Monday, December 25, 2006

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Christmas Letter


Greetings,

I begin this holiday season by noting that most biblical scholars believe Christ’s birth actually occurred in the spring. Citing a reference in the Gospel according to Luke to shepherds watching their flock at night, these scholars argue this would only have occurred during the lambing season, as otherwise sheep would be corralled. That we celebrate Jesus’ birth at the end of December is largely due to a Roman interpretation of winter solstice as the earth dying, a fate only avoided via the “Return of the Sun” -- a bacchanalian festival. A pragmatic bishop decided that his flock could avoid religious persecution if they just celebrated the birth of the savior around the same time, and this is how December 25th became Christmas. I mention this because had early Romans lived in the Southern Hemisphere or understood the earth’s orbit, I would have had several more months to prepare for this holiday season. As such, consider the fact that you’re receiving this letter before February as some sort of Christmas miracle.

While I tend to feel overwhelmed by the holidays every year, this year I feel it more acutely, primarily because after Allen and I had a baby in August and this is Owen’s first Christmas. Halls were to be decked. Cookies decorated with sparkly things. Homemade cards with handwritten notes. Gifts thoughtfully picked out months in advance. There was going to be bunting and holly and all things merry and jolly with each evening ending with our singing carols by the fire. And while Owen would have no memory of any of this, it was going to be dutifully recorded in his baby book so that he could read about his amazing first Christmas once he was able to read.

Now having known I was pregnant since before last Christmas, one could argue that we had more than enough time to accomplish such a wish list (plus the light display I wanted that Allen nixed). But I had morning sickness for most of January. We spent February through April searching for a house, May purchasing and moving into said house and June through July preparing it for Owen’s arrival (plus Allen’s had to go to South Africa for work). In August we had Owen and September and October were spent trying to convince Owen that he wanted to sleep for more than three hours in a row (he’s still not fully convinced).

In theory, a perfect Christmas can be accomplished with just November and December. But early in November Allen’s grandfather passed away and so we went to Iowa for a week. We had already planned to spend Thanksgiving at my parents and so there was another week in Texas. Then Allen had to go to Japan for a week in December. All the while, I’ve been trying to work from home.

So we scaled back a bit. There is a tree and stockings but no bunting (Allen felt it was more appropriate for the Fourth of July or opening day of the baseball season anyway). We nixed the cookies as our nod to America’s growing obesity problem. Our fireplace isn’t currently in working order, but I do sing various carols to Owen when I’m changing him and he seems to enjoy it just fine. We’re still working on the gifts. And while Allen did make our Christmas cards, the personal notes got replaced by just this letter.

Anyway, we hope you all have had a wonderful year and that the holidays find you healthy and happy. Thanks for all your well wishes, gifts and advice with regards to our new little one, and to hear more about our adventures (or get a jumpstart on our excuses for why next year’s Christmas didn’t turn out as planned), please check out our blog at:

http://allen-and-elaine.blogspot.com/

And in the immortal words of the Daily Show’s Samatha Bee,

But really let's face it all other days bow down to the 25th: Christmas. It's the only religious holiday that's also a Federal holiday. That way Christians can go to their services and everyone else can stay home and reflect on the true meaning of Separation of Church and State.

Happy Holidays,

Allen, Elaine & Owen

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Reunited


After a long week in Japan, our little family was reunited last Saturday, and now that I'm finally recovered from the jet lag, it's time for the blog post (plus since Owen's 4 month birthday is today, we thought it was time to put up a new picture).

I have to say, these international trips were a lot easier before Owen showed up. It was always tough to be apart from Elaine for a week, but she never increased her weight by 5% while I was gone, and somehow it never bothered me that I didn't see her roll over or improve her ability to grab things.

Technology helped close the distance while I was in Japan (Elaine emailed many pictures using my camera phone, and I was introduced to the beauty of Skype, which let us talk to each other from halfway around the world for free), but it really was no substitute for a hug. When Owen started day care, Elaine could of used one from me, and every day I could of used one from Owen.

As happy as I was to see Owen upon my return, the best part was how happy he was to see me. He smiled and laughed, and let me know that he missed his daddy.

Man's Best Friend?

I don't like dogs. I primarily attribute my disdain for canines to having been bitten a few too many times in my formative years, which has made me skittish around them ever since. To be honest, though, I've just never understood the allure of cleaning up the poop and drool of something that won't return the favor when I'm old and grey. Suffice to say, we currently live in a pet-free zone and while I will probably eventually submit to Allen's desire to get a cat, I'm pretty resolute about the whole puppy thing.

However, many of the people that Owen loves and who love him are dog people. As a result, Owen has spent a fair amount of time in close proximity to various breeds of varying ages in his short life. I've actually thought this was a good thing since I'd like our son to be comfortable among animals and not inherit his mother's nervousness around them. So while I may not have actively encouraged his interaction with dogs, I've been pretty amenable to it.

But my willingness to facilitate Owen's play-dates with man's best friend suffered a serious set back this week when we discovered that one of these beasts has infected our son with a fungus.

We noticed Owen had a sore on his temple a couple of weeks ago, but assumed it was either some form of baby acne that he'd scratched, or possibly a slight case of rug burn resulting from his recent forays into rolling over. Despite my diligent application of various ointments though, it kept getting bigger and so yesterday I finally had the doctor check it out. Her diagnosis: ringworm.

Since he picked it up before he started daycare and he hasn't spent any time in dirt, we're pretty sure he got it from one of the many dogs that have sniffed, licked or just been around him the past month or so. I'm not sure what all the repercussions of this latest incident will be, but please understand if I'm a little more nervous when Owen is around dogs now, and no matter how hard he may beg, Owen is never getting a puppy for Christmas.

--------------------------------------
Update!

For two and a half weeks, we dutifully applied anti-fungal cream to Owen’s temple, only to find that not only had this ringworm not abated, but he’d developed a bad rash on his torso. Allen took him back to the doctor’s office where lo and behold we find out that the reason Owen’s ringworm wasn’t clearing up was because he never had ringworm: instead he has eczema with a strange presentation. So to all of our dog-loving readers who I accused of infecting our baby boy, mea culpa.

Monday, December 11, 2006

The end of innocence

When Owen was six weeks old, Allen’s mom asked me if I could imagine going back to work then. I shook my head with a knowing look, but secretly all I could think was, “Yes! Let someone else deal with his crying and screaming inconsolably for hours on end…” But then week seven came and Owen started crying less and smiling more, and then he started giggling and staring at me with awe and delight when I sing Frankie Valley songs or pull him into a sitting position using his arms, and I thought, I could really do this forever.

Alas, when Allen and I bought our house it was with the understanding that I would eventually go back to work (you really need two federal salaries to put a roof over your head in the DC market). While we would have preferred to wait a little longer, the acting Assistant Secretary has been inquiring as to when my maternity leave is up, so today Owen went to daycare for the very first time. For four and a half hours.

My hope was that he would sleep through most of it only to be interrupted by occasional feedings with me, but apparently meeting new people and the abundance of sleep he’s gotten the past few nights conspired to keep him awake for the bulk of his stay. Initially he seemed to take it just fine while I was a bit of an emotional wreck, but he wouldn’t nap which made him fussy and then he didn’t have his mom there to comfort him which made him cry. He seemed to rally when I fed him at noon, but that didn’t last much past my departure and when I went to check on him at two o’clock, he’d only just calmed down. By two thirty he was ready to head home so we packed up the stroller and took off.

Were not going back tomorrow – with Allen leaving the country on Sunday and my leaving him with strangers on Monday, Owen really needs a day at home to recover. We’re going to try again on Wednesday for another four or five hours and then we’ll see about Friday. And next week…


Sunday, December 10, 2006

Sayonara, Daddy

Allen left this morning for Japan, leaving Owen and I to fend for ourselves for the next six and a half days. Owen and I have been alone together quite a bit, and between working late, Nationals games and the occasional beer with a friend, it’s also happened that from time to time Owen has gone almost an entire day without seeing Allen, which would suggest that Allen being on another continent for this week shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Then again, he’s never been gone an entire day and Allen was always in the same time zone if not cab zone and could be easily reached should I become overwhelmed and require immediate aid. That’s going to be a little difficult this week.

Owen thus far, has taken his father’s departure in stride, sleeping over seven hours last night and taking an almost four hour nap this morning. He’s either seeking solace in his slumber or is trying to switch to Tsuskuba time as an act of solidarity. The rest has been beneficial as Owen also managed to roll-over three times onto his belly this afternoon (he rolled onto his back the day before his three month birthday, but the more challenging belly-roll eluded him until today). I just wish it wasn’t while I was changing him.

Despite all the rest, Owen’s been a bit grumpy today and I suspect it’s because his father isn’t here to throw him in the air, sing alternative rock songs to him or watch some sporting event while Mommy gets some work done. I’m missing Daddy as well, and not just because I had cereal for dinner and had to clip Owen’s fingernails by myself (I even managed to not draw blood this time). At least Allen left us a voice message telling us both how much he loves and misses us. I suspect it will probably by worn out by the time he returns…


Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

For various reasons, our family has been out of town every weekend of this month. It's been a bit rough on all of us, but obviously toughest on Owen who's had what little routine we'd developed obliterated and replaced by hours on end in his car seat listening to the offerings of Daddy's iPod (baby mixes, Sufjan Stevens, and a healthy dose of Viking lectures), followed by numerous new people vying for his attention. It probably didn't help matters that the one week he was home featured my falling down the stairs while holding him, his migration from our bedroom to his own room and crib, and his first round of vaccine shots. November has been a cruel, cruel month.

Anyway, we thought you all might enjoy a summary of Owen's experience for each of the modes of transportation employed in our many travels:

Automobiles

When we planned our trip to Iowa, we went back and forth on flying versus driving and ultimately decided on the latter as we didn't know how else we were going to convey all of Owen's stuff, and that way we could visit Allen's sister and my brothers on route. While Owen had never traveled further than Tyson's Corner in his car seat, we figured that dividing the trip into two six-hour and one three hour segments over the course of three days and leaving really early in the morning during prime nap time would make it a not entirely unpleasant experience. I really think it would have too, had we not lost a tire tread an hour outside of DC.

While Owen cried, Allen pulled over and dutifully emptied the trunk filled to the brim with various baby implements in order to get out the "donut" only to discover it had a giant hole in it. He then re-packed the trunk, decided we could drive slowly on our tread-less tire, thus allowing us to spend about 45 minutes trying to find a place open at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning that sold tires. We finally found a Sears in Hagerstown, MD that informed us that the other three tires were just an accident waiting to happen, so we dutifully hung out at the Valley Mall amid the mall walkers, intermittently trying to get Owen to eat and sleep while waiting for the tires to be replaced. We got back on the road about an hour later, but Owen never really recovered and would only nap for an hour before waking up and sobbing uncontrollably for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, the next day was infinitely better and by the end, Owen was only really awake during scheduled stops (the key seems to be perpetual motion – construction is the enemy). And while still not a world traveler, he's now driven through DC, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan (someone missed an exit…) and on a separate trip, Texas.

Trains

There's really nothing interesting to report here, but since I'm calling this entry, "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," I thought I'd mention that Owen rode on the Metro for the first time on our trip to the airport, and he slept for the entire twenty minutes we were on board. Obviously this is a superior mode of transport, and if we could only convince them to extend the Metro to Texas we'd be set.

Planes

I'd read somewhere that once babies reach six weeks of age, they stop pooping every day. This has not been our experience. Owen generally has two to three dirty diapers a day and has been known to have as many as five, so you can understand our concern when two days before flying to Dallas for Thanksgiving Owen had only had one barely dirty diaper. The following day he had none which resulted in his parents having a caucus as to what to do. I maintained that our son was saving it all for the most inconvenient moment possible 35,000 feet in the air. Allen was so confident that he would go the next morning before we boarded American Airlines that he offered to change Owen should he go on the plane.

He didn't go in the morning and despite some horrible smelling flatulence, he didn't go while we were waiting to be boarded. For the first two hours of the flight he pretty much just slept or ate and we started thinking that we might make it through this without having to change a diaper when in the last half hour of our trip I felt a rumbling. Allen scoffed as we had felt previous rumblings which turned out to be nothing. After a second one, I insisted that Allen at least check.

At which point he really regretted his previous night's offer.

Allen swears he'd never seen so much excrement. Two days worth of poop had filled Owen's diaper and spilled into his outfit. I had to run back to our seats to get extra wipes and a change of clothes as Allen attempted to clean Owen while the flight attendant requested we return to our seats and several passengers looked on. Finally, Allen emerged, shaken but victorious, and we returned to our seats with a much happier baby.

Now we're happily ensconced in Dallas with one more leg of our month long journey ahead of us. Hopefully our return flight will pass without incident, and we can finally spend a quiet weekend at home.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Generations

Elaine and I both have family and roots in Iowa, so we envision many road trips to that fair state in our future. We hope to build many fond memories for Owen of trips to his grandparent's house, corn on the cob, summers swimming in the pond, and winters skating on it.

Last week we took Owen on his first road trip to Iowa, though the circumstances of this first foray into the great Midwest were less than ideal. On Saturday, November 5th, my Grandfather passed away at the age of 95.

We had thought our first trip to Iowa would be next summer for Owen's baptism. When we heard Grandpa's health was failing, we moved up out visit to just after Christmas so we could introduce Owen to his Great Grandfather. Once Grandpa was put in hospice care and Dad headed out to Iowa, we decided to drive out to Iowa that weekend and spend the week in Iowa letting Owen meet the family and hopefully giving grandpa a chance to meet him. Sadly, on Saturday morning, around 5 am, while we were packing up the car and getting ready to hit the road my phone rang. I knew before I answered, it was Dad calling to tell me that Grandpa had passed. Our trip would still involve many introductions, but our purpose was now to say farewell.

All of our travel adventures will have to wait for another post, for now I want to fast forward to Wednesday morning, November 8th. Sitting in the Hickory Grove Friends Meetinghouse, across a dusty gravel road from the cemetery where Fawcetts have been buried since the days of my Great Great Grandfather, the silence of my Grandfather's Quaker funeral was broken by the cries of my son. The spirit had moved him to remind us of the beginning of the cycle of life as we sat an mourned the end. After he had reminded us for a while, and was more interested in continuing to remind us than focusing on his bottle, Elaine took him outside to calm him in the warm November air. As they left, I rose to speak:

When I was two years old, I sat in this Meetinghouse during my Great Grandmother Malissa Fawcett's funeral, and my parents gave me M&M's to calm me. My son is a bit too young for M&M's so hopefully a little fresh air will help him calm down. I don't remember that day, and I don't remember meeting my Great Grandmother, but I know the story, and many others besides, because the family kept her memory alive. Grandpa used to tell me how Malissa would say that she must have lived in the most interesting time to be alive. As a little girl living on the frontier, she would hide under the kitchen table during Indian raids, and yet she lived to see Man walk on the moon. I always loved hearing this story as a child, because it made me feel connected to the past and to this land, because this amazing woman who had seen so much, had also known me. Owen may not have met his Great Grandfather, but Floyd had known him and delighted at his birth. I hope Owen will always feel at home here in Iowa, and years from now after growing up with stories of his Great Grandfather, I know he'll be glad that he was here.




Floyd Thomas Fawcett
July 25, 1911 - November 4, 2006


Monday, October 30, 2006

A Full Plate (Among Other Things)

Owen’s routine is pretty simple: sleep, nurse, diaper change, play and then repeat. Sometimes we mix it up a bit by throwing in a bath or changing his diaper before he nurses, but this is the basic order of things. More importantly, we generally don’t like more than two hours to elapse between waking from sleep and drifting back into it.

There are times, however, when we attempt to work his routine around our own personal agendas, and last Saturday was one of those times. I wanted to go to the grocery store, bake a pie, unblock a clogged milk duct and run to Crate & Barrel and the Container Store before heading to our friends Brad & Marlo’s place for dinner. Allen wanted to make a mold of Owen’s feet, give Owen a bath and indulge me.

We managed to accomplish all of this, but in doing so, Owen missed two of his afternoon naps resulting in his being awake for seven hours straight without a real nap. While Allen was painfully aware of Owen’s sleep deprivation (having unsuccessfully tried to get him down for a couple of naps while I was otherwise occupied), I didn’t realize it until we were headed to Brad & Marlo’s and I started doing the math (I know, I know, this is precisely why we have the Trixie Tracker…).

We quickly developed a plan of attack: as soon as we arrived we would give him a bottle, change his diaper and then I would rock him to sleep. Unfortunately, this was one of those times we should have changed up the order, for while we were getting a bottle ready and Brad was holding Owen, a rumbling could be heard emanating from Owen’s posterior.

At which point he pooped all over Brad.

As Allen later pointed out, there are far worse people Owen could have unleashed his colon on. After all, Brad and Marlo are expected their first child in February and Brad had said before we came over that he really wanted to get the full infant experience. And while we’re happy to accommodate him, we would generally prefer our child to not cover our friends and loved ones in crap.

We quickly changed Owen (Brad changed himself), got him to sleep for an hour, and gave him a bottle which resulted in a much happier Owen. After another hour or so of socializing, we took the little guy home, fed and changed him again and put him down for the night where he slept soundly for over six hours.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lesson here, but if it involves keeping Owen up all day so he’s cranky and pooping on our friends just so he’ll sleep through the night, I think we’ll keep looking.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Head Turning Excitement!

Owen astounded us once again the other day by watching me walk across the room! (I know, it doesn't take much...) I came home from work last Wednesday, and while Elaine was holding him, Owen turned his head to look at me as I walked through the door! Then, as I walked across the room, he turned his head tracking my every move. To prove this wasn't some fluke, he later watched Elaine walk around the room while I was holding him. Now, through the miracle of modern technology, we bring you startling video evidence of Owen's new found awareness of the wider world!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Fun n' Games

Owen turned two months old on Friday, and hints of the new and improved interactive Owen are starting to emerge. I've always felt I was better with kids and babies once they were old enough to play with, and while Owen has been ridiculously adorable these past two months, I can't help but think things will be more fun once we're able to play and interact with each other. Elaine is great with newborns, but I can't help but think that playtime will be daddy's time to shine (we know where are comparative advantages are;-).

This past month we've started to develop a few little games. Owen likes it when I hold him and we look at ourselves in the mirror, and when he's in a really good mood he'll laugh when I smile and make funny faces. Another 'game' he likes is the standing game. The rules are really pretty simple, I hold Owen up with his feet on my lap, and he stands up supporting his own weight while I help him keep his balance. We don't keep score, but as long as he's smiling and exercising those legs, I figure we're both winners.

The newest game is flying time, which is best illustrated with a picture:


The game is pretty self explanatory, and I think the next picture will show just how much he likes it:



"Daddy that was so much fun I can't decide if I should smile or spit up all over you, so I think I'll do both!"

Monday, October 09, 2006

Congratulations!

Last week the anti-Owen was born to our friends Tracey and Nathan. Satya Effie Cook was born several days early in the Southern hemisphere after a two-hour labor involving no drugs. The only commonality between the two births is that neither Tracey nor I got dessert the night labor began (though Tracey at least got dinner).

For those of you that don’t know the Cooks, Tracey is one of my college roommates. After college graduation she went to teach English in Japan for a year where she fell in love first with Asia and then with an Australian adventurer named Nathan. Together they organized the trip to Bali where Allen and I got engaged. They had their son Kailash in India, got married in Thailand and had Satya in Australia.

Satya’s arrival is a bit of a relief for us as so far, all of our friends that have had kids in the past year have had boys (Kelly & Channing, Bill & Katherine, Teresa & Mike, my cousin Joyce & Brian, my cousin Katie & Dennis all recently had sons, and our friends Eric & Kathryn and Allen’s cousin Thomas & Jen are all expecting sons in December) making the perpetuation of the species, let alone Owen’s dating prospects, worrisome (not that we would advocate Owen dating any of his second cousins). Satya’s appearance suggests that maybe the winds are shifting and gender equanimity will return, though it would be convenient if they shifted stateside.

Oh well, there’s always Suri Cruise…

Monday, October 02, 2006

Announcements

We finally sent off Owen's birth announcements today. Elaine is convinced that we're late sending these out, but as far as I'm concerned we're doing great to get these out at six weeks. Any etiquette rule that requires sleep deprived new parents to put together a mass mailing in the first month is absurd. It took us a month just to get around to picking out the pictures, let alone design, print, and address these puppies.

On the back of the announcements, we included the web address for the blog, so I suspect we might have a few new readers. For all of you visiting for the first time, I'd like to welcome you to our blog and tell you a little about the site. (And for all of you die hard readers out there wondering where your announcements are, hold your horses, we just mailed them today.) The main reason we started this blog was to share pictures and stories (mostly about Owen) with our family and friends, without having to send out a mass email every time we snap a picture of Owen that is too cute to keep to ourselves. Whenever you feel the urge to see the newest pictures of Owen, or read our latest anecdote about our experience as new parents, just pay a visit to our blog.

So what all is on this site? In the sidebar on the right you can find out exactly how old Owen is, see our latest pictures, or click on the "more recent pictures" link to view all the pictures of Owen in my Flickr photostream. If you scroll a bit further down, you can jump to posts from any month in the Archives, or enter your email address at the bottom of the sidebar to receive a message whenever this blog is updated. In the main body of the page, you'll find all our latest musings on parenthood, and at th bottom of each post is a comments link where you can share your thoughts, suggestions, and well wishes with us. If you want to read some of the highlights to get a feel for the blog without wading through the archives, you can check out the ever popular "Reactions" post to see my mom's shock & awe at finding out she was going to be a grandmother, read the epic story of Owen's birth in the "Owen Grady Fawcett" post, or go back to where it all began with the "+ or -" post.

I should also probably say a little something about the name of the blog. The short answer is that when two economists start a blog, it's bound to have some sort of geeky econ name. The longer answer is that when we began the blog, we weren't telling people that Elaine was pregnant yet, so we couldn't pick a name that was obviously baby related like "Econ Baby!", "babyblogonomics", or "start-up dad". So why exactly "marginal benefit"? As economists, we're trained to think about decisions at the margins. For instance, when we're trying to put Owen down to sleep in the middle of the night, sometimes it helps if one of us sits by him and rests a hand on his chest. If you sit there long enough, he'll eventually fall asleep, but if leave too soon, even if he looks like he's asleep, he'll wake up and start fussing all over again. So in the middle of the night we're faced with problem of equating the marginal benefit of keeping a hand on Owen for another minute to increase the probability he'll actually fall asleep, and the marginal cost of not crawling back in bed as soon as possible. As for the name of the blog, it's really refering to a decision on a bit grander scale. Having Owen was probably the biggest decison of our lives, some of our posts dwell on the lack of sleep and mountains of diapers associated with parenthood (marginal costs), and other posts focus the little joys of parenthood or Owen's sheer adorability (marginal benefits). Years from now when we look back on all of this, hopefully we'll laugh at all of the marginal costs and cherish all of the marginal benefits.

Finally, since in this post I've been addressing readers and thinking of the future, I'd like to close with a note for all of you future readers that may be out there. If the year is 2024, this blog is still available online, and you happen to be Owen's prom date, please stop reading now, I'm sure we've embarrassed our son enough already ;-)

Sunday, September 24, 2006

5 hours, 16 minutes

That’s how long Owen slept in one stretch the other night. More importantly, the feat was replicated last night (5 hours and 11 minutes) which means that this wasn’t entirely a fluke. Yes, after weeks of hoping and praying that one day our son would be able to sleep for an extended period of time, our prayers were finally answered.

Well, sort of.

It should be noted that this large block of time was preceded by almost six hours of intermittent screaming. Moreover, after waking up and spending an hour nursing and being changed, Owen only slept for forty-five minutes before waking up again (it took another forty minutes to get him back down). This pattern was also largely repeated last night. In an ideal world, Owen would sleep for five hours and then go back down for three to four hours. However, we recognize that that’s asking an awful lot from a five week old and isn’t the source of our ambivalence regarding this latest development.

It’s my breast.

Apparently, my body got used to Owen nursing every three hours or so and adjusted my milk production accordingly. As a result, about four hours into Owen’s slumber, I awoke in agony. The additional passage of time between feedings has resulted not only in the engorgement of my breast, but also blocked milk ducts. Those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, imagine hard, large painful cyst in your chest.

If left untreated, blocked milk ducts can result in mastitis which can in turn lead to a bacterial infection (and you don’t want a bacterial infection in your breasts). The stated remedy to blocked ducts is frequent feedings. However, this would entail waking our little one from a peaceful and hard-fought sleep in order to force feed him, which goes against everything we’ve been striving for the past few weeks.

What's the moral of our little story here? When it comes to newborns and monkey paws, be careful what you wish for.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

One Month of Sleepless Nights

One month ago today, Owen was born. It's a bit hard for us to believe that he's already a month old (and not one of those short months, but a full 31 days), but it's also hard to remember what life was like without him (of course that might be due to the memory loss associated with sleep deprivation). One hazy memory I do have from those days before Owen arrived were glorious nights sleeping for seven, eight, sometimes even nine hours in a row. Now for Elaine, those are even more distant memories as the pressure Owen put on her bladder prevented a full night's sleep long before his crying ever did.

In the months leading up to Owen's birth, the one part of being a new parent that terrified me the most was the lack of sleep associated with having a newborn. The prospect of mountains of diapers didn't particularly phase me, and the endless hours of breast feeding were and are a challenge that I am particularly unsuited to help with, but the idea of not getting my precious eight hours of sleep left me shaking in my shoes. Some of our friends with kids would tell us almost nonchalantly how little sleep they got the first few months, and I would wonder if their calmness about it all was a ploy to trick more people into joining them in the ranks of the breeders, or if the lack of sleep they experienced actually prevented them from forming any long term memories about just how bad it was.

Now that we're a month into this parenthood experience, it's time to face my fear, and look back on a month of sleepless nights. For various reasons, we've been a bit obsessive about tracking Owen's sleeping habits (when two economists have a baby, they're bound to collect some data;-). The chart below is a visual representation of Owen's sleep patterns to date. The blue areas represent periods of sleep, and the yellow areas are times when he is awake.


It looks like a lot of work, but thanks to a wonderful web application called the TrixieTracker (which grew out of great blog called the The Trixie Update), it's actually incredibly easy to keep track of Owen's every move. What have we learned from all this data? So far, mostly that Owen's sleep pattern looks pretty random, but there are a few encouraging bits of information buried in the data. He's been sleeping about 11 hours a day, and thankfully his naps last longer during the night than they do during the day. If we ignore all the really short naps that don't give us parents enough time to do anything, his real naps during the day average a little less than 90 minutes, and at night they tend to last a little over two hours. On eight separate blissful occasions, he's slept for about four hours in a single stretch at night; but there have been 31 times where he's fallen asleep at night and been back up within half an hour. Despite all of our attempts, we haven't yet been able find any ways to influence whether he'll sleep well at night or not.

How has reality stacked up against my initial fears? Well, I think I'm doing all right. The first few weeks were a little rough, but adrenaline and afternoon naps help out quite a bit. Now that I'm back at work, Elaine has been absolutely wonderful and taken over all the changing and calming duties in the middle of the night on work days. I try to return the favor on weekends changing him in the middle of the night and taking him downstairs early in the morning so Elaine can sleep in, but she still has to get up to nurse, so there is only so much I can do.

Hopefully, before too long we'll start to see some patterns develop in the data, and when we start to have some influence on when he goes to sleep, having the data will be great for managing transitions in bed times and nap times. In a few months we might start to see Owen sleeping through the night, and eventually developing a stable nap pattern. Until then, we'll keep on tracking, and dreaming of the night when we can dream again.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

4 Weeks

My mother sent my baby book last week. It contained, in addition to remnants of my first haircut and tooth, the age at which I accomplished certain milestones, among them, smiling, sleeping through the night, rolling over, etc. Apparently, either I was a prodigy or my parents didn’t keep the most accurate of records. How else can one explain the fact that at nine days old I not only smiled but also slept through the night (which makes one wonder what exactly happened on that ninth day…). Being the youngest of three children, I suspect my mother was a bit distracted when all these events actually occurred and just wrote in something in retrospect that sounded good. Or else I’m a serious underachiever.

Owen turns four weeks old today, and has apparently not inherited my accelerated learning curve. We think that he’s had some non-gas induced smiles, but have yet to document any on camera, so you’ll just have to trust us. He’s definitely held his head up, has briefly held a toy in his hand, watched us doing things at a distance, and noticed light which seems to indicate his development is right on track. We can say with certainty, though, that he has not slept through the night. In fact, he seems to have regressed a bit since for a week or so there, he was sleeping as much as four hours a stretch and now we’re lucky if we get three. We’ve been told, however, that once babies hit 10 pounds they’re able to physically sleep through the night (which is medically defined as five hours). According to our reckoning, Owen is almost 10 pounds which means that a long stretch of nighttime peace is just around the corner. Unless he takes after his father (whom Mom Mom informed us didn’t sleep through the night until he was 2 years old...).

Monday, September 11, 2006

Cords & Kin

Owen’s umbilical cord fell off on Wednesday, September 6th. We weren’t sure what to do with it, as it seemed wrong to just throw it away, but creepy to build a shrine in honor of his emancipation from the placenta, so we stuck it in a Ziploc and left it on the coffee table until we figured out an appropriate final resting place for it.

It stayed there for a few days, and Allen kind of forgot about it until I reminded him that his sister was arriving on Saturday afternoon and she might not find residual birth matter sitting out in the living room particularly welcoming. Allen got motivated and planted a flower and the umbilical cord in our front yard in honor of Owen’s birth.

Allen’s sister, Katherine, arrived shortly thereafter and became Owen’s first non-grandparent family member to visit, bringing in tow her solution to the pacifier conundrum: a “Bee” or a modern version of it. Apparently, Katherine took much comfort from age 5 months until 8 years of age in a bunny rabbit with a satin body that she would rub against her cheek. Fisher Price no longer makes these (though vintage ones sell on E-Bay for over $150) but Katherine managed to find a “My First Blankie” lamb which was along the same lines.

Katherine’s visit was especially well timed as it coincided with Allen’s return to work and Owen latest phase of refusing to nap during the day. Aunt Katherine made a perfect resting place for Owen while I sneaked in a shower and breakfast. Unfortunately, Katherine leaves tomorrow morning at which point my showering options will be seriously curtailed.

Monday, September 04, 2006

On Our Own

Grandma Zimmerman left on Saturday, leaving Allen, Elaine & Owen to fend for themselves (though to be honest, Owen hasn’t been picking up much of the slack). Having had a third set of hands to hold and change Owen, as well as do laundry, clean, and make the occasional meal spoiled us a bit, but we’ve been muddling through (then again, it’s only been 36 hours). We’re hoping if nothing else, this will help in the transition to when Allen goes back to work next week, though the logic of how losing help eases the loss of more help in the future seems somewhat flawed, it made lots of sense when Allen explained it at 2 in the morning.

Instead of pining over the loss of his Grandma, Owen’s kept pretty busy: He’s had a bath, met Brad & Marlo Brown and Emilie Raguso, gone on his first walk to Lincoln Park (where he met DC Mayoral candidate Linda Cropp) and went to Mom Mom’s (aka Grandma Fawcett) for the first time. All of this activity has been wonderful for stimulating little Owen’s mind, but not so good for inducing him to sleep. As a result, we’re hoping for an extremely boring Labor Day.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

100!

We just changed Owen's 100th diaper! At this rate we'll hit number 1,000 by December 1st, and 1,310 by the end of the year. Keep on poop'n little guy!

Friday, September 01, 2006

In My Dreams...

I dream of crying babies, and they've invaded Elaine's dreams as well. In those blissful few moments after Owen has finally drifted off to sleep, what does my exhausted mind choose to subject me to? More crying, and the crying is accompanied by strange abstract images that don't specifically resemble babies, but give the distinct impression of a baby's movement just as it startles itself and begins the jerky arm and leg movements that accompany a crying jag.

Now this has happened to me before, not so much with the babies, but with Edgeworth boxes and separating hyperplanes. The summer after my first year in grad school, when I was studying 18 hours a day for my micro and macro comps, the equations and formulas that filled my days also permeated my dreams. (Also, for a short time during my third year in grad school, thanks to Bill and John, all my dreams were about Quake, but that's another story).

What surprises me about the latest set of dreams is that for the most part, my days are not filled with crying babies. So far, thankfully, Owen hasn't been very colicky. Most of his crying has been of the "I'm hungry", "I'm wet", "I'm poopy", "I need to be burped", "I want to be held", or "I want to feel like I'm back in the womb" varieties. Figure out what he wants, satisfy his needs, and he's happy again. Occasionally though, he cries for reasons I can't decipher, and that can leave quite an impression on your mind, particularly when it happens at 3 am.

From an evolutionary perspective, we're all programmed to find our infants adorable and to hark to their every cry. They're relatively helpless in this world, and if we didn't jump at their every cry, they'd end up starving and we'd be eaten by the lions. So when he drifts off to sleep, and I begin to follow, it's not a contentedly sleeping baby that joins me in my dreams, but the cry that calls me to action.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Suckers

The mantra of lactation consultants is that one must avoid nipple confusion at all costs, at least in the case of newborns. This means that the introduction of bottles, pacifiers and any other objects other than the mother’s breast designed to be placed in your child’s mouth to stop them from crying are strongly frowned upon. No one really says what the repercussions of being nipple confused is, but the implication is no good and will invariably involve some sort of therapy in adulthood.

Now we really want Owen to have nipple clarity and had decided that we would not introduce a pacifier for at least one month and delay introducing a bottle until sometime after that, but then came his third night home from the hospital. For reasons that still elude us, Owen decided that the hours between midnight and four in the morning should be spent either breast feeding or screaming. We tried walking. We tried swaddling. We tried rocking. We tried singing. We tried various combinations of all of these and nothing seemed to help. Finally, at 3:30 am Elaine decided to go boil a pacifier. Allen wanted to hold off and desperately searched on-line for some alternative remedy, but by the time Elaine returned with the sterilized pacifier Allen had given up and offered the forbidden fruit to our son.

Which he summarily and immediately rejected.

To be honest, we hadn’t considered that as a possible outcome. The pacifier was our nuclear option which would insure peace but may also involve quite a bit of fallout. Having weighed the pros and cons and decided to go for it, we just assumed it would work. As our son spit it out and continued to wail and scream we just looked at each other, horrified, and contemplating what to do next.

Eventually, Owen fell asleep and we got a few hours as well. The next day we wondered about our folly and what it said about us as parents that we had caved so quickly and to no purpose. Allen called his friend Nabeel who has a 1 ½ year old and asked his opinion about pacifiers. While Nabeel maintained they held out for three weeks (though his wife Megan called the next day and corrected him that the initial introduction was more like five days) their philosophy was that given you can’t boil their fingers, a sterilized pacifier isn’t the worst thing in the world.


Saturday, August 26, 2006

Homecoming

We intended to have a lengthy entry detailing Owen’s homecoming the day it happened. Unfortunately, since it didn’t happen until 10 pm on Wednesday, August 23rd, we put it off thinking we’d have more energy later. Yes, yes, our naiveté really is quite endearing.

Anyway, in addition to Allen’s nose, hair and eyes, Owen seems to have inherited his Daddy’s blood type. Unfortunately, this means that he doesn’t have his Mommy’s which meant that Owen was prone to developing jaundice. Sure enough, the eyes and nose that everyone thinks resemble Allen’s started turning yellow.

Standard care for newborn jaundice is phototherapy, which for Owen meant either being put in a "bili-bed" where his body is encased in a gown and he’s under lit from below, or being placed in something akin to a tanning bed and wearing little baby goggles. Given Owen’s reaction, neither is particularly pleasant from a baby’s point of view. Since he wasn’t embracing the standard of care, he wasn’t really improving that much and so the powers that be were discussing the very real possibility of not discharging him until Thursday or Friday.

We had mixed emotions with regard to this because while we both wanted to get Owen home, the idea of another night of having the wonderfully helpful nurses around…. The latest Elaine could stay at the hospital was Thursday and so we both felt strongly that Owen needed to leave by Thursday. Meanwhile, Allen’s softball team’s playoff game was scheduled for Wednesday night, and since we’d already spent most of the day in the hospital, he thought it wouldn’t be too terrible for Owen and Mommy to stay over for one more night and for Daddy to get to play with Bad Air Daze.

Eventually, Owen finished his treatments and his bilirubin blood count appeared to be in order, but the phototest was still above the acceptable range, so the hospital had to rerun the blood test to determine if he could be released. They finally decided at 3 pm (5 hours after the usual discharge time) that he could go home.

However, because of all the phototherapy, Owen wasn’t able to have another procedure take place, a fact that the nurses forgot until we reminded them. Scheduling circumcisions is not as easy task (which I suppose might be seen as a good thing) and Owen’s was all the more complicated as the doctor that was planning on doing it had to perform three emergency C-sections that same afternoon.

This presented a bit of a moral dilemma, because do you really want a doctor that’s performed three back-to-back surgeries to be anywhere near your son’s genitalia at seven o’clock at night? Moreover, do you want your son’s first night at home to be after such a traumatic day? Now, with all the waiting, Allen missed his softball game (and without their captain, Bad Air Daze lost 21 - 19), but hopefully things will have calmed down enough next week for him to play in the season-ending "Beer Cup".

In the end, Owen went home with us at 10 pm on the 23rd of August and slept for the first time in our room. And while it wasn’t entirely peaceful, it certainly was emotional, and it was definitely a very special moment that we will cherish the rest of our lives.


(click here to see the photos from Owen's first few days in the hospital, and here to see pictures of him at home)

Monday, August 21, 2006

Owen Grady Fawcett

Yesterday (August 20th, 2006), at 2:50 pm Owen Grady Fawcett joined our family. Defying the dire predictions from our sonogram, he was 7 lbs 15 ozs, and 20 1/2 inches long. He was born via Cesarean section, and mom and baby are both doing well.



Our good friend Nabeel over at Start-Up Dad got the scoop with the first picture of Owen online, and a day later, here's a bit more of the story. If you don't want to read me droning on about all the details, you can skip to the good stuff at the bottom of the post were there is a link to all the pictures.

On Friday, Elaine went to the doctor's office, and she said that Elaine was only dilated 1 cm (which was 1 cm less than the previous week!), so she went ahead and scheduled an induction for Tuesday, August 22nd. At this point we were pretty convinced the baby was never going to come on its own, all the crazy new due dates the sonograms had indicated had long since come and gone, and having already been on the edges of our seats for over three weeks, Tuesday couldn't come soon enough.

So on Saturday, Elaine and her mom went to see 'Little Miss Sunshine' and I took Elaine's dad sailing with Don and Brad & Marlo. We all had lovely afternoons, I'm told the movie was great, and the wind and weather were perfect for a wonderful sail. That evening we all converged on Mom's house for grilled salmon and peach & blueberry cobbler. However, right as the salmon was coming off of the grill at about 7:15, Elaine's water broke!

We took a little time to decide that it actually must of been her water breaking, and then called the doctor's office. The advice nurse told us to have Elaine lay on her side for an hour and call back to tell them if the towel under her was soaked. So we had Elaine lie down, and I started wolfing down some delicious bbq salmon. A few minutes later, the nurse called back and told us that the doctor wanted us to just head right in to the hospital. I inhaled some cobbler, we rushed down to our place to pick up the bags, drove over to the hospital timing Elaine's contractions at about 7 minutes apart, and checked in a little after 9:00 pm.

The resident that examined Elaine found that she was still only dilated 1 cm. Then she preformed several tests to verify that Elaine's water had indeed broken, but they all were coming up negative, so she talked to the attending physician, and he requested that Elaine walk the halls for two hours with a pad to try to verify the presence of amniotic fluid. This of course annoyed Elaine to no end, since she clearly knew that her water had broken, one of the test was ridiculously painful, and each hour she had to walk around was another hour without any pain medication to help with the contractions.

At 12:15 am, after walking the halls for an hour, we decide to go back to the labor & delivery room and tell them Elaine wasn't going to walk the halls any more. Her contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasting over a minute, and becoming very painful. Another resident checked her pad, and immediately could tell that Elaine's water had indeed broken, so they finally officially admitted her. They gave her some medication for pain and nausea, which helped some and at least allowed her to rest between contractions, and measured her cervix at 3 cms. At about 3 am, after Elaine's blood work came back, they finally gave her an epidural to help with the pain. This really helped Elaine sleep, but I was pretty much up for the night.

As a little aside, I really can't imagine how women that go through child birth without any medication can manage it. I've heard plenty of arguments for natural child birth that I won't link to here, because I don't want to start any debates about it in this forum, but for Elaine, the epidural was amazing. It took away all the pain, and let her actually sleep, saving her energy for what was to come. Before the epidural, I'd be watching the contraction monitor and it felt like riding a roller coaster. We'd ride up to the top of each peak with Elaine's vice like grip squeezing my hand, and I'd desperately watch for a slight dip in the monitor that would indicate her pain was about to subside. Each contraction was a traumatic event that seemed to stretch out time, and the thought of continuing this for 15 more hours was unimaginable. After the epidural, the pain went away, and I'd watch the same contractions on the monitor, and it's as if they were gentle waves that simply were rocking Elaine to sleep. She was relaxed, and the contractions could do their work without Elaine tensing up and resisting them. That being said, there were certainly times when the epidural would ware off, and I am incredibly impressed with how well Elaine did throughout the whole experience, I couldn't be prouder of her.

Around 7:00 am, the attending physician came in and found Elaine to be dilated 5 cms. He said that the contractions Elaine was experiencing were coming in overlapping waves that didn't let her fully recover between contractions, so they were not being as effective as they could be. He adjusted her pitocin dosage and watched as her contractions spaced out into a more effective rhythm.

By 9:00 am Elaine was dilated 7 cms, but after that things began to stall. At 12:30 pm, the new attending physician checked and found she was only 8 cms. The contractions were strong and in a good pattern, so he said if things were going to progress, she should have been dilating another centimeter each hour. He gave us the choice between going right in for a C-section, or trying for another hour, and we decided to try for another hour. At 1:30 pm, Elaine was still only 8 cms, so they began prepping for the Cesarean section. I went to the recovery room to get dressed in scrubs while they took Elaine to the O.R. to prep her for surgery. After she was prepped, they brought me into the O.R. and sat by Elaine's head as they began the operation.

It wasn't long before I saw a little purple cone-headed creature emerge from behind the screen at 2:50 pm. They suctioned out his airways, and as he began to cry my tears joined him. He quickly turned form purple to pink, and after the pediatrician checked him out and the nurse cleaned up his poop and swaddled him, I held my baby for the first time. They still need to finish the operation, so for the next twenty minutes I held Owen near Elaine's head so she could see him, and bonded with my son. It's hard to describe the emotions of holding your child for the first time, but there is something very intense and primal about it. The same instincts that helped our distant ancestors protect their offspring in the wild are with us today, and as I held Owen and looked into his eyes I was overcome with feelings of love and an urge to protect this helpless little guy from all the dangers of the world.

After they sewed up Elaine, they put Owen on her chest and mom and baby were together again. They wheeled her out to the recovery room, and both of Owen's grandmothers were there waiting with tears in their eyes, smiles on their faces, and cameras in hand.

I'll leave the story here for now, and let the pictures that follow and the many phone calls with family and friends document the rest of the day. I'm off to hold my son...

click here to see all the pictures.

(Note: some of the baby pictures are only viewable by friends and family. In order to see these pictures, you need to have a flickr account, and I need to mark you as one of my friends or family contacts. To sign up for a flickr account (it's free), click here, then if you already have a Yahoo! account, sign in with your user name and password, if not, then click on the "sign up" link. Once you're logged into your account click here to view my profile, and in the upper right hand portion of the page click on "add allen fawcett as a contact." On the next page, check the "Mark as a friend? (optional)" or "Mark as a family? (optional)" check boxes and then click the "ok" button.)

click here to see mom's pictures.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Still Waiting...

Long walks, speed bumps, bribery, we're trying everything we can think of to convince the baby it's time to come out, but so far none of it is working. Last night we promised the baby ice cream if it would just be born, and it responded with some vigorous kicking, but resolutely stayed inside. Then we tried to convince the baby that it should come out now and not risk a lifetime of mommy resenting it for subjecting her to an extra week of pregnancy, but I think the baby's rate of time preference is pretty high and it's willing to give up an awful lot of future utility for a few more days of fetal bliss. This morning we had another doctors appointment, and she said that Elaine was dilated 2 centimeters. Then she tried to 'stir things up', which I'm not sure is an official medical procedure, but with any luck it will help move things along. I know lots of you are hoping the baby will be here soon too, so if you have any helpful suggestions or stories, be they humorous or serious, feel free to relay them in the comments section.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Hot and Heavy


As the temperatures here in DC are climbing up over the 100 degree mark, we have the results in from the latest sonogram, and the news is big. The technician estimated that the baby is already about 9 pounds! Now the reliability of these sonogram based weight estimates is somewhat questionable, and we can add another layer of doubt with the technician's somewhat uncertain metric to english units conversion, but given all the other hints along the way, we're taking this as confirmation of a big addition to our family. Needless to say, Elaine is not terribly thrilled with being 9 months pregnant with a 9 pound Fawcett baby in the midst of one of the worst Washington heat waves in recent memory, but I'm not sure she's quite ready for the alternative. Elaine's Mom is flying into town on Sunday, so right now we're just hoping that both the baby and Elaine are able to stay inside until then.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

'Three Weeks' or 'Any Day Now'

Today is the earliest of the various due dates we’ve been given, and while we don’t think the baby is actually coming today (knock on wood), we certainly are entering the period where our cell phones need to be charged and at the ready at all times. The doctor has assured us (if you can call it that) that due date from the first sonogram is the most reliable, and that due date was consistent with our Naegele's rule due date of August 16th. She says that that the earlier due dates the sonogram technicians have given us are more of an indication that the baby is big than anything else, and she's scheduled another sonogram to help us find out just how big the baby is. Even so, we know plenty of people who’s babies have arrived three weeks early, and in addition to today being our “early due date”, today is exactly three weeks from our original due date of August 16th. So when is the baby coming? Who knows, but I guarantee you that one way or another, it’s going to be a long three weeks ahead of us.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Showers and a Shower

The last few weeks here in DC have been filled with all kinds of showers. I was conveniently in South Africa for the record rainfall that soaked DC with over 7 inches of rain on June 26th, but thankfully our new house weathered the storm and was none the worse for wear. That record setting rainfall was just the beginning, as torrential thunderstorms continued to roll through the area for the next couple of weeks.

After I returned form Cape Town, we had our first house guests in our new home as my cousin Leanna & her husband Troy drove out from Iowa to visit us. They braved the heat and the ever present thunderstorms to explore the monuments and museums of DC. On the 4th, we waited until after the storms had rolled through, and then ventured down to the Capitol lawn to watch the fireworks while listening to the National Symphony Orchestra play Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. My sister flew into town on Thursday, and after a quick visit to Pasadena, we went to Mom & Don's for some delicious pizzas on the grill.

Saturday we were showered with presents instead of rain. Nancy & Danny hosted a wonderful casino night shower for us, and the real hit of the night was my sister's superb blackjack dealing. Katherine kept the bets flowing even as she busted player after player and raked in the money for the house. Of course the house's take went to the baby, so it was all together a very successful shower.

(click here to see pictures, or here for the slideshow)
(click here for a video of the fireworks)
(click here to see Don's pictures from the shower)
(I'll add a link to Leanna's pictures here when she sends them;-)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Cape Town


Last week I traveled to the continent of Africa for the first time in my life. I went to Cape Town to present a couple of papers at the International Energy Workshop. The conference was great, but what made it worthwhile to fly 28 hours to get there was the trip to the top of Table Mountain. Geoff Blanford (who I went to High School with, and now we both work on issues relating to climate change, so we run into each other at conferences a fair amount) and I took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain on Wednesday. We were up on top for almost two hours, plenty of time to explore the mountain and appreciate the views of the Cape of Good Hope, the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, Lions Head, Devils Peak, Robben Island, and Cape Town itself. We stayed on top of the mountain for sunset and were treated to some spectacular views of the warm evening light illuminating the low clouds that were starting to roll in over the Cape.

The other great part of the trip to Cape Town was watching the World Cup. Of course I was in South Africa exactly four years too soon, but watching the action in Germany with a bunch of South Africans amped about their chance to host the World Cup in 2010 was truly exciting. I've been out of the country for at least part of the last three World Cups now (I was in England and France in '98, and in Cozumel in '02), and it's always great to be abroad in order to really feel how passionate the rest of the world is about the soccer. On my return flight, my layover in Johannesburg coincided with the second half of the Germany vs. Argentina quarter-final match. The whole airport was riveted to every available screen and the roars that were let loose as Argentina scored to take a 1-0 lead and as Germany scored in the closing minutes to tie the game were tremendous. As time expired and the match was sent into extra time, I had to board my flight and endure an 18 hour flight without knowing how the match ended. Upon landing in New York, I was able to read about Germany's 4-2 win on penalty kicks, but the buzz was gone from the atmosphere. By the time I arrived at National in DC, the England vs. Portugal match had already begun, but the only television showing it was a little 4" portable TV by the shoe-shine stand. Soccer in the US still has a long ways to go.

(click here to see all the pictures, or here for the slideshow.)

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Super Powers?

I'm beginning to think our baby may have super powers. At the very least I suspect the baby may have some sort of super strength or size, and there is a distinct possibility of super speed, or maybe even the power of time-travel or even control of the very fabric of space and time.

Some explanation is probably in order. Last Friday Elaine and I went in for her third sonogram, and something about it was very shocking to us and left us grasping for some sort of explanation. That night, my sister came over to see our new house with Lee and his daughter Mikalah. Since we don't have too many toys yet for Mikalah to play with, I popped in The Incredibles DVD and played a few of the shorts on it, including Jack-Jack Attack, which features a baby with a remarkable array of superpowers. That's when I realized that if our baby had super powers, I could make sense of the news from the sonogram earlier that day.

So what was the shocking news from the sonogram? Our baby's new due date is July 26th! Readers of this blog are probably well aware that our baby's original due date was August 16th, and after the second sonogram, the due date was moved up 10 days to August 6th. Now the due date is a full three weeks earlier than we originally thought!

A little note on how due dates are calculated might be helpful to fully understand my super powers hypothesis. The first due date you are given is calculated using Naegele's Rule, which works by subtracting three months from the first day of the mother's last menstrual period and then adding seven days to that date. The rule assumes that conception occurs two weeks after the first day of the mother's last menstrual period, so the pregnancy lasts approximately 40 weeks, with two of those weeks occurring before conception. For Elaine, we subtracted three months from November 9th, added seven days, and came up with our original due date of August 16th. After our second sonogram, the doctor gave us a new due date, August 6th, based on the observed development of the baby. We had been surprised by how quickly Elaine became pregnant when we first found out, and even more amazed how quickly we conceived after the due date was first moved up. This new due date is simply incredible in that it implies the baby was conceived before Elaine's last period and 10 days before we even started trying!

So how do we explain this turn of events? I haven't consulted the doctor doctor on this hypothesis, but as I stated at the beginning of this post, I believe the most likely explanation is some sort of super power. Super powers could allow the baby to travel through time or alter the fabric of space-time to dramatically move up the due date, or some sort of super strength or speed could explain the baby's incredibly rapid development. Of course Occam's razor may favor a more prosaic explanation, but however you slice it we're now less certain about when this baby will come than we ever were, and as for how big this baby will be, for Elaine's sake it's best not to think about it.

3rd-Sonogram

Monday, June 05, 2006

Chicago Shower

Elaine and I flew out to Chicago last weekend to visit Dave & Kara and Steve, Becky, Olivia, Maura and Sam. Elaine's parents flew up from Dallas, and a whole host of Gradys descended upon Steve & Becky's house for our first baby shower. We're now well stocked with crib sheets and onesies, and I learned another benefit of keeping the sex of the baby a surprise, we're guaranteed to be able to use all of our shower presents for any future children since all our presents were gender neutral. Thankfully, we only received one loud annoying toy, a baby cell phone that beeps a little tune whenever it is moved, doesn't have an off switch, and has 'non-replaceable batteries' which can't be removed. Of course we can't really be annoyed by the toy since Maura, our adorable two year old niece, picked it out. We probably deserve a few more toys of the loud and grating variety in retubution for the toy grill Elaine gave Olivia a few years back, which in addition to making all sorts of noise over its useful lifetime, decided to periodically announce its batteries were running out with a series of various beeps and grunts. All told we had a lovely time in Chicago, and it was great to be able to see that side of the family one more time before the baby arrives.

(Click here for all the pictures, or here for the slideshow)

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

The Big Move

We're not quite moved in to our new house, but we are finally moved out of our old place. Most of the month of May was spent slowly moving over car loads of boxes over to the new house, and putting in new hardwood floors upstairs. The hardwoods were finished while we were off at Joe's graduation, over Memorial Day weekend we were finally ready for the big move. With quite a bit of help from our friends last Saturday, we rented a truck and moved all of our bulky furniture the 1.7 miles from our old apartment to our new house. Jeff's expert moving skills (hard earned over several summers on the William & Mary moving crew) contributed to a very well packed truck and kept the number of trips to a minimum. We managed to not work anyone too hard and before too long we were breaking out the beer and burgers for our first bbq on our new back deck.

We spent the rest of the long weekend beginning the long process of unpacking and moving the few small things we had left. Mom and Don helped with transplanting all the plants from our old garden to our new front yard, and on Tuesday night Elaine and I cleaned our old place from top to bottom and said goodbye to our old home. Now we can begin the process of getting the house ready for the baby!

(click here to see all the pictures, or here for the slideshow)

Monday, May 22, 2006

Doctor Doctor

After 26 years of education, our good friend Joe has finally finished school and officially become the most educated person we know (Douglas’ JD/PhD falls to number two, and our PhD’s look like chump change compared to the double doctor). UVA granted him the MD portion of his MD/PhD over the weekend, and Joe and Cate were kind enough to invite us down for the celebration along with some of the Mettenburg and McConnel clans. Knowing that Charlottesville would be a madhouse over graduation weekend, they wisely rented the beautiful Hensley Hollow Lodge out near the Shenandoah National Park for us all to stay in for the weekend. The view was wonderful, and we all enjoyed the meals, the campfire, playing bridge, and the perfect weather. There were some great places to hike, but Elaine and I quickly found out it that it’s best to leave the hiking to the folks who aren’t six months pregnant. Some folks were lucky enough to see a black bear near the house, and others took advantage of the Newtonian reflector and gazed at the Galilean moons. We couldn’t have asked for better accommodations.

On Sunday we ventured back to Charlottesville for the graduation festivities. With pomp and circumstance, Joe officially entered into the practice of medicine, and we all could begin pestering him to diagnose and fix all our little ailments. Of course there was a little twinge of sadness about the ceremony, since graduation meant that Joe and Cate would be departing Charlottesville soon for the gateway to the west, St. Louis. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of chances to meet up in Iowa, and future versions of the beach trip will bring us all together, but we’ll certainly miss having such extraordinary friends close enough for a spur of the moment weekend visit.

(click here to see all the pictures, or here for the slideshow)

Monday, April 17, 2006

Our New House

Elaine and I took the plunge the other day and dove into the world of home ownership. (More properly speaking, we're in the process of taking the plunge, we don't have the keys yet, but we've signed so many things I've developed a case of writer's cramp and a slight fear about the ownership of my soul.) We decided to stay in the city and postpone the inevitable move to the suburbs until our little one starts school or can push a lawn mower, whichever comes first.

The house is about five blocks north of Lincoln Park, a.k.a stroller central, and less than a mile from "grandpa" Fawcett's place. We won't be as close to a metro as we are now, but Elaine will still be able to walk to work, and there is a bus that runs pretty much straight from the house to my work, so our commutes should be alright. There are a few projects on our list already, but for the most part the house is ready to move into (which is a good thing since Joe and Cate are conveniently moving to St. Louis before we can put them to work). We'll be moving sometime in early May, and I'm sure a lot of you in DC will be roped into lifting some boxes since Elaine won't be able to carry much. For all the movers, we promise to provide beer and snacks, and sometime between moving in and baby's arrival we'll try to throw a little house warming party.

(click here to see more pictures of the house, or here for the slideshow)

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Sonogram

On Friday we went in for a sonogram and we had a little surprise. The nurse told us that based on the sonogram, Elaine was not 20 weeks pregnant, but almost 22 weeks pregnant. So, we've revised the baby countdown to reflect our baby's new August 6th due date. Having heard a few too many stories about how large my dad was when he was born (over 11 lbs), Elaine wasn't completely convinced of the new due date. Her fear, which the nurse didn't dismiss, is that she's still only 20 weeks pregnant with what is going to be a gigantic baby.

Whatever size the baby ends up being, we still don't know the sex. As I've mentioned before, we're planning on being surprised, but I did my best to try to figure it out during the sonogram. On of my co-workers at EPA and his wife are expecting a baby about the same time as Elaine and I, and he brought in the pictures from their sonogram earlier in the week. They're having a girl, and he pointed out exactly what to look for, so I wasn't going in completely blind. My inexpert opinion is that it looked like a boy (and I hope I'm right, because I don't want to have to tell our daughter what I thought I saw). I don't think you can actually tell the sex from the pictures they printed out for us, but if you feel like hazarding a guess, feel free to post it in the comments.

The sonogram went well, everything looked healthy to the doctors, even if it looked like something painted by Edvard Munch to us. They printed out a few still pictures from the sonogram, the middle to pictures are actually pretty nice profiles of the baby. The top picture is a bit more abstract, but you can make out the head and body. Of the bottom picture, Jeff put it best saying that it looks like our baby is a member of The Misfits.


Sunday, March 12, 2006

Baby's First Rock Concert

Some expecting parents play Mozart for their unborn child, and while that would seem very appropriate in this the 250th year since Mozart's birth, we've taken a slightly different tack in our baby's prenatal musical exposure. Last weekend we took our baby to his or her first prenatal rock concert at the 930 club, a fantastic double billing of The New Pornographers and Belle & Sebastian, and I'd like to think our little peanut was rocking out to Testament to Youth in Verse, The Laws Have Changed, and The Stars of Track & Field. It's probably a bit of a stretch to believe that playing music for your unborn child will have any affect on it's intelligence, but I am holding out hope that we can affect our baby's taste in music. If only we were going to SXSW again this year, we'd really have a chance to turn our baby into a little hipster.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

The Baby Bug is Spreading

Congratulations to our friends Channing and Kelly down in Austin, they have a new healthy nine pound baby boy! We're sure he'll grow up to be every bit the rock star that his dad is. Congratulations are also in order for our Houston friends Bill & Katherine, they called the other day with a little bit of exciting news, they're expecting a baby too! Katherine is due about two weeks after Elaine, so it's nice that Elaine has a friend going through some of the same things.

We've been thinking about going back to Texas in May to visit folks, and there certainly would be some great photo opportunities, but Elaine's not sure she'll be up for flying that late in the pregnancy. Last weekend we flew up to Boston with Joe & Cate to visit Nabeel, Megan, and Kaden as well as Billy, and the flight was a bit rough. 55 mph wind gusts in Boston forced us to circle for almost an hour with some heavy turbulence, and that quickly disabused Elaine of the notion that the she left the morning sickness behind with the first trimester.

Despite the rough flight, we had a great time in Boston. It was fun seeing Kaden again, and I don't care what CBS news says, it really was exciting to see him up and walking around. (I won't get into the whole daddy blog debate here, you can follow the links and read all about it over at Start-Up Dad or Daddy Types. Needless to say this blog is simply designed to share pictures and stories with family and friends, not to earn a million dollars or impress CBS). Billy served up a served up a bounty of McDonalds and donuts for Sunday brunch (thankfully he also made omelets). We played some poker, visited some museums, and toured Nabeel and Megan's new house. Of course that's now set off our own home search back here in DC, but that's a whole different story.

(click here to see my pictures from Boston, or here for the slideshow)
(click here to see Nabeel's pictures, or here for the slideshow)

Thursday, February 16, 2006

What's in a Name?

Elaine and I have a few ideas for names that we've been kicking around for some time now, but we haven't quite found that name that we just know is right. Unlike some of our friends, we haven't always known the perfect name for our child. Brandon & Anneke have already staked out "F. Loyd" for a potential baby (the 'F' stands for Furious), and our friend Ross Lord long ago laid claim to the names "Over," "Drug," "My," and "Crime" for his children (of course Ross has a similarly interesting name in that if the right 18 people die he would become "Lord Ross Lord, Lord of Ross").

So in the interest of expanding our horizons and seeing if there is some name out there that we haven't thought about yet, but would be perfect for our child, we're opening up the comment section of this post for a baby name contest! The grand prize of course is us using your suggestion for our baby's name. However, we reserve the right to stick with a name of our own choosing (who knows what you folks will come up with), in which case the winner gets to tell our child, "you were almost named (your suggestion here!)"

To kick things off, here's one of the suggestions we've already received from Elaine's uncle Pete:

Nothing is "sweeter" than a boy named "Peter." Or neater. Or, for those who work at Wal-Mart, a better greeter. PLUS, naming a child Peter has the added advantage of being able to tell everyone that the name was in honor of Allen's anatomy.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Reactions

One of the best things about finally being able to tell everyone we're expecting is seeing the wide range of reactions. Our friends that already have babies are some of the most thrilled about the news. You could almost hear the chanting, "one of us, one of us," a palpable excitement that we've joined the ranks of the breeders. Nabeel already has a post over on 'Start-Up Dad' about the news, and 'Marginal Benefit' has been added to the list of 'Daddy Blogs.' On the other hand our single friends have tended to be happy for us, but a bit freaked out about the news. Maybe it's a little mix of making them feel older and our impending lack of freedom to hang out as often as we'd like.

Of course Joe & Cate weren't at all surprised, and Elaine's mom seemed to have a pretty good inkling about what was happening, but for the most part people were impressed with how well we kept the secret. My sister was completely shocked, and I think somewhat relieved that the baby will distract our extended family from trying to convince her to get married this summer. Dad was just thrilled that he's going to be a grandfather, and my grandfather was simply happy that the day didn't go by without some interesting news. As for Mom's reaction, since Katherine couldn't be in town, she convinced me I should get a video of Mom finding out she's going to be a grandmother. So here it is:



There's a little more to this story, I had posted the news to the blog before we told Mom, so when we went over for my birthday brunch, there was a slim chance that Mom had already stumbled across the news. When we got there I did a quick check of the computer and noticed that someone had looked at the blog that morning, but since Mom was acting so calm, I assumed that Don must have been the one that read the blog. It turns out that Don had read the blog not long before we got there, and upon seeing the news he yelled for Mom to come over and see something. With a little bit of quick thinking and clicking, he decided that it was best to keep the secret from Mom a little longer, so he quickly closed the browser before Mom got to the computer, made up some excuse for calling her over, and left to go walk the dog so he wouldn't spoil the surprise. As you can see from the video, she didn't suspect a thing.