Summer's Here?!

I looked up recently to discover it was August. Last I checked it was May, or maybe June, so this came as a bit of a surprise. And of course then it hit me -- as it does every year about this time, like some kind of seasonal alergy -- that whistful "where did the summer go?" feeling.

I can't say much for June or July. I spent most of the that time working my tail off, to be honest. But I've got higher hopes for August. And it started out well: we finally got out camping with the kids (one of our summer goals) and it was great! Jonah was so excited about the tent, and loved running around the campsite and hiking on the trails. And Hava only ate a little bit of dirt. (And, trust me, that was a major accomplishment -- this girl puts everything in her mouth right now!)
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Hello from Big Basin Redwoods!____________________________________________________

Meanwhile, so much is changing with the kids I hardly know where to begin. Lately I've been pressed by the somewhat uncomfortable feeling that Hava is growing up before I can realize it. It's like some kind of premature nostalga, perhaps bought on by having two kids. But I look at what Jonah is doing, and I realize Hava will be there in the proverbial blink of an eye, and I wonder if I'll have time to register it -- really be there and experience it -- before it passes.

One change that's been on my mind a lot lately is language. If you want it in bland clinical terms, I'm currently fascinated by "language development." But saying it that way really takes the life out of it. What gets me is the question of how our little brains get from the primitive emotions of an infant to the complex and (becoming) adult-like ideas of a toddler in such a short span of time.

Hava, at six months, has just moved past the monotone set of cries produced by young babies and discovered that she can make a wider range of sounds. Now she coos, gurgles, grunts, bleats, and occassionally shrieks like a miniature pterodactyl. It's cheerful and cute and completely age-appropriate. But it's not yet anything that would pass for adults communication.

Fast forward two years and you're to Jonah. He's still got some of the cute mispronunciations of toddler-hood: "Jamanas" for pyjamas, "alligator" for elevator, and my personal favorite the "PUS man" for the guy in the big brown truck who delivers packages. But he's recently graduated into more complex sentence structures that really drive home how much he's becoming a fully-developed little person. If left to his own devices, he will often pour forth a loosely-connected torrent or words and ideas. It's fascinating and a little befuddling. Maybe I'm just slow-witted, but it's never clear to me how I'm supposed to respond to this verbal onslaught. Typically the best I can do is repeat it back to him, like I'm the drive-thru cashier at McDonald's ("So you saw the fire truck with Woody and Robert and the lights were flashing and it was loud?" "Would you like fries with that?")

Ruth Ann swears that Jonah recently told a riddle (Ruth Ann was trying to get Jonah to say "Webster Street" and he asks this one: Q:"Where do the spiders live, mommy?" A:"On Web Street"). The ability to appreciate double meanings in language and play with words doesn't develop in full until much later in childhood, but even if the riddle was a fluke, there's obviously a heck of a lot that's happened in the last two years to get from Hava to Jonah.

Often, I try to remember how we got from there to here. At a certain level of generality, that's easy enough: I can look back at blog entries and read my snapshots of baby sounds, first words, and so on. But at another level, it's like the change of seasons. I know it's happening, and occassionally I'm struck by little signs and reminders. But there are few obvious points of demarcation, and, at its essential core, it's just a series of daily experiences.

Adventures in Co-Sleeping

Hey, guess what? Hava is a different baby than Jonah! Yes, it's obvious, I know -- but here in the eye of the storm we sometimes find it hard to recognize and really absorb that obvious fact.

There are a lot of examples of this principle I'd like to tell you about, but the one that's been on my mind for about three weeks now -- which tells you something about how often I'm able to get around to posting -- is our whole experience around sleeping.



As you may recall from our postings from a year and a half ago, sleep was not Jonah's strong suit. If you were to ask us what most worried us about baby #2, the answer in two words would have been "sleep deprivation." So when Hava was born, we decided we'd try to do a few things around sleep differently. One of them -- which I'll blame largely on Ruth Ann's subscription to "Mothering" magazine, your #1 source for organic hemp baby products and homespun advice on how to be a better earth mother (or father) -- was to have a go at co-sleeping.

For disciples of Dr. Sears and "Mothering" magazine, co-sleeping is more or less the only way to go. And there are, in fact, a lot of reasons that co-sleeping makes good sense. It's a natural approach in the animal world, and it's an approach that's worked well for human beings for a long time, and still works well for many now. Yes, you have to pay some attention to safety issues. But, on paper anyway, it seems to offer a chance for a much-improved sleep experience for everyone: Baby sleeps better when she can smell and sense mom and dad nearby. Mom and dad sleep better when they don't have to stagger across the room (or house) at 2 a.m. to comfort crying baby.

On the other hand, we may not be the best candidates for co-sleeping. There is, I'm told, a species of couples who like to sleep cuddled in each other's arms, sharing warmth and space. We, on the other hand, are people who like our space. Cuddling before bedtime is swell -- we like it as much as the next pair -- but when it comes time to sleep, it's all about "roll over and give me some space." We'd sleep in a California king, if it weren't for the fact our bedroom itself is about the size of a California king. I could continue, but I'm guessing you probably get the picture by now.

Our natural handicaps aside, co-sleeping actually did turn out to work pretty well for us during the first few weeks. Then the natural order of things started to re-assert itself. Ruth Ann is apparently a much lighter sleeper around babies -- she wakes with the slightest noise from the baby. And, in case you don't know, sleeping babies are plumb noisy. Whatever the phrase "sleeping like a baby" is supposed to refer to, it doesn't refer to the fact that they're quiet sleepers. Hava squawks and rustles her way through the night, and not infrequently she has pleasant little grunting spells to boot. Hava doesn't necessarily wake during all this noise (and, much to Ruth Ann's annoyance, neither do I). But Ruth Ann would lie awake at night, accumulating resentment toward her noisy daughter and snoring husband. And most of the time she'd end up nursing Hava to quiet her back down, which meant both Hava and Ruth Ann would have their sleep cycles interrupted.

We tried a variety of steps: moving Hava to a bassinet next to the bed, switching sides of the bed, moving the bassinet farther away, etc. Eventually, in a fit of desperation, Ruth Ann resorted to sleeping on the couch in the living room. Yes, un-huh, we do get that it's ironic. But we all slept better then -- Ruth Ann woke less, and woke Hava less. And, wonder of wonders, after a week or two of separated sleep, Hava began sleeping through the night!

We've now had nearly two weeks of fairly consistent sleeping through the night. Hava is in a bassinet. Ruth Ann has returned to the bedroom. Jonah, in the room across the hall, is probably waking more than Hava at this point. But given our experiences with baby #1, we can scarcely believe that we're getting as much sleep as we are.

It seems like there should be a moral to this story, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. Clearly what we did was not what Dr. Sears and the editors of "Mothering" magazine had in mind when they talked about co-sleeping. But it was done with love and good intentions, and it worked for us. And I guess you could say that's what this parenting thing is all about: love, good intentions and figuring out what works for your family. In any event, it was the best we could do -- and, for Hava and Jonah's sake, hopefully our best is good enough.

Anyway, enough with the words, we know what you came for. Here's the latest:

Hava at Three Months

Yup, we're there already! In fact, as I write, we're already one day past the three month mark. It came up quickly, and as I've been reminded by irate family members, I haven't done very well at keeping readers up to date on things with little Hava -- sorry!

So let me tell you a little about the girl: She's got a personality, that's for sure. And good news (from the parent/exhaustion angle, anyway) is that it's a remarkably calm personality. She "an old soul" as a friend recently remarked -- happy to stare into people's faces and serenely observe the world. She does get fussy, and sometimes even cries. She's just a baby, after all. But, to paraphrase Lloyd Bensten in his moment of political immortality: "We've been through crying babies. We know crying babies. Hava, you're no crying baby." And the funny thing with Hava's crying is that all that baby calming stuff we read about over and over again in desperation in early 2007, it actually works! It's so easy, you just cradle her on her side or tummy, bounce her gently, shush in her ear, and she calms down - for real! Go figure.

At three months, she's also become smiley and social. She's quick to look for a nearby face and try to interact in the best way she knows how: by sharing a great big toothless grin. That approach works wonders -- at least if you're a little baby it does -- charming relatives, strangers, and even exhausted parents.

And that exhaustion thing, which I've now mentioned twice now, highlights the other prominent fact of the Hava experience so far. As is often noted, having two is definitely more than twice the work, at least early on. But what I find more notable how the exhaustion factor illuminates the way a relationship with a child develops over time. There may be those who in fact have boundless love for their child from the moment of birth; and certainly there are those who, looking through the golden haze of memory, are sure that's how it was for them and their baby. (For the record, if you ask me this question in ten years, I'm sure I'll be in the latter category.) But for me, the relationship is definitely one that takes time to grow and unfold. And with baby number two, there is less of that sense of wonder at the miracle of life to temper the "lather, rinse, repeat" of daily existence with a newborn + toddler.

Somewhere along the way I fell madly in love with my son, such that the most trivial details of his daily existence ("He finished the 12 piece puzzle -- what a genius!") are endlessly fascinating. I know that will happen with Hava as well. But some days it's hard to see through to that point, stuck as I am in the no-man's-land between the euphoria of the first few weeks and the two-way relationship I know will eventually arrive. The good news, at least, is that we've been through this before. I don't remember it of course -- case in point, I've largely blotted out the memories of Jonah's endless crying, to the point where friends look at me like I'm deranged when I innocently ask "did he really cry that much?" -- but my dear wife has a better memory. And so when I was crying in my drink last night about how things feel at the moment, she reminded me: "you said the exact same thing about Jonah around this time." That -- which I'm sure is true, even if I can't remember it -- bodes very well with how things will unfold with Hava. I'm looking forward to it!

The pictures are a little dated already, but hopefully the placate the masses for the moment. Enjoy!

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I'm Twittering!

I have this set of pictures of Hava that I've been meaning to put up for two weeks now, but somehow I haven't managed to find the time to write a good post to accompany them. So in the meantime, I'm going to let you in on my recent little experiment with Twitter.

Let me start by saying that I'm not sure I really get Twitter. It's interesting as a social phenomena -- who are all these people who have the free time to Twitter? and why do they bother? -- but I'm not sure I really see the point. Be that as it may, my friend Dave explained the whole Twitter thing to me a little while back and I decided I'd it a try.

They tell me that part of parenting -- and part of life -- is appreciating the beauty in everyday life. So my theory was that by committing myself to Twitter at a respectable rate (which for me is about five times a week -- and surely a lot less than your typical text-message-junkie teenager), I'd force myself to pay attention to those moments of everyday beauty. And then I'd capture their essence with pithy little haiku of 140 characters or less. And through my artistry -- volia! -- I'd learn to become more at peace with the world and transform myself into a better person to boot.

That was the theory, anyway. In practice, I haven't found peace or become a better person, and in fact I've generally found my Twitter habit difficult to keep up. Part of the problem may be that I currently have exactly one follower -- that being someone named SueWong@MakeUMoney who showed up unannounced and uninvited a few weeks back -- which is a situation I fund both pathetic and creepy at the same time. (I should also point out that this means I'm only 1,499,999 or so followers behind Ashton Kutcher, which is pathetic (for different reasons) and also pretty darn funny at the same time.)

So at Ruth Ann's urging, I'm coming out of the closet with my Twitter habit. If for some reason you'd you can't get enough of Jonah and Hava, or if you think you'd like to get bite-sized updates about the mundane details of our life delivered to your iphone, or if you're just curious about this Twitter thing you keep hearing about but aren't ready to swim in the deep water with the Ashton Kutcher followers -- then by all means sign up and keep SueWong@MakeUMoney company. You can find us under the name ToddlerJonah.

Michelle, Pete and the Birth of Imagination

We first met Michelle and Pete a few short hours after Hava’s baby naming ceremony. They were with us at the ceremony as well, although at that time they were just two nameless stuffed animals in one of Farla’s inimitable centerpieces. The main character in the centerpiece was one of those lifelike baby dolls, one that laughed somewhat ominously when you pressed its belly. (I should add, since we’re on the topic of imagination, that the way my imagination works, those lifelike dolls are creepy – for whatever reason, all I can think of is “Chucky,” if you know what I mean.)

In any event, after the ceremony, Chucky – um, I mean the lifelike doll – said stuffed animals, and the rest of the centerpiece came home with us. And Jonah took an immediate liking to the stuffed animals, which by the way are a pink and a blue giraffe. “Who’s that?” Jonah asks Nan Rossiter, pointing to the pink giraffe. Nan was at a loss, but when Jonah asks “who’s that” he is not to be denied – he can use that phrase like a club, and will beat you into submission with it, so it’s best to come up with some kind of response. Eventually Nan comes up with “Michelle.” Why Michelle, who knows, but it stuck. And when I later asked Jonah who the blue giraffe was, he gave the only logical answer to that question: “Pete.”


And so that’s how Michelle and Pete came into our lives. Since then, they’ve become part of a growing entourage of characters whose imaginary lives sometimes intersect with Jonah’s. You’ve already met another prominent character in this entourage: baby. Baby who nurses, gets burped and needs a diaper change. The other day baby wanted to sit in the swing that Hava was in – what was that about, I wonder? – but eventually settled for sharing breakfast with Jonah in his highchair instead. There’s also Koala and Duckie, and a host of other secondary characters, all of whom occasionally show up to play a role in our days.



But these new changes go broader than just imaginary characters. I’ve often asked Jonah “what did you do today?” when I come home from work. But it’s only recently that’s he’s become proficient at answering that question. And I have to say, the answers often leave my jaw on the ground. It’s not that there’s anything particularly breathtaking about hearing that he saw a fire truck or played with Ivan. But there’s something mind-boggling about watching him give answers that remind me that he’s become a little person – a person with memories, desires, fears and fantasies that will only continue to grow in breadth and depth as the toddler years roll on. On one level, our little exchanges about the events of his day are totally mundane. But on another, I recognize them as the leading edge of a world of changes that will carry him from the corporeal world of infancy into the complex and confusing world of adulthood. It’s fascinating and bittersweet.

This morning in the kitchen, Jonah announced that he was a “baby cow.” (For whatever reason, in Jonah’s mind there are currently no other varieties of cow – these days all cows, large, small, black or white, are babies.) “I’m eating grass.” “Moo!” Around and around the kitchen he lumbered, until the french toast was finished. Then he climbed up in his chair and sat with me at the dining room table for breakfast.

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As many of you recall, Michelle and Pete – Hava’s godparents, not the pink and blue giraffes – spoke beautifully at Hava’s baby naming ceremony. We finally managed to wrest the words to the poem they read out of Michelle, and wanted to post it here to share with all of you. We were touched by the poem, and are all the more touched to have such loving godparents in our daugher’s life.

Sweet little Hava,
the day before you were born
your family went to Stinson Beach
in the misty rain.
They ate brunch
& napped.
Matt cooked dinner.
Jonah learned how to jump.
Your mom looked so great that night.
I told her so.
She said "a woman gets a groundswell of energy just before she gives birth."
8 hours later contractions started.
8 hours later your parents were in labor.
8 hours later you came into the world.
We brough by chicken cacciatori & meatloaf,
pink gerbera daisies to match your skin.
Your hands looked ready for finger painting.
7 pounds of you.
Skin to skin with your mama.
Swaddled with your papa.
Sleeping.
The full moon rose that night.
You came into the world in the space
between high tide and full moon.
A water baby for sure.
Sweet little Hava, we wondered who you were.
Sweet little Hava, we welcome you.
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Since you’ve made it this far, I’m adding one bonus feature: a little video vignette of Michelle and Pete. Before you watch, you need to understand that taking videos has gotten much more difficult lately because Jonah – little narcissist that he is – insists that I turn the monitor on the videocam around so he can see himself while I film. This, unfortunately, leaves me with no way to see what I’m shooting, so I’m left to point the camera generally in the right direction and hope for the best. As you’ll see, it doesn’t always work out perfectly…

Hava's Faces

I read something recently that said newborn babies are, for lack of a better term, kind of vegetable-like. And in one way, it's true -- after all, let's be honest, they don't really do all that much. On the other hand, I know from first-hand experience (viz., Jonah) that there's a little person in there who's eventually going to start to show herself.

Maybe one way to start to get a glimpse of that little person is to look at Hava's face -- she's quite an expressive little girl. I know the cynical might point out that at this stage of things her facial expressions, like most of the rest of her movements, are largely involuntary. But involuntary or not, they are pretty darn cute!

Photographic Evidence

I wasn't kidding, he really does nurse the baby doll. See!

Jonah and Hava

"What's it like having two?" That seems to be a popular question these days. There's a lot we could say in response -- certainly the second baby is a different experience than the first. They are different children with different temperaments, for starters. And I think for us -- maybe for all parents of multiples -- the experience of being parent to a baby is different the second time around. Speaking for myself, I find that I don't have the same sense of wonder this time around -- wonder, as in unbridled awe at the fact that we've bought another life into this world, coupled with that other sense of wonder, as in "I wonder what the #%$@* I've gotten myself into?" I don't mean that in a negative way, necessarily. The experience this time around is still wild and beautiful, but in a different, and sometimes more muted and subtle, way.

One obvious thing that's different, of course, is that there's another member of the family (i.e., Jonah) sharing in the experience. And watching Jonah react to Hava has been one of the more interesting parts of things so far. Jonah didn't really show much interest or awareness during the pregnancy. Surely he must have noticed something was different with Momma, but it wasn't something he really verbalized. However, as soon as they met in person, Jonah started to show an intense curiosity.
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"I want to see him!" (Or "I want to see it!" -- he doesn't quite have the gender thing down just yet...) "Where's Hava?" "Baby's crying." He's got a lot to say about her. Almost immediately he wanted to hold her, which is touching and also a little scary (think: fragile newborn + uncoordinated toddler), although as you can see from the picture, it's pretty cute too! And more recently he's also started to want to cuddle and kiss her and tells her "I love you." I'm sure there's sibling rivalry to come somewhere along the way -- certainly once she gets mobile and starts getting into his stuff -- but so far the experience has been relatively placid.

There've also been some interesting and funny experiences around nursing. As you might imagine, nursing is a powerful thing for little ones, and we were curious and concerned about how Jonah would react to Ruth Ann nursing the new baby. At the suggestion of a nurse at the hospital, we decided not to deny him entirely if he asked to nurse too, but we instead told him he could have a taste on a spoon. So for the first few nursing sessions, Jonah would hurtle toward the kitchen full speed shouting "get a spoon!" -- and then queue up for his taste. It didn't take long, however, before he lost overt interest and no longer pined for a taste (by spoon or otherwise). That said, we could see some jealousy lurking just under the surface, as he'd act out more when Hava was nursing, bouncing on the bed or couch or loudly throwing a ball around the room.

Then there was the funny stuff. For starters, as an extension of Jonah's gender confusion, he often suggests that I try to nurse the crying baby ("Daddy give her 'bubu'," he insists, using his word for nursing.). And more recently, he's decided to get in on the act himself. So a few times now, when Hava is nursing, he goes and gets his baby doll, then pulls up his shirt and "nurses" the doll right along side Ruth Ann. A few times, he's even burped his doll, then insisted on putting her in a diaper (Hava's size, not Jonah's, to boot). And just to make sure the doll doesn't get uncomfortable, he also makes sure to apply diaper cream as well.

The doll smells like Desitin, but we're too amused to care. And if I thought about it hard enough, I'd have to admidt that the whole affair tickles my sense of wonder too.

More Pictures

First off, for those of you who've read my Friday the 13th post, I wanted you to know that, fortunately, the night I describe in that post is *not* typical. We're actally, dare I say it, doing relatively well. Hava is a baby and she does wake at night. But compared to her brother, she's a champion sleeper. Chances are as soon as I write these words, she'll set about proving me wrong. But for the moment, I thought you'd want to know that most nights do not involve the extremes of crying, pooping children and barfing dogs that were described in my previous post!

Hava is doing well and is already up past her birth weight, which is a good sign she's thriving. Here are some more pictures we've taken over the last few days, along with some fun ones from our trip to Stinson Beach on the day before Hava was born. Someone told us that the sound of the ocean can stimulate labor. Guess they were right, since less than 24 hours after our trip, Ruth Ann was in labor!

The Honeymoon Is Over

For about the first 64 hours after Hava's birth, we were able to keep alive our secret fantasy that baby #2 was going to be a different, easier experience. Hava indulged us -- she appeared to be calm, quiet and easy-going -- and we found ourselves thinking "hey, we paid our dues on baby #1, so it's only right that we get one of those easy, non-crying, "oh she's been sleeping through the night since she was six weeks old" babies.

That was the first 64 hours. But starting on Thursday night, Hava (with some help from Jonah and Ella) got to work throwing cold water on our fantasies. (Actually, it would be a little more accurate to say that she took a great big baby poop all over our fantasies... but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Thursday night began with a slightly more agitated baby, who appeared to have no interest in sleep and a nearly insatiable appetite for nursing. Several hours in, Hava and Jonah started a routine where Hava would cry and agitate for more nursing, then as soon as she was settled, Jonah would cry out from his room and I'd stagger out of bed and go to calm him.

(I should digress for a minute: recently Jonah has started this thing where he stays laying down in his crib and cries softly until someone comes in his room, at which point he stops crying and goes back to sleep without the slightest bit of encouragement -- apparently he just wants to know that we're still around and thinking about him. This has been going on few a week or two, and I don't really have the heart to do anything other than indulge it given all the changes happening in Jonah's world at the moment.)

Anyway, after a few rounds of the Hava-Jonah chorus, we decided enough was enough and next time Jonah cried we weren't going to get him. After all, he calmed in seconds and clearly didn't need us, right? He had different plans, and kept it up for 20 minutes, at which point I relented and went in to see what was amiss.

Scene: Jonah's bedroom. Matt enters from stage left, hair and clothes askew from futile attempts at sleep. Jonah is sitting in his crib, legs dangling between the bars, looking wide awake.
"Jonah, it's two in the morning. It's time for sleeping."
"Find an alligator?" (I have no idea why he says this. We've never discussed alligators before. And certainly not at 2 in the morning.)
"Um, Jonah, can we look for the alligator in the morning?"
"OK."
Jonah promptly flops down on his mattress and goes back to sleep.

I returned to the bedroom and had barely closed my eyes when Ruth Ann woke me. "Hava pooped." Now that was an understatement. You non-parents probably want to stop reading now, but for the rest of you, let me tell you: if my first baby pooped like that, I never would have had a second. After cleaning the baby, the onesie the baby wore, the pants that were outside the onesie, the blanket wrapped around the onesie and pants, the towels that we grabbed to try to contain the whole mess, and miscellaneous other walls and surfaces that suffered collateral damage, we about as far from sleep as you can get.

We all climbed back in bed and just barely drifted off when Ella woke us with the unmistakable heaving sounds of a dog throwing up on the bedroom carpet. Like my third grade math teacher liked to say, "some days you get the elevator..."

Sometime around 4:30 a.m., after further antics and incessant nursing, Ruth Ann abandoned ship and headed to the living room couch, muttering something about her nipples falling off. Hava gave me a look and began to work into a cry. But then, perhaps sensing that she ought not push things too far on her second night home, she relented and let me get her in a decent swaddle and gently shush her to sleep. I got us both in bed, snuggled her against my chest, and we both drifted off for a merciful, maybe even blissful, three hour sleep.

All's well that ends well, or so I'm told. Seems like that applies here.

Baby Hava Arrives!

We are happy to report that we can finally stop answering the phone with "no baby yet."

Yes, Hava Dov Rossiter (aka "baby #2") finally arrived on Monday night! It was few days after her official due date -- apparently she was operating on Jewish standard time -- but she was all the more welcome for it. We're back at home now, recovering and adjusting to life as a family of four.

We'll work on getting more pictures together -- lots are on other people's cameras -- but for now here's what we've got (click on photo to link to rest of album):

Baby Hava!

A little about her name: Hava is derived from the Hebrew word for "life" (think "L'chayim!") and also lets her carry an "H" in memory of Ruth Ann's father, Hershey. Dov is kind of fun and multi-faceted. It was part of Hershey's Hebrew name (Zvi Dov). In English (think "Dove") it gives her an animal name that echoes her brother's (Jonah Baer). And the parallel works even better in Hebrew, since Dov is in fact the Hebrew word for "bear." And like her brother, Hava carries the Rossiter surname in honor of Matt's family.

Reflections, While We're Waiting...

As we count down the days to baby #2's due date (we're now down to one day left, and still no sign of her...) there is a opportunity to reflect on the changes we've been through over the last two years and the changes that will soon come. In fact, I recently spent a few hours (and then a few more hours, and then a few more...but that's another story) organizing all the videos of Jonah that we've taken, which prompted some reflections.

One thing that stands out to me -- and I'm sure will stand out all the more when baby #2 arrives to provide a point of contrast -- is just how much Jonah has grown up over these two short years. Two years ago, he was just a cute but helpless little grub. Today, he's tripled in weight (think about that!), doubled in size, learned to talk, walk and run, and generally just grown into being a little person.



One of the more notable ways I've experienced this growth has been in the time I spend putting Jonah to bed. I've been fortunate that more often than not I am able to make it home in time to help put Jonah to bed (albeit sometimes at the price of some late nights on the computer at home). Even when he was nursing, we'd do a hand-off where I'd read and Ruth Ann would nurse him to sleep. More recently, the bed time has usually been a daddy thing from end to end.

Being there consistently at bedtime has provided a really basic and interesting way of measuring change. It's simple: I do the same thing at the same time each night. From one night to the next it's hard to notice much difference. But as the nights pile up, one atop another, it's clear that things are shifting. I know what you're saying: "Such is life. What's the big deal?" But -- if we except out the nights when I'm tired and hungry and just want to get the kid to bed so I can get on to whatever's next on life's endless to-do list -- I'd say that the nightly routine of putting Jonah to bed has provided one of those rare experiences (rare for me, anyway) to brush against the profundity that lies underneath the rituals of everyday life.



I'm getting long-winded, I know, but here's a little narrative of how it's gone: When I started out putting Jonah to bed, I'd often have him swaddled in a blanket and laid out across the length of my forearm (imagine that he was no longer than my forearm!) I'd shush him and shake him (gently!) and sing a tuneless version of 'Hush Little Baby.' More recently bedtime evolved into reading a few books, and then turning off the light and rolling him up onto my chest, facing in. He'd snuggle into my chest, place his head on my shoulder, and often fall asleep while I was holding him (again, usually after the aforementioned tuneless singing). As time passed and Jonah grew, he no longer fit so snugly against me -- his little feet would spill out over the edges of my lap and his arms would swing out into space. I'd have to slouch low and lean way back in the chair to create a surface large enough for Jonah to lie against. And eventually he could no longer get comfortable enough in my lap to fall asleep. Sometime he still snuggles against me, melting my heart every time. A lot of the time now, he asks me to sing and then sings right along -- oddly, and thankfully given my limited repertoire, it's almost always 'Hush Little Baby,' which he and I sing together, neither caring that our voices are out of tune. I like to think that's because we're in tune in the ways it really matters.

Since you've read all this way, you might as well enjoy one of those videos I was talking about a while back. It's an oldie -- from summer 2007, I'd guess -- but makes Ruth Ann laugh every time.

January 20, 2009

We wanted to let everyone know that Jonah was very happy about the change in presidential administration... and he has been making sure to let everyone within earshot know!

News Flash

As many of you know, we have some news. For those of you who don't...well, um, we have some news.



I think Jonah is figuring it out. Are you?

If not, see if this video helps:

Happy Hanukkah!

December is over, as -- so they tell me -- is the whole of 2008. But nonetheless, here's wishing you a (slightly belated) Happy Hanukkah!
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It's been a quiet month of December in some ways. For various reasons we've been sticking close to home. It's also been a month of big events: Matt finished his second semester of teaching, to a mixture of satisfaction and relief. Ruth Ann has left her job, wrapping up 5-1/2 very accomplished years as Executive Director of Rebuilding Together San Francisco.

And Jonah Baer turned two years old on December 14, wrapping up a year of mind-boggling change. Everyone who's ever been a parent seems to tell you that kids really grow up fast -- and let me tell you something: they aren't kidding! It's hard to fathom that just about a year ago Jonah was truly an infant -- just learning to crawl with competence, not yet saying anything we recognized as a word. In the relatively short span of a year, he's learned:

* To walk, then run (so much so that now it often seems he's got only two speeds: stop and running full speed!)

* To talk up a storm, stringing four or more words together at a clip.

* To recognize shapes -- circles, squares and stars -- and colors (albeit less reliably) -- red, yellow, green and his favorite purple.

* To begin to count by numbers -- one, two, three... although more often than not skipping around... three, seven, eight.

Even in just the last few weeks his communication skills have seemed to grow leaps and bounds. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it feels like in some ways his talking has become, well, more "grown up." I think it's not just the words he says, but the growing intelligence that is clearly at work in the background -- for example, he often links concepts: sees the picture of scissors and says "haircut"; or (my recent favorite) hears "mac and cheese" and says "Karen and Mac" (Mac being Karen's dog). For a being who couldn't get out a single-syllable word a year ago, this is truly rocket science -- what have any of the rest of us done in the last year that compares!