Category: Family & Home

Miles has had bright red cheeks, tons of drool, and sudden inexplicable fussiness on and off for the past week or so, so we knew there was probably a tooth just under the gums with a fierce hankering to pop out. Last night we were feeling his gums and the hard little nub of the top of a tooth came poking out. Can you imagine going through that? Rock-hard calcium spires jutting up out of your tiny soft gums? No? Funny, you went through it too once upon a time :)

No photo album this month… our photo drawer runneth over. Notes instead. Well, maybe just one little picture ;)

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Miles becomes more of a little person every day, his personality is emerging so quickly. He is the most joyous baby I’ve ever met, and I’m not just saying that as daddy. He never stops smiling and laughing, such a gas to be around him. This month he (read on):
Continue reading “Miles Five Months”

My fist valentine from Funny Bologna, aka Bolognious Monk, aka Bolognious Monkeyfish, aka Miles, and sweet wife Amy. Note: Not Photoshopped – genunine forehead stickers!

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Amy made new wallpaper for her Mac featuring Miles on a green rug with large interlocking circles. Buk nekkid. She used one of her desktop Stickies to cover up his wee twig-n-berries, just for the sake of decorum. The particular Stickie note she used happened to contain the account # for our Tiny Tots diaper service. It was all done unselfconsciously, but somehow the combination struck me as perfect visual poetry and we had a long belly laugh about it.

After a ~5-month hiatus, we’re officially house hunting again. Back on the Sunday open house circuit, slogging it through the Bay Area in search of the mythical perfect house — nice neighborhood, within bicycle commute distance to UCB, not tacky or flimsy or unloved, big enough to spread out in, extra room to turn into a darkroom, garage with room for a workbench, a few trees on the street….

Now more conflicted than ever. Both of us feeling so oppressed by the idea of going into eternal hawk and living close to the bone for god knows how long to get anywhere close to this dream. Should we pull up roots and head back to Massachusetts? Morro Bay? Portland? Portsmouth NH? Or better yet, Sweden?

But my work situation is so good. But no way can Miles play in the street here, let alone head off for 45 minutes of surfing or hiking before dinner. What’s the answer? Feeling like we’ve been in limbo over the housing thing for far too long. Already missed our big opportunity to cash in on the boom…. now the market hovers at saturation point. Interest rates in our favor, but housing prices “through the stratmosphere” (as an immigrant ex-boss used to say).

Miles is getting out a lot more in his 3rd month, and has experienced many firsts recently: Rolled over from his back to his tummy and back again, experienced his first Christmas and first snow, first time in a movie theater, first visit to a protest rally, first art opening and first time at an art museum (Gerhard Richter exhibit). Tonight will be his first time sleeping in his crib rather than in bed with mom and dad, which is a big one (for all three of us).

He’s been doing a lot of gurgling and cooing experiments, which are part of the reason we think it’s time for him to move out of our bed and into the crib (we can’t sleep for all the talking;). The rolling over bit is the really exciting one, since it means he’s on the brink of becoming motile. He’s grabbing anything that comes within reaching distance — hair, fingers, forks full of food en route to daddy’s mouth, toys, diapers, fish pellets … He’s fascinated by talking people, TV, screensavers, and above all fish tanks. Pictures of Miles in his 3rd month:

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Up to Pioneer (near Tahoe) for late Christmas, joining Mom and Dad, brother John and his fiancee at Dad’s cabin. Slipped in under a major storm set to dump Saturday night. Mid-way through the day a dog followed us home from a hike – name of Faith, phone numbers on her tag but no one reachable. When the snow started we took her door to door in the car looking for an owner, no luck.

Snow tumbling furiously and sky cracking, made a makeshift home for her in Dad’s basement, then took off in his 4WD to move our cars under the snowline so we’d be able to get out next day. Bad timing. Took forever to get down the hill, cars spinning out all around us, snow falling so thick we could barely see to drive, even our 4WD w/snow tires having trouble and sometimes sliding.

On way back up, they closed the road in front of us. Too many accidents, too much risk. Got stuck eating bad calamari in a pizza dive while they plowed. Meanwhile Christmas dinner was getting cold at home. One of those moments that would be a lot more depressing if the adventure weren’t so ripe.

Three hours later back to the cabin safe, then an hour into dinner the power blew, leaving us with his pot-belly stove and candlelight to finish dinner. Didn’t stop us. Egg nog w/brandy and a whalloping game of Cranium by candlelight.

In the morning, found 18″ of snow on ground at 4,000 ft. Won’t get to snowboard this trip, but that’s okay. It’s Miles first snow.

It is astonishing to see the effect television has on Miles. We’re not even sure whether he can focus on objects across the room, but if the TV is on, he’s glued to the set. He has no language comprehension and no idea what the forms on the screen are doing, but he is absolutely mesmerized by the dancing pixels and shapes. We can even be standing in the kitchen with him and see him craning his neck to see the TV in the living room. It’s the primordial modern babysitter. No matter what our ideas are about shielding him from TV’s influence, one glimpse is all it takes. Heroin for babies.

We don’t really worry about this rabid attraction to the tube. TV’s negative side is its trashy programming. But it’s not about content for infants – they just like the light forms, and at that level, it’s no worse than watching his mobile, which he can also watch for half an hour at a time. We also have a lot of fun setting him on my lap and running the iTunes visualizer full-screen – he’s equally mesmerized (Daddy’s a sucker for that game too ;)

In the past week or two Miles has learned to grasp intentionally, rather than randomly. He now holds his pacifier in his own mouth, and can hold a stuffed kitty to his chest. He grabs Amy’s hair, buttons on my shirt, etc. He was doing some of that earlier, but now it seems very intentional. “I want that.”

Yesterday he started making raspberries with his lips, buzzing and flapping through the drool. The cool thing is we can do it call and response. I’ll raspberry and he’ll raspberry back, and so on. Drool volume is way up – we think he may be in the early stages of teething.

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Odd how many people have commented that Miles “seems like an old soul” or has “ancient eyes” or similar.