Liam’s been working diligently on his upper vocal range these days.  David is convinced that he’s going to lose a few tones of hearing along the way and I’m missing the days when my alarm clock was my iphone.  I’m not sure how Siegfried is faring with this new development, he seems fairly calm with the whole thing, but every once in a while when I look at him, his eyes look a bit wider than usual and he seems to be riding a little high, as if its difficult to really relax with all this racket.  How long does the screaming phase last?  Really, I’m going to need to have an idea in order to brave this next phase.  Yesterday I think that I smelled Liam’s feet.  In a bad way.  Already?  Screaming and stinky feet.  Our cute little bundle of joy is only four and a half months old.  This has got me thinking of locomotion and the mayhem that will soon overtake my life.  I am afraid.  It must be possible to convince an infant that screaming isn’t everybody else’s favored form of vocal expression.  I’m going to have to do some investigating…..

About 48 hours later

It seems that screaming infants usually applies to unhappy ones.  At least that’s when people ask questions on forums and the conversations take off from there.  So far the general consensus seems to be that a happy screaming baby is just fun.  I’m not completely convinced.

To prove my point about locomotion, Liam is having lots of fun rolling over this morning.  In the past couple days he’s done a couple rolls.  But this morning he was unstoppable.  I’m trying to capture some of his most Pilates-esque movements for my studio new years cards.  There’s one move in particular that I’d be overjoyed to capture, but alas, my model has a mind of his own.  I kept on putting the happy screamer on his tummy and he kept flipping over.  Timing is everything.  All this rolling looks to me to be the result of an intense and yet still unfulfilled desire to locomote (new word, I know).  As far as I know, the best path to locomotion is lots of time on the floor and on the tummy.  I think that I’m reading Liam right when I say that he’s not always keen to be on the floor.  Often he prefers to be in his bouncy seat or swing so that he can a better vantage point for surveying our activities.  This is especially true in the kitchen.  I’m not sure what is so amazing about watching me wash dishes, but thankfully Liam finds it a good view for what appears to be peaceful contemplation.

On the topic of drool and other body fluids.  It goes without saying that Liam’s DNA is all over me.  That’s normal, right?  For me the new normal is that it doesn’t bother me at all.  Every once in a while I realize just how strange the new normal is.  Somewhere in my distant memory, when my brain is sort of functioning, I remember a time when I found that very thing pretty gross.  Wash hands, change shirt immediately, gross.  And now it’s just a question of whether I wipe with my shirt or Liam’s.  Which really is mote since we’re up close and personal most of the time anyway.  Hormones are magical.  Now I realize that my actions with respect to body fluids may be grossing other people out.  And the sad part is that there isn’t much I can do about it, for a couple of reasons.  First of all, there is just so much, it’s near impossible to get a handle on it.  And just when I do, out shoots, oozes, sneezes some more.  The definition of futility.  Secondly, and perhaps because of reason number one and I’m certain because of the hormones, I’m oblivious.  So, here’s my apology in past, present, and future tenses:  if my kid drools on some part of your property.  I’m sorry.  If I didn’t notice, I’m sorry.  Please, if it bothers you, feel free to point it out to me.  Somewhere in the recesses of my mind is a tidy person.  Now, should I bother to wash my face thoroughly after session of diaper spraying has left a multitude of splatters all over me?  Hum…..

Hello beautiful friends and family. David here — I wish I had the time and energy to sit down and share my own thoughts and revelations of parenthood with you more often. I’m beyond grateful that I have a wonderful and talented wife who is moving her own mountains to make that happen here for us both. I am generally tasked with corralling and uploading pictures (and now videos, yay!), and I’ve a bit of a backlog to share today.

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to leave such sweet comments after reading Faye’s words and sharing our enjoyment of our baby boy. You are dear to us.

Love,
David

Without any more ado:

From liam’s first visit to Michigan

And a few more photos from the last couple months

Liam gave me a wonderful birthday gift:  a good night’s sleep.  After the previous night, I must admit that I’m both grateful and relieved.  In our house, nobody slept well on the night of October 25.  Aside from that glaring aberration, so far we’ve been pretty lucky with sleep.  This is partly due to the fact that I’m not back to a regular work schedule yet.  To prove this point, David is not doing quite as well as Liam and I in the sleep department.  I attribute this to his having a more regular work schedule and to being woken by Liam’s many nighttime noises.  And to drive the point all the way home, David ended up with a cold after a week of sleep deprivation due to work and Liam.  So far in my life I’ve adhered to the following tenets of how to maintain good health:  sleep, nutrition, and exercise.  In the early days of motherhood, my attention to these factors is essential for maintaining some semblance of togetherness and over the past 17.5 weeks I’ve done a fair job of it.  I’m planning on keeping it that way.  So we could say that each little challenge, a few nights of sleep deprivation here and there, David’s cold, the way I fall apart when I don’t do my exercises, to name a few; are all gentle reminders of what is most important.  And that if I don’t respond to the gentle reminders, things get worse.  Day by day, that’s how I’m tending to the needs of our family of three plus cat.

Another topic that my opening story touched upon is the constancy of change.  Inevitably this essential element of all life comes into any worthwhile conversation about parenting.  To my way of thinking this is because change is life and life is change and what is parenting but being a steward to another’s life?  In terms of sleep, I’m counting on change.  On the morning of October 26th I was counting on  changing back to a more reasonable nighttime regimen, one that didn’t involve nursing Liam back to peaceful sleep once an hour.  Longer term I’m counting of Liam’s natural sleep rhythm revealing itself so that we can support him in having healthy sleep.  For the past month or so I’ve been counting on the fact that umbilical hernias repair themselves by the age of two.  I’m pretty sure that I hadn’t mentioned Liam’s belly button until now.  I’m sure of this because when I realized that he’d developed a hernia I was disappointed that we hadn’t done a thorough job of documenting how beautiful his navel was before that.  I know, this may be stretching the limits of socially acceptable parental adoration, but for the sake of posterity I feel that this really must be put in writing:  Liam had a a perfect little swirl of a navel for a while.  It reminded me of a cinnamon bun or to be even more lofty, the yin and yang ( I know, I’m going to catch some serious flack for that assertion).  I’d been planning of noting this little bit of perfection in this very blog until one day I realized that little site of perfection had popped out.  It took me a while to figure out that Liam had an umbilical hernia and then it took me a while longer to realize that it was okay.  My acupuncturist advised keeping that little bit of intestine in its rightful place inside the abdominal cavity with tape and a cotton ball. I didn’t get around to moving the necessary supplies to the changing area, but I did take to gently holding Liam’s navel in with my finger every diaper change.  And within a week or so of doing that, the hernia is nearly completely repaired.  A long way of making the point:  change is constant and I’m learning to depend on it in these days of wonder.

Other news of note:
Our trip to Michigan was chock full of fun, Liam was in his element receiving visitors with what we’ve come to know as his charming repertoire of smiles and cute little sounds (photos abound, we’ve even got video!).  New sounds and new facial expressions offer us regular entertainment.  A day isn’t complete without an outing as far as Liam is concerned.  He thrives of going out into the world to see new smiling faces and take in the variety of life and activity that our urban environment contains.  Liam was a fun and willing companion in my efforts to give David something of a birthday celebration, we’re keeping things very low key this year (you’ll probably be able to guess which photo I’m referring to).  I got two really cool books about infant development that are helping me to appreciate all that Liam is doing in this amazing first year.  Liam has started swim lessons on Saturday morning.  He loves being in the water with David, so far he’s not to keen on the going under part which is pretty much all there is to the lessons at this early stage.  On October 24th Liam did two things of note developmentally speaking (at least I think so).  He finally noticed the warning label on his car seat and took a good long look, and he reached out and grabbed Sophie the giraffe.  So far his arm movements have been undirected and rather spastic which makes Siegfried the Tiger quite nervous, so for us this was an exciting development.  David got an iPhone with video capabilities and, unlike me, he actually knows how to make use of it.  More documentation to come….