Case in Point

I went to check on him a few hours after Sarah put him down and he HAD BEEN in the middle of his crib on his Back.

Oh and here Z is eating his first rice chex's with me :-) Watching him grab the cereal and try to transfer them into his mouth is great stress relief. When he gets them in the palmar arch pincher it's easy. But in his palm, he has to eat through his fingers, and sometimes completely forgets there is cereal in his tightly clenched fist.

Where A Boy Discovers that Sleep Has Many Shapes

Up until yesterday, Zachary was a still sleeper.

This is a little bit of a lie. He sort of wiggled. But he never *moved*. He always slept on his back and stayed where we put him. All these stories of children who throw off all their blankets and by the time everyone wakes up you find the baby in the bathtub? Oh yeah, I smirked. My baby could be asleep atop the cat tree and he WOULD BE THERE IN THE MORNING. And I wouldn't even lose sleep. Yup. Our baby, that hasn't stopped moving in 14 months? Sleeps like a still little angel. Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

I put him down for a nap on the bed yesterday, and seeing as the bed is much safer than the cat tree, I didn't put pillows next to him. We usually do, as a sort of nod to parental safety because you always hear those stories and don't want to be the dumb ones.

Ha.

I hear him make some little noise and think "Aw, I'll go look at his cute sleepy face".

His cute sleepy face had rolled all the way to the edge of the bed where he was now executing a precrawl pushup. In his sleep. On the edge of our bed.

Sorry, was that not clear? ON THE EDGE OF THE BED.

I almost died. Ok, really I scooped him up and fed him a little and then when Mark got home said "HE CAN NEVER EVER SLEEP ANYWHERE BUT IN A BOX. ON THE FLOOR. A BOX WITH PADDED WALLS AND A PADDED FLOOR. ON A SOFT FLOOR."

:D

Ok, I didn't say that. But I did count my lucky parental stars.

And now he's sound asleep in his crib, where he has flipped over and wriggled all the way to the corner and wriggled his hand through the bars. It is a whole new world.

Whole Foods

Rock 'N Roll
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

With shopping carts. Shopping carts are amazing! We don't usually put him in one because we use the stroller to go to gristede's... And there is no good stroller/shopping cart compromise. None. And also? Whole foods is great at 9am. Funny though... The shopping mall (which is not yet open, just the grocery store) is full of.. people with babies. Because seriously. We have to get out of the house and no one else does. ;)

In other news.... I think the gdiapers are going to work out. We've tried them, they've passed several trials (be grateful I didn't upload *those* pictures), now there is just the overnight run to go...

Enjoy! Lots of pictures if you click through to flickr....

Hahahahahaha

Apri-potato
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

hahaha


Feeding a baby is fun.

No lie.

Finally - nice weather

Yup, we have good weather, at last! It's gone from cold and cloudy 50's to warm and spring like 70's....with the extra bonus low humidity. We went out to play on the grass several times and we also enjoyed watching all the battleships coming up the hudson and turning at the GWB.

Skydiving

I mostly love at the beginning? Where Mark throws him out of the frame. *grin*

cubby legs

Z is starting to figuring out his legs, with the help of Sarah' singing of course.

It is a wide, wide world....

Hopefully very little of it has carpet...

Crazy Mom Angst

Things are a little busy work brain squishy these days. And what am I spending my energy on? oh come on. You know how it is. You have a thousand things to do and instead you obsess about one weird little thing because it helps you not freak out about the eleven thousand other things. Sort of. And I don't mean chocolate covered raisins. Those aren't obsessing. Those are just tasty.

I've been obsessing about diapers. Or more particularly - what are we going to do with our cute little baby bottom as we trek around Europe? Although by trek around I really mean just a few nights in france, a few nights in london, and then quality Pirate time. I had managed to almost bring myself to the point where I could be ok with disposable diapers. Almost. So close. Until you tell me they last for 500 YEARS IN A LANDFILL.

And then I lost it. I was looking at gdiapers tonight, that was the focus of my valueless obsession. This is what happens when we have too many choices, people. Too many choices, and they start charging for luggage on red blooded american airlines.

I can not handle it anymore. :)

New tooth!

camera strap = chew toy
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

That's right, we're up to teeth plural. They're still nubbins, crazy sharp little nubbins. But it explains his less than cooperative sleep patterns the last few days and the spontaneous screaming for ice cold rags to gnaw on. Or Mark's camera strap.

Anyway, this isn't a picture of that. This is just a picture. Because he's pulling this hysterical eyebrow thing. Points for the comic timing kid. He's such a ham.

Right. The sleeping has not been amazing, which I didn't really understand till I woke up monday morning cranky like I hadn't slept in a week. Which apparently? I hadn't really. We're doing better now ;)

sunday funtime

cautiontapetastesgood
Originally uploaded by bearynyc

Z (and Sarah) visited me volunteering at aids walk nyc yesterday :-) Chief conehead David Zinc insisted on wrapping us in caution tape. Z loved watching some of the 50,000 people walking by, and we visited the swings at lunch break for even more fun.

and another ...

javascript:void(0)
lapping at the water

a video we forgot to post....

on the swing last weekend.

This isn't child abuse in our state....

This is how much we love him

Mark and I, like the responsible middle class well trained citizens we are, started trying to acquire life insurance before Zachary was born. It was on that list of things that was less critical than "diapers" but more critical than say "buy a puppy". Sweet. Columbia, thoughtfully, offers a connection with an insurance provider as well as reasonable rates. Hooray! This should be a cakewalk. We print out the awesome forms which ask sixteen thousand ways "Are you dying? Should we know? Have you died before? Please explain". We filled them out. We posted them off. We had a baby.

And waited.

and waited.

And...

In december, mark got a call from a very nice woman whose job involves wandering around the city and collecting blood and urine samples. She's not a vampire. So she did that.

Still waiting. Just at different stages.

Finally about a month ago Mark calls the aforementioned insurance company and says "Hellooooooo, we were trying to give you money......". He also encounters a representative of this company hawking their wares on a neighborhood street corner.

"Hey you! With the baby! You need life insurance!"

(Mark) "Yeah, I've been trying to get it from your company since BEFORE THE BABY WAS BORN!"

(silence).

Turns out they... had individually stalled out, on both requests, at different stages.

(slaps forehead)

The nice lady returned a weekend ago to draw my blood and supervise peeing in a cup. Mark finally got a letter saying "Thank you. You qualify for the standard rate."

No quote. No further directions. No information.


Except that his underwriter is named "Wilhelmena Wigfall".

I wonder if they use pseudonyms, so people can't find them? One can only hope.

Mark called to try to get further information and was given an eight hundred number to query. He called. It was for the National Union of Electronic Engineers.

I hope this is a moment of his dyslexia. Otherwise we're all in trouble.

UPDATE: Several phone calls later and it was established that the esteemed Ms. Wigfall managed to completely fail to pass on the info of her decision on Mark's request. An info packet (may) be on its way.

PPS: After these two most recent disasters it is difficult to know how to give, where to give, what to give... Especially with the countries being Myanmar & China. After a little bit of poking around, we're giving through AJWS (the American Jewish World Service). We're hoping that their past work in Myanmar will help the aid get to the right place.

Playtime

Again, this video comes a little after the fact. He was all bundled up because it was so chilly without heat. He was just playing quietly but the soundtrack is what makes it special .

swing time - mummy kisses

swing time - mummy kisses
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd


sunday was a little chilly but we went on a wander .... we all needed out of the house pretty badly, and at least the sun was out. Off to the swings we went! First time and lots of fun. There are lots of other pictures if you click through. Zachary giggled and giggled as we pushed him higher. Wheeee...

Also, I'd like to draw your attention to the snazzy new list off to the upper right...
:)
Happy monday everyone.

Zachary "two spoons" Collins

following in the footsteps of family friend Derek "two puddings" Pinder

Parent Training

This is from last week. Every so often Zachary clings to awake like its going out of style. We let him "play it out" wherever we are - say, at the table eating dinner. You might see the edge of desperate exhaustion in his eyes.

The best part is if you watch? Every time his eyes lose contact with one of the toys it slips from his fingers - out of sight, out of mind.

What's that?

tooff
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

What's that you say? Oh yes, yes it is. Its the edge of Zachary's first tooth struggling through. OH MY GOD. Could it take any longer? Erupting is the right word. Yesterday I could feel the sandpapery edge some of the time. Now it seems like a permanent edge. By next summer, he'll probably have ONE WHOLE TOOTH. If he doesn't accidentally chew us all to bits by then.

Sorry for the close up, mom. But at least his whole smiling mouth is in the picture.

PS? He's smiling while Mark pokes him in the mouth.
What have we done? *grin*

No teeth yet

mmmm tasty vanish
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

our blue eyed cuteness licks the baby chair that just arrived from florida. It was apparently Grandpa Michael's although its authenticity is up for debate. Zachary seems to think its tasty though, but his teeth (read as gums, the teeth haven't quite made it yet) are hurting and swollen so really he'll chew anything.

You might ask yourself...

Adorable. Full stop.
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Why does Zachary looked bundled up like some sort of street urchin? Well, the last week was ridiculously cold, and they had already turned our building heat off (against NYC law, interestingly enough.) It didn't stop Zachary from enjoying the joys of baby oatmeal (very fluffy when dry - just a little heads up for anyone dispensing...*grin*).

I've embarked on a mission to feed us (better). I think it must be now that Zach is starting solids... I can't just rely on my body to sort out good nutrition. And I figure maybe we should lead by some sort of example (not that a Cart Egg n Cheese isn't an awesome breakfast, I'm just saying...)

Banana nut muffins fresh out of the oven... Yum and a half.

Where's Josh?

This is a completely childish and in joke reference on our part from the english comedy series "ManStrokeWoman". Sorry.

And yes, we are throwing out the microwave.




Lots of Zachary pics tomorrow.

Friday Night Links

First, a few more seder pictures from kenny.... We really had so much fun.

New York has dipped into stupid frigid temperatures the last week, and our heat is already off. So to warm the cockles of your heart... click over to dooce's most recent post. She writes beautiful monthly updates to her daughter (who is now over four) along with all the other madness of their lives. Enjoy.