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Tuesday, August 14, 2006
After feeding him half a jar of Sweet Potato and Chicken he said "Da." I said "DaDa." He said "DaDa." I said "DaDa." He said "DaDa." I tried other things but he only repeated "DaDa." Wow. You know these moments will come but you don't think something so simple (and potentially vague and/or accidental) will move you. Heck I've known I'm his Dad for months now and he's known I'm his whatever a Dad is for some time, but to here him say it (or parrot it or babble the syllables) really is memorable (equivalent to, like, when he was born or when I first saw the Whirlpool Galaxy in my telescope (that one may sound trivial, but it really was a profound moment whose emotional impact I'll probably never forget))). He also seems to have a nocturnal tooth. The lower left lateral incisor seems to come out at night but go back in in the daylight. First you think it's clearly erupted but then you can't find it. But it any case it's a good excuse to drool. A lot. Dash may not be walking but his lunges are becoming longer and more controlled. He can cross about three feet if he has a pair of hands waiting to catch him. They say walking is just a forward fall caught by a sequence of footsteps. His walking is more like a forward fall postponed briefly by footsteps. I can still ride a unicycle better than he walks, but when he can walk for a bit then stand still and then continue walking, he will have me beat (as I have to be moving forward or I fall off the unicycle). Okay, it's late. I'm exhausted, but I wanted to share. We really are loving this boy so much as he broadens how he charms and wows us.
Sunday, Aug 6, 2006Quick Note: Leigh and I are both scrambling to master new jobs (me a new position with a new group in a new building at Caltrans District HQ (3 miles from home!)) and are putting all our time into either Dash or the jobs. He's doing well (actually slept 8 hours straight last night (but was up at 4:30am and stayed up)), chattering, crawling, climbing, playing the chase game (my favorite). We've been hitting the zoo once or twice a week all summer. The only unusual thing happened a couple of hours ago: the volume on the baby monitor was turned down and the visuals turned away from the family room, so we didn't notice that he had been crying for a few or several minutes. We'd always responded in a timely manner. Mark this as the first time that he didn't get immediate feedback. He was doing that kind of hiccuppy-cry indicating he'd been at it a while. A little extra soothing and he was back asleep, but now I'm curious if he'll be a little panicky upon waking for a while. Hope this doesn't push him to the dark side... He's very fun, and we both love him to death. It's like being in (romantic) love but without that inevitable comfort/complacency (so far). Best part of my day, every day. Ciao, I got some work to do before going to bed... Ooh, I almost forgot. Here's a benefit of a website or blog. A moment that touched me almost forgotten, saved: Yesterday feeding Dash a bottle ("milking" him) on the southwest couch, his head cradled in my left arm, sun getting low to my left, he was looking up at me. My sunlit face reflected in his pupil, framed by bright blue iris. It looked as if I were the center of his world, if only for a moment. Special moment, almost forgotten. Saved for a bit. "Before my child, I thought I was the center of the universe. Now I know that he is." (I forget who said that).
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Saturday, July 1, 2006. Dash is napping. We'll head to the beach when he wakes up. He's babbling a lot. Very cute.
I was very sore today as I am getting old and very out of shape. It used to be I'd have to do something very athletic to be useless the next day. Now apparently a couple days of running all over the house bent over with my hands under Dash's arms is enough to make me crotchety. But it was an excellent weekend. Dash, while more expressive in his demanding, seems to be over the pain of teething and seems back to his good demeanor. As he likes to "walk" around the house (today at a "run") babysitting doesn't involve much sitting. As much as I have always enjoyed watching animals and bugs, and love my cats, he is orders of magnitude more interesting. Oops I hear crying. I'll cut this off now.
(updates are all on this page) Monday, June 12, 2006. Sorry about the lack of updates. Dash still gets us up two or three times a night so we both are going to bed fairly early. We've been heating cold formula when he awakes at night. Tonight we just mix bottled water with pre-measured formula powder; hopefully we'll drop that bottle prep time from around five minutes to 30 seconds. That should let one of us sleep through the feeding (he's still in the room with us.) Crawling Report: He's not crawling. He's quite a roller and lunger, but doesn't quite "get" the cyclical nature of crawling. He just recently will move a knee forward, one, the other, and then move the original, but then he rolls to a hip. Saturday, I was lying on my back like a beached whale while he rolls around nearby (I don't consider this attempted napping, I consider it passive tactile bonding). He crawled up to me and climbed my belly to get upright and then pushed off to balance out. Very deliberate. Did this a number of times, most of the time falling back onto my "airbag" but often falling against my hand on his back. Leigh reports that he did a lot of free balancing today. Sometime in the past few days, he figured out the footwork of walk, the left right left right thing. So his feet know how to move, but not balance the weight (I think 4 and a half months old Zachary Gault inspired him with his footwork (which I leverage to shame Dash into picking up the pace)). So far he won't go unless both your hands are under his arms. If you hold his hands, he thinks he can't go. Dash continues to be very comfortable with strangers as occasionally at the beach Leigh and I will get to play a volleyball game together as friends watch Dash. We also hit a party Saturday night and Dash was passed around like hot gossip. While he still seems to have that very good demeanor he seems to be becoming more demanding and he still hates to go to sleep. He also seems to be losing interest in baby food and yesterday wanted a bottle every two hours, including all last night. We're hoping that it's just the teething, but we may have to do the "Ferberizing." Hope it doesn't push him over to The Dark Side.
June 3, 2006. After a very fussy night, Dash finally got his upper teeth. The right central incisor came in as was expected, but instead of a left central he got a right lateral. Fussy today. (Whoops. A day later, upon closer inspection, he has three, both upper centrals and the right lateral). It was REALLY good to see everybody back home. Sorry I haven't emailed or posted pictures, been swamped. As I was leaving for work on Tuesday, Dash started crying. So begins the separation anxiety, I guess. What impressed me was that after four days in Florida, he was aware enough to recognize that I was going to work. Next day, he was fine, perhaps re-acquainted with his nanny, Sue.
(note to people over 30 (hee-hee): most of these pictures are linked to really big pictures, clicking gets you to them and then a right mouse allows you to select "Save Picture As..." to save the pictures to your hard drive or print, etc.) 4/20/06: Tomorrow he'll be six months old with a nasty cold. We had to switch from pureed peas to pureed sweet potatoes so that we could tell between the food and the boogers. Poor guy, very fussy.
Next --> April 2006 Links
The Pregnancy page (obsolete stuff from when Dash was on the inside). Click here for the Labor and Delivery Play-by-Play A list of Dash Developments
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