actually, we’ve been out a little bit here and there. hmc’s mom watched snapper when we were in lost angels and then again once up here, allowing us to run out and catch 3:10 to yuma and eastern promises. (3:10 was much better. eastern promises is a little overrated. dirty pretty things was much better.)
with snapper, we’ve also been out walking around lake temescal, down to rockridge a couple of times, and then today we went on a super active day where we went out to the botanical garden in tilden, then hiked over to and around lake anza, and then drove down to cafe de la paz in berkeley for dinner, where it just happened our friend bill was having his wedding reception! later a quick stop at fenton’s in the evening for cc’s birthday.
not to mention our trips out to the rug store. there’s this lovely little rug store on college, run by albert, who’s a third-generation rug seller. he’s quite adorable and knows more about rugs than you could even hope to think about. we’re trying out one of the kurdish killums in our house right now to see how it looks. it’s goddamn gorgeous, but it might be too big. which is really unfortunate, because the more i look at it the more i love it.
time to move, i guess. just kidding.
there is also, of course, the question of whether to buy a very nice heirloom rug with a newborn. but let’s not talk about that. besides, mika looooves it as well.
if there’s been no update, it’s because i’m really not doing anything substantially new. it’s a continuous cycle of babywatch: feeding, burping, changing, sleeping. feeding, burping, changing, sleeping. every morning we get up and feed her, and then hmc goes back to sleep while i either put her down in her crib or let her sleep in my lap while i twiddle around watching tv or on the pooter. then hmc wakes up for the late morning feeding and i take a shower. then i take her, and hmc takes a shower. we scrabble together some lunch, and by then snapper’s up for the afternoon feeding. finally we’re all ready to go out and get on with our day, but by then it’s almost five and the rest of the world seems to be shutting down.
meanwhile, breaking news: snapper still cute.
the trek home wasn’t too bad. it took about eight hours. snapper wailed when we stopped in buttonwillow, but that was probably because it was raining and rain is yucky. she nursed in santa nella and pretty much slept the rest of the way. we were originally afraid that it would take extra long because we’d have to stop every couple of hours, but it was actually the opposite: she slept soundly when we were moving, but blew up when we stopped. it was like the baby version of “speed”.
the house is still there and everything looks fine. mika looks to be in good health, although understandably needy. so far she’s shown little interest in snapper, although when we got up several times in the night for feedings, mika was very curious: “why are you guys getting up at this time of day, and what is that screaming thing, anyway?”
this morning snapper slept in the sling while mika dozed in my lap. i have become the human mattress for little creatures.
took snapper in for her two week checkup and oil change.
verdict: snapper is doing well an very healthy. she’s up to 6lb 11oz, so she’s more than regained her birth weight. she’s up to 19.5”, meaning she’s grown an inch, or maybe even more because the hospital measures head-toe whereas the doctor measures head-heel.
afterwards, we all had lunch on the warner brothers studio lot, with hmc’s old boss from mimzy. snapper again was unimpressed with all the biz chitter chatter, and chose to sleep through it all.
today we went out to see the largest picture in the world in pasadena. meaning the largest picture in the world was in pasadena, not that we saw pasadena’s largest picture. which would have been unmotivating.
some facts:
The photograph was created over the nine months leading up to July 2006 by six well-known photographic artists collectively known as The Legacy Project, aided by 400 volunteers, artists, and experts. Working in their jet-hangar-transformed-into-camera, the group hand-applied 80 liters of gelatin silver halide emulsion to a seamless 3,375-square-foot canvas substrate custom-made in Germany. Development was done in a custom Olympic pool-sized developing tray using ten high volume submersible pumps and 1,800 gallons of black and white chemistry.
The photograph shows the control tower, structures and runways at the heart of the shuttered 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Southern California, shut down in the base closings of the mid-1990s. Once home to U.S. Marine Corps air operations for the western United States and Pacific region (including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East), El Toro is now being turned into housing and one of the largest urban parks in the western United States.
Great Picture Facts
it felt a little like going to the state fair, to see the WORLD’S LARGEST PUMPKIN! hmc explained that the magnificence really is about the process and not the end result: what they actually did to make and produce the great picture is really more impressive than the great picture itself.
unfortunately, what we really want is something that is both impressive to produce and is impressive afterwards. like the pyramids or the easter island statues.
snapper jones was likewise unimpressed, choosing to sleep through the whole thing. plus, to her, everything is already “the world’s largest”.
at hmc’s ob office today, another mom told us about some miracle lady who was on oprah because she had figured out the secrets of baby talk! no, not the ways of seducing 30’s era bombshells, but the universal ways that all babies try and express what they are thinking.
looking it up on oprah, i come up with this quick summary of priscilla dunstan’s miracle method:
* Neh=”I’m hungry”
* Owh=”I’m sleepy”
* Heh=”I’m experiencing discomfort”
* Eair=”I have lower gas”
* Eh=”I need to burp”
Those “words” are actually sound reflexes, Priscilla says. “Babies all around the world have the same reflexes, and they therefore make the same sounds,” she says. If parents don’t respond to those reflexes, Priscilla says the baby will eventually stop using them.
Priscilla recommends that parents listen for those words in a baby’s pre-cry before they start crying hysterically. She says there is no one sound that’s harder to hear than others because it varies by individual. She also says some babies use some words more than others.
and from dunstan’s website where you can conveniently buy her dvd:
Every newborn communicates from birth to 3 months using 5 distinct sounds, or “words” to express their physical needs. This is regardless of the language their parents speak and is part of nature’s plan - that your baby can tell you what they need from the very beginning.
For example, every baby will say the word “neh” when hungry. The sooner ‘hunger’ is identified the sooner a parent can respond by feeding.
The system will teach you that your baby’s first communications occur before crying develops. The sooner you recognise the sounds and their meaning the quicker needs will be met. Your baby will become more relaxed, confident and happy - and so will you.
These sounds or “words” form the basis of the Dunstan Baby Language. To see it in practice, take a look at this video extract and hear for yourself examples of babies saying the word “neh”. In addition to teaching you how to tune your ear to the 5 words, the DVD program also takes you through settling solutions, as well as helpful tips and advice. You will also view Priscilla in a ‘live lesson’, teaching new mothers the system with immediate results.
It was eight years of research that revealed this system of sounds - a language that is shared by all babies. We trust you will enjoy the Dunstan Baby Language as your baby benefits from being listened to - and truly heard.
does this work? who knows. today i heard some eh’s, some neh’s, but then also something that sounded like weyyhhrbrbrbrb. maybe that’s in the video. naturally, i keep thinking of that simpsons episode where homer’s brother invents the baby translator and regains his fortune.
as it turns out, someone’s claimed to have invented this already: the whycry, which claims to analyze babies cries themselves. between dunstan and the whycry, it seems you would have everything covered. how this differs from the recent stanford baby translation program, who knows.
all i know is that snapper seems to say “heh” alot, which i’m guessing roughly translates to: “get me out of this damn swaddle straightjacket, you bastard!”
and then there’s the coup de grace: sucking is ok. they’re saying that the first three months are really like the fetus’ “fourth trimester”, so anything you do to calm them is both ok and not detrimental. because you can’t spoil a fetus. i think there’s a joke in there somewhere, but it’s probably tasteless.
all i know is that on that second night, when she was crying and crying and crying, i not only sat there and let her suck on my pinky for hours, but i finally threw in the towel and got a pacifier from the nurse and let her go at that. all i could think of was, “it hasn’t even been two days, and i’ve already resorted to maggie simpson-izing her!”
the thing is, who knows if this any of this is really the best method? every era has its ideas about ideal parenting. breastfeeding is good. no, breastfeeding is bad, let’s let science bulk up our kids— everyone should use formula! i hear that back in the 50’s they actually recommended that pregant ladies SMOKE in order to reduce birth weight, making labor easier. yikes.
thirty years from now they’ll look back in horror at the medieval practices we put our kids through. “you swaddled them? my lord, how barbaric! everyone knows that the best thing is to hang them by their ankles.”
i just hope we don’t raise a generation of bondage queens with oral fixations.
as i exist now in this hazy netherworld between sleep and wakefulness, i realize that one of the things that we strive for once we get this old is some sort of dependable routine. it may be something as basic as getting at least eight hours of sleep every day, to trying telecommute every other friday or catching the new ep of bsg when it comes out.
then you have babies and they blow that entirely to smithereens.
one night you get to sleep for a nice four hour stretch, the other you’re up every hour for an hour. the next night you enjoy nine hours of sleep in a manageable 2-2-2-3. you think you’ve figured out how to soothe that “happiest baby on the block” and then it doesn’t work anymore. you finally figure out that burping works best sitting up and rubbing, and then it doesn’t.
and then apparently they grow older and all the rules and games change completely?
this is a nutty thing. but you do it because you’re full of hormones and you can’t help it.
the midwife got here around 11:15am or so. hmc had been laboring through stronger and stronger contractions as i tried to help her breathe through them using those hypnobirthing techniques we hadn’t practiced quite enough of.
the midwife checked her cervix, and hmc was already at 9cm.
holy shit. (for those of you who don’t know, you’re supposed to go to the hospital at about 4cm. at 10, you’re more or less crowning and ready to push.)
“we need to go to the hospital. NOW.”
oddly enough, the only slightly frantic part was where the midwife wanted hmc to lay down in the back seat, and she’d get in with her to check her progress. thing is, i had the baby carseat already installed in there like everyone tells you to do ahead of time. the longest minute in the world was spent fumbling around with me trying to figure out how to take the seat OUT of the car.
and off we went. the midwife told hmc not to wear underwear. so that she could check to see how she was doing in the car. just in case.
we got to cedars-sinai at noon, and the midwife took hmc straight up to the maternity ward and right into a delivery room, while i parked and brought up the bags. when i got there, hmc was on a birthing bed, and the doctor was there in scrubs, along with the nurse and midwife.
hmc asked about an epidural to deal with the pain, and the doctor said that she could still get one, but that it might be all over before it would even kick in.
and it was.
labor took a little over two and a half hours.
it was amazing. seeing snapper’s head peeking out. seeing hmc valiantly push and bear down during the final contractions with a totally natural childbirth. seeing snapper’s head pop out, and then her shoulders, and the rest of her.
seeing that we had found the prettiest girl in the world.
