Yoga baby

I took Xan to his first yoga class yesterday. He spent the class on his folded-up Didymos wrap kicking and gurgling, letting me do the whoel class without having to pick him up or take him outside. It was awesome.

I have to say again how much I love Karma Yoga Studio. Jesse encourages moms to bring their young babies to class, and if they get upset, you can just pop out to feed or console them. Happy baby noises aren't cause for ejection. This way I hope to get even more yoga in, at least until he starts crawling and I have to chase after him.

He slept eight hours last night!!!! If only I hadn't had to go to the bathroom at 1am, it could have been my first full night's sleep in almost a year.

Incredibly Surreal

Those Germans sure have some wacky taste. So bizarre it just makes me smile.

New Xan stats

Weight - 15 lbs, 3 oz
Length - 25 in
Head Circumference - 17.5 in

If you believe the growth charts he's well above the 97th percentile in all categories. Only 3 out of 100 babies are heavier than 14.5 lbs, longer than 24.75 in and have bigger heads than 16.75 in. He's not particularly chubby for his length, though; he's right in the middle of the range for a 25 incher. The doctor said to not be surprised if he lags a bit in the gross motor skills department, as large babies often are. It can take them a bit longer to learn to throw all that extra weight around. However, when she saw him on his tummy, she said he held his head up like a 4 or 5 month old.

He handled his shots pretty well, only crying for 30-60 seconds, and he's now fast asleep with daddy (who took the redeye and didn't get any sleep last night), soothed by Bill's walking in the Bjorn on the way home. The doctor said several times that he was the picture of health and the postor child for a bouncy happy baby, so I guess that means he passed.

Glad I'm not eating that

I knew they fed cows other cows and sheep to fatten them up, but had no idea they fed them euthanized cats and dogs from Los Angeles. Apparently LA kills almost 20,000 cats and dogs a year and they're a pretty cheap source of food for the cattle ranchers.

D'oh!

Xan just rolled over for the first time and I missed it! He had woken me up wanting to nurse. When I got up to go to the bathroom he was fussing around on his back and I returned to see him on his stomach. I had no idea he was even close; there haven't been any alomost roll overs to warn me.

Another Xan Tabblo

I couldn't pick just a couple to post.

See my Tabblo>

Missing Dad

I don't think Xan has noticed (don't tell Bill), but his dad has been out of town at a conference since yesterday morning. I've been trying to keep myself busy. Sunday (technically before he left, but he was at work preparing his presentation) the kid and I went to a 1 yr b-day party down the street, then had a few friends over for Heathers. I'm hosting a weekly summer 80s movie series, so the Frenchies in Bill's lab can fill in some of there American pop culture gaps and I can wax nostalgic.

Yesterday, we went to Walden pond and hung on the beach. I remembered to keep him covered up, but got a bit of a burn myself. The moms that were there decided to try and make it a regular Monday thing for the summer. Next time I'll bring my suit and dip Xan's toes in the water. That afternoon a friend called as she was passing my house with her kids and we headed down to the park for a bit.

This morning I caught a ride to the Cambridge Children's Clothing Exchange where I donated two bags of clothes and picked up some new ones for the little monster. Now I need a nap.

On Walden Pond

Xan and I spent the morning on one of the beaches at Walden pond several other moms and babes.

Bad Mama

Xan cried his first tear today. We were walking through the door, when he arched his back and I let his head bump the doorway. He looked at me, stunned, for a second or two, then let out the loudest, longest, most heart breaking wail I have heard from him. I had no idea he could make a noise that loud. He was in pain and it was my fault and I couldn't feel worse. Fortunately he calmed down about 30 seconds later and fell asleep nursing, but I'm still here on the verge of tears and feeling guilty. It makes me nervous for his pediatrician appointment on Wednesday where he'll get his first round of shots.

I love my neighborhood

While I was out walking today I ran into a mama friend of mine, a friend
from ALACE (twice! Six hours apart), and one of my La Leche League
leaders that came over to help us when Xan was just two days old. It
really made me feel like I have a close community here. Yesterday we
renewed our lease for another year and I'm so glad.

Roughing It

Our power went out tonight. I'd blame the crazy thunderstorm, but it
was long over by the time it happened. It's dark and hot and damp in
the apartment. Even so I'm smiling because we coped by getting takeout
sushi and Sapporo, and I'm basking in a post-sushi glow. As soon as I
finish my beer we're headed to Toscanini's to enjoy some ice cream and
air conditioning. Hopefully by the time we're done the power will be
back on, allowing us to run the fan.

Poop talk

Before I had a baby I would not have guessed that shit could be foamy. And here I was thinking the neon yellow color was novel.

Magalie returns

YAY!!! I couldn't be more excited that Magalie is back in town. Uh,
not that I play favorotes when it comes to Bill's labmates, or
anything. We had a few drinks with her and some others from the lab
last night and grought Xan along. I arrived last and got carded, even
though the rest of the table hadn't been, and I was the oldest one
there. My friend Gina is 23 and has been making a lot of comments about
being old. Oh honey, you don't even know. I don't even know and I've
got seven years on you. We're both in for a bunch of rude surprises, I
suspect.

But back to Magalie. Now that she's here, party season has begun,
starting with her place tomorrow night, then ours the next weekend. And
she and I are going to have a regular movie night to fill in her 80s
movie knowledge gaps. First up: Heathers.

Smoochy, smoochy, smoochy!

Give me a kiss or I will kill you with my eye lasers.

Lush

Not even two months old and already passed out in a bar.

Some of this is long overdue, but I just had to share a few of the awesome things Xan has received from friends and family.

We got many beautiful quilts, but this one from Cyndi is the most Xan

The cutest hooded bath towel ever from Wes

Adorable "Petit Monstre" outfit from Magalie, made by Jacadi, a French baby and childrens company that has wonderfully designed clothes. I've taken to calling him my petit monstre.

Backsliding

I don't know if it's the heat, or what, but the last three nights he's been waking every couple of hours. Ugh.

Orange Jedi

The force is strong with this one

I Love My Orange Hoodie Towel

After bathtime, I love to squirm around. Yay!

River Festival

A few highlights:

Cute little swinging baby legs


Capoeira

Initiative for the Renaming of Names in Cambridge, organized by The Institute for Infinitely Small Things. Magazine St has been renamed Agazine-may St and Concord Ave is now Conquered Ave. Another street is named None Shall Pass, after a skit in one of my favorite movies.

Big boards of magnetic poetry

Browsing the cheap art

Hanging it at home

Barefoot Books Sale

Barefoot Books, a local children's book publisher and bookstore is having its summer sale! It was founded by two moms, and turns out fantastic children's books. Definitely a business worth supporting.

Mama: Look, Xan! Here comes our train! There it is!
Baby: Eh, whatever. I'm looking at this crack in the ceiling.

Conductor (after train stops in the middle of the tunnel): Attention,
folks, they are working on a disabled train. There will be long
delays. Repeat, there WILL be long delays.
Mama: Xan, can you say this blows? Yes! Yes it do-oes! Dis blows!

Smiley Xan

Stupid weather forecast

Small chance of scattered showers, my ass. We just got caught in a
downpour. All that water mixed with dirty brick sidewalks makes for
pretty dicey walking, resulting in a slip and two stubbed toes for me.
Now we're dryong off in Dado with a pot of Irish Breakfast Tea.

5 Year Old DDR Player

If you're going to have your child playing video games, this is the way to do it. I'm tired just watching him bounce around like that. Too cute.

via Daddy Types, who I forgot to credit for my dream table down there.

Diaper Changing Tips

Always, always secure the feet before opening the diaper to view the extent of the damage, unless you want to spread that damage around a bit. Quite a bit. Likewise, once off, place the soiled diaper outside the kicking radius of the baby. The kicking radius is larger than you think and in all directions. Your baby will twist and turn and perform some crazy-ass sideways ninja kicks* to dip his delicious little toes in poo. Also put it outside your sleeping husband's kicking radius.

*This phrase got me thinking about adjective order, and how you would explain it to someone who spoke English as a second language. Crazy-ass sideways ninja kick just seems natural because who ever heard of a crazy-ass ninja sideways kick or a sideways ninja crazy-ass kick? I had a vague feeling it had to do with how general or specific the adjective, but then got hung up trying to figure out if crazy-ass was more specific than ninja or vice versa.

My Dream Table

If we had the room. And, oh yeah, the budget for a $8500 table. Check out all the cool features described here. It integrates high chairs and booster seats beautifully. Since I can't have this, maybe I can settle for the still pricey, but dirt cheap by comparison, Stokke Tripp Trapp chair, in black or rosewood. It's got a cool spiel too.

Our day so far

I loaded him up in the Bjorn

To meet Lara for lunch at Aceituna

We ran across a free concert with, even better, free soft drinks on the walk home





He passed out on the way home

It was so muggy that by the time I got back to Central Square I needed more refreshment, so I used one of the 14 free iced coffee coupons we scored at the Dragon Boat Festival last weekend. I couldn't get it to focus on the coffee, but you get the idea. The painted thing is a utility box. Last summer the Cambridge Arts Council and a summer youth program got together and kids painted a bunch of them, each with a different design.

We dropped by the library after that (no pic, sorry) and made it home just before the thunderstorm hit.

Attempts at Thumb Suckage

Greek Festival

The Greek Orthodox Church across the street is having their annual grecian festival this weekend, June 16-18. There'll be food and music and some sort of raffle dealie. If spanikopita and baklava sound good to you, head on over and we can chill and chow on my front steps. You might want to call first - we'll be at the River Festival for at least part of Saturday.

Yesterday was the fussiest he's ever been, with some actual loud crying for more than 10 seconds, which had never happened before. (I know, I'm incredibly lucky to have had such a mellow baby so far.) I think it's because he's starting to notice the world around him and doesn't was to close his eyes for something so boring as sleeping, even if it makes him grouchy and, dude, he was grouchy. The upside of all the awake time was that he slept like a rock from 10:30pm to almost 5am, then went back to bed until 15 (45 - I got sidetracked while writing this) minutes ago, and is now sleeping again awake, awaiting a bath:

My milk supply continues to be insane, leading to much leaking. Washable breast pads suck. They will absorb a drop or two, but even double-thick they're nearly useless. I need some serious protection. The disposables are better, much more absorbant with a water barrier, they're like little diapers for your boobs. They'll get me through the day but nothing can stop the flood at night. I wake up in large wet circles of milk and am going to have to toss my favorite long pillow that I cuddle up to. I'll wait until this ridiculousness stops, though, or I'll do the same to the next one.

Google Calendar

I know Google is taking over the world, but I have to say I am loving Google Calendar. It's crazy fast, easy and intuitive to use - a huge, huge improvement over Yahoo calendar, which I was using. It's also a snap to make multiple calendars to organize different parts of your life, so in addition to my personal private calendars, I made two public calendars: Cambridge Moms Groups and Cambridge Farmers Markets. They aren't exhaustive lists of events in either category, just ones that are convenient for me, but they could still be interesting to other locals. The best feature of the multiple calendars is that you can turn them on and off with a click, so in addition to mine, I added a long list of other local calendars that have events near by. It makes for an intensly cluttered view when they are all on, but it's not a problem as they are so easy to turn off and just see my stuff. Another killer Google app.

Sleeping

Last Monday night was his first time waking only once in an eight hour stretch and I was afraid it wouldn't repeat itself. He did go back to constant waking the three nights after that, but I'm happy to report that three out of the last four nights he has only woken once in a 7.5-8.5 hour night. Woo and hoo!

Proud Papa

When I gushed over how cute a baby we saw was, Bill was indignant. "That baby's not cuter than Xan! He's a big pile of poo."

Linky Linky

I am going to have these stuck in my head all day:

The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Washington: 6'8", weighs fucking ton

via WWdN: In Exile

Xan's first movie

We saw District B13 with Xan today and he slept and nursed right through
it. During a couple of quiet moments we could hear him making little
noises, but I think most people didn't even realize there was a baby in
the theater. The movie itself was a fun piece of fluff; the parkour was
captivating. It was a bit short on plot, and not much was required of
the actors, but that wasn't really the point. I do wish they had left
off the final super sappy scene, though. I'm glad we got this one in
because in another month he'll probably be too distractable to take to a
regular movie.

Xan's become a lot more aware and responsive over the past week. He's increasingly smiley and cooing, and constantly whipping his head back and forth to take everything in. It's adorable but does have its downsides. This morning every loud noise made him break his latch while breastfeeding and then he would get pissed that there was no boob in his mouth, throw his arm over his face, and make it impossible to get him back on.

Sleep is still patchy. After the good night he went back to waking every two or three hours, but finally last night he slept almost five hours, then another three and a half!

Also, the hair loss continues. Now he has a small bald patch over his left ear.

At my midwife appointment yesterday I weighed myself and then both of us and the difference was fourteen pounds. If that's accurate, he's gained more than a pound a week, so I'm not worrying about the breastfeeding. If anything, I have too much milk; I'm leaking like crazy and soaking through my breastpads much faster than I can wash them.

My part of the midwife appointment wasn't so terrific. I got another suppository prescription because hemorrhoids continue to be a problem, but the bigger issue is the healing, or lack thereof, of the tear in my perineum. Usually they say goodbye after the six week check up, but I'm going back in a month to reassess. Apparently the tear should have healed by now, but is still red and angry and bleeds when you touch it, possibly because the stiches came out early. That made the pap smear much worse than usual. There was talk of "burning off" tissue that is growing incorrectly. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds painful. My midwife said the area was still too sensitive to do that this visit. I have to apply vitamin E oil and we'll see where we are in five weeks.

Xan gets a little culture

Wednesday night, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts with Gina. Xan mostly snoozed.

But we did get him to open his eyes for a bit and appreciate some antiquities.

My favorite:

Matt couldn't make it to the museum due to work, but he came over for a bit later. Xan could not take his eyes off of him.
Tomorrow is the Pride Parade and Sunday is the Dragon Boat Festival.

Reel Crap

I would be thrilled that there is a Reel Moms theater in Boston, if the execution wasn't so lousy. The concept is perfect for me: an 11am Tuesday movie that welcomes newborns with dim lights and a lower sound than a regular screening. Unfortunately the programmers seem to think moms are braindead. The film last week? The Break Up. This week? Cars. It's insulting, really.

We are talking about moms with babes-in-arms; the newborns aren't going to be absorbing the content. The movie is for the adults and it would be nice if the people picking them realized that. Do they think the mom demographic is this insipid? That our taste was excised when we had our children?

I would love to see District B-13 or An Inconvenient Truth, but regular movies are probably not on the agenda for a while.

Delicious!!!

I usually hate melons, but he looks so tasty I can't resist.

Scooper Bowl Update

Well, I made it to the Scooper Bowl, in spite of having no one to go with and it pouring outside. You don't think that could keep me from unlimited ice cream. Xan was wide-eyed for the T ride over, snapping his head back and forth to see everything, but konked right out once we got there.

Below are the flavors served; the ones I had a scoop of are in bold. I knew I had had enough when I switched from raspberry sorbet to dulce de leche and my taste buds were so frozen that I couldn't tell it was a different flavor.

Baskin-Robbins

* Pralines n' Cream
* Rock n' Pop Swirl
* Tripple Play
* Apple Pie a la Mode
* Oreo Cookies n' Cream

Photo of ice cream cup
Ben & Jerry's

* Turtle Soup
* Jamaican Me Crazy Sorbet
* Bananas On The Run
* Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Breyers

* Vanilla
* Mint Chocolate Chip
* Oreo
* Homemade Double Chocolate Fudge
* M&M

Brigham's

* Just Jimmies
* Fluffernutter
* Wicked Chocolate
* Curse Reversed!

Cold Stone Creamery

* Birthday Cake Remix
* Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip
* Chocolate Devotion
* Beary Beary Blue

Edy's

* Orange Sherbet
* Espresso Chip
* Toll House Cookie Swirl
* Strawberry
* Double Fudge Brownie

Elan Frozen Yogurt

* Low-Fat Strawberry Kiss
* Non-Fat Black Raspberry
* Vanilla Heath Bar
* Non-Fat Coffee

Haagen-Dazs

* Raspberry Sorbet
* Cookies n' Cream
* Mint Chip
* Light Dulce de Leche
* Light Cherry Fudge Truffle
* Pineapple Coconut

HP Hood

* Maine Blueberry & Sweet Cream
* Boston Cream Pie
* New England Lighthouse Coffee
* Light French Silk

Garelick

* Butter Crunch
* Cookies n' Cream
* Mocha Chip
* Peppermint Stick

Babies are crazy people magnets. We were trapped between two women on the bus, each talking nonstop, one to Bill and one to me, giving advice, relating their own childrearing experiences, and generally being annoying. There were a few highlights, though.

"Don't feed him too much. He'll get overweighted. That's what I did with my boys. They were overweighted. They were so top heavy they were afraid to walk." Yikes.

"He's going to be running around like a maniac in a couple of years." Uh, takes one to know one, lady.

The one in front of us had a pat on the hand proclivity that Bill was subjected to, while I got the poke-on-shoulder-er.

Swaddling is Teh Awesome

Sleeping at night has been as it usually is with newborns - terrible. About a week ago it was at its worst, with Xan waking up every hour for a few nights there. Last night, however, was the best night ever. We finally got him swaddled properly and he slept from 10pm to 2am, woke for 15 minutes for a 10 minute feeding, then went back to sleep until 6am. I felt like I had never slept so much in all my life and Bill didn't even remember the feeding in the middle of the night, so he got an uninterupted 8 hours. It will probably never happen again.

Join me for a sugar high

Anyone want to go to the Scooper Bowl with me? It's hard to beat all you can eat ice cream from 10 different companies while raising money for cancer research. It's tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday. I could do any afternoon.

Cooing

Yoga

Last week I re-upped for a year at my incredibly awesome yoga studio, which is now in a larger facility with two studios (double the classes), showers, changing rooms, and soon a cafe. It is totally gorgeous and I am so happy for the owner/instructor who couldn't possibly be more deserving of success.

Bill is going to meet me a few times a week before the 5:30 class and take Xan home for a bit of daddy-baby time while I get my yoga on. I went to my first class last Wednesday and it's going to be a looong road back to strength and flexibility, but it's good to be back on it.

Poll: Which Haircut, Like, Totally Rocks?

We have to play with his hair now, because his hairline is quickly receding to match his daddy's and there may not be much time left.

Surfer Haircut?


Goth Haircut?


Punk Haircut?


Or Banker Haircut?


Which one looks best? Please vote in the comments.