Our 4th wedding anniversary is this Thursday, and I was thinking recently about the sappy cards and presents Vivek and I used to give each other on our dating anniversary (Feb. 10th or 13th depending on which one of us you ask) and contrasting that with this year's reality, which is that we are probably going to say "happy anniversary" (if we even remember :) and not do much else. I don't think there is any deeper meaning to this fact other than the obvious one -- that we are the new parents of a four-month-old, which is consuming most of our creative energy. But tonight, something Vivek did made me smile, and once I got started, I was able to think of a good many more things I love about him too. So in that spirit, I came up with this non-exhaustive (and pretty sappy) list:
1. He doesn't think it is just my job to get up in the middle of the night to comfort our baby.
2. He is willing to be the only guy in a class full of stay-at-home moms so he can learn silly songs and games to do with Kiren. This despite the fact that the teacher continues to refer to everyone in the group as "moms" and said that one of the topics of discussion could be the ladies complaining about their husbands.
3. He continues to load the dishwasher his way, even though I have patiently explained that 4 times as many dishes will fit if he would do it my way. Of course, most importantly, he is loading the dishwasher.
4. He doesn't recognize that we have at least three different types of spoons, so when I look in our silverware drawer, I can always tell when he has unloaded the dishwasher. Of course, most importantly, he has unloaded the dishwasher.
5. He gets really excited to learn new things, often by reading books, especially ones that present coherent theories on dog training, baby sleep habits, parenting, etc.
6. He knows that I am particular about certain things, like not using metal on non-stick pans, and he tries his best to do it my way, even though such things don't bother him in the least.
7. At the very beginning of our stay in the hospital for Kiren's birth, he held my hand while I got an IV, and in response to my cringing, he promised that he would clean the kitty litter forever. This, even though he'd been doing the kitty litter for 9 months solid at that point, and that after pregnancy, it would no longer be dangerous for me to take my turn. I am pretty sure I won't hold him to that.
8. Even though he doesn't like to, and has tried to talk me out of it, he still saves all of his receipts so that I can do my time-consuming (and arguably useless) bookkeeping.
9. It bothers him more than it bothers me to have dirty dishes in the kitchen, so even though he was wary of all of my breast pump equipment that has to be washed constantly, he is the one doing those dishes more often than not.
10. He is incredibly passionate about his work, and he is always on the lookout for more ways to be involved, learn new things, or advocate for changes that will improve his field and his clients' lives.
11. On the last night of our stay in the hospital, I encouraged Vivek to go home and get a good night's rest because my mom was willing to stay overnight with me instead. At first, he agreed that was a good idea, but he changed his mind saying that he would miss his family too much.
12. The first time they wheeled Kiren into our hospital room in the clear rolling crib thing, he asked the nurses for permission to pick up Kiren. The nurses said that since Kiren is our baby, we didn't need permission. And this question was from a guy who teaches classes on parental rights! Truth be told, though, I am glad he asked because I wasn't sure about "the rules" either. That is just the tip of the iceberg re: what we didn't know about parenting, but we are having fun learning together.
13. He doesn't retain song lyrics at all, but that doesn't stop him from constantly singing silly songs to Kiren with made-up lyrics that make our boy (and me) laugh.
14. He's taking four months of paternity leave, which could be a much deserved break for him. Instead, he is teaching a night class, working on various proposals, advising students, attending faculty meetings, talking to the professors covering his cases AND he still finds time to read the entire newspaper every day, do the dishes, and change the laundry loads, not to mention take care of Kiren, of course. I was only able to accomplish the Kiren part and the occasional load of laundry during my leave!
Happy Anniversary, Vivek. I love you!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Best. Baby. Ever. and weekend #3
Before I get back to the third weekend for the wedding(s), I just have to say that Kiren slept 10 hours last night -- from 8ish to 6ish -- WOW! Unfortunately, I woke up at 5ish because I was uncomfortable (he usually eats well before then, and my body had a lot of extra milk). Oh well, since I went to bed at about 10, that was still a seven hour sleep for me, easily the best since he arrived four months ago. To top it off, I kept him up for about 30 minutes after he ate, while I pumped away the extra milk, and then he went back to bed at 7 for a 2.5 hour nap, and I slept for most of that too. Yay!! I feel pretty darn good today.
Oh and as a note to my future self if we ever do this baby thing again, I think the long sleep is because we are double swaddling him. In the past couple of weeks, he has been compulsively rolling from his back to his tummy. He doesn't remember that a few weeks before, he learned to roll from his tummy to his back, so he gets stuck on his tummy. He only likes his tummy for about 5 to 10 minutes, and it certainly is not a sleeping position for him. Compound that with the fact that our Miracle Blanket is simply too small for our big boy, so he is fighting out of the blanket, rolling around, etc; he just can't be still to go to sleep. The second blanket helps contain the first blanket, so he's sleeping better. Well, that's one theory anyway. Another theory is that we hit the magic four month mark that everyone said is when it will get better (which seemed really, really far off when he was a week old, so it wasn't much consolation at the time!), and it was nothing that we actually did. Finally, the whole thing could have been a fluke, a one-night-only event. I hope it is not the last one, but who knows. We'll just have to see.
Now, back to the wedding weekend. Vivek's first cousin was the groom, so many relatives descended upon NJ for the event. In fact, many of them stayed with us at Vivek's parents house, which was fun and a bit wild too, especially since it included my two MI nephews, a 2.5-year-old and a one-year-old.
We flew out Thursday afternoon, the 30th, and it was Kiren's worst flight by far (I know that you might be saying, hmm, he's too young to have flown much, but with trips to AR and CO under his belt, he really has had four flights before this one). He was not crying really, but doing his "fun" pterodactyl screams/screeches, which I am sure were quite a hit with the folks around us. We know how to fix it -- get up and bounce him -- but the seatbelt sign was on for most of the flight, so that quiver in our arsenal was not available. Luckily, it is a fairly quick flight to NY, so it wasn't too bad.
The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of family members meeting Kiren for the first time, which must have been quite a bit of over-stimulation for him. New people were constantly sticking their faces in his -- and, in a bit of irony, even mentioning how overstimulating that must be while doing it themselves! There was a Hindu wedding on Saturday morning, and Kiren did quite well at that one and looked quite dashing in his Indian clothes that his Thathi, a.k.a. Kiren's grandma and Vivek's mom, got for him in India. However, on Sunday evening, there was a interfaith ceremony complete with dinner and dancing. He was fine during the actual wedding (not quiet, exactly, but definitely not crying -- just talking some, so Vivek was standing up with him in the back), but he was pretty unhappy during the reception. He was actually asleep early on, but then the loud clapping and woohoos after the first toast woke him up. That meant he was fussing during subsequent toasts, and wouldn't you know we were in a corner unable to escape without walking in front of the people giving the speeches. Later in the evening, we ended up putting him in our ergo carrier and dancing around the dance floor with him some. And then we left early, but we probably should have left even earlier if we were actually responding to Kiren's cues. Once we made it back to Vivek's parents house, he had a brief meltdown of red faced crying (that we deserved for keeping him up so long), and then he finally slept.
Unfortunately, after all the "trauma" of the night before, we had to wake him up to make our early morning plane back to MI, but he was great on that flight because he slept for almost all of it. And in a first for me, I got some digits on the plane. Yup, that's right, I picked up a family. There was a mom in front of us with a 5-month-old, and her husband and two older children (5 and 7) were sitting across the aisle. They live in Ann Arbor, and since we haven't really met anyone that close to Kiren's age, and they hadn't met anyone with kids their 5-month-old's age, we exchanged numbers.
To top off the weekend, we went to the annual faculty Labor Day picnic for dinner. It is great to see the faculty with their families, and the picnic always has cool stuff for kids to do. This year they had pony rides and a petting zoo, which was lost on our little guy, but will be fun in future years. Although last year, they had a clown, and one of our friends said her son was scared of it. That makes sense to me, so I hope they'll just bring back the animals next year.
Oh and as a note to my future self if we ever do this baby thing again, I think the long sleep is because we are double swaddling him. In the past couple of weeks, he has been compulsively rolling from his back to his tummy. He doesn't remember that a few weeks before, he learned to roll from his tummy to his back, so he gets stuck on his tummy. He only likes his tummy for about 5 to 10 minutes, and it certainly is not a sleeping position for him. Compound that with the fact that our Miracle Blanket is simply too small for our big boy, so he is fighting out of the blanket, rolling around, etc; he just can't be still to go to sleep. The second blanket helps contain the first blanket, so he's sleeping better. Well, that's one theory anyway. Another theory is that we hit the magic four month mark that everyone said is when it will get better (which seemed really, really far off when he was a week old, so it wasn't much consolation at the time!), and it was nothing that we actually did. Finally, the whole thing could have been a fluke, a one-night-only event. I hope it is not the last one, but who knows. We'll just have to see.
Now, back to the wedding weekend. Vivek's first cousin was the groom, so many relatives descended upon NJ for the event. In fact, many of them stayed with us at Vivek's parents house, which was fun and a bit wild too, especially since it included my two MI nephews, a 2.5-year-old and a one-year-old.
We flew out Thursday afternoon, the 30th, and it was Kiren's worst flight by far (I know that you might be saying, hmm, he's too young to have flown much, but with trips to AR and CO under his belt, he really has had four flights before this one). He was not crying really, but doing his "fun" pterodactyl screams/screeches, which I am sure were quite a hit with the folks around us. We know how to fix it -- get up and bounce him -- but the seatbelt sign was on for most of the flight, so that quiver in our arsenal was not available. Luckily, it is a fairly quick flight to NY, so it wasn't too bad.
The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of family members meeting Kiren for the first time, which must have been quite a bit of over-stimulation for him. New people were constantly sticking their faces in his -- and, in a bit of irony, even mentioning how overstimulating that must be while doing it themselves! There was a Hindu wedding on Saturday morning, and Kiren did quite well at that one and looked quite dashing in his Indian clothes that his Thathi, a.k.a. Kiren's grandma and Vivek's mom, got for him in India. However, on Sunday evening, there was a interfaith ceremony complete with dinner and dancing. He was fine during the actual wedding (not quiet, exactly, but definitely not crying -- just talking some, so Vivek was standing up with him in the back), but he was pretty unhappy during the reception. He was actually asleep early on, but then the loud clapping and woohoos after the first toast woke him up. That meant he was fussing during subsequent toasts, and wouldn't you know we were in a corner unable to escape without walking in front of the people giving the speeches. Later in the evening, we ended up putting him in our ergo carrier and dancing around the dance floor with him some. And then we left early, but we probably should have left even earlier if we were actually responding to Kiren's cues. Once we made it back to Vivek's parents house, he had a brief meltdown of red faced crying (that we deserved for keeping him up so long), and then he finally slept.
Unfortunately, after all the "trauma" of the night before, we had to wake him up to make our early morning plane back to MI, but he was great on that flight because he slept for almost all of it. And in a first for me, I got some digits on the plane. Yup, that's right, I picked up a family. There was a mom in front of us with a 5-month-old, and her husband and two older children (5 and 7) were sitting across the aisle. They live in Ann Arbor, and since we haven't really met anyone that close to Kiren's age, and they hadn't met anyone with kids their 5-month-old's age, we exchanged numbers.
To top off the weekend, we went to the annual faculty Labor Day picnic for dinner. It is great to see the faculty with their families, and the picnic always has cool stuff for kids to do. This year they had pony rides and a petting zoo, which was lost on our little guy, but will be fun in future years. Although last year, they had a clown, and one of our friends said her son was scared of it. That makes sense to me, so I hope they'll just bring back the animals next year.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Three busy weekends
I am heading back to work tomorrow, so this is probably a very bad time to write my first blog post because I'm not sure I'll actually have time to continue blogging. Oh well, here goes anyway!
The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. Three weekends ago, Vivek, Kiren, and I went to Keystone, Colorado for a conference. Vivek was doing a presentation, so Kiren and I tagged along. Kiren did really well on the trip -- he swam for the first time, took lots of naps, saw some fireworks, and was great at two of our four dinners out (he was pretty fussy during the other two, though. We spent his first few months on this planet taking him out to eat several times a week while he slept. We may continue to eat out, but the sleeping days are pretty much over). Also, I had a massage, we went for a family nature walk, we had a great dinner with Vivek's co-presenter and his family (they have an 8 month old), and we spent an afternoon exploring Breckenridge. All in all, a great first family vacation for Kiren.
We almost missed the fireworks, though. Kiren was sleeping, and we decided to wake him up to go (I know, I know, never wake a sleeping baby). The resort said the fireworks started around 9:30. Apparently, "around" was the key word because they actually started at 9:15. We grabbed our shoes, jackets, and Kiren, and made a mad dash for the outside. We made it for the second half of the show. Kiren was pretty mesmerized by the lights, and he didn't startle or cry at the noise, so we think he liked the fireworks...although, it could be that he was just so surprised to be awake.
The weekend after Colorado, Vivek's parents and two family members came to town for our nephew's first birthday party. They arrived on Thursday evening and stayed through Sunday morning, with the party taking up most of Saturday. It was a nice, but quick, visit. On Sunday, we were looking forward to having a quiet day. It was not to be however.
That morning, Vivek was sweet enough to let me sleep-in while he was in charge of Kiren (although, truth be told, Kiren stayed asleep the whole time -- lucky Vivek, but it was still a sweet offer). Eventually, Vivek woke me to tell me our freezer had a big pool of water under it. In my sleepy stupor, I thought he was talking about our chest freezer. I almost had a heart attack because I have lots of bags of frozen breast milk stored for my return to work. Instead, he meant our fridge freezer. We moved into action and moved all the frozen stuff we could salvage into the chest freezer. We couldn't tell right away whether the fridge side was also broken, but it quickly became clear that it was. In an inspired bit of problem-solving, I remembered that our neighbors have a beer fridge in their garage, and they leave the garage door open. So we moved all of our frig contents next door. I then spent awhile calling several places that SAY in the phone book that they are open 24 hours, but don't actually answer the phone, which makes it hard to make an appointment. I finally did manage to get a service call scheduled for the next morning, and the woman on the phone mentioned that if the compressor is the problem, we will simply want to replace the fridge. It is only 7 years old, so I thought that was pretty silly. However, according to Consumer Reports, 8 years is about the life a fridge these days -- that is terrible! My parents still have the fridge I grew up using, and my grandmother apparently bought a used chest freezer in 1958 that she is still using. As my uncle pointed out, she has never been shy about putting it to work, either. Apparently, though, they just don't make 'em like they used to.
Upon her advice, I spent the rest of the afternoon researching new fridges. Vivek and I then went to Home Depot to look over my choice and pick up our own, smaller beer (or coke) fridge; we are now the proud owners of a dorm fridge -- I guess Kiren can take it to college (if it lasts that long, which seems unlikely given the current sad state of fridge making).
On Monday, the service folks came, and for a mere $70 (plus $100 for the service call), we are back in the cooling/freezing business. I will just save my fridge research for another day.
As an aside, on our way to Home Depot, we stopped by a used children's stuff store and found a jumperoo for Kiren -- it's a hit! He really likes it. I will try to post some video of him jumping when I figure out how to do that.
Then for the final busy weekend, for Labor Day, we went to NJ for a family wedding. But since it is my bedtime, I will post about that later.
I think this post is entirely too long, but since I don't have any readers, I am going to post it as is. Good night!
The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. Three weekends ago, Vivek, Kiren, and I went to Keystone, Colorado for a conference. Vivek was doing a presentation, so Kiren and I tagged along. Kiren did really well on the trip -- he swam for the first time, took lots of naps, saw some fireworks, and was great at two of our four dinners out (he was pretty fussy during the other two, though. We spent his first few months on this planet taking him out to eat several times a week while he slept. We may continue to eat out, but the sleeping days are pretty much over). Also, I had a massage, we went for a family nature walk, we had a great dinner with Vivek's co-presenter and his family (they have an 8 month old), and we spent an afternoon exploring Breckenridge. All in all, a great first family vacation for Kiren.
We almost missed the fireworks, though. Kiren was sleeping, and we decided to wake him up to go (I know, I know, never wake a sleeping baby). The resort said the fireworks started around 9:30. Apparently, "around" was the key word because they actually started at 9:15. We grabbed our shoes, jackets, and Kiren, and made a mad dash for the outside. We made it for the second half of the show. Kiren was pretty mesmerized by the lights, and he didn't startle or cry at the noise, so we think he liked the fireworks...although, it could be that he was just so surprised to be awake.
The weekend after Colorado, Vivek's parents and two family members came to town for our nephew's first birthday party. They arrived on Thursday evening and stayed through Sunday morning, with the party taking up most of Saturday. It was a nice, but quick, visit. On Sunday, we were looking forward to having a quiet day. It was not to be however.
That morning, Vivek was sweet enough to let me sleep-in while he was in charge of Kiren (although, truth be told, Kiren stayed asleep the whole time -- lucky Vivek, but it was still a sweet offer). Eventually, Vivek woke me to tell me our freezer had a big pool of water under it. In my sleepy stupor, I thought he was talking about our chest freezer. I almost had a heart attack because I have lots of bags of frozen breast milk stored for my return to work. Instead, he meant our fridge freezer. We moved into action and moved all the frozen stuff we could salvage into the chest freezer. We couldn't tell right away whether the fridge side was also broken, but it quickly became clear that it was. In an inspired bit of problem-solving, I remembered that our neighbors have a beer fridge in their garage, and they leave the garage door open. So we moved all of our frig contents next door. I then spent awhile calling several places that SAY in the phone book that they are open 24 hours, but don't actually answer the phone, which makes it hard to make an appointment. I finally did manage to get a service call scheduled for the next morning, and the woman on the phone mentioned that if the compressor is the problem, we will simply want to replace the fridge. It is only 7 years old, so I thought that was pretty silly. However, according to Consumer Reports, 8 years is about the life a fridge these days -- that is terrible! My parents still have the fridge I grew up using, and my grandmother apparently bought a used chest freezer in 1958 that she is still using. As my uncle pointed out, she has never been shy about putting it to work, either. Apparently, though, they just don't make 'em like they used to.
Upon her advice, I spent the rest of the afternoon researching new fridges. Vivek and I then went to Home Depot to look over my choice and pick up our own, smaller beer (or coke) fridge; we are now the proud owners of a dorm fridge -- I guess Kiren can take it to college (if it lasts that long, which seems unlikely given the current sad state of fridge making).
On Monday, the service folks came, and for a mere $70 (plus $100 for the service call), we are back in the cooling/freezing business. I will just save my fridge research for another day.
As an aside, on our way to Home Depot, we stopped by a used children's stuff store and found a jumperoo for Kiren -- it's a hit! He really likes it. I will try to post some video of him jumping when I figure out how to do that.
Then for the final busy weekend, for Labor Day, we went to NJ for a family wedding. But since it is my bedtime, I will post about that later.
I think this post is entirely too long, but since I don't have any readers, I am going to post it as is. Good night!
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