Meet our niece Melanie

As John mentioned in an earlier post, our niece was born on Monday morning. She's a beautiful baby, born at 9 lbs 2.4oz and measuring 22.5"! However, their first week checkup she measured 20.5" (so we're not real sure...)

Last 'Great Beginnings' Class

Today was the last day of our 'Great Beginnings' class at the local maternity store. It's been a pretty great experience for both Davis and me. Each class included an introduction, where all the moms shared the changes the babies experienced in the last week, followed by a topic of the day (for example sleep or physical development), led by the instructor. Typically, we would also learn a few songs or games and then it would close out with an open discussion based between the moms (like how is everyone dealing with their new body or what are their plans for returning to work). Lucky for Davis his mom finally learned some kids songs (he loves 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'). Most weeks we would also go to lunch at a local restaurant. It was a great group of women (some of whom I shared more of a natural connection than others...and it turns out someone having gone to MIT as an undergrad is almost a sure way of guaranteeing that I won't connect well with them). Since it was the last class, we have pictures (two moms and babies are missing and Davis is the one in stripes and a moose on his shirt)! Sorry the pictures are blurry, I try not to use a flash with babies. Just an update, Davis was 12 lbs 8 oz of last Thursday at his doctor's appointment, and Tuesday, not even a week later, he was 13 lbs 8 oz. Yowza! He's now moving into 6month clothes. John and I stocked up on 6 month clothes, but they're all long sleeve/full leg outfits since he's not six months old until October! We'll be doing some shopping this weekend it looks like.

Weekend Update

This weekend went by in a blur. Davis' sleep schedule, or lack of a sleep schedule, has Kristen and I both a little frazzled. Not frustrated, just unable to remember anything for any period of time. This makes reporting on the weekend a little hard, but I'll give it a shot.

Saturday, Kristen and Davis went to visit a a graduated friend from her department in Weston where she lives with her husband, cat, chickens and two beautiful daughters. Kristen was ostensibly returning borrowed maternity clothes, but it was also a great chance to get out of the house, see a chicken coop (very exciting for us) and take Davis on a "play date". While Kristen was out, I went for a mountain bike ride in the Fells with a friend. I was a great day for a ride and we saw two good sized snapping turtles meandering along the trails. The rest of the day, as far as I can remember it, we spent doing chores, playing with Davis, running errands and entertaining cats. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but like I said, it was a blur.

Sunday, we had been hoping to leave Davis with Grammie for a few hours and head out for a bike ride together, but the weather didn't cooperate. We had a nice breakfast, then my Mom and I headed to REI and the garden store for some shopping. After we got back, Kristen and I walked to Arlington center with Davis to get out of the house and relax (note: shopping is not relaxing, walking is relaxing). Kristen carried Davis for almost the whole trip which was great progress. Usually, he is only happy being carried for at most 10 minutes before he gets very fussy, but he was happy being carried for almost 30 minutes. Sunday night, ran a few more errands before we went over to our friends Dave and Megan's for dinner. Megan made a sinfully delicous lasagna and we even managed to have some conversations about things other than how awesome Davis is.

The big achievement Sunday was with Lilly. Kristen has previously classified the levels of Lilly's affection, but I don't think she mentioned that for the past several years, part of our bedtime routine has been Lilly coming to bed with us and ferociously cuddling with Kristen several times a night. Usually this involves Lilly curling up in Kristen arms and kneading, licking, and purring herself to sleep. Over the past several years, I've been on the receiving end of a few of these cuddles (mainly when Kristen is away). With Davis' arrival, we've been mostly keeping our door closed and night and as Kristen pointed out before, Lilly has generally been keeping her distance from Davis and us. However, last night marked the first night time cuddle with her in a long time. I think the secret was for me to get up at midnight, pet Lilly just enough to get her really excited then go back to bed.

Up and down day

Today was a day of high and lows for me. This weekend, upgrading my desktop computer failed and I ended up having to re-install the operating system (it wasn't Windows by the way). In this process, I ended up reformatting my drives, which I thought wasn't a big deal since I've been diligent about creating regular backups to two external usb hard drives, one of which I keep at work and swap every month. However, today I took at look at the backups and a) the two disks have radically different files and b) I have no pictures since September 2008. Needless to say, this was the low of my day. Fortunately, I made a DVD of a bunch of pictures when Kristen's parents were here and we have the pictures we've uploaded to Picasa and that are still on our camera, but a lot of great pictures are just gone.

The high of my day was finding out that I'm an uncle. My brother James and his wife Stephanie welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Melanie, into the world at 8:30 this morning (pacific time) after a long and tough labor. I've been really excited ever since we found out they were in labor last night and I can't wait to meet my niece. I have a niece, how cool is that.

Davis turns two (months)

Today marks Davis' two month birthday (calendar months that is). We celebrated it with a visit to the pediatrician's office and his first shots. I forced John into coming too since I knew I wasn't going to be able to stand watching him get shots (and I was right). I think we're all still recovering (Grammie and John had to deal with the aftermath since I headed to the office after the appointment). The good news is he's growing beautifully. Our big boy is now 23" and 12.5 lbs and seems to be developing all the skills he should at this age. I don't know that she believes he spends most of his day (including 3am) smiling. I can't believe I found myself telling my son not to be smiling at 3am, that he should be sleeping. What a precious little guy he is though, but he seems to want to wake up to play at 3am every night. Ugh. Grammie wonders if he's taking cues from the cats.

Today was my first day (afternoon really) back at the office since two days before he was born. It was good to ease back into it. I checked out the ladies lounge where I can pump and caught up with my officemates and our group admin. I also managed about 20minutes of work (and I saw my undergraduate researcher). A few things struck me though since this is my first time doing things since I was pregnant:

• I don't need to use the elevator anymore! I caught myself hitting the button and realized there was no reason I needed to take the elevator anymore. (In fact, I figure I really should be taking the stairs at this point).
  
• I reclaimed my chair from my officemate. I think at about 8 months pregnant, my normally great office chair started to kill my back, so I switched chairs. I felt kind of bad reclaiming it so soon, but I had warned him!
• I can stand on the subway again! Good thing, since it was packed.
• I didn't have to remove layers of clothes on the subway because I was running an extra 10degrees warmer.
  
• I can run for the bus! (Which, I had to do). My lungs felt like they were going to burst, but I made the bus.
  

Grateful audience of one

It's been a while since my last post. Davis, John and I have just been enjoying life together as a family. Our big adventure of the weekend was a wedding! Our friends Bill and Sonya were married in a very small ceremony at a local park followed by a fantastic lunch at Oleana in Cambridge. John and I had never been there before, but the food was fabulous. Technically, we were the wedding photographers, but we didn't do a very good job of capturing much once the food came out. However, I did take lots of pictures of the beautiful cake that Sonya made. Davis and I 'helped' with the cake on Friday, which involved me holding Davis while we watched Sonya and Bill make the cake. Here's a picture of the cake from above. It was three tiers with sugared rose petals and a rose top.


On Sunday we went to the Farmer's market in Harvard square and then stopped in to see our friends Josh, Courtney and Mack (who was napping). The new development (and the reason for the title of the post) is that last night we discovered Davis enjoys my guitar playing and singing. His enjoyment outlasted my ability to play. I seem to always pick up the guitar for a bit, just enough to get back to where I was in proficiency, and then inevitably I drop it again (and lose the required callouses). Perhaps, now that it's entertainment for Davis, I'll play enough to finally get better!

The other big news of the week is that Grammie comes in on Wednesday night and I officially begin working again on Thursday. The term official is loose for a couple of reasons, 1) I've been working when Davis naps for the last month and 2) I still plan to take off some time during the week for things like mommy-baby yoga (today). It's funny how now that we have some good moms and babies to hang out with and I will no longer be able to hang out. I'm still torn between being sad for having a lot less time with Davis and my excitement over getting back to my work and finishing it off (not to mention having conversations with adults that doesn't revolve around babies). I wonder how long the latter feeling will last once I'm back.

You can't take the scientist out of the Mom

Davis and I had a nice walk yesterday to Davis square (can you believe they've already named a square after him?), where we met our mom's group friends Alicia and Rainn for lunch before we headed to the farmer's market. It was a great way to spend the day. We picked up some heirloom tomato plants for Daddy's garden and a bunch of swiss chard. Our farm share starts next week and we can't wait! The thing that struck me yesterday during lunch with Alicia was she said "You must be a scientist". I thought it was interesting in how little she knows about me that she would pick up on that from a simple conversation about pacifiers. Yes, I told her how we managed to find a pacifier that would work (some of the time) for Davis. It started with observations, followed by hypothesis and then experimentation. Lesson, you can put the mom into a scientist but you can't take the scientist out of the mom.