End-of-month bouillabaisse

I realized that it's the end of January and I've posted exactly once this month. Not very good, even by my low standards. So here's a grab-bag review, including things you may have already heard me say in a different setting:

Sports - I want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. They've gone 18-0, which no one has done before, but it "won't count" if they lose the Super Bowl. So I'd like them to win for their sake, and for my peevish reason: I want to not see Don Shula or any other 1972 Dolphin trotted out the next time an NFL team starts their season X-and-0 (X >= 8). Every time I've seen those guys comment on the latest good team, they've always come across as very petty, refusing to acknowledge that another team in football history might be good, too.

Politics - McCain is doing well: yay. Edward, Giuliani, and Thompson are out: yay.

Economy - It looks like the housing market and the broader credit cycle are both turning and will take at least a couple of years to shake out. If that's right, then the main effect of the proposed fiscal stimulus package will be to shift spending from 2009 to 2008, worsening the economy in 2009. I read an article recently speculating that, given the bi-partisan support for the stimulus,
Republicans and Democrats each must think the other is going to win the White House and wants to leave an extra mess for the new president.

History - http://www.atomfilms.com:80/film/food_fight.jsp - Major international conflicts from World War II to the present day, presented in stop-action animation of nationalistic food. Hamburger = US, croissants = France, etc.

Owen - The young gentleman is ever more mobile, able to scootch in all directions on his tummy. But we're still in that blessed time when we can set him down, leave the room for a minute, and know that he'll still be there when we come back.

I still speculate that O may go straight to walking. He loves being upright, the higher the better. While he's comfortable on his stomach, it doesn't seem to be the direction he really wants to go.

He's made it through all the entry-level vegetables, with only green beans causing hate and gagging. (But even they were OK when mixed with cereal.) Now he's into the fruits: bananas were great; apples are good, even if they do occasionally cause an incredibly cute sour face. Continuing the Hulk theme (sort of), Owen will occasionally pause eating to stick his arms straight out, turn his face red, and grunt. Like a red, infant Incredible Hulk. ("You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry.") He doesn't seem unhappy; it's just something he does. (I know, you're thinking, "Umm, hello, he's pooping." Not so. Whenever he makes faces and noises that make you think, "Relax, kid. Here, have a prune," there's nothing. The action in the back section is always stealthy.)

Owen's vocalization is still almost all vowels, though he's added some very spitty raspberries/motorboats to the mix in the past month. (The spittiness is no doubt is related to him cutting his first tooth.) He's got a great laugh. The main mode is to open his mouth wide in a huge smile and say "ha ha ha", but without the h's - almost panting. When he gets really excited (eg, tickling, being swung up and down), the panting morphs into a loud, staccato "gha gha gha", or maybe "!a !a !a". However you write it, it's big fun.

OK, now I'm a better correspondent. (See you February 29.)

Tempus fugiting

Any number of times before Owen was born, I heard parents say, "I can't believe how fast the time goes." For the first six months of Owen's life, I have mainly wondered what they were talking about, as it has been the busiest, most tiring, fullest time I have experienced. The time does not go fast. I'm not suggesting time drags because it was awful or boring. I just don't feel like, "Hey, where did that week go?" Instead, last week generally feels like last month.

However, I've recently had my first two glimpses of parental time flight.

1) Now past Owen's six-month birthday, I realize he's closer to being a toddler than being a newborn. Though there is still a lot to come, it's now clear that there is a finite amount of baby-ness (eg, holding him and giving him a bottle) left.

2) Kerry's parents visited over Christmas, and we then saw them in Arizona nine days later. They commented that Owen had changed, but said that we wouldn't see it, because we saw him every day. With all due respect to Mimi and Pawpaw, I thought they were nuts. But I was just apart from Owen for five days, the longest time I've been away from him yet, and he has changed. His face is less round, he's using his legs to scoot around on his tummy, he's shrieking (with joy to see me, I assert), he's starting to cry like a child instead of a baby... a lot happened while I wasn't looking.

Solid

[Just imagine picture of Owen looking solid, 70s soul style. Long leather coat, sideburns and a mustache, a little Curtis Mayfield in the background.]

Five days on, Owen is definitely into solid food. It's still rice cereal, but he is way beyond that first day of rice and milk soup, now preferring a drier, chunkier preparation. As soon as I got out the cereal and bowl last night, his eyes were fixed on me. Only a couple of times did he grab the inbound, food-laden spoon. Mainly he lunged for it, mouth open, like a great white going after a piece of chum.

This is but one example of how quickly Owen is learning these days. His ability to physically manipulate things improves seemingly day by day. His own locomotion is still limited, but not for long, I don't think. On his stomach, he'll see something in front of him, and he knows that there is a way to get there; he hasn't figured it out yet, but you can see the wheels turning. (It's the same look he had when he started to recognize his hands as his own, not as independent, slashing creatures.) The best he can muster is repeated pushing up and letting back down, which unfortunately causes him to inch backwards.

A new reason for parents to clean up their act

Every parent knows that they must watch their language, or else baby's first word will be dropping the f-bomb when grandma and grandpa are visiting. But a new study suggests that, in addition to mimicry, babies have and exercise moral judgment, preferring those anthropomorphic, colored shapes who help others. (We can only assume that the same judgment is applied to people.)

So why is Owen fussing and not wanting to be held by Dad? He's just in a fussy mood? Maybe. Or maybe it's because Dad didn't help Mom unload the car yesterday afternoon.

(Aside: I love that "87.5 percent of 10-month olds" chose the helping shape. Think that maybe they had eight babies in the study? But "87.5 percent" is so much more scientific sounding than "seven of eight".)

Update on our cleverness and other matters

I began something like a narrative with my posts about Owen's sleeping (or not), so I feel I ought to provide some followup. A week-and-a-half on, things are going well. Going to and staying asleep without a pacifier was a pretty easy change. The early morning (3-4 AM) meal has been harder to address, but we've whittled him down to a mere ounce (as of this morning), and two of the last four nights, he hasn't wanted it at all.

Actually, the low signal-to-noise ratio is a challenge, and was even before starting this process. Dr Ferber and his ilk describe the starting habit to be changed as a thing of metronomic regularity: the baby wants a pacifier, 2:35 bottle, holding, freshly pressed raw silk onesie, etc, every night. But at least with the feeding, our O bounced around, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, sometimes not at all. So is it a behavior or just bad luck? And on nights we've seen improvements, is it progress or just good luck? Over many nights, there's a trend, but it makes things a bit trickier than described in the books.

Owen's put a new trick in the mix: rolling on to his stomach at night. Yay for developing motor skills, but the poor dude still seems to associate being face down with tummy time. So he wakes himself up, gets frustrated, and starts fussing. I walk in to find him in the yoga cobra position in his crib, crying. But give him a little push on to his back, he grabs his piggie blanket, curls to his side, and back to sleep.

Another new trick: Owen was lying on his back, holding a toy in his left hand. He saw another toy to his left, but couldn't grab it reaching his empty right hand across his body. So he handed the first toy from his left hand to his right, then could reach the new toy with his left hand. What a problem solver! (Of course, he accidentally pushed away the object of his desire with his left hand, but that's not the point.)

Finally, these last two days, he's been very boyish. He's started grabbing at the cats' tails and can make a mighty racket by banging toys on his high-chair tray.