Going Bananas!

A couple of days ago we fed Evi her first non-formula food. I hesitate to call it solid food, because it was a pureed banana, mixed with a little bit of formula. It was pretty "liquidy"--gelatinous at best.

We put a video up on our flickr site.

She didn't really make a funny face or register much surprise when she tasted it. She did put out her hand like she wanted more. We'll have to see if she remains equally unfazed for things like mashed turnip, macerated quince with squash, or liquefied beets.

She also handled the spoon like a champ. She's been fascinated by us whenever we eat--staring at us with an intense, unblinking gaze--so I think she had a pretty solid idea of what a spoon was for. I think she enjoyed being at the table and eating at the same time as Mommy and Daddy. For dessert we gave her formula. Mmmmmm, formula.

After-dinner spit up was somewhat chunkier and more fragrant than usual, but nothing too gross.

We'll keep you posted on our other upcoming food adventures, especially if they yield amusing results.

I am not making this up!

This just in from one of Katie's industry journals which arrived in the mail today. I am not sure what the article was about or why this graphic was in there, but I figured that you, dear Reader, could not go another day without having seen this. Please, please, please read the descriptions next to each one. (I love that the last one feels the need to use ALL CAPS for part of the description.)

You know what? I think you should do something.

Here's what you should do:


Save a copy of the image and refer to it as necessary.



That is all.

Some Random Thoughts

I’ve noticed recently that the New York City sidewalks, like the roadways, have a crown or slant to them. Most sidewalks slope slightly downward to the street to shed rain water to the gutters. I noticed this the other day while pushing Evi in the stroller using only one hand. (The other hand was alternately opening doors, holding said doors open for the stroller, holding a coffee cup, or holding a cell phone to my yapping trap.) I soon noticed that my wrist was getting really tired because I was using the “upwalk” hand to steer and the torque was killing me. That is, I had to pull against the natural inclination of the stroller to angle into the street. By switching hands and using the “downwalk” hand to push against the stroller’s natural inclination to turn, I learned that there is definitely a fine art to the act of stroller pushing. In case the foregoing discussion is confusing, I’ve included a diagram which should hopefully make things clearer. (Click on it for the large size.) If my point remains unclear, you have no option but to go out, have a kid, find a friendly sidewalk, and then one-handedly push the kid around in a stroller for a while.

This led me to another thought, namely that many, many other parents have probably discovered other sundry things about their respective environments (and possibly life in general) after having children. Things that had been shrouded in mystery, or perhaps things not even considered or even remotely imagined. For example, I would have never thought that I might accidentally eat some of my daughter’s spit-up while playing airplane with her. Or that baby formula is one of the foulest tasting substances known to man (after regurgitated baby formula of course!). Or that no matter how fast you are at switching out a dirty diaper, your kid will manage to pee (or poop) on the changing pad (or you) during the brief inter-diaper span—NO MATTER HOW SHORT. (I’ve decided to bring this up with a friend of mine who used to work at NASA and knows all about quantum time-spans.) Or that upon returning from work, an entire crappy day can be completely erased by the sunbeam of your own kid’s smile.

Basically, every parent reinvents the wheel because no matter how many books you have read, shows on TLC you have watched, observations of friends who have become parents, or how much you are told about parenting by well-wishing moms/dads/grandpas/grandmas/aunts/uncles/cousins/friends/neighbors/strangers, it’s a COMPLETELY new thing. I have talked to many people who divide their lives into two periods: BC and AC (before- and after- children). I see now how true this is, and I marvel at just how much more I have to learn and how many more mysteries will be revealed before it’s all said and done. It’s pretty exciting, actually. Now I have to go figure out how to install safety tabs/locks/pads on just about everything in this apartment. After all, Evi will soon be crawling and anything not bolted to the wall or floor will go into her mouth.

P.S. Do I really need to tell you that you should go look at more pictures of our cute kid? Ok, ok: I will. CLICK HERE TO LOOK AT OUR CUTE KID!!

Tantrum!

Well, it arrived. Evi had her first full-blown tantrum today. She had a rough night last night: restless, fussy, and hungry. We took her to church today and she fell asleep in the stroller on the way over, and then she slept right through Mass. It was probably the longest span she had slept for the past 12 hours. We took her to the Botanic Garden and she was pretty happy, but after we got home, she got more and more fussy. We fed her when we thought she was hungry. But she's basically been pretty inconsolable (for her) for the whole evening. Katie and I can team up and make her smile and stop crying for several minutes, but unless she's being totally consumed by entertainment, she starts crying again. We got her to fall asleep for about a half-hour, but she woke up and started crying again.

There are several likely (and less likely) reasons for this: 1) she's finally cutting a tooth--she's been drooling like a rabid dog for weeks, 2) she's got a little hay fever or something--she's just a bit stuffy and the weather warmed up significantly the last few days (like Saturday was almost 70 degrees and toady was in the low 60s), 3) she's confused by Daylight Savings Time, 4) she's decided to stop spoiling us, stop acting like such an angel, and start acting like a real baby for awhile, 5) she's preparing for an audition in which she plays a baby stricken by unrequited love for a teething toy, 6) she has gas...painful gas, 7) she's mad that we won't let her eat cereal and that we keep feeding her this nasty formula again and again and again and...well, you get the idea--and she's NOT GONNA TAKE IT LYING DOWN. But, then again, she has to, because she hasn't learned how to sit up by herself yet.

In any case, we are hoping this is just something that will blow over. But if it's teething, it might take awhile. Good thing we stocked up on bibs, burp cloths, and lots of chewy teething toys (that can be chilled to help numb her gums). We'll keep you posted on the culprit.

In like a Lion

March is here and boy did it snow! About 7 inches here in Brooklyn. This morning was 15 degrees, with a wind chill of -1. That's right: NEGATIVE one. Luckily for us, the nearby Botanic garden has a greenhouse conservatory in which it is 1) warm and 2) many flowers are blooming and 3) it's green all around. It will take several more weeks before the rest of Brooklyn looks similarly.

We are celebrating Evi's 5-month birthday today (March 3) by staying warm at home, and by adding some new pictures and videos to our rapidly growing media trove that documents her life so far.

To match the newness of the month, Evi has learned a new sound--the "burble" which can be seen and heard at the flickr site (click here). It's very cute and often follows bursts of laughter. We were finally able to capture the baby really laughing on video, but the file size is too big to upload to flickr right now, so I am going to take some time and try to edit it down. Basically, Katie is clucking like a chicken and Evi laughs and/or squeals approvingly. Although she's been laughing for about a month, it's been difficult to capture her laughter on video for two reasons: 1) only in the last week has it gotten really easy to get her to laugh and 2) she often gets distracted by the camera and/or person holding the camera and stops laughing. Luckily (or is that "cluckily?"), Katie's chicken impression is so rivetingly hilarious that I could safely film the whole exchange.

So, that's about all for now. Except that Major League Baseball is in full swing Spring Training (pun intended) and the exhibition games are being broadcast in the sports bars around the city, so Dan is thrilled. We'll try to get to a ballgame in the new Yankees and Mets stadiums (or is it stadia?) before we leave NYC (whose date, by the way, is still TBA).