Spidey Returns

I didn't know what to expect.  The day was cool, the sky cast over with clouds predicting rain but giving up no secrets.  I glanced right, dodging cabs.  I jogged left through the dumpsters of memories faded and bread uneaten.

The mask grasped at my pre-ego id through a window surrounded by little doggies and maternity chocolates.  It wasn't supposed to be there. A glint of gold in this darkness.  A spot of white in the mud of the day.  It was the blue hue of hero.  The eyelets of responsibility.  Was it brought across the waves by happenstance, this onesie of power?  Or did the importer know its importance, sense the longing of the little boy trapped in the body of a newborn's dad?  

It must be his, I panted aloud.  Left alone, it may fall into hands of evil... or at least those careless enough to feed without a bib.  The price, ridiculous, seemed paltry in light of the memory it soothed.  There would be no satisfaction in plastic wrap held aloft.  It required freedom from it's aftermarket packaging; set loose to make another day glow in the eyes of forever imagination.

Will he wear it and feel the tingle of heights sought by the wall crawler himself?  Or will it be as the dreams of a father for his son, destined for distraction as his offspring searches out new mysteries and discovers the previous unknown?

Great Mac App

This is for Apple users... you PC people can keep mindlessly surfing.  Or wait for your Blue Screen of Death to pop again.  Or whatever you PC people do.  Make spreadsheets or something.

(My.  Quite a bit of vitriol there on the PC people... sorry about that.)

I'm always switching audio output from my Mac to different components.  Sometimes I'm using my Plantronics 995H wireless.  Sometimes wired headphones.  And then if I'm in a sharing mood, I'll kick it over to the internals.

Getting thru System Prefs to make that change requires a crazy, multi-step process and I'm never happy as I'm trying to get it done.

Enter Rogue Amoeba and their cute li'l freebie app called Sound Source.  It pops up next your other system tools at the top of the screen and gives you fingertip access to input/output and a link to open Sound Pref.

Love it!

Your Name

I ran across this site quite by accident, but isn't that the beauty of surfing the web?  The good folks at the Social Security Administration have put your tax dollars to work and created a way cool database of names over the past 100 years.
Wanna know where you end up in the listing of your birth decade?  They've got it.  And then, for all us number crunchers, there's all kinds of ways to parse that info.  For instance, "Cullen" jumped in rank from 782 in 2008 to 485 in 2009... and "Maliyah" went from 638 to 296. Did you know Ryan is the top name for babies born in 2009 in Massachusetts? 
And the top names for twin girls? Isabella & Sophia 
Boys? Jacob & Joshua
Fun stuff for a slow day...

Cooper's Progress Report

So, Cooper's headed toward the 3 month mark, and you should know that we've produced a very cute kid.  It's not that we're biased.  Really.  Nearly 200 Arabic English students at an embassy sponsored July 4th event spontaneously burst into applause when their center's director brought him in front of the audience.  And 50% of post office employees ask about him every time I pay my utility bills (to be fair, there's only two ladies behind the desk & only one speaks English, but the stat's still legit!).

So, here's a few updates on our boy's life...

Cooper found his feet this week while I was playing with him.  There was this beat of inactivity and then this look of "Um... what else are you guys hiding from me?"  He has been studying them off and on the rest of the week

He laughed out loud – this really deep laugh – this morning when Suzi was tickling him.

Cooper's just desperate to sit up.  Every time you put him in his little seat (which reclines a bit), he spends a good deal of the time trying to lift himself up.  He’s actually pretty good at getting his shoulders off the ground.

He had his doctor’s check up a few days ago and got another vaccination.  The doctor said he looked great and everything was fine.  We’ll go back again toward the end of July.

On Saturday, he had an ultrasound of his hips to check for hip dysplasia.  Apparently, this is standard procedure for all babies here now, so we agreed to have it done.  Suzi said he was so good while they did the procedure.  He had to lay on one side while they scanned him and then Suzi flipped him over and they did the other side.  He didn’t make a peep and even smiled when Suzi got down at his level on the table.  The technicians did have a hard time keeping his legs in one place because he's constantly pedaling his legs!  Thankfully, everything looked normal.
Cooper's still having a wretched time going to sleep in the evenings.  We’re continuing to work with him to see what works best for him.  Poor little guy…there’s usually a lot of crying around here in the evenings.  Seriously, who wants to go to bed when there’s still so much to see and do?

Just the... Three of Us

Stooges
The Police
Musketeers
Socks
Towels
Burritos
Cords unbroken
Prime, Vader, Indy
All Trilogies

We're a Pack Of Three

Some More Product Recommendations

When we started out this journey back in July of last year, I'd never changed a diaper, much less held a newborn.  Breastfeeding was something that happened under wraps and that public buffet made me a tad bit uncomfortable.  Crying?  Wasn't that what Mr. Binky was for?  Just stuff it in and voila' instant relief, right?

Wow... was I ever in for a whole litany of surprise endings.  To say I had no expectations is hard to fathom, but it's just that I had no point of reference.  Babies were persona non grata until they were able to converse.  Where to begin?

Suzi did some scoping on Amazon and in short order my education came in the mail... Heading Home With Your Newborn gave me an insight I was desperately lacking in a slightly snarky, but professional read.  Drs Laura & Jennifer are successful pediatricians and moms, to boot.  They don't mind discussing their husband's response to cup size increases or blowing old wives' tales out of the water. Who knew that back in the 50's almost everyone in the US used formula?  Color, consistency and duration of diaper contents is explained in detail (in a chapter titled The Scoop on Poop) and parent tested remedies to fix all matter of ills are included.  Wondering when & how to take that first plane ride?  Debating cloth versus disposable?  Laura & Jen, as we affectionately call them, cover it.

Now, the book doesn't claim to be an end-all resource, and there are plenty of instances where they'll refer you directly to your baby's doctor, but it'll give the new dad an overall comfort level with the fact you left home as two and came back as three.  It's all scary stuff to begin with, but the good docs are gentle and firm and tell plenty of anecdotes to set your fears at ease.  You can do this because it's been done for millennia and most folks turn out just fine.  I liked it so much, I sent a couple out to expecting friends.

Counting 'em Down

So, all the signs are pointing to that inevitable trip to the delivery room.  Your lovely spouse is working those contractions like a champ and you're standing by, watching the clock and keeping pace.  But then the phone rings, you step away and bam, you've lost track of when one started or the other stopped and the frequency is all screwed up.  Solve it all with Contraction Master in either an online version or as an awesome little iPhone app.  As with most ingenious designs, this was created out of one dad's frustration in counting contractions.  Hit the Start button when the pain begins and Stop when it recedes.  The app gives duration & frequency and a print or email function so you can take the results with you.  At 4AM, you'll be groggily singing its praises just like we did.

SUZI: Stocky is in his genes

At two months old, Cooper’s body shape is stocky and barrel-chested.  It looks like my dad’s.   I have no idea how it is possible to see someone’s body style in a two month old, but I’m not making this up.  Scott agrees and his family, while they were here, confirmed it.  My point?  I miss my dad.  He’s been gone since October of last year, but I really miss him.

When I found out I was pregnant, he and my mom were in Colorado so I told them over the phone.  He cried.  He wasn’t the crying kind.  He said some unbelievably nice things to me about the kind of mom I would be and how lucky our baby was.  He wasn’t really the emotionally expressive kind, so those words meant a lot to me.  I think of them often (especially in difficult moments like when I’ve accidentally bonked Cooper’s head or I can’t seem to get him to stop crying).
I just knew he and our baby would be buddies.  I planned that he would teach him or her about the stars, rocks, lizards, birds and science.  I don’t have anybody else in my life who knows as much about the outdoors or science as my dad did.  Now that Cooper is here and my dad isn’t, I realize how much I don’t know.  My knowledge in these areas is woefully lacking.  On my Amazon wish list I already have a book called “The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown Ups.”  I want Cooper to know these things.  Will I somehow be able to convey my dad’s wealth of knowledge and love for nature through some books and experiences I create?  Will I be able to find the right people to teach him if I can’t? 

Do I miss some of the crazy things about my dad?  Like the fact that everything always had to be accurate?  If I announced that it was 100 degrees outside, trying to indicate that it was extremely hot, he would have to check his weather station and correct me with the true temperature.  “Actually, Suzi, it’s only 92 degrees outside.”  Do I miss that everything had to be functional – that there was no reason for merely decorative items?  That his “fixes” almost always included some PVC piping or duct tape.? Do I miss the fact that he always had to be right, arguing an issue with my mom even when we all knew she was right?  (At which point Lucy would wisely keep quiet and I would invariably announce, “I’m on mom’s side.”)  Yes, yes, I miss those things.

Jack Johnson's song, If I Could, talks about a new life coming into the world, while another life passes from it.  One of the lines says, “New life makes losing life easier to understand….”  

Mr. Johnson, I’m just not sure I agree.