smile, laughter, kicking, and yes, shaking of said booty. Shaking of an object while singing (the Zachary-appropriate lyrics are actually "Shake your rattle") is seemingly optional, though his plastic fish rattle is the most preferred implement if you have to shake something (besides your own booty). Oh, and he does seem to prefer if you sing the accompanimental bits. (e.g. "Shake shake shake, dih-doo, dih-doo-doo...")

Today I used the song on multiple occasions: to defuse clothes-changing fussiness; to entertain him when he was getting bored of reading (a fabulous out-of-print Richard Scarry book, mind you); when he got mad about getting ready to go in the car for our visit to mommy at work; and to demonstrate to grandma via video conference just how well that darn tune works for him.

He was incidentally spectacularly giggly this evening. He later reenacted his performance for mommy with even more laughter. I made a recording, but his hysterical sounds are so close to screaming that I think we'll withhold it until a video recording can help explain that he's actually just really happy.

Zachary appears to be quite musical already; he definitely recognizes the Naked Baffy Time theme song (which lands him with a giant smile). And we've discussed his love of his world music CD (which thankfully we are not tiring of either, though Meh and I both veto a track or two) and uncle Brian's superb Laurie Berkner mix. What's more impressive is that if I sing or hum notes from any of these tunes, he immediately appears to recognize them, smile, and get all kicky. He seems to have less reaction to my own song for him, so that one may end up on the cutting room floor. Tough crowd!

Three times a baby

The last three days have been wonderful though absolutely exhausting - again, that Meh has kept up this energy level for four months is simply amazing and I feel bad that I wasn't doing extended watching of Zachary more often. Zachary and I have taken walks with Korby; attended a "gigglers" parent-child class/holiday party (another dad was there for a few minutes, but before I could say hi, he had to skip out for work; the moms and course instructor seemed happy to get the 'guy' point of view and thanked me for coming); gone shopping; visited mommy daily; and today we even got the oil changed (a proper "manly" activity if there ever were any). I know Meh has missed him terribly, and is looking forward to her day off with him tomorrow - it'll be my turn to miss him during the day.

Zachary is so fun to play with, and he's discovering new skills every day. Yesterday we spent a little time in the exersaucer. (Don't worry, it was just a few minutes -- as with everything else, it's apparently considered detrimental to a baby's development. I seriously think doctors want us locking our kids in padded cells for their first 18 years.) It's got a bunch of activity-type things, and he'd been doing great at grabbing and playing with the various items.

The exersaucer has a little 'control panel' thing with three buttons and graspable plastic "book" pages. Zachary inadvertently hit the buttons from time to time previously, but yesterday he was watching me, so I hit a button. He looked at it, and then hit it himself (after a few misses). His eyes got all wide, and he spent the next few minutes hitting all of the buttons. I tried to do the same with the book 'pages', showing how they turn and make a happy noise. He didn't imitate that immediately, but while my attention was elsewhere, he apparently got the idea - the book was on a different 'page' when I looked back at it. Today he was hitting the buttons with much more consistency and accuracy, and smiling all along. Go Zachary!

Watch out, they spit

We've already discussed Zachary's raspberrying, which is incidentally now back in vogue after a few days absence. He's also starting to mimic/respond to our own pfft'ing, which is definitely an exciting development - our first 'conversations'. Why do I fear our conversations may eventually degrade back down to this stage in the teenage years? :)

A quick funny story - he and I went to see our favorite Microsoft a cappella group (yes, there actually is more than one) perform last night (at a local library nonetheless, after visiting mommy at her library earlier in the day - Zachary was inadvertently taking a tour of the county's regional libraries!). He was absolutely great, really happy and kicking, and totally quiet and open-mouthed the whole time. Except right after the group announced they were going to be singing their last piece, when he made a loud raspberry that had a few folks around us chuckling.

But no, today, I am going to focus on the other kind of spitting -- spitting up. No matter the time of day, whether he's just eaten five minutes ago or several hours before, we are not safe from spit up. It's ended up in some obvious and less likely places: himself, his clothes, our clothes (his skill at targetting mommy while he himself remains spotless is impressive), the couch, the floor, the changing table, his play mat, the wall, and most recently my hair. You see, I was trying out the whole Zachary-sitting-on-my-shoulders thing, and we were having a great time, and then I saw in the mirror that he had a large smile on his face. Uh-oh. The big smile often means he's feeling great because he's just spit up. I felt my head, and sure enough, I was toweling the stuff out of my hair for seemingly the next few hours. Other parents clearly have experience here; when I asked for advice from a friend in preparing for my first full day alone with Zachary, the friend replied to 'get a towel ready'. I got his e-mail message right after Zachary spit up on my shirt and pants.

Naked Baffy Time!

Bath time is arguably Zachary's happiest time of day (if you don't count dancing time, bouncing time, flying time, or "pffft" time). We tried to capture some of the joy on film. Here's take 1:



And here's take 2:



As we have seen before, Scoot has a thing about taking pictures of our baby naked. I was chastised for taking nude photos of Zachary that showed glimpses of his goods, when really I was just trying to capture his delectable tushy for posterity (no pun intended!). That is why Take 2 includes the crude loincloth. But I believe that it is customary to have naked baby material socked away in order to gently encourage your teen to obey his curfew ("I think this photo will be perfect for the graduation announcements!"), do his homework, eat his green vegetables, etc.

Lunch date

First off, I just have to mention that a friend has just vaulted to the top of the Scoot and Meh's most-famous friends pile. Look who's rubbing elbows with British royalty at a children's Hanukkah celebration! Alas, it's a small picture, but the woman at the back right of the photo is none other than good friend N. (I think the whole anonymizing of friends in blogs thing makes everyone sound like 007 supporting roles. Now if Q would just set me up with a rocket pack...) Mazal tov, N!

Today our friend I (wow, even more confusing) had graciously volunteered to babysit Zachary during the day so we could have a little lunch date - our first daytime activity away from him. Though our favorite place for proper afternoon tea (ah, a blog entry theme!) was booked solid, we figured we'd stop by anyway and see if they could squeeze us in. We actually ran into friend S and her mom L (honestly, I think we may run out of unique letters in this posting) on their way out, and S as well has spent a great deal of time watching and hanging out with Zachary. Our friends are so amazing, supportive, and caring!

Thankfully, when we got into the tea house, they were indeed able to make room for us to come and enjoy a lovely "afternoon tea" (aka a giant lunch, complete with sorbet, scones, crumpets, quiche, cookies, cupcakes, fruits, sandwiches with the crusts cut off, a giant array of fruits... and, oh yeah, a large pot of tea per person). It was really nice to spend some time alone together and just enjoy a calm and civilised lunch, though we of course occupied much of it talking about Zachary.

Afterwards, we stopped next door at a really fun children's toy shop that we like to check out when we're in the neighborhood. I hadn't realized before that this little boutique is quite the national shopping craze; they had a ton of FedEx packages all piled up inside, ready to be shipped to addresses across the country for holiday gifts. They always have the kinds of fun and appealing wood-carved toys (animals, design-savvy dollhouses as at right, foods [some with Velcro so you can 'cut' them or assemble 'sandwiches'], etc.) that make you believe that yes, wood can still defeat those fancy lead-leaching plastics for pure childhood enjoyment. Everything there is very cute, and of course extremely eco-/sustainability/world-economy conscious; new this time, every object was tagged with attractive labels indicating what combination they were of natural, organic, fairly traded, recycled, responsible, multi-use, etc. Did I mention the store even plants a tree for every $10 you spend there? Anyway, we found an alphabet book we liked that happened to be by a local artist -- because Zachary can certainly never have too many books. Alas, it was only about $9, so no tree was planted. And since it's a board book, its production likely involved clear cutting several acres of the rain forest, so we're still in the extreme carbon negative for the day. Anybody got carbon credits for sale?

Shave and a haircut

(Makes you appreciate just how good of a deal two bits would be; my haircut was free today, and it still cost quite a bit more than 25 cents just for the tip!)

At long last, about two months since my last haircut and more than a month since shaving, the hair came off today, at the barber in the morning and with the electric shaver in the evening. (Note to self: as with paint and cleaning products, best to try the shaver in an inconspicuous area first to see how it goes. My poor 10+ year-old electric had never seen such a workout, struggled throughout the process, and I think it was near meltdown by the end.)


We'll have to see if Zachary recognizes his daddy come morning...

Zachary's latest vocal exercise involves what Meh calls gargling, but what I think sounds cooler when termed alveolar trilling. Take a listen to him here.

I read through a fascinating book several months before Zachary about how all babies effectively learn (and then unlearn) all of the possible sounds of human language before honing in on their own. I know it's silly, but to try to encourage him to keep his options open (rather than struggling with things like daddy's issues with the trilled 'erre' sound in Spanish), I've been saying words to him with more exotic non-English sounds like 'perro' and 'Xhosa' (which starts with a clicking sound). He really loves the clicking sound for some reason, and it generally results in big open-mouthed smiles. I think he has also started clicking, though not predictably yet. We also of course listen to his world music CD, though those songs tend to consist of primarily English or Romance language lyrics.

Mommy's Day Out (at work)

'Twas the night before Meh's first day back and all through the night,
Little baby Zachary refused to sleep tight.
He groaned and he muttered, his belly it rumbled,
'Till at all hours from bed Mommy (and Daddy) tumbled.

Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep the night before last (or last night, for that matter). There were only a few tears (from me, not Zachary) when I left for my first day back at work, but once I got there I felt much better. There was a sweet "Welcome Back!" sign on my computer, nice notes, and new chocolate for the chocolate bucket (from friend and coworker L). I felt very welcomed, indeed, and had a great day back catching up on the new goings-on. I was very glad to see Zachary (and Scoot) when they visited, because I already missed the cuties.

The two things that marred the day were having to pump at work, and the horrendous migraine I developed as the day went on. Pumping at work made me miss Zachary even more; it was such a lonely and mechanical business. The headache made driving home very tedious, and I only had time to give Zachary "baffy time" (sans song) and nurse him to sleep before I was off to vomit (the high point of any migraine). After that, I felt better, and sat in bed looking at my Chanukah prezzie from Grandma, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Just as an aside, when we were in Florida visiting Mima and Papa, Papa brought up how annoying my childhood migraines were. "We couldn't do anything because you always had a headache," Papa complained. Scoot asked if migraines afflicted women more than men. Well, to answer both (though Papa wasn't asking for one), migraines can be triggered in children (and adults, too) by any of several things including: Long gaps between food (duh), Stress, Excitement "as a result of looking forward to a special event (often these can be ruined because the child experiences a migraine)," etc. And, yes, women are more prone than men.

Just in case you were wondering.

SAHD state of affairs

(And yes, that is indeed an acroynm recognized by the prime resource on such matters.)

Happy end of Hanukkah, and a belated Happy Shanooyookah Day Seven! (Hebrew Hammer, anyone? I actually broke my yearly tradition of watching it this year. Though I'm sure it'll be on Comedy Central again in the coming days...)

Today was Meh's first day back at work. I took some of my way-too-much use-it-or-lose-it vacation time (hm, why does this sound like cellphone minutes?) and the three Selfon boys spent a full day together, for the first time without mommy. (Incidentally, I do feel bad on some levels that it took more than four months for me to do this, and that Meh did it so often alone. In this sole matter, I suppose bottle- and/or formula-feeding is the great equalizer. I've given Zachary bottles before, but without a constant and/or stockpiled supply, I was kind of dependent on the, um, source coming back fairly soon.)

We actually made a pretty full day of it, and the only snag (hopefully to be solved in the coming days) was Zachary's off-again on-again dislike of the bottle. (Yes, he's taken it cold and rejected it warm, so that's hopefully not the difficulty.) In the morning, we played and danced with Zachary's favorite world music CD before a brief nap. In the early afternoon, we headed in to mommy's work to visit and for a group (well, Zachary and mommy) lunch. Everyone at work was so happy to see (and in some cases, meet for the first time) Zachary, and he was similarly smiley and in a great mood. He even let me do a quick bit of online research before we headed back out to the car. Then we had a little shopping to do (and I hadn't eaten at all that day), so we made a stop where we could do both: Costco. (Hooray for the only kosher meat place [hot dogs] in Seattle. That's just sad.)

Zachary loves stores. I'm a little worried on some level that he's absorbing all of the marketing and branding and will someday hate any non-flashy material, like non-picture books. But for now, the bright lights, tall ceilings, nice degree of white noise, multi-colored products, and wide array of (often doting) people just make him all happy and kicky. He sat facing out in the bjorn while we shopped, and only got a little bored when we were standing in line to pay (and who doesn't?). He even graciously let me grab a hot dog and soda to go before we headed home.

In the afternoon, after another refreshing nap, he and I took the typically insane Korby for a nice walk. (Soon thereafter, Korby somehow grabbed a Costco muffin from the plastic-sealed container sitting on the middle of our dining room table. It was gone in ten seconds. Including the wrapper.) Zachary again was very happy and silently looking around, occasionally grabbing my finger with his hand as if to help me with Korby's leash. We played and danced a bit more when we got back, Zachary conked out, and that pretty much wrapped up our day. (Other than the aforementioned Zachary getting upset on most occasions when I offered him bottles.)

Being alone with Zachary is definitely challenging and exhausting (yes, we did have our first shared bathroom experience - TMI?), and I hopefully appreciate now more than ever what it's taken Meh to do this so incredibly for months while I so frequently left first thing in the morning for the office. She truly is the best mommy ever!

The tallest Selfon?

Zachary's 4-month checkup was this morning, and all was looking good. His doctor continues to present the exam (and discussion about milestones, progress, and development) mainly to Zachary himself, which we think is a lot of fun. ("You can now see 20 feet in front of you!") Everything was looking good and developing as expected, and he even actually braved the 4 shots admirably. The stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 5.5 oz (75-90th percentile)
Height: 26 1/4" (90th percentile)
Head circumference: 42 cm (50th percentile)

Meh and I had been making weight guesses, and Zachary basically split the difference in the end. (Or she'll tell you that Price is Right bidding was in effect, so since I overbid, I lose.) At least he isn't getting a big head about things, ba-dum-bum. Ouch, worst blog pun ever. Anyway, looking back at his last checkup, everything seems to indeed be staying at about the same percentiles on the graphs. The doctor presumed that the height was genetic and came from dad. Um, no, I was apparently always way below the chart. Therefore, we think mommy's family's genes may be kicking in here. Again, baby size doesn't reflect grown-up size, so who knows. But based on 6.25" growth in 4 months, if he can keep up this rate, he'll be nearly 30 feet tall on his 18th birthday. Nice.

This morning also marked the end of the shloshim period of mourning, which means I can now cut my hair and beard again. At least, whenever I can find the time. Incidentally, for those wondering about the final beard poll stats:

• Lose the beard: 5 (27%)
• Save the beard (but at least trim it for goodness sake): 10 (55%)
• What beard? That thing you've got barely looks like two days growth: 1 (5%)
• Go for a goatee: 1 (5%)
• Moustached Scoot: 0 (0%)
• Two words: Lamb chops: 1 (5%)

Bravo to the brave souls who voted for lamb chops and my self-deprecating joke. But hooray for nobody thinking a moustache is a good idea. As I'd said, the poll was mainly for fun; there's only one person whose vote really matters, and that's... Meh's. :-) Still, in this regard, I definitely agree with her. It's scruffy and itchy, and I keep seeing or feeling it peripherally at meals. I just hope Zachary still recognizes daddy when it's gone, not that I think he'll miss daddy's scratchy face. Several friends have recommended some form of time-lapse photography when the shaver comes out - I'll have to see what we can do about that.

Zachary: The Novelization

Last night, we had a few friends over to help celebrate Chanukah. Grown ups and children alike had a really good time, with food (latkes of course; sufganiyot due to some heroic last minute search-and-rescue efforts by our friends J & S; salmon; and excellent salad and dessert dishes brought by our guests), good friends, and of course the post-dinner typical dividing of the genders to carry on further conversations about, well, guy and girl things.

Earlier in the day, a box had been waiting outside of our front door. It was addressed to Zachary and came from Apple Inc. I figured that either they were starting their recruiting of him a bit early, or that some Mac-themed gift was awaiting Zachary. We waited to open it until we'd lit the candles, and we were then astonished to open one (well, actually four copies) of the most creative and amazing gifts that we've ever seen -- Zachary's very own customized book!

"Zachary the Elephant Saves Hanukkah" (Selphy Press, 2007; likely ranked far higher on Amazon than my CD) is an incredible tale of courage and strength, of willfull pride replaced by dignified humility, of dramatic gastric culinary adventues, and of counting the treacherous digits of one through eight. And did I mention the flaming saganaki? But in all seriousness, this is a wonderful wonderful gift, written by Uncle Brian, with illustrations, design, and production by some phenomenal friends of Uncle Brian, and with stunningly concise editing accomplished by Aunt Jennifer. The book was thoroughly enjoyed by all present, including several surprising and excellently cunning references to friends who happened to be in attendance and reading along with us. Thank you thank you thank you to Brian, Jen, and friends J, G, and S!

Oh, and for those wondering why this came in an Apple-branded box, this is apparently a feature of Apple's iLife software; it supports printing books, who knew?

Today Zachary is 4 months old - it's unbelievable how quickly time passes with a baby. He has his next big checkup on Monday, so start placing your bets now as to height, weight, doctor/lawyer potential, etc.

My way or the freeway

Another week, another flight. This time I was in Los Angeles for a good 36 hours, primarily for a really well-received game audio event I was helping organize. Of course, the flights in both directions were late. (I'm at the gate waiting for the return one, which is posted as "only" running 5 minutes late - we'll see. Heh, while writing this, it's just gotten pushed out another half hour. Good times.) Travel itineraries sometimes now include the type of plane and occasionally the flight's historic on-time information; I should have been worried when it showed the return flight as 0-10% on time. (Instead I just hoped they didn't have enough data or something.) On the flight here, it was several hours late. Looking at the terminal's departure list, I counted 5 other flights (from other airlines) going to the same location before this one would even board -- so I went back to the ticket counter, explained that I needed to make a meeting, and they generously rebooked me for no charge on another airline -- the one I almost always fly to Los Angeles. They wouldn't do it for me on the return though, so we wait and we blog.

While in LA, I got to meet up with a few friends who I hadn't seen in a while, including two new babies! Both are older than Zachary, and both are girls (yes, older woman, and no, I don't think we're going to start matchmaking quite yet). They were both super cute (one dances by raising one hand in the air and shaking her waist; the other wakes up totally happy and makes these tiny deep noises that are somewhat similar to Zachary's sleep noises), and so different from each other and Zachary. It's amazing how they're unique little people with their own behavior traits even so early in life.

Based on the relative locations of the airport, my event, and friends I was going to see, I made it a goal to avoid all LA freeways. I succeeded until the last possible car ride; I needed to get back to the airport from Studio City, and there was just no fast alternative. When the freeways (6, 7, 8+ lanes wide) are the slow route, you know something is wrong with your transportation system, and this is one thing that seems to get worse every time I visit. Even the surface streets were often a mess; I spent 25 minutes going 1 block en route to my event last night. But well worth any waits to get to attend successful events and see so many old friends!

Happy Chanukah to those who observe it! (Does anyone else find it ironic that there are all of these ad campaigns reminding us that "the holiday season is coming"? Isn't it already here if we're going to lump the always-moving Chanukah dates with Xmas and Kwanzaa?) Zachary, Meh, and I lit candles for the first night on Tuesday. And last night I happened to be driving past the Santa Monica Chabad's giant outdoor menorah (don't worry, electric candles) as they were lighting for the second night. I actually saw a ton of public menorahs all over Santa Monica. No such luck tonight though, as I'm at an airport, which we all know have tried their darndest to go holiday neutral - which means festive wreaths, ornaments, and chrysanthemums, but no menorahs that I could see.

I had to share this image another blogger took at an east coast PCC/Whole Foods-type high-end grocery market.

Yup, the store has apologized. And blamed their customer training. Ouch, hopefully nobody gets sacked for something this silly and laughter inducing. 'Tis the season, after all.

Let it snow...

Very quickly after discovering razzing, Zachary has advanced to more complex tones with these cute high-pitched squeals. I think the top of his singing range may be higher than Meh's. Listen to his first aria here.

Snowfall in Seattle is relatively rare (usually 2-3 times per season, and it doesn't stick), but this afternoon we started seeing the white stuff, and it's been getting heavier as the day has progressed. Korby of course treats snow as just another kind of food, so he goes outside, licks every possible surface, gets the doggie equivalent of brain freeze, and comes inside shivering for a bit until we can warm him back up. Silly dog.

Zachary has been enjoying the snowfall as well; he's been laughing, squeaking, and razzing all afternoon long. We took a few short videos with our camera; I'll try posting a few here, though we may move them to a more video-centric site at some point. (Any suggestions or recommendations?)