The Number Field

For Independence Day, each of us celebrated the freedom to do different things. Last week I found freedom in working out--I committed to waking early, while Jenny fed Elena and got ready for work, so that I could go run or ride my bike. In a short week (on Monday I was at Scout camp) I went for two runs and two rides, including a longer ride on Saturday that took me through one Fourth of July morning celebration at a neighborhood pool.

Jenny celebrated her upcoming independence from corporate employment, as she finally told her supervisors and team about her intention to stop working at the end of this month, so she can stay home with Elena. They were understanding and supportive; I think that since several of them also have infants at home, they understand where she's coming from. She has three weeks left, which will be pretty busy because she's determined to continue to work her hardest. Nevertheless, she does admit to being a little bit trunky.

Elena continues to celebrate her freedom to explore the world by rolling around. When we pick her up from naps, she has always found a new way to contort herself inside her crib. Sometimes her legs are sticking out through the bars. Other times she'll be in the opposite corner and facing the reverse direction from the way we laid her down. She is also beginning to experience the freedom of solid foods. On Saturday we teamed up to feed her some rice cereal with a spoon for the first time. She really liked it and even laughed out loud a few times--perhaps because she has watched us eating so much, she enjoyed getting a piece of the action at last * .

We commemorated the birth of our country in the traditional manner, with a cookout followed by fireworks. Jenny's brother John invited us to the cookout they were having with several other families from their neighborhood. They all spend a lot of time together, but we only see them for holidays where food is served (i.e. the last time was Easter). Because of this, we almost feel like freeloaders, but on the other hand we did take some highly-regarded queso with sausage.

After dinner we went to the Red, White and Buda fireworks display. I tried to snag some free cotton candy for us, but the line was way too long. Elena watched the fireworks as if nothing unusual was going on--the loud noises didn't bother her at all.

* Several weeks ago, I did make an (unauthorized by Jenny) attempt to feed Elena some rice cereal, but I only tried one spoonful. After she rejected it, I abandoned my effort. However, I didn't clean up the evidence before Jenny got home, so she found me out.

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I can only upload two videos per month to my free flickr account, so this one includes two tricks--Elena rolling over from tummy to back, and balancing on my hand.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

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After Granny left last Wednesday, Elena and I returned home. She was awake and alert, so I put her down on her tummy for a little while. Almost before I realized what was going on, she was up on her side and then made one last little move to turn over onto her back. I was so surprised that I put her back on her tummy. She promptly rolled over again. After leaving a message with Granny to find out if Elena had done this before, I called Jenny to tell her the news. Elena rolled over a third time for me, but that was it for the day; Jenny didn't get to see any of the action.

On Friday evening, while Elena enjoyed some tummy time, I gently reminded her that Jenny hadn't seen her roll over yet, and she might begin to doubt my report if Elena didn't repeat her performance soon. Just a few minutes later, Elena obliged us. She turns from tummy to back with less excitement than the other way around, as if she expects to be able to complete the maneuver. However, Jenny was pretty excited to see her do it.

Now Elena is rolling all over the place. While I was away at Boy Scout camp on Monday, she put on quite a show for Jenny. Last night she completed 540 degrees of rotation in a short period of time. This morning she's been rolling all over her blanket to get to the toys I placed at its corners. I am reminded of a favorite philosophical musing from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern---Are Dead : the first few times are so special, but after just a few more repetitions it becomes another of her many skills.

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It's been almost a week since we bid a sad farewell to Gran Ann * as Elena and I dropped her off at the airport after her ten day visit. While here, she helped us so much and had a wonderful time with Elena. After she left, things have been just as busy, even though my class was over and I didn't have to go in to school as much, so my apologies for the lack of recent posts.

When someone else takes care of Elena for an extended period of time, I give them some notes about her schedule and routines, but always say that they can do whatever they want with her--nothing is set in stone. More and more I realize that each person has their own way of interacting with a baby, and they should do what they want and not try to follow our schedule too much. Elena is such an easygoing baby, and I think she benefits from a variety of routines, as long as she gets her food at approximately the right times. She's so easygoing that sometimes I worry that she won't demand food when she's hungry. All of this is just to say that I'm glad that Granny and Elena found their own happy schedule.

Almost every morning, Elena and Gran Ann went for a walk around our neighborhood. Elena got to sit up in her stroller and look around at the birds and flowers. When she got tired, she sometimes dropped off to sleep and let grandma sit and read. Even though grandma did a good job of shielding Elena from the direct sun, she got a lot of natural light and I think the highlights in Elena's hair have come out more.

Some other highlights of their time together included: fun times with friends at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , swimming at a Relief Society social (Jenny was there too, of course), and a trip to see the bats . They gave us quite a show because they flew out when it was still light. On the last day of her visit, Granny took Elena swimming one more time, in the pool at our apartment complex. Elena had a good time in the deep water and even played with some older kids. They would dive under the water, then surface and say "peek-a-boo" for her.

Jenny and I have many things for which we'd like to thank my mom, above and beyond the excellent care she provided for Elena. She made cookies and bought ice cream. She introduced us to spinach mini-quiches from the South Beach diet and made a batch of granola. Even though she had lots of work to do, she found time to wash dishes and mop our kitchen floor. Fulfilling her role as kin-keeper, she managed family affairs back home and helped me do a better job of keeping in touch with the rest of my family. Finally, she and Jenny spent quality time together and got to know each other better.

In case I haven't made it abundantly clear yet, we're so grateful that Gran Ann visited us, even though she had to sleep on our creaky futon and put up with Jewel's early-morning meows. She told me that she was happy to get to know to Elena--since we don't know how to thank her, my only idea is to make sure that they have more opportunities to spend time together in the future.

* She's still trying to find the right nickname, but says that we're the only people who will play along with her--everyone else just calls her grandma. The leading candidates are Granny Annie and Gran Ann, or possibly just Gran.

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My Father's Day was so great that it had to start on Saturday. Even though my mother had spent all day, every day with Elena during the week, when Jenny asked if she would care for Elena on Saturday night so we could go on a date, she happily agreed. We went to a late showing of Star Trek and stayed out way past our bedtime. I have fond memories of watching Star Trek movies with my dad when I was a kid * . Between that and the connections between Elena and Star Trek , even the choice of movie put me in a Father's Day state of mind.

On Sunday morning, Elena let us sleep in past seven--my mother says she's never heard of a four-month old who can sleep ten hours at night, so that's another Father's Day bonus. When we got up and going, I opened my presents.

Elena gave me a card featuring a cat dressed up as a princess, and a book of Russian fairytales with English translation. It's the same as the one that I read to her when we visited Matt and Carrie. According to Jenny, she and Elena had to work very hard to find it, even deciphering a webpage in Russian to make sure that it was the right book. To throw me off the trail, the book was delivered to Jenny's brother's house, and I don't know when Jenny picked it up. (Her hiding places for presents have always eluded me, even though we have lived in small apartments.) Also, Elena got a new onesie that declares "I ♥ Daddy." Jenny gave me a Nike+iPod kit to use with my iPod--I hope that soon I'll find time to run and put it to use. Before long, Elena will be ready for a jogging stroller and then we can really get out there.

Later in the morning, we had a great breakfast of waffles and ice cream. Jenny cooked bacon into the waffles. When topped with real maple syrup it makes an intense dialogue of complementary flavors. Everything's there: hot and cold, sweet and savory, fluffy and dense, and so forth. I can't imagine a more perfect breakfast. In the evening, the great dining continued--we visited Jeremy and Amy, and Jeremy had marinated and grilled some good beef, which we had along with buttery potatoes, corn on the cob, and other good side dishes.

Many thanks to Elena, Jenny, my mom, Jeremy and Amy, and everyone for a wonderful Father's Day!

* I'll never forget seeing Scotty pick up a computer mouse and treat it like a microphone while they saved the whales with super-strong transparent aluminum foil. From the release date, however, there's a strong possibility that we watched that one at home, not in the theaters. I do remember watching The Undiscovered Country in the theater, especially the zero-g globules of Klingon blood, magnetic boots, and the Peter Pan quote at the end.

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Last year, we got a basil seedling and cared for it until it produced lots of big leaves for us. This year we had to get a fully-developed plant, since we had a different seedling on our minds and taking up our time in the early spring. We bought the plant a few weeks ago in order to make caprese salad, and yesterday I returned to it for a first real leaf harvest, so I could make pesto for dinner. The pesto was good, but I went pretty heavy on the garlic, which turned out to be a bad choice.

Elena almost always sleeps through the night once we put her down, but last night she woke up at 11, then again sometime between 3 and 4 in the morning. Both times, she had a short episode of burping and gassiness then went back to sleep. She woke up again at 5:30, this time crying out of hunger. After Jenny fed her, Elena went back to sleep and stayed asleep until after 8. I know that these details seem unimportant, but to me they represent significant deviations from her usual schedule. Luckily, after waking up for the day, she was her usual calm and happy self.

Some authors point out that garlic in a mother's diet can cause problems for a baby. At the same time, it seems that different cultures have different traditions about how food affects a mother's milk. Even though I'm happy to blame the garlic for Elena's restless night, I guess we can't know for sure.

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Elena has been having lots of fun with her Granny Annie. Today I called twice and both times heard about how Elena had spent a lot of time practicing the art of rolling over. However, Grandma promised that she hadn't made it all the way over yet--Jenny and I didn't want to miss an accomplishment like that.

After Jenny and I got home, while we were preparing dinner, Elena was spending some more playtime on the floor in the living room. I was in the kitchen tending to the fish, and Jenny was in the other room, when all of a sudden Grandma said "Come look!" because Elena had almost pushed herself over. By the time we got there, Elena had returned to her original position (on her back), but she was determined to give it another try. There was something about the look in her eyes that made me scramble for my video camera, and I was glad that it was close at hand. I managed to capture her very first solo rollover. Have a look.

Needless to say, we're very proud of our little girl!

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On Thursday, to commemorate the end of Elena's fourth month, we took her out to Mayfield Park for a photo shoot. Before we got married, Jenny and I had some of our photos taken there, including the one that went out in our wedding announcement (taken by Jenny's dad). The most notable thing about Mayfield Park is the ostentation of peacocks that lives there. We thought that the park would provide a nice, different background for new pictures of Elena. Also, we wanted to do something different and relaxing on one night that Jenny hadn't brought work home.

We must have tried to use some time that Elena usually associates with sleeping or eating, because she did not want to cooperate with our picture-taking plans. She slept before we left and while we were in the car, and didn't seem to have a problem when we woke her up. However, when we started to take pictures, she decided that she wanted to show her inner diva instead of her smiles. Even so, some of the pictures turned out pretty well. We were sharing the park with other people--a group with a fancy camera setup was taking pictures of a girl in a kimono, while another lady took pictures of a bride and groom. Although the bride was wearing a wedding dress, the groom had on jeans and a black shirt, which we couldn't quite figure out. In any case, we didn't want Elena to fuss so much that we disturbed the others, so we abandoned our photo shoot and started chasing the peacocks. Jenny did keep the camera out just in case an opportunity developed.

Even though Elena didn't enjoy our trip to the park, she did have a great time with Christine all week. According to Christine, she was almost always a very good girl. Elena told me that Christine (and Martin) were very good babysitters, and always gave her lots of love and attention. We are extremely grateful for their help! Now we're preparing for the next stage of this experience by cleaning up and rearranging the apartment for my mother, who gets into town tonight and will be taking care of Elena next week. She leads such a hectic life at home that I hope that her time with us will be a good chance for her to relax. I hope that Elena is just as good for her as she has been this past week, but I think that she will be.

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At the doctor's appointment for Elena yesterday, they gave us current official measurements. Her length * is now 26 inches, and her weight is 16 pounds, 8 ounces. In each category, she's above the 95th percentile. She got two more immunization shots, which she weathered well, although Christine reported that during the afternoon Elena was more groggy and fussy than usual.

The doctor told us that we should wait until six months before trying solid foods, but said that if Elena goes through a growth spurt and all of a sudden wants to eat a lot more than we're giving her now, we can try them earlier. She tested Elena's ability to stabilize herself and remain upright while sitting, which she can't do yet. Per doctor's instructions, we will give her opportunities to practice that and expect that her sitting will improve in the near future.

I apologize in advance for the math-geekiness that follows. In classes that I teach, students sometimes ask about real-world applications of principles from class. I wouldn't call this an application, but infant growth curves are approximated well by logarithms . Babies grow explosively at first, but with time the growth moderates. This idea carries over to other aspects of life--I once started to read an economics paper about production and distribution. I didn't get far, but on the very first page, the author included the assumption that consumption increases according to a logarithmic model.

* Does it only become a height when she can stand on her own?

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Elena had a very nice day with Martin and Christine yesterday, and it seems like they had a nice day with her as well. I hope that everything else goes just as smoothly. Elena spent this morning with someone else, as Christine was not available, but I didn't get any phone calls, so I assume everything worked out well. Tomorrow, Elena has her four month checkup, so be on the lookout for a full report.

To celebrate good times, here are some pictures of Elena wearing the dress that Grandma Nancy gave us as a gift for her at Christmas--it comes all the way from France, where Grandma had to brave language barriers and differences in shopping culture in order to figure out how to get something that was just right. With some help from a friendly shopkeeper, she figured it all out. Elena is very happy to wear French baby couture.

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