One day down, ~17 to go

I survived my first day of teaching, though when I left in the morning I was quite sure I would not. Here is the situation: I am covering two courses and a lab for a professor who went on paternity leave. The baby showed up a week earlier than expected, so I had to start earlier than expected. For one of the classes I got an email telling me that I needed to start from chapter 8---this is from the future-father professor and was before the baby's arrival. So Thursday night (the night before the class) I worked on my lectures and at 1am stapled them, put them in their folder and was excited at the prospect of 5 hours' sleep. I decided to check my email one last time where I re-read an email from a professor who had covered the class for a couple of days before my starting who told me that I should start with chapter 7. I had read this email before and though it said chapter 7, I read it as chapter 8. Wonderful. Well, I stayed up all through the night and prepared a new lecture on material I hadn't looked at with this book, and headed off for my first day of school not having shut my eyes for more than a blink since 6 am the previous day. This is how everyone should start their first day. It was kind of funny to think that these kinds of things were probably always (well, sometimes at least) happening to professors through my schooling years, but I didn't know (and nor did my students). I survived, I am now ready for the real lectures for this week. Hopefully things go better for me sleep-wise.

Friday was the first day for our new nanny. Everything seemed to go well as I came home to a very happy Emmett who really seemed to be enjoying his time with her. That was comforting.

Friday night Andrea and I went to bed at 8:30. That was exciting. Emmett didn't wake on Thursday night (well, didn't wake to where we needed to get up to get him...staying up all night I learned that he wakes a number of times but settles back to sleep nicely). He also didn't wake last night or the night before, so that is three in a row from 7pm to 6am or 7am, depending. Pretty exciting stuff. I like this trend and hope it continues.

Saturday was a really nice day that the fam spent together. We went to the California Academy of Science for the first time. We are members, which is nice as we don't have to go with a goal of seeing everything in the building. We concentrated only on the sub-level which is where all of the aquariums are and such. It was pretty neat but crowded. I must say that I am much more excited for the other levels. There were some cool things we saw like jelly fish, but fish in tanks aren't really my thing when it comes to science. We will be heading back again soon. I took the picture to the left under one of the aquaria (aquariums? who knows) with the iPhone (which I just traded in four hours ago as it pooped out on me)---the lighting is weird because of the aquarium and the iphone doesn't take good pictures. Emmett was pretty interested, but not super interested. I think it is still out of his league---or maybe he is more excited for the other levels, too? We went to a friend's birthday bash in the park and had a nice walk back. All-in-all a pretty great day.

Today I spent trying to get ahead with the courses so another all-nighter doesn't occur. In the afternoon, though, we took a CityCarShare car out for a spin to make sure we knew how it all worked in case we needed one and were more pressed for time. I think I have mentioned it here before, but last weekend we gave our car away as we weren't using it enough to justify its costs even though it was paid-in-full. We signed up for CityCarShare for those rare times that we need a car. For $10/month we both are members and we can borrow a car as often as needed. We have to pay something like $6/hour + 40 cents a mile for use, and I did the math on the trips that we make and it made more sense to do this than to hold on to our car (weekend trips we will rent from a real agency as it is slightly cheaper). Anyway, today we took it for a spint to Japantown to get some of those rice crackers that the woman in the park gave to Emmett and he loved. We found some, but they weren't exactly what we had before. He is figuring out the chewing thing even though he doesn't have any upper teeth to counter his pair on the bottom. Afterward we got a frozen yogurt (not a really sweet one...a tart one) and he was begging so I gave him a spoonful. The look on his face was too funny as it was tart and very cold. It is so hard not to laugh when he makes these faces. However, I went back for another bite and he had his mouth open at the ready, so I gave him another---with the same result. I didn't give him too much, but he seemed to like it. Oh, and on the bad parent front: while we were at the birthday party I had a cup of beer in my hand and he was reaching for it again and again. Remembering my first taste of beer and my reaction I figured I would give him a taste so that it would turn him off to it, but he took his sip and decided he wanted more (which he didn't get). This kid is crazy.

OK, I think that is enough of an update for now. More about me than him, it seems. He is continuing to pull himself up by our hands and isn't much closer to crawling, although he is improving in his ability to spin around on his belly. He has become MUCH more vocal in the last week. I feel as if we are spending time with a different baby. He was yelling up a storm in the museum on Saturday. The pleased look that he gets on his face when he really lets out a real yell is pretty funny. He looks very proud of himself. Oh, here is another picture I just found, too. Andrea took this one.

Last week of freedom

This Friday is my first day of teaching, which means that I have to start leaving Emmett again. Yuck. Luckily it is only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and only for six weeks. It is not going to be easy to leave him, but the good thing is that he gets very excited when either Andrea or I return from having been elsewhere. His excitement is shown by rubbing his feet together and hopping up and down a bit. The feet are too funny...it is like he is a dog and is wagging his tail. He probably pees, too. I should check that sometime.

Andrea's mom left yesterday as did my brother who had come for a short weekend visit. With him went the jetta as a gift, so we are officially car-less. The garage is so empty now with the exception of the scooter and the strollers (the kayak still hangs...I need to figure out how we are going to take that out w/o a car). Our first car-less trip was to our friends Anne and Alex's place to have some pictures taken with Augie and Ethan. We were going to try to use our new citycarshare account but all of the cars nearby were reserved so we bussed it. I haven't mentioned this here, but in the past week Andrea and I got iPhones and one of my primary reasons for wanting one was because the muni system has an online gps bus tracking/next arrival website, and having that information in your hand makes taking the bus much more efficient---and it really worked well for our trip.

Today Emmett and I went on a long walk to find teething biscuits, which for those who haven't had a kid are cookies or crackers that immediately turn to paste as soon as saliva touches them so that thems without teeth won't choke whilst eating. We had been talking about getting some for a while and while I was in the park last week a woman gave me one of the rice ones that she had gotten from a Japanese market which Emmett loved (I was a little bothered by taking food from a stranger in the park, but Emmett seems fine---not a good first example for the "don't take treats from strangers" lessons). Anyway, I failed in my biscuit search (and in my speaker search from goodwill, but I did try on some boots), but to reward Emmett for being such a good sport in our Haight Street walk I took him to the really fancy children's area in Golden Gate Park to check out other kids and ride the swing. As I had my new, fancy iPhone in my pocket, I thought I would take some pictures of smiling Emmett as he rode the swing. I couldn't see the screen so well as it was incredibly sunny, but this is what I found I had photographed when I got home. The iPhone is a great device.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

I have become pretty much a moving picture poster here. I guess if a still picture is worth a thousand words and youtube videos are in the ballpark of 20 frames per second, then I am posting a 1.5 Mword post. I was laying on the floor with Emmett trying to get in a little tummy time. I called his name and he pivoted on his stomach to reach me. I figured I would try to record his spinning, so the following video is his second turn-about. I wish that I would have taken a video from my perspective as the look of determination is too much, but this wore him out and he is napping away now. Anyway, without further ado here is the video (except this ado...I thought I could edit this down on youtube...I was wrong. There is an extra 20 seconds or so. My apologies):


He has been spinning around for a week or so now, so I am thinking that he will make some crawling progression in the next month or so. Over the weekend Andrea hung out with Augie, Ethan, and their moms and Ethan (10 days older than Ethan, 8 than Augie) is already crawling around like crazy. He was the first to roll over by a long shot. It is pretty nuts that he is so far advanced. In Emmett's defense, I believe that of the three he is the most advanced with respect to teeth (although Augies just sprouted his second). That counts for something, right?

Andrea's mom is here for the week and it has been a great help. Yesterday I went to the lab (I know...this is where you say: I thought you quit the lab. Yeah, me too), and I will probably go again tomorrow. Today I spent at home with Emmett and grandma and it is incredible how much easier things are with another set of hands. Dishes get washed before the nap even starts. A load of laundry can get started while E gets fed. It is all magic.

Moving pictures

Emmett seems to be making big steps this week. In fact, I think that he was highly motivated by Augie's visit last week where Augie got in Emmett's jumping toy and actually jumped and Augie was sitting up unassisted. Well, Emmett put on his go-get-em hat and in the past week has achieved these two goals. Emmett is definitely sitting up well, with me able to actually leave him in a sitting position in a room where he is completely unsupported and go into other rooms to take care of tasks. Pretty nice. This is the calm before the crawling around storm, I think.

I took a video of Emmett jumping in his toy---I haven't mentioned it here before, but a couple of weeks ago we got our second plastic baby entertainer second-hand off of craigslist...this one allowing the child to jump up and down (it is called the jumperoo for those curious). Emmett is starting to like it much more now that he understands how to jump, as seen in the (somewhat boring) video:



A couple of things about the video. First, the elephant calls seem to motivate the jumping. I don't know if this is coincidence or not. Second: he jumped out of one sock. Third: Yes, his father makes him wear two different socks at times because he keeps losing one of a pair and I don't think want to waste two good socks. Fourth: he has a sort of one-footed jump approach that has me convinced that he is going to be the front man for Jethro Tull when Ian Anderson moves on to other things...better buy the flute now.

Emmett has been trained, or has trained me, to put my fingers in front of him so that he can grab them to pull himself up to the sitting position. Unfortunately, I showed him that if he stayed connected he could pull himself up fully. It is getting harder to get him to stay in the seated position as he always wants to have me help him pull himself up to the fully standing position. Andrea took a video of me putting my fingers in front of him, him grabbing them and then doing most of the work to pull himself up to seated. He does some work to get up to standing, but I definitely have to help him. The sound of the grunt at the end of the herculean effort, however, would lead the casual observer to believe he has done all of the work.


We spent the last two days interviewing prospective nannies for the 6 weeks that I will be teaching. I think that the stress of making sure that we find a good nanny is one of the hardest things we have gone through with Emmett. Andrea would probably say it was the actual birth.

Some pictures with a few words

This past weekend the three of us headed up to my grandmother's house to visit. My mom showed up, too, so Emmett got to see one of his grandmas and his great-grandma. It was a fun trip, but that Emmett still doesn't like riding in the car very much and he isn't afraid to let you know, either.

The day we left, though, I watched Emmett's pal Augie for about an hour-and-a-half while him mom went to a meeting. I have never had to take care of two seven-month-olds before (perhaps never one, either), and it was definitely nonstop---even for that short of a time. I took some pictures and movies of the two of them together...here are two pictures:






Emmett was smiling the whole time and unfortunately the first makes it hard to tell as his head is turned away. The second, though, you can see it. Augie is quite a bit bigger than Emmett even though they are only a few days apart in age. We are going to start feeding Emmett protein shakes so he can catch up.

While at my grandma's we visited a farmers market that was actually at a farm, and they had a real-life pumpkin patch. Below is Emmett's first official pumpkin patch picture. We are now certified nerd parents.

I don't know why I think these cut-out things are so funny, but they kill me:

The big news is that Emmett is sitting up for long periods of time (Augie was sitting up without faltering for ten-plus minutes at a time, so since his visit we have been working on E's sitting and it is paying off). The other thing that I haven't mentioned before is that he rarely sleeps in one position now. Almost without fail he rotates himself 90 degrees so that his head and feet are both nearly touching the walls of the crib (as shown at left from the monitor). That kid is nuts and he better not grow much more (his knees are bent in the picture). He is sleeping on his side and tummy at times now, too. Exciting developments around here.

New developments (not really that exciting)

Emmett just woke from his nap---his first where he rolled over to his stomach after being put in bed on his back. Pretty exciting stuff. He slept for a pretty long time (~1.5 hours), so maybe the new freedoms will turn him into an even better sleeper. I also walked in to find Malcolm napping on the changing table at the same time. I think this is the first nap that the two of them have taken together, and though I wasn't happy to find him in there, I was glad to see that he was on the changing table and not curled up in the crib with E.

I am still fighting the banana war. Last night I made millet and carrot for dinner and he wasn't having any of it. I added banana to a level that the banana was the noticeable flavor and suddenly he ate it all up. It is very, very rare now that he will eat anything non-banana related and I don't really know what to do to turn this trend around. I think I mentioned this last post, but the fact it gets second mention means it is the only thing on my mind. The seven month mark brings in a bunch of new foods, so maybe there will be something that will get his attention away from the banana.

Jeff came over yesterday to take care of Emmett while I made a run to Hayward to visit the college where I will be teaching at the end of the month. Emmett had pooed twice before I left, so I thought Jeff would have smooth sailing, but E had different ideas with two more treasures during my absence. I was a little curious how Emmett would do with naps and such with Jeff, but he seemed to have performed well.

Last night Emmett and I went for a walk before bed into the panhandle. We went to the swing (likes it, doesn't love it) and then went to check out some skateboarders doing tricks on a rail they had brought into the park. We were watching and Emmett was interested but not really reacting much until a guy went pretty fast, lost control, and wrecked. Emmett started laughing like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. I have not seen Emmett respond with laughter to any person who was not trying to make him laugh, so I was really surprised. For a while he continued to laugh primarily when skaters would make mistakes and fall (I think the jerky, sudden motion is something he hasn't really seen before) to the point that I was wondering if I should take him away so as to not make the skaters angry, but eventually he started to laugh at every trick whether a success or not.

That is it for the new things, I believe. E and I are off to the store after he finishes his feeding (I am writing this at Andrea's work after delivering him to her for a little food-time).