Rampant Illness in Bloomington

We finally managed to make it down to visit my sister Teela in Bloomington, Indiana.  Bloomington is a small little university town, that exemplifies many of the ideals that Gus and I hold.  Most areas are walkable and the city is working on making everything accessible by trails.  They just voted to raise taxes to counteract the recent funding cuts to schools and people pay to get rid of garbage, but not recycling.  The city is also working to buy up all the billboards to eradicate advertisements from down town.  Teela had a long and exciting itinerary planned which would convince us to drop everything we hold dear and move to Bloomington.  Unfortunately, one day after we arrived I caught a gastro-intestinal bug that had just run through Teela's family and commenced vomiting.  I tried to send Teela to pick up some gravel suppositories, but apparently those are prescription only in the states. I decided to forgo them, but after 21 hours of vomitting, I gave in.  So after a $109 dollar doctor visit and $26 dollars at the pharmacy, I acquired 6 precious suppositories.  With the aid of the suppositories I was able to pseudo-function, just in time for Gus to get sick with the same thing I add.  Add to this that Merlin was running a fever and Teela and Peff both had a cold, which Max promptly caught, and for some reason we didn't accomplish much of Teela's itinerary.  

Max "helps" Viola.  Actually I think he was trying to grab the soother in her hand.

Max looks out his favorite window in Aunty Teela's house.

That said, Max and Viola were still adorable, and both were going at top speed for most of the visit.   With 4 sick adults we were just barely able to keep up with them.  They are very interested in each other and spend much of their time tearing around the house on all fours, double trouble style.  That is, when they are not fighting over toys and stealing the other's soother.   Due to the illness, we didn't get as many adorable pictures as we would have liked, but I have posted the few we got here (https://picasaweb.google.com/james.greta/VisitToBloomington?authkey=Gv1sRgCL_K4IP3yt6ROQ#).

Risking life and limb for Settlers

We thought we'd baby-proofed this room.  Apparently we were wrong.

Teaching the dogs to talk

Many of you may have heard about the current babies and sign language craze. Since the public became aware that children learn sign language sooner than they learn to talk, teaching your child sign language has become all the rage. Gus and I decided we would try our hand (get the dad joke?) at a few words ourselves. Most notably, we wanted to be able to communicate with Max while he was eating. We wanted to know when he would like more food and when he was all done, so we looked up the signs for "more" and "all done" and started flapping our hands appropriately. Unfortunately for us, Max is not taken with ASL. He prefers his own versions. "More" is "scream loudly" and "all done" is "smear food vigorously around face and tray". On the up side, the dogs have been very quick to pick up ASL. As soon as we ask Max if he is all done they are immediately at his side waiting for the left overs.

The nap conundrum: living for naps or living without them

Max asleep in the chariot under two

inches of snow in our backyard.

I'm sure every parent would agree that a baby's nap time is extremely valuable.  If you're lucky the child will sleep alone in a separate room leaving you free for an hour to follow your intellectual pursuits or work on your to-do list.

Trouble is, getting a baby to nap alone in a separate room is not as easy as one might think, even for babies like Max who are already acclimatised to sleeping alone.

Although Max is able to fall asleep alone in a separate room, he vastly prefers to sleep in a moving chariot or car seat or on the lap or chest of a parent.  He falls asleep much more easily and much earlier than he otherwise would if one of his preferred conditions is met.

Naps are a fickle thing.  Ideally, Max would nap for an hour or more.  But if he's woken up early -- even after only a few minutes of sleep -- then he will not go back to sleep again unless a preferred condition is met, such as sleeping on dad's lap.  Thus, if he manages to sneak in even the tiniest little catnap while we're not looking then we lose an entire nap's worth of free time.  So valuable to us is this free time that we find ourselves planning our entire schedule so as to ensure that Max will not fall asleep before naptime and that he will nap in his bed like he's supposed to.

Planning for Max's naps imposes incredible constraints on our schedule.  For example, this morning Greta awoke with Max, changed his diaper, and fed him.  We bundled him up at packed him into his chariot so that I could walk Greta into work with Max and the dogs.  We left the house as early as possible in the hope that Max would still be awake when I returned home with him from the walk.  No dice.  By the time I returned home with the dogs Max had already slept for a half hour.  It is physically impossible for us to walk the dogs before Max's morning nap without him falling asleep on the walk.  On the other hand, if we were to wait until his nap is done to walk the dogs then we wouldn't leave the house until noon.  Half the day is wasted just to accommodate a single nap.

Similarly, I can accomplish a few extra chores around the house if I put max in the chest-mounted sling.  However, Max loves to sleep in the sling.  I don't get five minutes of chores done with him on my chest before I suddenly realize he's dangling limp, his head buried in the sling.

Thus, we are forced to make the difficult choice between living for Max's naps or living without them.  Tough call.  After a couple weeks with our lives on hold for Max's naps we've begun to throw caution to the wind, to seize the day, to live life to the fullest -- even if it means we miss out on naptime.  Carpe diem.

The daily diaper change

The diaper change started like any other. Max smelled suspiciously fowl and I reluctantly dragged him to his change table to rectify the situation. Every time you hope that this is one of those small poos, that is completely caught by the little paper insert, thus making clean up easy. Not so. This one was everywhere. Smeared on Max's clothes, all over his body and soon on the stuffed animal he was holding to keep him placated. I managed to extract him from his newly decorated outfit and clean what mess I could off his body, and then I set him free for "air time". As you may have guessed, this was a mistake. When I emerged from washing his diaper in the toilet, there was a suspicious brown smear on the carpet, trailing off in the direction of Max. I ran to pick him up and dashed to his potty. To my delight, Max deposited most of the offending bowel movement into it and I praised him lavishly. Of course, I then had to tip him over my knee to wipe him up again. While I worked dutifully at this task, Max reached over to the bowl of water we keep to wet rags, and tipped it all over us both. I started swearing and attempting to extricate myself from the puddle. Our new dog Hailey, rushed to my aid, took a quick sniff at the potty, and then before I could stop her, downed Max's poo in one swallow.........She licks my face.

Raising a child with Robert Jordan

At Sue's suggestion, Greta and I have begun listening to audio books of Robert Jordan's fantasy series The Wheel of Time.  Both of us read some parts of this series many years ago.  Both of us have forgotten most of the story by now, so there's still plenty of novelty this time 'round.

I understand that Wendy has read the entire series many times over.  For those unfamiliar, The Wheel of Time currently spans twelve books, each on the order of 800-1000 pages in length.  Wendy is crazy.

The audio book format is convenient for those of us who are the primary caretaker for an infant.  It allows us to follow the story while freeing us to chase a baby around the house.  I plowed through the first book in only a few days.

There are downsides.  Unlike background music, audio books require consistent attention.  The slightest disruption sends me scurrying back to my computer to rewind what I missed.  Whereas normally I engage in "dialogue" of sorts with Max ("Where's Max?  Peekaboo!") I tend to stay silent and unresponsive while the audio book is playing.  After a while, I feel guilty -- as if Max were being raised by a deaf-mute.

The moral of this post, I guess, is that moderation is key.  Sometimes I need to turn off the book and pay attention to my child.  That's all well and good, because it's easy to get sick of a book when you're listening to it constantly.  After reading George R.R. Martin, Jordan seems quaint to me -- as if the books are targeted at twelve-year-olds.  Perhaps they are.

Polamalu Sunday 2011

Tom and Jean are in Florida today, Super Bowl Sunday. We have been ordered to take pictures of Max in his Steelers jersey on the day of the Super Bowl so as to lend magical powers to Polamalu and the Steelers on this momentous occasion.

More pics can be found here.