The Number Field

We've been back in Texas for a couple of days now, and I've only just now finished my post about the second day of our vacation. I need to be more brief and selective in my reporting or I'll never get through. I'm sure that you'll also be thankful for greater concision on my part.

Of course, life doesn't wait for me to blog about it before continuing on. Here are a few tidbits about what we've been up to since our return. On Wednesday, Elena had her six month doctor's appointment. She's 18 lbs, 11 oz, 27 and 3/4 inches tall, and still ranks in the 95th percentile in both of those categories. She got another round of immunizations and took them like a champ--we had some crying while the nurse poked her, but then she calmed down and cheered up right away.

Yesterday Jenny and Elena went to SeaWorld with Uncle John and cousins Warren and Gavin. For the boys, it was a treat before Warren starts first grade next week, and a reward for being so good during the first days of their new baby sister's life. Jenny got to feed a dolphin, and they ended the day with some quality swimming pool time.

While they had all that fun, I was at work preparing for the semester, practicing and reading for my next round of interviews, and doing some research. Maybe all of that gives another reason why I need to be more quick and brief with this blog--I suddenly have many things to do. And all at a time when Elena is again developing so quickly, with new skills like sitting up, the introduction of lots of new foods to her diet, and more laughs and communication than ever before. I'll try my best to keep all the plates spinning , but Jenny has mentioned that she's ready to try her hand at writing for the blog. I'm looking forward to her help and perspective!

We're almost a week into our big vacation, and I haven't written about it at all yet. I'll try to catch up over the next day or two, when we might be a little bit less busy. We left Austin last Sunday afternoon on a flight to Salt Lake City. Because this is our first long trip with a baby, we have already learned a lot about traveling with her. We'll try to make different choices in the future, starting with our flight times.

Our first flight was a short hop to Dallas, and Elena had a hard time with the change in pressure. She has never been sick or experienced much pain other than when she got immunization shots, so it was hard to see her crying and clawing at her ears. We tried several different things, and eventually soothed her. The descent didn't seem to cause as much of a problem, but she did get restless while the coasted around the gigantic Dallas airport to the gate.

After that, things became more complicated. We had a three hour layover at the Dallas airport, so we found a quiet, mostly empty area near our departure gate, then ate our own dinner and fed Elena. Our flight didn't leave until 9:30, and Elena usually falls asleep at about 8:30. We kept her awake until boarding time. Surprisingly, we didn't get to preboard on either flight; the practice does not seem to be as ubiquitous as we thought. This time around, she fell asleep before the plane took off and didn't have any problems with her ears on the way up.

However, the three hour flight presented different challenges than the forty-five minute one, especially with a sleeping baby sprawled across our laps. With all the noise and activity inherent to a flight, she slept less soundly than usual and any small thing was likely to wake her up. Especially if we were the source of the sound or movement. At one point, Jenny wanted to make some tiny adjustment, and looked over at me to see if I thought it would be okay for Elena. I wasn't so sure, but I could see that she really needed to make the shift.

When Jenny did move, Elena started to cry. To calm her I walked up and down the plane's single narrow aisle. All the passengers seemed to have their eyes fixed on me. Some of them looked sympathetic, but others looked more like me in younger days, when I was annoyed by parents with crying babies on planes. Eventually, Elena settled back down. In retrospect, I think she fussed because she was only half-awake; if we had thought to wake her all the way up, she might have done better.

In fact, when we landed in Salt Lake City, Elena did wake up more fully and had at least a few smiles for my sister Heidi, who came to pick us up and with whom we were staying while there. Elena didn't want to get into her car seat, but once she did it was a short ride to Heidi's house. Elena was so awake that she didn't want to go to sleep again. At two in the morning, not long after I had closed my eyes, she started crying again. We decided to try feeding her one more time, which worked. I slept for just a few minutes while Jenny fed her, but afterwards Elena was wide awake. Somehow I managed to rouse myself and play with her for half an hour while Jenny started her night's sleep.

Elena woke up altogether too soon on Monday morning, but in the course of that day and the next she napped well and got back on schedule, allowing us to have lots of adventures and fun times. I'll report on those soon.

This week we had the pleasure of a visit from my brother and Elena's uncle Luke. He had to arrange the trip on short notice, and we were happy that the logistics worked out. He got here on Tuesday morning, and as soon as I brought him home, we put him to work burping Elena. As her way of welcoming him, she spit up on him almost immediately.

In the evening Luke, Elena and I went to the boathouse. I had been working there in the morning when a bird flew in and didn't want to leave before I had to go pick Luke up from the airport. We went back armed with crackers to lure the bird to the ground, but it didn't go for them. Instead, it flew down in front of the door we hadn't opened. After I opened the door, the bird flew right out. Maybe its bird friends had been talking to it from outside.

On Wednesday morning Luke and I went for a run. He was still adjusting from his travels, so I was able to keep up with him. From what he told me, he's been doing lots of work to get ready for soccer tryouts at his college for this semester. I can't speak for his soccer skills, but his fitness level is pretty high. The run was just the first of several cross-training workouts.

Later I took Luke to campus. I needed to do some work, and I thought he would enjoy walking around. He didn't have his cell phone, but he did have his iPod, so I logged him into the wireless network and told him to send me an email if he got lost or needed anything. Apparently, in the future of ubiquitous wireless connectivity, we will finally recapture the long-lost art of the telegraph. When it was time to leave, I got an email from him: he was on the wrong floor of my building but didn't know it. We found each other and headed home to care for Elena while Jenny went to the chiropractor.

That evening Luke made some excellent peanut butter cookies while I was at my Boy Scout meeting. Jenny had made chocolate cookies the day before, but we polished off the entire batch and still wanted more. So Luke stepped in to fill the gap. To thank him for his work, we manned up our evening entertainment. Instead of The Bachelorette , which we had watched the night before, we watched The Bourne Ultimatum .

We saved our most busy day for Thursday. In the morning, I took Luke rowing. On a previous visit, I sent him out for a brief trip in my racing single, which against all odds he managed not to flip. I decided not to inflict such torture on him again, so we took out a double together. He's spent some time on the erg, but not very much, and as he later commented: "rowing is nothing at all like erging." Nevertheless, he picked it up very quickly; he's a natural talent. By the time we had to turn around, he was smooth enough that we could row together at a pretty good speed. I would like to say that my coaching helped, but I'm pretty sure it was just his natural ability.

After we came home for some very good breakfast tacos prepared by Jenny, we got ready for a bike ride. I had borrowed a bike from a friend so that we could pretend to be a two-man breakaway on the Tour de France. Before we left I had to change a flat, and used our only spare tire in the process. As we started, I took the lead, and was surprised how easy it was for him to keep up with me. When I tired out I let him go first, and realized that it really is a lot easier to sit on someone's wheel. Still, he was able to go fast even while in the lead, even though he had to substantially increase his effort. Sadly, about five miles into the ride, Luke suffered a puncture and we had to call Jenny to come pick us up, as we had already used our only spare tire.

Perhaps our shortened trip actually was fortuitous, because by the time we got home and showered, lunch time had arrived. We went to Pluckers for some hot wings. Luke enjoyed the spicy ranch the most, and also ate two wings more than me. At the end, I was ready to concede to him, but then I counted up my bones and decided I couldn't let him have too large a margin of wing victory, so I ate the last one. The difference is that he could have eaten more, while I was ready to explode.

After such an eventful morning, we were ready for a relaxed evening at home, but got two phone calls that changed all of that. First, some friends of ours needed last minute help moving. They called on us for help cleaning (Jenny) and loading the truck (Luke and me). Elena went along with us to keep their baby company and set a good example of non-fussiness. They had a small apartment, so it wasn't too much work, but it was the first time that Luke had maneuvered a washer and dryer down a flight of stairs.

Luke and I left while Jenny was still cleaning, so that we could answer the second call: a game of sinkball. The young men from church invented this game a few months ago, when they set out to play water polo with one small change--they took the air out of the ball and replaced it with water, so that it became neutrally buoyant. Because of this, sinkball is an intense three-dimensional game that is played not only at the surface of the pool, but also in the depths. Although we had the least experience of any of the players, Luke and I both made solid contributions and our team won by a considerable margin.

After that whirlwind of a day, Luke and I had to wake up before 5:00 on Friday morning in order for him to catch his plane. I hope that he was able to catch some more sleep onboard while he made his way back to Maryland. We all had a good time visiting with him. Even though I think that I monopolized most of his time, he also spent quality time with Elena, Jenny, and Jewel. On Thursday evening while we were trying to get our act together and Elena was fussing a little bit, he stepped right up to hold her and play with her until we were ready to feed her. She calmed down, because she loves her uncle Luke.

Today marks the first day of a new era for me, the family, and the blog. Jenny said goodbye to work on Friday, and today I resumed my full-time pursuit of my degree. I didn't have the instant productivity that I hoped I would. Maybe I can blame some of that on a sense of loss. Instead of spending time with my cute little girl, and doing concrete, visible, tactile tasks around the house, I removed myself to a lonely office and tried to re-immerse myself in distant, abstract mathematical theorems and spaces.

To go along with that, I'm rolling out the long-overdue, long-planned new name for the blog. Elena has been here for more than five months, so we're certainly not waiting for her anymore. If anything, she waits for us most of the time these days. She waits for us to feed her, waits for us to go back and grab one more thing after we put her in the car seat for an outing, waits for us to put her down for a nap and then waits for us to get her up again.

To reflect this new stage of our lives, I came up with this name. As it turns out, it isn't entirely original, as a Google search turns up at least this now-inactive blog from c|net . I'm not too surprised, it is an obvious portmanteau . But it accurately describes the two things I'm working on. It isn't just my work, it's a total family effort--Jenny's giving me her full support and doing everything she can to help me graduate as soon as possible.

This afternoon, on my first day back, I ran into a harsh reminder of the realities of commuting. A police standoff had forced the complete closure of the MoPac Expressway, the main road on my way home. I took an alternate route, but the overflow of traffic from the closure caused all of the southbound traffic to be extremely slow. My commute, which takes 20 minutes in light traffic and 40 during peak times, turned into an excruciating hour-long trek, mostly shared with hundreds of other drivers in extremely close proximity.

Everything was better when I got home. Jenny was putting the finishing touches on dinner and also working on some bread, and Elena needed a little attention. I needed her as much as she needed me--we both calmed each other down. We got an extra bonus a little bit later when Jenny checked the mail. The book version of this blog arrived, describing all the happenings from our vacation last summer until the day that Elena was born. I put it together and ordered from Lulu.com , and am completely satisfied with the results! I'll post a picture soon.

I know one thing about pregnant women: they have earned the right to have everything they want. Baby amnesia will never erase that part of my memory. Anyway, when Jenny's brother John invited us to dinner and a movie last Friday, at Karina's request, we were happy to oblige. Karina wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie before her baby came. When we were planning things out, Karina had also suggested a particular restaurant near the theater. John wanted to consider other options, and asked Jenny to suggest some other places near the theater. I told Jenny that I thought we should do what Karina wanted. In the end, we decided to go to a theater in a different part of town, which forced us to change the restaurant. John and Karina chose it without our involvement--a Texas Roadhouse partly owned by Willie Nelson.

The double date was for grownups only, so we found Elena's first real teenage babysitter. We had a girl from church in mind, and after asking around confirmed that she would be a good choice. However, we weren't ready to leave her alone in our apartment with Elena, so Jenny asked if we could drop Elena off at their house. As a result, our chosen babysitter was just the point guard for a team of playmates and caregivers--the mom helped, as well as three younger brothers and a toddler sister. With all the stimulation, Elena didn't get to sleep until after her bedtime, but they reported that everything else went well.

We enjoyed dinner, especially the part where we got to eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor. We drove from the restaurant to the theater. Jenny and I took the long, perilous route past all the storefronts, through a lengthy chain of parking lots. John and Karina kicked out to the access road and made the short trip much faster than us. I don't have much to say about the movie. It was decent, but too tame for my taste.

On Saturday we had another evening out, this time at a church Pioneer Day celebration. We saw lots of good friends that we don't keep in touch with very well. Many of them we know from when we were all single several years ago. Some are still single, one couple just got engaged, others are married, and one other couple brought over their little girl, April Mei, to play with Elena. It was great to see all of them, but we made sure to track down Maverick's * owner, Larissa, to ask about how he was doing. She said that although he's making slow changes and improvements, he's still the same strange, skittish cat that we knew and loved.

* We cared for Maverick, a long-haired orange and white cat, for a year and a half just after we got married, while Larissa served a mission.

Yesterday, I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of Elena in at least a week. So while she was rolling around in the living room yesterday, I got out the camera. In the past Elena wouldn't smile for the camera. Infants recognize and react to faces, so putting the camera in front of mine would disrupt our engagement and take the smile of her face.

This time things were different. She looked right at the camera and smiled when I called her name or asked her to smile. It seemed like she was mugging for the camera. This one and the pictures in the previous post were all taken together.

We're still working on getting her to talk on the cell phone, but I think she'll get the hang of that soon. She's also very motivated to learn a more efficient form of locomotion (other than rolling around), but she doesn't yet have the strength or coordination for crawling. I'm sure she'll figure it out soon enough, and will get into all sorts of trouble.

Last night I got an email from Caroline that the UT cheerleading team would be doing a photo shoot at the boathouse this morning. She said it would be a good chance to correlate with the other boatman about summer projects. Also, we could help out with the photo shoot when they needed to move boats and oars around. Elena is always welcome at the boathouse, so we got dressed in our Texas clothes, loaded up and headed up there this morning.

The cheerleaders were all very cute with Elena. When they came in, I asked them to bring her to me if for some reason she started crying while I wasn't in the immediate vicinity. I guess they didn't all hear--a little later, while I was giving Elena her sippy cup (it was hot out), one of the girls came up and asked if I knew Elena's age. I said "I'm her father, of course I do!" She hadn't heard my previous announcement, and wasn't clear about whether Elena was with me or one of the other rowing people assisting at the event. Later on, Caroline and Jimmy (the other boatman) did a good job playing with her while I was holding a boat.

Even though she would usually be taking a nap during that time, Elena was awake, alert, and happy for much of the morning. She especially liked sitting on the dock in her stroller and looking out across the lake. The light was coming in from the wrong angle, so we couldn't see any fish in the shallows. But there were birds flying, fish jumping further out, and people in various boats gliding by.

As I understand it, the cheerleaders are working on a calendar, in which they show their support for the different varsity sports that UT sponsors. They took a boat down to the dock and got in, as if they were about to go for a row. I haven't ever seen such clean clothes or carefully done makeup in a rowing shell.

After they were done on the dock and carried the boat back to the boathouse, I could tell that Elena was ready to go. She helped me put the oars away, then I asked if any of the remaining cheerleaders would take a picture with her. They were happy to oblige. The official photographer also took a couple of shots of the girls with Elena. I'm sure they're better than this one, so I hope I get copies eventually.

Yesterday, Elena decided to have a fussy day. Perhaps she didn't make the decision consciously, but I can't think of any external factors that would have contributed to her overall fussiness: she slept well the night before, took good naps, and ate all of her food as usual. And yet we had a rare day of fussiness. It started before her midmorning meal--she didn't want to sit or lay next to me while I worked on the computer, and she didn't want to sit on my lap either. I could only calm her by walking around with her in my arms until I was ready to feed her.

After Elena eats, we usually watch some TV while she sits upright in my lap so that the food can settle and she won't spit up. Yesterday, however, I had more work to do on the computer, so I thought that we could sit there instead of watching TV. She was having none of that. After I calmed her down by walking around some more, I tried sitting at the computer again. As soon as my knees began to bend, she started to whimper and I stood up before it developed into a full-blown wail. At my wit's end, I sat on the futon and turned on the TV. Elena decided that this was good enough for her, and calmed down again.

In the afternoon and evening the fussiness went away. We ran some errands and stopped at the pet store to buy some cat treats and look at the kittens in need of adoption. Elena liked the kittens, but when we went by them again on our way out, she could hardly keep her eyes open, and fell asleep even though two of them were very actively playing with each other.

Today, in order to make up for yesterday, Elena has been extra good. She didn't cry at all when awaking from her morning nap, and waited patiently for me to prepare her food. She's had lots of good play time, and even sat for some photos. I've also done some make-up work. On Monday, I dressed Elena in a mismatched outfit. Jenny had given me advice on which pink top would match Elena's cute green-with-flowers corduroy pants, but I had forgotten. Also, I didn't start with the pants, instead opting for a tan onesie with white polka dots. The green pants were the best match I could find, even though I could tell something was not quite right. Jenny commented on the unusual outfit in the evening, and was happy to lay out an outfit yesterday in order to give me time to repair my damaged fashion confidence.

This morning, since the green pants were in the laundry, but the matching blouse was still clean, I realized that I could pair it with a different pair of flowered coveralls, and they actually would match. I know it's a very small sort of redemption, but I'm willing to take what I can get.

On Friday Elena turned five months old. I decided that we needed to get out of the house, so I emailed rowing coach Caroline to see if she wanted to have lunch. Even though she was busy with work, she said that she could go if we stayed close to campus. I chose TerraBurger , a new fast food place. Caroline had already been there, but said that she liked it and agreed to go there.

As we were getting ready to go out, I thought that something about Elena looked different, but it took me a minute to pin it down. All of a sudden I realized that her mouth was closed, with her tongue inside. This caused her little cheeks to puff out and gave her face an entirely different look. She also had an expression of concentration, as if she's making a concerted effort to keep the tongue in. Perhaps she's observed everyone around her and decided to fit in by literally reining in her tongue * .

Since Friday, Elena has continued her tongue containment exercises, and Jenny and I have performed further observations. Sometimes she leaves her mouth a little bit open, and it appears that she's keeping the tongue in by pressing the tip of it against the roof of her mouth; we're not sure if this is her primary method for lingual control, but it does seem to be one she uses frequently. Occasionally her mouth will be closed, when all of a sudden her tongue peeks out, as if it's escaped from unwilling confinement.

Returning to the matter at hand, on the way to TerraBurger Caroline informed me that two of our former rowers would be joining us. She also said that one of our acquaintances worked there, and as we drove up she noticed his car in the parking lot. We discovered that he was the only cashier working at the time. They were experiencing somewhat of a lunchtime rush, so I staked out a table while Caroline made the orders. I asked her to let Ben (the cashier) order for me.

He must have ordered double jalapenos for my burger, to which I normally wouldn't object. However, I did have some difficulty eating such a sloppy burger with Elena in my lap grabbing at it all the time. When one of the ex-rowers finished up, I handed Elena off and ate the last few messy bites. In any case, it was a very good burger, and according to their claims also local and organic. If you're in Austin, I recommend stopping by. They also serve excellent regular and sweet potato french fries, along with fountain sodas sweetened by real sugar.

Elena was very cute and garnered lots of compliments from Caroline and the girls. We showed off a couple of her tricks and almost gave Caroline a heart attack when I balanced Elena in my hand. We didn't do it for very long, and Elena didn't fall, so everything was fine.

In the evening when Jenny got home, we took Elena swimming. She loves the water, as evidenced by all of her kicking and splashing. One time she tried a big dolphin kick while I was holding her. I didn't anticipate it, and the lift of her hips sent her face briefly into the water. Jenny admonished me to be more careful, but there was no harm done. I don't think there's anything I could have done differently to keep her face clear, without having her all the way out of the water. In fact, I think Elena was trying to dive in. She'll be a water bug for sure.

* Infants are already human, so I don't think you can anthropomorphize them. So what should I call the attribution of rational motives to Elena's unintentional behavior?

Elena is going through different phases in her vocal development at a rapid rate. Early last week, she was constantly making a harsh aaahhh-aaahhh sound. By Thursday and Friday she had moved on to non-stop raspberries. Now she has ceased with the raspberries and is instead babbling away, practicing with different consonant and vowel sounds. Sometimes she talks quietly to herself, while at other times it seems like she's imitating us when we talk to her. I'm astonished at how quickly different ways of making noise enter and then leave her repertoire.

In just two days Elena will be five months old, and the baby books say that this is a period of especially rapid development. This week we've made some changes to her eating and sleeping schedules. She seems to be adapting very well. We like it too, because we're putting her to bed earlier and she still sleeps through the night.