Lion Bait

When I heard on the news this morning that the temperature was going to be 40 degrees today, I immediately decided to rearrange the schedule to take advantage of the warm weather. Like many of our fellow cold climate dwellers, we have figured out that it is important to make the most of an occasional less-than-frigid day in the middle of winter. So AJ, our new nanny, K., and I decided to venture down to the Lincoln Park Zoo, a Chicago institution. I must have only been listening to that weather report with half an ear, though, while I fed AJ his breakfast, because I didn't hear "rain" or "blustery winds", but both were in full force by the time we hit the zoo. So we took a detour to the Lincoln Park Conservatory next door to try to wait out the rain. Stepping through the doors was also like stepping into another climate zone with the welcome humidity of the fern room and the orchid house. It has been so dry in our apartment lately that I felt like you could hear our skin sucking in the moisture--quwuuup--as we pushed AJ along.

The rain did not stop, but we decided to brave the zoo anyway and made a beeline for the closest indoor exhibit, the Big Cat House. As we opened the door, a huge roar filled the air that reminded me of the wildcat scream that is played incessantly over the loudspeakers at Northwestern football games at every first down or big defensive play. I thought it had to be a recording, but then noticed the beautiful female lion 20 feet in front of us. She was staring directly at AJ and continued to roar like that for 2 minutes. Another woman in the exhibit came up to us and said she thought the lion was eying AJ as a potential snack. Thirty seconds later, the huge male lion sauntered in and then roared for another couple of minutes--the loudest noise I have ever heard an animal make. I'm no lion expert but wonder if it might have been some sort of mating call. That, or the lions were just showing AJ how the big guys cry it out before an afternoon nap, because they promptly fell asleep after all of that racket, much like AJ when he cries it out. I was watching AJ to see how he would react. His senses were definitely all on full alert, and he gave me that look that babies do when they are trying to figure out if they should be crying. I smiled at him and told him it was okay, and he seemed to be willing to rely on that reassurance to avoid completely freaking out, but he was not going to be convinced that this was fun, much less worth driving through Chicago traffic to voluntarily see.

The photos from top to bottom are of the orchid house, K. and AJ by the Valentine's-themed exhibit at the conservatory, the lion thinking about her potential afternoon snack, the vocal lion couple and then the only guy mentioned in this blog posting who actually took an afternoon nap (ahem, AJ).

First Kiss

Andrew had his first kiss today, which I was lucky enough to catch on camera. In this modern age, it was the girl who was the initiator--no more hanging around waiting for the guy to make the first move. She just crawled right up, leaned in and created a little magic. I am going to ask Joe to give AJ some fatherly coaching on his technique, though, because when E. pulled away, she had AJ's drool all over her forehead. (In his defense, his top front teeth are still working their way in, so he has been dripping like a fountain.)

Super Nanny

Our nanny started on Monday, and we already think she is super. K. was able to get AJ to giggle within the first hour of being here, which won big points with me. It also didn't hurt that she does the whole feeding-diapering-playing-administering medicine thing like a pro who loves her job. Joe is harder to impress than I am, but even he had his socks knocked off today when she conquered crying it out at naptime in one day. This of course leads to the inevitable question of whether it was the mama who had the problem letting the little guy cry it out, rather than the little guy himself. I guess that is why she is the pro and I am the amateur. Or perhaps I was overthinking the issue with my four sleep books and hours researching it online, while her more laid-back approach worked to lay him down in the crib, close the door to his room, settle in on the couch and flick on whatever today's cooler version of MTV is (that I couldn't find on the t.v. even if I used the guide). Bottom line is that it doesn't matter now, because he is falling asleep on his own at naptime in his crib. Did I mention that he fell asleep on his own at naptime in his crib?!?

Little Guy, Big Tub

It's official (cue pomp & circumstance music)--AJ has graduated to the big tub. He loves the faucet and will even scoot all the way from the back of the tub to the front if the water running just to try to stick his hand under the gush. Yay buoyancy for the ability to scoot! The only problem with the big tub is that he gets so excited and wriggly that he slips all over the place. I tried to alleviate the problem by keeping my hand at his back to steady him, but this only encouraged him to push against my hand in an effort to scoot further, which totally threw off his equilibrium and --whoosh--he slipped under for his first unintentional dunking. I am trying to do a better job of letting him learn by doing and occasionally falling on his own, so the hand now hovers twelve inches behind his back, and I am amazed by how he can usually right himself from big flails.

AJ's sense of humor is also starting to emerge more as he laughs at particular things and not others. The other night he created a few bubbles of his own in the tub, and I swear that he looked at me and giggled.

And So It Begins...

Babyproofing starts this weekend. Shortly after figuring out how to get into this cabinet, AJ also learned he could open the bottom drawer to his dresser and promptly started pulling out every blanket, sheet and towel he could reach. On the plus side, he is happily occupied by these activities for nearly an hour at a time.

The Hat Man

They say that everyone should have a signature accessory. Mine is shoes, as my husband can attest (and loudly protests when another box of shoes comes in the door--hey, lady, one pair out for every new pair in!) AJ seems to have adopted hats as his signature accessory. He received two hats recently as gifts--the top one from his Auntie Laura in NYC and the bottom one from his Auntie Ali who currently lives in Paraguay but recently visited us. Thank you, aunties!

Currently

Currently...

Eating toast crusts and Earth's Best organic spring vegetable medley
Drinking water...in a sippy cup! Woot woot!
Reading To Market, To Market (really like the pictures)
Wanting mommy and daddy to let me sleep with them in their bed again...to pull the hair of anyone I meet...to have my own blackberry
Grateful for hats with ear flaps for these stinkin' Chicago winters
Suffering from baby tooth-itis (fourth one's coming in now--what a bugger this one is)
Looking forward to sleeping through the night, eating table food, being potty trained...wait, that's my mommy's list
Into anything that is not baby-proofed, and some things that are
Favorite show to watch I'm officially not allowed to watch t.v., but when mommy's not around, daddy and I love to watch NFL football, sci-fi flicks (the gorier, the better!) and anything on MSNBC
Digging Kenny Loggins Return from Pooh Corner CD, toast crusts at the Sweet Maple Cafe, cruisin' around town in my new stroller

Brusha Brusha Brusha

AJ is now the proud owner of three and a half teeth. Our pediatrician told us it is important to start brushing AJ's teeth this early, both because babies are starting to have problems with tooth decay and because it is helpful to get them used to the feeling of toothbrushes in their mouths. According to our doc, the tooth decay issue is mainly caused by giving babies bottles of milk or juice at bedtime, but she said it can cause big problems because children who lose their baby teeth early due to decay can have their adult teeth come in all wonky. Since AJ doesn't take a bottle to bed, I have a feeling that this is just another way for a baby company to make money off the special infant toothbrush and toothpaste that we bought. At least he doesn't wrestle us and howl when we do the brushing.

Seven Month Update

AJ hit the big 7-m.o. on the 10th, as in seven month-old. I tried to capture him in the same chair with the same props of the phone and the pillow to provide size perspective as we have been doing every month, but now that he is more active it was hard to get him to hold still and to put the phone down. He is obsessed with phones and blackberries. If you get a call from us and just hear bah-bah-bah it's probably AJ. Or just Joe lamenting the price of diapers.

We don't have another doctor's appointment with a height and weight check until March. I can tell that he is growing, though, because he has gotten to the point where the 12-18 month old pants are too short (where's the flood, eh?). His latest developmental milestones are getting steadier when sitting, "swimming" on his tummy (moving his arms and legs like he wants to crawl somewhere but not quite getting the movements coordinated), and scooting on his bottom. He also has munched on a couple of toast crusts at restaurants recently--his first table food.

Brunch (the new Saturday night out)

Having a kid has changed our social lives in a big way. Gone are the days of spontaneous plans and plans of any sort after about 10pm. It takes some adjusting to get used to the new rhythm and to figure out how to have a social life that allows the baby to maintain a routine. In our pre-baby life, Joe and I went out to dinner several nights a week. We have tried several times to take AJ out to dinner with Joe's family, but he is usually so fried by the end of the day that he loses it right around when the server brings the food. This makes dinner out stressful for everyone involved as we take turns bouncing and walking with AJ, who would clearly rather be at home in his crib. We have tried doing takeout and delivery, but somehow eating at home doesn't seem like the weekend to me.

This weekend we tried a new strategy of a family brunch with AJ. We hit the Sweet Maple Cafe down by the UIC campus (University of Illinois at Chicago) where AJ's Uncle Dave goes to school. Brunch was a marked improvement over dinner because AJ was chatty and charming throughout and actually sat in his little restaurant high chair for the entire meal, which is definitely a new record. He even munched happily on some toast crusts and tried swiping some bacon off his daddy's plate. I loved it because it met my need to get out of the house and see a different part of the city.

Reading (a.k.a. Chewing on Books)

AJ is starting to get to the stage where he is more interested in looking at books when I read to him. AJ's Chicago Grandma is a reading specialist and told me that it is great to start reading to him from day 1. Since AJ and I are home together all day anyway and need to find things to do to fill our time, I did start doing that pretty quickly. For the first few months, he was a captive audience who wasn't interested in the books but who also was incapable of escaping my lap. At first I started off with books that I remembered and loved from childhood, such as Make Way for Ducklings, but I soon learned about board books with coated pages for babies after AJ tried tearing and drooling on a few of the classics.

Around five or six months, he became very interested in one book--Brown Bear, Brown Bear with Eric Carle illustrations. We discovered his interest in the book by accident once on the drive back from Iowa when he was crying and calmed down when I read it to him as a last resort. Brown Bear became an obsession for several weeks, and the pictures would fascinate him at each reading. Then, suddenly, AJ was over it. No more Brown Bear. If I started reading it, he looked in the other direction, bored out of his gourd. I have heard that this is how it goes with kids--they become obsessed with one toy, one movie, one outfit, one food and want it and only it all the time until--poof--one day they wake up and want nothing to do with it.

Lately, AJ has been showing some interest in two other types of books. The first are peek-a-boo books with pictures or objects hidden behind flaps that he can pull up and look at (see pictures above). The second are sing-song books with rhyming songs like The Wheels on the Bus. To be honest, though, at 7 months he would much rather spend our reading time pushing the books out of my lap so that he can watch them fall onto the floor.

I'll Start Claiming Him

My dad likes to say that he starts claiming kids and grandkids once they can walk and talk, meaning that he feels like they become a little more human once they hit these milestones. I can understand what he is saying, because I was intimidated by the idea of a newborn who couldn't hold its own head up. During his first few visits with AJ, dad would hold the baby for a while but then gladly hand him back off to me. On our recent visit, however, dad was holding AJ on his lap and AJ reached up to honk dad's nose, leading dad to proclaim that AJ was getting to the point where dad would start claiming him.

The pictures are of dad ("Pops" or "G-Man") right around the time of the nose honking, Susan and Uncle Andy.

Director of Music Education

AJ and I just wrapped up a 10-day visit in Iowa, where we stayed with my mom, AJ's Grammy Julie. Since Grammy Julie is AJ's self-appointed Director of Music Education, we had lots of exposure to music during the trip. Our music lessons this time included sessions at the piano and an outing to the local Barnes and Noble to purchase some CDs to beef up AJ's collection (with the added benefit of providing me with a little more variety in what I am listening to with him).

If I had a dollar for every time my mom said "little children just love music," I could buy AJ a Steinway grand piano. Seriously. As with most things, though, my mom is right on this one. AJ's eyes light up whenever she plays the piano for him, and I have noticed that music can have an immediate affect on his mood. For example, we have a CD that one of my work colleagues gave to me that instantly soothes AJ in the car. We call this the Million Dollar CD, and it is the first thing that I pack in the diaper bag whenever we get ready to go anywhere. The real name is Return to Pooh Corner by Kenny Loggins. When I first heard it, the music was so sappy that it made me cringe. The tracks include The Rainbow Connection, Somewhere Out There and All the Pretty Little Ponies (Joe's favorite!) But it works so well that I can't argue with it. I was shocked to realize that Kenny Loggins is the same artist who had hits in the 1980's including Footloose, I'm Alright (the Caddyshack theme) and Danger Zone (from Top Gun).

I am currently looking for more CDs to add to the rotation, so if you know of any good international children's music or fun, upbeat music that would be good for playtime, please post a comment and let me know.

The pictures are of AJ and and his Director of Music Education playing a duet on the piano.

My First Caucus

This post is now so stale that we can't really call ourselves news reporters, but AJ and I will go ahead and file our story about the 2008 Iowa caucuses anyway. Apologies for the delay-it definitely is not a commentary on the level of excitement of that night, because it was electric! We knew the turnout was going to be big when my mom, AJ and I were driving to her caucus location at my old junior high and saw that we were one of about 8 cars in a line snaking our way through the bitterly cold January night toward the school. When we arrived at the junior high, we were shocked--the parking lot was overflowing and people had parked up the surrounding blocks, so we had to park four blocks away and hoof it. Parking four blocks away in downtown Chicago is not a big deal (and in fact would be a real find), but in Clive, Iowa, it is considered ridiculous. My mom then estimated that the turnout was at least double what it was at her caucus four years ago. Her estimate was further supported by the fact that we had to wait in a line that stretched outside the building just to get in.

For those not familiar with the caucus protocol, people physically stand in groups for the candidates that they support and an initial count is taken to determine which candidates are "viable." To be viable, a candidate must have 15% of the votes of the people attending that particular caucus. If a candidate is not viable, his or her supporters must then choose another candidate or can choose to abstain from voting. This means that voters' second choices can have a huge impact on the outcome of the evening. The initial vote at our location resulted in Biden, Richardson and Dodd not being viable, which left 100+ voters looking for a new candidate. The initial vote went 1-2-3 to Obama!, Clinton and Edwards, but less than 60 votes separated 1 from 3, so the shakeout of the remaining voters whose first choices were not viable could have swung it for any of the top three. Although most hardened reporters would have stuck it out until the bitter end, this reporting duo had already missed bedtime, so we went home and had to phone in to a source for the results because the process took much longer than usual with so many new voters to register. According to our source, we can confidently report that Obama ended up with the most delegates.

We added to our excitement during the caucus by texting back and forth with my brother, who caucused at a different location near his place in Des Moines. "first round was barack 231, Hillary and edwards 103 Each!" he texted us. We responded with our totals and many exclamation points. Once AJ was tucked in bed, we were full of adrenaline from the victory and so stayed up late watching the results pour as we flipped channels between CNN and all of the local news stations. The rest of the world seemed incredibly surprised that Iowa, a state with a black population of 2%, would vote for Obama. I was not surprised at all. Iowans take their politics very seriously, and everyone who I spoke with in the weeks leading up to the caucus seemed focused on change and bringing back faith in the American dream. Obama was the candidate whose message most closely adhered to those goals.

The pictures are of AJ with his Grammy Julie, caucus-goers from Clive Precinct 3 getting ready to start, and people trying to convert voters who had initially chosen Bill Richardson (who was not viable at our precinct) to support another candidate.

Caucus '08

AJ and I extended our stay in Iowa to be the only known mother-son team to provide you with up-to-the-minute coverage of the 2008 Iowa caucuses. More than 2,500 press passes were granted to cover this year's caucus, which is more than double the previous total. There are reporters in Des Moines from all over the United States and all around the world. This caucus is particularly exciting because it is too close to call on both the Republican and the Democrat contests.

Today AJ and I drove through downtown Des Moines to check out the scene. We drove by the convention center, where the caucus results are going to be tallied tonight and where all of the press corps are being staged. It was also the site of my high school proms, so it seems a little strange to have major political events there. Today there were about a dozen satellite trucks pulled up outside by noon. Then we took one of the bridges over the Des Moines River, and there were no less than 5 camera crews setting up background shots in front of the beautiful Capitol building. We cruised around and spotted the headquarters for Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee (right next door to each other), and then with a little more looking found the headquarters for Barack Obama as well. I am an Obama supporter, so I took AJ inside to take his picture at campaign HQ to put in his baby book. I think this is a day that will catapult Obama into history--we'll see what the caucus-goers have to say.

The pictures are of AJ at Obama campaign headquarters, the gorgeous Iowa capitol building, the corner with Huckabee and Paul headquarters, and some of the huge satellite trucks outside the convention center.

Fly Me to the Moon

AJ's godmother gave him a cool Radio Flyer Rocket. He loves to sit on it and push the buttons that say things like "Retro Rocket cleared for landing" and "approaching warp speed!" AJ varies between looking like a little boy to me and looking like a baby, depending on what he is doing at the time. He definitely looks like a little boy when he plays with the rocket. My dad and I were talking the other night about how much civilian space travel is advancing recently with the challenge program that was developed to reward inventors to get to various milestones in achieving commercial space travel. I wonder whether AJ will someday take a rocket trip for his vacation.