The Number Field

Thanks to Grandma Nancy for this cute outfit!

Yesterday, I read the beginnings of a lively thread about baby sleep at the Motherlode blog. A father-to-be claimed that his wife has already decided to co-sleep with their baby. He felt like she made the decision unilaterally, while he still had doubts and unresolved questions about the matter. I only read the first 25 of the more than 200 responses, but they certainly ran the gamut of opinions.

I have a couple of general thoughts on the matter. First, in almost everything I think it's important to plan in advance, but impossible to make definitive decisions ahead of time. In the thick of things, almost everyone just tries to find something that works. A dogmatic commitment to co-sleeping can be just as bad as letting a baby cry for hours in a crib that she doesn't like. *

Second, it's very easy to overestimate the amount of control that we have over a situation. We like to explain things to ourselves in a way that makes it seem like our decisions influence outcomes, when often we can only tweak things a tiny bit. This fallacy also strikes in another way, earlier in the process: when we're trying to make a decision, we never recognize everything that influences us, and often become convinced that we are unbiased and selecting from all of the possible options. In truth we always have biases--e.g. we read ten blogs that advocate co-sleeping, but discount ten that say its dangerous--and there are almost always other options we haven't yet considered.

For our part, we are incredibly lucky that Elena sleeps through the night in her crib, as she has for the past several weeks. She loves to sleep. We have a little bedtime routine: I read her a book, then swaddle her tightly and take her for a goodnight kiss from Jenny, then tuck her into bed and sing her some songs. When I swaddle her, she gets a big smile on her face and holds her hands still next to her body. It's amazing, but I hold no illusions that our routine is the reason she does this. Jenny's brother John told us that his boys always wiggled too much for swaddling, and I believe it. So much depends on the baby's own character. Both in the evening and when we put her down for a nap, sometimes she just lies quietly for ten or fifteen minutes before she falls asleep. Occasionally we hear her cooing and talking to herself for just a little bit.

If she didn't want to sleep, or would only do so in our bed, then I would probably be scanning craigslist right now to find a bigger bed for the three of us. We would not force ourselves and her to stick with something that wasn't working because of ideological preferences.

* A favorite saying: In theory, theory is better than practice, but in practice, practice is better than theory.

Elena laughed for the first time yesterday! We were playing a peek-a-boo game, and when I pulled the burp cloth from in front of her face, she gave me one little ha-ha! She's been working up to this for a while now, with lots of almost-laughs. And she hasn't repeated the performance yet. But I'm convinced that it was a genuine laugh.

Happy Mother's Day!

Now that Mother's Day is over, I can write about what Elena and I did for Jenny. First, the gifts we gave her were:

• A framed photo of Elena , for which we used a free Walgreens offer from last week.
• A new 9"x13" glass baking dish.
• The movie Enchanted , which was for both Jenny and Elena.
• A box of peanut M&Ms.

At least two of those gifts deserve more explanation. With regard to the M&Ms, it seems that at gift-giving times Jewel usually gives me some small snack-type item. Jenny explains that "Jewel has to use her own money" to buy these things. In return, and for the first time, the official giver of the M&Ms was Elena, "using her own money." On the package, I wrote "mommy" and "me" under the respective m's.

In some quarters, I think that practical gifts are not appreciated, and are even joked about, for example the man who bought his wife a vacuum cleaner for Mother's Day and ended up sleeping on the couch for a month. Or even worse, the man who bought his wife a chain saw. But in this case, Jenny requested the baking dish. Right now she really enjoys making and eating homemade granola bars, and now she'll be able to make a double batch. In addition, the new baking dish will allow her to delay or possibly push onto me some housework: if she wants to make something that requires baking (e.g. brownies) but one of the pans is dirty, she can just use the other one and let me wash them both later.

One idea didn't quite come through for me. I wanted to put Elena's handprint in Jenny's card. When I found an inkpad, it was out of ink, so we headed to the craft store for a new one on Friday afternoon. Upon our return, I decided to try it out myself first, before getting messy with Elena's hands. I discovered that it was nearly impossible to remove the ink from my thumb--a repeated sequence of washing, rubbing alcohol, lotion, baby wipes, and hair spray (all recommended by various websites) faded but did not eliminate the stain. It was good enough that Jenny didn't notice it and figure out my plan. I didn't try it with Elena; if I had I'm sure her hand would still be ink-stained now. I left room on the card for her handprint; now that I told Jenny about the idea, maybe I can add it, even if the ink stain remains for a while. Also, I think that if I get to the ink before it dries, I'll have a better shot of cleaning it off. I might run some more trials on myself first. Finally, a word about the big breakfast. I made waffles with bacon baked inside of them, along with orange juice. I meant to get whipped cream and fresh fruit, but that never quite happened. Jenny was happy with the waffles, and had a nice time during the remainder of the day also.

One of the first parenting decisions I made was that I wanted to give cloth diapers a try. Even though Jenny didn't agree to participate, she said I could try it if I wanted. Thanks to Jenny's older brother and his wife, who used cloth diapers with their children, we have a good supply of high quality hand-me-downs without any up-front expense.

Now that I'm at home with Elena, we've started to use them. I think that Jenny doubted my commitment, but I always said that I would wait to start until I could devote more time to the undertaking. This proved to be a good idea--in order to make things work out it takes a commitment to use cloth for most of the day. This is mainly because the dirty diapers must be washed every two or three days, so I need to generate a large enough volume of diapers in that time to justify the laundry load.

As is true in many respects, we're lucky to have Elena as our daughter. She's not at all picky about her diapers, and her skin hasn't reacted to any of them. She happily wears all different kinds of disposables, and has smoothly shifted to cloth. Furthermore, she doesn't even fuss when she's wearing a wet or dirty diaper. Sometimes I have to remember to change her, because she keeps smiling or sleeping through everything. For my part, I'm not nearly as grossed out as I feared I would be. The first time I changed a dirty diaper I had to grit my teeth, but the second time wasn't nearly as bad. My main problem is finding temporary location for the old diaper while I put the new one on. The diaper pail is in the other room, and our changing area isn't very big, so it's tricky to get outside of Elena's kicking zone.

Last night I did the first load of diaper laundry, following a procedure similar to the ones described here and here . The diapers are drying outside right now, but some of them are still stained; if anyone has suggestions for diaper stains, please let me know. As it is, I hope that the sun bleaches the ones that are out.

I've now completed two days as Elena's primary daytime caregiver. I'm happy to report that we are all doing well, the apartment is mostly tidy, and the dishes are clean. I still haven't ventured into doing laundry, although I have folded some clothes. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the first two days.

Wednesday morning, I was warming up some frozen milk in a tub of warm water. I thought the storage bag was sealed, but it wasn't, and when I picked it up, half of it spilled. No matter; I just added a little more formula. The mishaps weren't over--I added some rice cereal, and then put the mix in a bottle with a high-flow nipple. However, the consistency must have been a little bit thinner than planned, as Elena gulped down the food four times faster than usual. When I burped her, I patted her about three or four times before she had an extremely wet burp, losing much of the food she had just inhaled, probably because she ate it so fast.

Later, I needed to go into school to get just one thing. We hadn't planned for this, and Jenny took the car with the stroller in the trunk. I took the tummy pack, but when I got to school Elena was asleep. Luckily, I found an extremely good parking spot, and was able to lug her car seat with me to my building. She got lots of oohs and aahs from the secretaries in the office when I stopped in.

Yesterday none of our babysitter requests came through, so I took Elena to school with me for classes. This time I had the stroller, but my parking space was farther away. I had to alter my route from parking to building quite a bit to accommodate the stroller--I usually take lots of stairs without even thinking about it. Elena gave me a big surprise just a few minutes before the first class: a poopy diaper. I was prepared, and changed it without trouble.

The classes both went well, and Elena was very well-behaved. My students all loved her, especially when she made cooing sounds while I was talking. That was mostly in the second class, when she was sleepy. While I was walking back to the car, she got a lot of looks and smiles from random women on the street. As I told Jenny, this baby is a chick magnet .

I listen to a lot of sports talk radio, probably too much. Most of the time, I just have it on as background hum that I can tune out and forget about; I'm not interested in most of last night's scores, or the newest controversy about a beloved athlete. Once in a while, though, a host will bring up a more general topic, one that falls in the category of 'men's issues.' A few years ago, the wife of one on-air personality had their first child. He occasionally shared thoughts on being a new father, but I only remember a few of the segments. One in particular came to mind recently: at about this time of year, he opened up the email inbox to suggestions for "baby's first mother's day presents." Along with the obvious suggestions of pictures of the baby and cards, flowers, or candies from the baby, I think that he received lots of other original and interesting suggestions. However, I can't remember any of them. Tomorrow is Jenny's first day back at work, and I'll be home with Elena. I know I don't have much time left, but if you have any thoughts or suggestions, let me know. Jenny reads the blog, so if you think it's something I--or Elena--can actually pull off, send me an email instead of leaving it as a comment.

Elena Speaks

This week Jenny goes back to work. Luckily for us, it's also the last week of my semester. Jenny returns to work on Wednesday, but I have classes to teach on Thursday. If we don't find a sitter, Elena will help me teach on my last day. Maybe I can put her in the tummy pack and hope that she's not allergic to chalk. Or I can use the doc-cam and rock her in her car seat. After that, I'll be home for most of the summer, bonding with Elena and doing research while she naps.

Last week, I stayed home as much as possible to get a feel for the routine that Jenny and Elena have developed. All in all, we have lucked out with how easygoing Elena is. She wakes up ready to eat in the morning, then has some awake time. Before each nap, we read her a story and sing her a song, which relaxes her and helps her to lie down peacefully. Sometimes she'll lie quietly for some time before she falls asleep. She often wakes up calmly and is ready for another meal around 10:00. This cycle repeats itself several times, until she's ready for her big nighttime meal and bedtime. Even though she's not yet three months old, she sleeps through the night. Her happiest times are in the morning and the evening; just this evening she had some happy and very vocal conversations with us (video to come). We're still not certain whether she'll eat two or three times while Jenny is at work; that's one thing we'll have to sort out as we begin this new phase of our lives.

Of course Jenny is worried about returning to work, but I'm going to do my best on the home front to keep her stress-free. I'll try to take care of as many chores as possible, and have dinner ready when she gets home. Then she can focus on adjusting back to the workplace, and not have to worry about Elena and me and Jewel.

In addition, we've discussed ways that I can work on personal goals, like fitness, in addition to my math. If I take Elena to the boathouse during her nap time, maybe the sound of the ergometer flywheel will be a good white noise * . When she gets a little bit older, we'll pick up a jogging stroller. Both of us will use that one, as Jenny took advantage of my presence at home last week, and went out running a couple of times. I want to get a trailer that hooks onto my bike, but Jenny thinks that would be too dangerous, and we don't have enough room for it in the apartment.

Our summer mission: to boldly go where no baby has gone before

There will always be challenges and issues different than the ones we plan for, but we're as ready as we can be. This past week, we got a visit from several of Jenny's friends. One of them brought a gift that she purchased a long time ago--probably one of the first that was bought for Elena, but the last to arrive. It's a Bumbo chair, which we wouldn't have been able to use before now anyway, and we're glad to have it. I think that while she was in it, I was able to capture her expression of the optimism and hope that we have moving forward .

* Last year they added an air-conditioned locker room to the boathouse; this will come in handy, as the boathouse itself gets unbearably hot during the summertime.

While I was off camping, Jenny and Elena had a good time on their own. When I talked to Jenny in the evening (the camping spot wasn't very far out of town), she had some exciting news. Elena was having tummy time as she usually does. She was holding her head up well and also getting in some good leg kicks, and Jenny thought that she was trying to turn over onto her back. She's still not ready to do it all by herself, but when Jenny helped her to roll over, she was really happy to be on her back. Ever since then, we've incorporated rolling-over practice into Elena's tummy time.

Also, Elena has been sleeping longer and longer through the night. When she and Jenny were home without me, they slept in until about 7:30. Now we're trying to put her to bed earlier, so that she'll wake up earlier in preparation for Jenny's return to work next week. More about that soon.

I don't go camping very much in this phase of my life. Because of that, every time I do go camping, I think about how my family's frequent camping trips influenced my character development. Many of the positive attributes and skills I think I posess--reliability, accountability, perseverance, athleticism--trace directly back to camping. For instance, in high school, I wasn't much of an athlete, but because of summer backpacking trips, I had a strong body. When I got to college and joined the rowing team, I was able to adapt and have a successful rowing career.

Our flagpole didn't rise as high as some others, but we were proud of it anyway.

The reality TV shows that feature adventure and challenge, like Survivor and The Amazing Race , capture the human drama so well because the physical challenge plays against the mental requirements and at the same time elicits the most raw emotions, thus making both the physical and mental parts harder. When I was younger, I didn't need to watch these things on TV; I experienced them by heading out into the woods with at least my father and brother, and possibly the whole family.

We made plenty of mistakes and had plenty of tense moments. There was probably some yelling (Dad), and passive-aggressive resistance (me). However, those bad moments were infrequent parts of the whole experience, which was overwhelmingly good. We didn't just camp, we learned to take care of ourselves. We learned to do things the right way, even if it seemed harder than doing it the easy way. We also practiced getting along together. Sometimes, we used the caterpillar method of climbing a steep hill; other times my brother and I would go ahead, then come back to help everyone else.

Camp stew in preparation.

To this day, I practice a distinctive style of minimalist camping, and I think it served me and the boys well this past weekend. We were never in danger, but there were times when efficiency and decisiveness helped to keep everyone happy, like when I made camp stew for a late dinner.

At the same time, some of the things that I saw bewildered and frustrated me. The boys stayed up way too late on Friday night, and were tired the next morning. One boy in my group, who in general doesn't like Scouts, but comes because of his mother, displayed an extreme lack of participation in the challenge activities. With him in particular, and all the boys in general, I don't know how to get across my feelings that camping is not escapism; it's a useful microcosm of life, and a time when we learn and grow in ways that have positive transfer to all the aspects of life.

Elena and Jenny saw us off on our trip, but someday I hope they'll be participants.

Jenny doesn't like camping much, but I think that's because she sees it as all dirt and bugs. She thinks the that the lessons I learned while camping can be found in other places as well. She may be right, but I plan to teach Elena to camp.