Mother knows best

We returned late last night from our trip to see grandparents in Susanville. Andrea, Belinda, Emmett, and I (B was going to see her sister and family who would be in town for her 20 year reunion) headed out on Thursday evening around 7:00 and Emmett passed out immediately. He slept pretty much the whole trip making it very painless. Pretty good kid, that Emmett.

The weekend was filled with garage sales, barbequing, Emmett's first trip to the Susanville bar "The T&A", etc., but mostly hanging with family. It was a nice visit but went by very quickly. Yesterday afternoon we headed home (sans belinda---she went to yosemite with family) around 4:00 and Emmett again slept most of the trip. We have both (Andrea and I) become very talented in our ability to climb over the passenger seat in the front-to-back or back-to-front direction at highway speeds to either address Emmett's needs or once again have adult conversation when he falls asleep.

Once at home last night Andrea put Emmett into his crib, which is still in our room, but while brushing my teeth I saw her checking out the co-sleeper which was in what is to be Emmett's room. Andrea then told me to grab Malcolm as she was going to move Emmett to his own room, and at 10:45 last night that is what she did. After completing the move, Andrea asked me how I felt about it and I told her that I was a little saddened because I like having him in the room with us, but she stayed strong and we went to sleep. And sleep we did. I woke up to the alarm and got mostly ready to go to work before I heard Emmett stir, and when I handed the happy baby off to Andrea just before leaving she told me that the one time she had gotten out of bed was to pee, not because of Emmett, meaning that he slept the whole night through (we woke another time as Malcolm crawled all over our faces excited at his first night of sleeping with both of us since Emmett was born). I guess this means that Emmett is a big boy now.

Emmett who?

Ah, yes, the blog. I haven't really touched it since we got back from New York as things are much more mild on this coast. It has not been that great being back here for the Emmett/Damon relationship as I see so little of him during the week---it is very frustrating. Emmett has been sneaking his bedtime earlier while I have been staying a little later at work trying to finish things up before the big switch to the stay-at-home life. On top of this, Emmett has moved away from his waking at 6:ish to waking at 7:30ish (by which time I should be leaving for work) making him not a very dependable alarm clock (I have left late many times over the past week-plus).

Andrea and Emmett are both in what was the guest room/changing room sleeping. Andrea and Belinda painted what was our room in anticipation of the grand switcheroo where Andrea and I move toward the front of the house into the former guest room, Emmett takes over our former room (we are going to try the sleep apart thing), and the dining room gets converted to something of a guest room, which will probably be our room when guests come and our room will be the guests'. So confusing. Anyway, it was very nice of Belinda to come and paint today and they did a great job. Exciting times.

Last weekend we did some planning for the move, but the big event was Emmett attended his first birthday party. The party was for Griffin, the one-year-old son of our friends Charlie and Trish, and took place in Rocklin outside of Sacramento. Trish made great monkey party hats, and as you can see, Emmett loved them. It was great getting to see the Colorado clan, and we rode over with Joe, Jake, and Addison which was nice as well (the latter two can be seen chasing a pigeon in their party hats below). Lots of cute kids at the party...unfortunately we didn't take a ton of pictures, but you can see Griffin and Eva (Trish and Charlie's two) in individual pictures as well.

The party was fun but I didn't get the impression that Emmett was up with what was going on just yet. The neighboring party (we were in a park) had rented a bouncy castle and slide for which emmett wasn't quite ready but soon, soon. As it was pretty darn hot there for us San Francisco types (100ish compared to summer's 60's in the city), we spent a lot of time hanging out in the shade.

Emmett is really going through a lot of changes right now. In the last few days he has taken to grabbing his feet every time he is changed making it incredibly difficulty to perform a diaper switch with any sort of rapidity. He also seems to be reaching the point where he is becoming manipulative of us with his crying (which isn't frequent), but we are trying to avoid being played by a 4.5 month-old---not as easy as it sounds.


We head up to Susanville tomorrow night for a grandparent filled weekend. Emmett told me he can't wait.

Home again

We are home which means that I now have pictures. I will try to keep the word count under control and add some pictures. First, the picture to the left was of a piece in the modern section of the Met which was basically a parabolic dish made up of tiny mirrors. As I said before there were some pieces that Emmett really liked looking at and this was one. It is worth clicking on the picture to see Emmett zoomed in a little better. If I was a better person I would have noted who the artist was. I am not a better person.

Thursday night we went to dinner with Laura and Lesley to a really good pizza place (so good that we would go back again the next night, this time with Laura, Nick, and Belinda). The picture below at left is of the shopping/walk through Soho on our way to the restaurant with Laura carrying Emmett in the Baby Bjorn. As you can see, Emmett liked hiking around on Laura quite a lot. There were a couple of times that Emmett actually fell asleep in the facing out position (I have pictures to prove it, but will save them for some other time). The picture at right is Laura, Lesley, and Emmett hanging out in the subway.





Friday Emmett and I took it easy before heading to Columbia U to meet up with Belinda and Andrea for lunch before going to the Natural History Museum. The four of us walked through the museum for about an hour before A, B, and E headed back to the hotel for some rest and I walked around the museum imagining what it will be like to take Emmett to a museum like that when he is older and to see his reaction to things like the dinosaur skeleton exhibit.

As mentioned above, Friday night we went back to Soho for pizza. Saturday we moved from the hotel to Chez Lesley and Laura for our last night's stay. Saturday was a pretty slow day with us going to a Mexican restaurant for drinks with Laura (Emmett with margarita to left) and then in the evening Andrea and I had a date night to celebrate the next day's 6-year anniversary. We took the subway to a vegetarian restaurant on the west side where we had a really nice dinner together before walking back to L&L's while Emmett was entertained by two hours of handkerchief-over-Emmett's-face by Laura and Lesley (a game that is quickly rising to nearly 100% laugh effectiveness).

Sunday we were to fly out at 6:20pm from Newark, so Emmett made sure we were all up at around oh-seven-hundred hours to head to Brooklyn to brunch and a flea market. The brunch place was one Lesley knew about and the food was amazing. The flea market was also nice, but was shade-less on a very sunny day, so we shopped only a little before retiring to a nearby park to enjoy some shade (the picture at left is Emmett in my lap looking up while in the park---that is the reason for the funny angle). We went back to L&L's to pack our very heavy bags, said our sad goodbyes, and headed off to the Newark airport.

The trip home started out rough. We knew that we had bags that were teetering on the edge of the allowable limit (< 50 lbs is free, 51+ pounds is 100 dollars). So at the airport we each started checking in only to find that the airline was under the impression that Andrea did not actually fly out on our flight to NY and therefore should not be allowed to fly back. While she straightened this out I checked in and weighed my bag only to find it was 55 pounds. So we juggled Emmett, the transaction that was taking place to figure out how to allow Andrea onto the plane, and me trying to empty 5 pounds of things from the bag. I took out some books and other things and re-weighed only to find out that I had only taken 2.5 pounds off, but as I started to take the bag off of the scale once again a nice United worker witnessing our struggle said that they would allow us a 52.5 pound bag at no charge "as a courtesy from United Airlines." They allowed Andrea a ticket finally and we headed off to security to wait for our plane that was now expected to be 20 minutes late boarding.

I didn't mention it when discussing our trip out to NY as I thought it was normal practice, but we were allowed to board early as we were traveling with an infant. Well, it ends up that the treatment we received on the way out was "a courtesy of United" in SF and we would not receive such treatment on this flight. As the flight was boarding (now at 6:50 or so when the flight was scheduled to leave at 6:20) Emmett was resting in the Ergo on me and we noticed that I had a section 2 boarding pass and andrea a 4 (even though we were in adjacent seats) so I could board long before her. We decided to make the best of this and I took the bags (small) that would be going in the overhead as well as the resting Emmett. However, according to the airline Emmett was traveling with Andrea and not me, so even though he was asleep on me he had to board with Andrea. Finally as a "courtesy" they allowed Andrea to board ahead of her group so that the computer would allow Emmett on the plane.

It was a little warm and sticky on the plane on the tarmac, and the pilot came on to let us know that there were some 60 planes ahead of us to take off so we would be on the ground another 60-90 minutes. Emmett was a pretty good sport through this, but about an hour in (and with only 20 planes ahead of us) the pilot announced that a computer module had crashed and they would have to go back to the gate to fix it. Once back at the gate people started milling around and Emmett, having been good for an hour-plus decided to really cry. People were annoyed, but the whole problem was that we couldn't stand up and move him around (which would cure his unhappiness most likely) because people were blocking all of the aisles, so Emmett cried and cried and cried. Finally after what seemed like 20 minutes we stripped off all of his clothes , he stopped crying, and was all smiles [ed. by Andrea: cried closer to an hour, stripped down the whole time, stopped crying suddenly and was all smiles when layed on his back on the pillow]. It was the strangest thing, though in hindsight we should have noticed he was getting warm. We had a pillow for him to lay on in our laps and he continued to be in a great mood and, at some point, the pilot announced that we would be back on track for taking off soon. As we made our way to the runway, Emmett got sleepy and fell asleep unswaddled and nearly-naked in our laps, missing the take-off that happened three hours after we had boarded the plane. Emmett stayed asleep the entire flight to SF (5.5 hours or so) and never once complained. Our bags arrived quickly (not as a "courtesy", just because of luck), and we were all home in bed by 2:30 SF time...5 hours after we were to have landed originally.

Today was clean-up day, which was mostly taken care of by Andrea while I was at work, and this afternoon we had Emmett's four-month appointment. Everything went well and he got repeats of the DTaP and HiB shots. He cried when they happened, but immediately after was happy without even feeding. Pretty tough cookie we've got. Now they are in bed and I am going too so that we can get back on west coast time.

Rubbing butts with the rich and famous

I pushed Emmett too hard today, I think. It all started with the trip to get bagels. He took about an hour-and-twenty minute nap when I finally got him down, but things were a little off. As soon as he woke, I was all ready to go with a change of clothes, bags packed, etc. We headed out with the goal of checking out art at the Met which called for two transfers no matter how we swung it. I chose us a route that would take us by Grand Central Station and we exited there to check it out as neither Emmett nor I had seen it before. I took some pictures while there (among others) but can't find the cord for the camera so I might have to wait until we return to add pictures. We got back on the train and reached the museum just as Emmett remembered that he hadn't eaten for a while---which reminds me that I had brought a lot of stuff: a cooler with two cold beers to keep two bags of breast milk cold, the ergo, the stroller, and the typical bag of diapers, etc....all of which I had to haul (with Emmett often in stroller) up and down each flight of stairs we reached. Fun.

I fed Emmett in the park before we headed into the museum. The first bag had melted almost entirely and Emmett paused a little while he ate but didn't seem to get ice cream headaches or anything. We went into the museum with Emmett in the stroller. I changed him up a few minutes in to the Ergo and he seemed genuinely interested in the armor section, especially a couple of shiny, metal, face-like helmets. It didn't hold his interest long, though and I had about 45 minutes through the museum with him asleep. I was deep into the impressionists by the time he woke and it didn't take long until he had had enough. I knew he needed to be changed but unfortunately we were on the second floor (where a floor in this museum equals about 4 floors worth of stairs) and the only men's restroom with a changing table was on the first. It is worth noting here that should one ever want to find a place where a baby's cry seems extraordinarily loud, I am quite sure a museum ranks behind only libraries and classical guitar concerts. So, with this loudly crying baby I the one-floor elevator would not come therefore I decided to negotiate the stairs with Emmett screaming and writhing in my arms and all of the stuff in the stroller. My method was simple: hold on to one handle, kick the stroller so it would fall one stair, step down, repeat. I had made it down one normal-size flight (three to go) when a kind woman offered help as she was going down too. She said something along the lines of "please let help you. I could take the stroller...or the baby??" where both she and I could see that Emmett, even though he was very upset, was the easier cargo to carry down three flights of stairs. This left me with a dilemma, which caused a pause, which she filled with "I am a grandmother," which left both of us wondering in that pause if this was a helpful statement or not with her surely trying to imply that she had had kids and had taken sufficient care of said children that some survived unscathed enough to bear offspring, with the side implication that a grandmother is not going to run off with your child, however leaving open the question of should she be carrying an infant downstairs. So what is a new father to do in this situation? Emmett had another first today!!! The first trip down a flight of steps in the arms of a complete stranger. Andrea is going to love that one.

The changing table was a joke and I would have been better off just changing him on the stroller in the second floor bathroom. If you took a two-foot square table and then cut in half from corner to corner and put the remaining triangular table into a corner, you would have the Met's "changing table." We took care of business, though, and he was much happier. I learned that Emmett really likes modern art, particularly artists who paint large canvases in only one or two colors. He is all over that.

Part of the museum trouble was that emmett was hungry again. The second milk package was cold so I stopped into a deli to buy a large hot water (I wish I didn't have Emmett in my arms so that the guy could have just wondered why I was ordering a large hot water on a hot, hot day). I defrosted the milk in the water while sitting on someone's stoop and fed him right there. By the time we were done Andrea was out of her conference and we decided to meet at the store she wanted to visit. Not long after arriving Emmett needed to be changed with a big potty, but unfortunately for Andrea the only changing tables were in the women's bathroom (I actually made a small snide comment when trying to take Emmett into the men's restroom along the lines of "what, men don't have babies?" I am getting pretty bad). After changing Emmett we went outside to meet Luisa (out to visit family) with me having Emmett in my arms. I decided that I wanted to quickly go back into the store to look at shoes and handed Emmett off to Luisa. While I was walking away I noticed that my shirt felt wet and looking down found out that Emmett had had his first explosive potty and that it had gotten on my shirt (he has been in disposables a lot of the time here...I will explain the diaper situation later). We decided that rather than go back through the store to the bathroom we would change him right there on the sidewalk. First, let me just say that Luisa is a good sport. We did a three-person change with wipes and Emmett being handed around in order to take care of everything. In the middle of it all Emmett realized he was naked and as he had already peed twice in the outdoors in NYC, he kicked it up to three with a little getting on the kind, helpful Luisa. Very unfair.

The change finished I went back into the store to get a shirt and had an Emmett-esqe meltdown of my own as the place was crazy crowded and I couldn't find any other section of the store except marked down Versace t-shirts (was $600, now $200!!). I finally found something and was purchasing while Andrea walked in and found t-shirts that would have easily fit the bill. By that time I had already ripped the tag off of my new bright pink button-up. You win some, you lose some.

We had plans to meet Laura and Lesley for a bee art show (not sure...when we got there we saw bees but not the art). We grabbed a bite to eat at a bad good-for-you restaurant where the server proceeded to basically wake Emmett because she wanted to touch him and then while we were waiting for the check she came up to Andrea with arms out like she wanted to hold him (and we all know how we feel about strangers holding our baby). Strange.

The bee event was hopping, but Emmett was pretty beat by this time. Andrea, Laura, and Lesley went in while I waited on the sidewalk, and Andrea returned to tell me that she had just stood less than a yard away from Kirsten Dunst. Laura and Lesley were still inside so I went in to let them know that we had to take Emmett back to the hotel, and while I was going in Kirsten was making her way out through the crowded room. We both turned away from one another and K.D.'s butt rubbed against mine as we passed. That definitely makes my closest celebrity approach.

Laura and Lesley came back to the hotel with us and we had a nice night chatting it up while Emmett finally got his well-deserved sleep. Now they have gone home, Andrea is here sleeping next to me, and I have passed on too much of what has gone on in New York.

more from the east coast

Emmett and I have now developed a pattern which is probably not that different than what Andrea and he do when I am at work. Emmett wakes in the morning for a snack just before Andrea heads off for her conference, goes back to bed for a while and then is up at around 9:00. I am pretty much standing by his crib at this time with his clothes in hand as I know that we have a 1.5-2 hour window of awake time which we have been filling by going to the park most days, or to get bagels across town today. We return for the long nap, which yesterday was 2 hours and today is already at 1 hour as I write. Then E and I have our big outing which yesterday consisted of Lesley, Emmett, and I going to get pickles and doughnuts and today will have Emmett and I heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yesterday was a pretty muggy one and Emmett was spent by the time that we made it to the Doughnut Plant for the doughnuts. This place is pretty famous with pictures of the cast of the Today show and Regis and whoever-he-is-with these days on the walls eating the doughnuts, and as Emmett was starting to melt down there a little, the owner (or at least who L and I were assuming the owner as he is always there) was doing all kinds of tricks to try and get Emmett happy again as we ate our doughnuts...hopefully the place will still be pretty famous when Emmett is older and we can tell him that the person we thought was the owner tried to entertain him for a while.

Emmett was really starting to go to town with the crying as we left, so the three of us found a patch of grass and I stripped Emmett down once again, which really worked to get him to settle (and he peed on a tree, too, in the heart of manhattan). Once settled Lesley walked with him for a few blocks until he got really cranky, then she traded pickles for baby and I loaded him up in the baby bjorn (we have been trying this carrier, too...not as comfortable as the Ergo, but he can look out, which makes him happy). Emmett really was crying by the time we reached the train so everyone on board got to hear Emmett really let loose. It is funny that the trains are air conditioned so are normally pretty comfortable temperature-wise even on the hot days, but there is something about your kid crying in your lap and people staring that makes even a cool train painfully hot.

Once Emmett was fed by Andrea back at the hotel, all was fine in his world. Last night we went to a nice dinner with Belinda and Nick, and Emmett slept through pretty much the whole thing. We didn't get him to bed until around 10 again, but we weren't so lucky with the long night's sleep---Emmett was up at 4 and 6.

This morning Emmett woke for his 1.5ish hour period at 7:30 so immediately after Andrea fed him, I headed out (8:00) for bagels the midtown on the east side or whatever they call it here (52nd and 2nd). I decided to take a train over and walk back if I thought that there was enough time to make it back by 9:00---my cutoff for when I knew he was going to be back again. Well, who would have thought that they put three extra-wide blocks between 3rd and 5th avenue (and no 4th?? what gives??)? Well, we arrived back at 9:15 and on the way back (Emmett in the bjorn facing out) Emmett fell asleep at almost 9:00 on the nose, and unfortunately I didn't notice right off so I couldn't take and preventative measures. Well, he slept until we got back to the room, and I have realized that Emmett is now convinced that as soon as he wakes up from a nap, no matter its length, it is time for him to get up and play so there was no putting him down on our return from bagels. I tried for about 20 minutes and finally just played with him for an hour or so until the eye rubbing set in. Now he is napping and all is happy.

E hearts NYC

Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes, we were landing. Well, the flight landed in one piece and for the 5+ hour flight Emmett slept for about 4 hours of it. People in the nearby seats said that he was a pleasure to travel with. The only person that might have complaint is the person who was sitting on the aisle who had to get up about 4 times during the entire flight.

We landed in Newark, NJ (Emmett's fourth state) and our bags arrived just fine. It was pretty hard moving around with all of our stuff, but we took the NJ transit to Penn Station and then subwayed it to our hotel at Columbus Circle. Besides having to move around with so much stuff, the transit wasn't that bad. We got into our room about 7:something to find that they hadn't put in the promised crib and that the refrigerator that was supposed to be in every room was not present. The former was necessary for obvious reasons, but the latter was needed as we had flown across country with 13 5-ounce bags of frozen breast milk to keep Emmett nourished while Andrea conferences. I should mention how we got the milk here as it worked really well.

Andrea has been pumping milk and freezing it for times like this. A couple of weeks ago John and Carlos had a garage sale where they were selling a lunch-sized plastic cooler which we bought for a very reasonable rate. I was able to squeeze 13 containers of milk in the bottom and then a couple of gel ice packs on top. I loaded the whole thing the night before and stored it all in the freezer until the next morning when I packed it in our luggages surrounded by cloth diapers for insulation. When we unpacked the milk about 12 hours later it was still rock solid and opening the luggage felt like opening the door of a freezer as there was cool air inside the bag. It all worked really well.

We got some food while the fridge and crib were installed. It was about 9 by this time and Emmett had a minor meltdown so I waited outside while Andrea did some food shopping for the room. While waiting a nice, older lady sat next to me and chatted me up about Emmett, informing me that Emmett means "truth" in hebrew and giving me a whole lot of other NY insider info. Such a friendly town.

Sleep...this is the best part of the story so far (not saying much). We didn't get Emmett down until about 10pm here time, which is 7 CA time (a little earlier than his regular time) and we went to bed not long after as we were pooped. At 7 am the alarm went off (a first post-Emmett's birth as he has served just fine as an early alarm) and all three of us had had our first 8-hour plus night of sleep since Emmett popped out.

Andrea fed Emmett and headed off to her conference around 8:00. Emmett and I took off for the park on our first day in the city together. We walked around with him in the stroller and he ate in the park before coming back to the hotel for a nearly two-hour nap. Afterwards he and I headed off again for a long walk through Chelsea and Greenwich with him spending most of the time passed out in the ergo. It is hot here, but not too hot, and when he came out of the Ergo we were both pretty drenched. We rode the subway back to our hood and waited for Andrea to return where she fed him in the park. I think she was a little horrified when she found us as it was pretty hot so I had stripped Emmett naked and had him on top of his changing mat. As it was a little small and he kept digging his hands and feet into the dirt, I laid out the huge subway map that we had as I forgot to bring I blanket (I will learn these things), so Andrea arrived to find her naked child sprawled out naked on a subway map in central park. I bet she revokes permission for me to be stay-at-home next year.

Emmett is passed out again, Andrea is back, and we will be seeing our friends who live here soon (Laura, Lesley, Sal, etc.). I will try to put pictures up next time....Andrea had the camera at the conference and apparently didn't find anything worth photographing there.

Oh, I can't believe that I forgot to include the most exciting parts...Emmett and I were hanging out on the bed doing a little tummy time and I got to witness a front-to-back roll (Andrea has seen three or so). The other big news is Emmett did his first poo in the big person toilet. Andrea caught a poo the other day in the Baby Bjorn Little Potty and this was my first since the days of yellow mustard poop (months for those not up on your baby poo consistency). So on our first day in the city Emmett didn't have a single soiled diaper. Thank you NYC.

Hanging with trump

We are here in the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps, and Emmett is sleeping. Andrea is off at her conference and I decided to update the blog while E saws some logs. We left home yesterday around 6:45am for the airport. The time of the flight was perfect in ways as emmett had just woken up and was in a good mood. We got to the airport (via Jeff who was nice enough to rise in the pre-dawn hours to haul us and our huge bags) and got checked in relatively easily. We had brought two big bags which I had packed the night before for our week's stay---one weighed in at 47.5 pounds and the other 49.5 with over 50 costing us 100 dollars...closer than I thought as I had weighed the heavy one with me the night before and it was supposed to be 47. Sadly, most of the stuff was Emmett's though I think that we could have cut down quite a bit, but we haven't had a long trip like this before so we are still amateurs.

Emmett fell asleep in the Ergo on Andrea about not long before the flight took off and then slept for about an hour missing the whole takeoff procedure and not having any ear issues. He woke up, was changed on the plane by me (not too bad except I had to pee, too, and that was tricky---mainly getting my pants buttoned again), and was playful and fun for about an hour with Andrea taking a shot at changing him in the plane potty, too (she got solids, I didn't...I was lucky). Somewhere in that time Andrea fed him and when he started to get squirmy I put him in the Ergo on me and he fell into a non-deep sleep where I had to continually swing and sway and rock in my seat to keep him settled. Eventually I got up and walked to the back of the plane where I was able to sway properly, and was probably out of the seat for an hour or so. Finally, I asked on of the crew members how long until we started our initial descent and she told me it would be soon, so I went back to my seat and Emmett gradually woke up from his 2.5-3 hour sleep on me. As we really started to descend we got him onto andrea for a feeding to make the descent easier. Ooops he is waking up...I will have to add to this later