Solly turned three months old this past weekend! We were both tired because sleep has not been very frequent lately, so we just had a family night to ourselves and turned in pretty early. Unfortunately Solly didn't rest well all weekend leaving us frazzled come monday morning. We're starting to think that he is hitting a growth spurt; - growing cuter and cuter! Mother's milk seems to be the magic - he eats as often as he can! A few weeks ago while staying at Ya-ya's (Grandma Wheeler's) all day he consumed 24oz of milk! 24 oz is just short of 750 mL - a wine bottle full of milk!

That brings up our recent big lifestyle change. We have made the shift to a 1.5 wage-earner household - Rachel now works every Monday and Tuesday at the UCSF cancer center in San Francisco. I haven't seen it yet but she describes a very small office with no windows and three women all working hard to support the clinic. Its a challenge to pump enough during the day to make up for what Sol is eating that day by bottle.

She is sharing this job with another woman - together they fill a week as if they were one person, but both are able to enjoy a part time schedule. This is nice for me too, I like being able to have 30 minutes in the morning and evening of each Monday and Tuesday to have eachother's attention during our commute.

Its working pretty good that Solly gets his mom 3 days a week, both mom and dad two days a week, and his Ya-Ya two other days. Rachel's aunt Diane is now getting in on the weekly schedule taking every other Monday. And we've broken the friends-as-babysitters barrier now too. Our friend Tamara will be taking care of Sol at her house in San Francisco on Thursday this week for a half day. And so far Sol is in love with every caretaker he has - if you play with him, sing songs with him, feed him and respond to his smiles you are his buddy. I hope that attitude stays with him-it suits him to be socially capabal in any surrounding.

The only thing that is out of balance these days is my work schedule. If you didn't know I took a new job as an advisor to one of the Commissioners at the CPUC and it feels as though I've been thrown in the deep end! I have been on business trips overnight each week for the past 2 weeks and will be doing so for two more - some out of state! Rachel has been such a trooper supporting this transition to a position with more responsibility, but I still miss out on the Solly-wog time. I am finding the videos we are taking to be hugely valuable to watch while I am away. The two below are some recent favorites.

It seems simple enough that a mother and father are supposed to bond with their baby. But this bonding experience is a pretty powerful event! I've felt it plenty, but its fascinating to watch too.

Solly is a little over 2 months old now and is really starting to develop. He looks at you, he looks at the cats, and he loves to look at the trees when we are outside. I think he even is starting to understand the camera too. Look at these poses!




I think that this growing ability to interact really facilitates the bonding process. Of course both Rach and I loved him the minute we saw him - but to others I think he may have just been a cute baby. Now, when others get to spend some time with him and he interacts with them, the interaction is different - it has become a two way street - like a conversation. And when you have a good conversation with someone they become more like a friend than just a warm body - (even a cute warm baby's body!) Can you be friends with a baby?





Here is another example in this video we took. After he talks to Rach you can almost feel the excitement from the dynamic interaction with him. You get hooked on that and you keep going back for more. With this increased interactivity I've watched some of my friends "get bonded" during one visit. I can't wait to see him on the dating scene!

I'm serious when I say that for both of us the depth of our love grows everyday. He gives us more personality and we love every new detail.
How long will this last? Parents, tell us, does this awesome feeling ever stop?

Babymoon Over (in a good way)

Baby Solly is no longer new. His novelty is sustained in Rachel and my life, but is different somehow. He has slipped in to being a constant. This happened partly when paternity leave ended for me. It also happened when we began to have to take care of business like getting me to work in the morning and simple errands during the day. Instead of hanging out with baby all day, I now look forward to coming home and stripping off my work clothes so that I can snuggle with his little wiggly body.

I guess the transformation is that we are incorporating him into the things we have to do - the art of being a parent I guess. I certainly have watched my friends address household chores as they hold their children who wouldn't stand for being set down and knew I 'd be one of them, but some things surprise me.




I am surprised how gingerly I used to hold the little guy - carefully supporting every part of his little body - compared to the way I now balance him over my shoulder and hold him with my jawbone as if he is some telephone receiver (on rare occasions). I am surprised that he is with me as I write this posting. He is actually quite comfortable contrary to what you might think regarding the angle of his head.











The change was bound to happen, but he brings just as many smiles to us now if not more. I think he is getting cuter compared to the rag-doll that he once was, now personality is forming and he is showing us the first glimpses of who us behind those fabulous eyes and glowing smile.

Or are we just reading into everything too much? Who knows, we'll see.

First Post from our Trip to Oregon

The State of CA gives me 6 weeks of paternity leave. I of course would like to use as many of those weeks as possible so as to get the benefits I deserve. I took 3 weeks after Solly was born, then I returned to work for two weeks and am now back on leave for 17 days until September 13.

We planned to take this time to bring Solly up to Oregon to visit Rachel's parents and share and show him around. The trip coincided with our good friends Sophie and Peter's wedding. This would be the first wedding Solly attended and he was quite a hit.

We found ourselves at a beautifully cleared meadow in rural Oregon, near Eugene, at Sophie's fathers home. This was the Rehearsal Dinner. Lights had been strung in the trees and the soon to be served dinner was being grilled somewhere nearby where we could smell the meats roasting.

Evidently folks were waiting for Solly because as we arrived, a swarm of Deborah's (Solly's grandma) friends gathered around Rachel with their arms cocked against their bodies ready to strike should Solly be offered to them. I might even go so far as to say they looked like a bunch of T-Rexes gathered around their prey ready to snatch the choicest morsel and run off.

Jan Lichtenstein, the mother of the bride, was the lucky recipient of the first visit with Solly. What I'm learning is that because Solly does not cry, he will not be handed back to us at this sort of event. He will either be hoarded by the individual or his grandmother Deborah will play her indisputable "grandmother card" and scoop him up.

That being said, the bride herself was quite gracious to let Solly share the spotlight. And the spotlight shone most brightly when her and Solly were together. It was actually a beautiful circular connection to see Rachel and Solly and Sophie all together. For those who don't know, Rachel and Sophie's mothers (Deborah and Jan) were best friends when they gave birth to Sophie and Rachel only 6 weeks apart. Sophie and Rachel grew up best friends through childhood as Deborah and Jan continued their friendship. Now with Solly in the picture, everyone undoubtedly is looking at Sophie and wondering not if, but when the story will continue (no pressure Sophie!).

If Solly has an effect on young couples, it is to say "I want one of those - that doesn't look so hard". We will let time tell us if those statements turn into results!

Lifting the veil

Just a quick entry here, but I'm sure all the parents out there will agree that watching your new baby emerge from the shell of newborn infancy feeds the soul immensely. This is our proof that little 5 week-old Solly is making great progress. Rach took this video one afternoon this week.
It seems as though developmentally, he is seeing the shapes in front of him and responding. Obviously he is finding his voice too. This doesn't happen very often yet, but when it does we are overjoyed. Our friends Keith and Alanna gave us this play center and get credit for the smiles you all have watching Solly!

Trip around the Lake

We were excited about practicing "attachment parenting". But, holding Solly in summertime lends itself to sweaty bodies. This, and the fact that we tend to overheat one other, is what led us to put him in the stroller a little more than our attachment parenting ideas would have allowed. Rachel has developed a routine such that after she drops me off to catch the 7 AM bus to San Francisco, she takes a long walk with Solly. So we are logging a good 3-5 miles a day on that stroller while getting daily exercise (OK, not we, more like just Rachel).

Over the past weekend, it was another hot day but we were looking to get out of the house for a hike. But where? With so many trails and bike paths around San Rafael it seems inconceivable that we struggled to think of a smooth wide pathway with little elevation gain and mostly shade. Finally we came up with one: trail around Lake Lagunitas. It was fantastic! Solly loves looking at the dark shapes of Redwoods and Doug Fir as we travel beneath them. Also, at Lake Lagunitas are mostly other walkers, no bad feelings toward the mountain bikers but I've got a little baby now so I try to stay out of their way. Actually, I hope taking Solly out into nature early encourages his hiking or mountain biking gene.

When Solly needed to nurse, we found a fabulous little spot near the lake and watched a great Blue Heron (one of Rachel's favorites) on the shore.



This may sound funny but carrying baby Sol while hiking is one of the most empowering feelings that I have felt. Its like my hiking boots are made of helium or bouncy rubber. Or maybe I just want to show him everything so that I can see his look of wonder...there will be plenty of years of that I hope.

Adventures in Public

Like bears in spring we are making some early forays into the wide world with our little bundle of joy. Some of these are forced such as trips to Rachel's chiropractor for intensive adjustments to her sacrum. I guess little Solly left his mark on the way out and its caused a fair bit of pain to Rach getting around - not what she expected after slowly losing her mobility over the previous 9 months. Anyhow, on some occasions I am left looking after Solly - something I love to do - but have only so many tricks to get his attention off of looking for that next fix of mother's milk. Besides the instinctual fatherly bouncing, pointing out things that his young eyes surely cannot see from so far away, or inventing silly songs on the spot, I also learned that sometimes its not the milk, but the oral fixation that satisfies Sol.

I kinda like the perspective his little hand wrapped around my pinkie brings - although he is gaining weight at a rapid pace he is still under 9 lbs! A bag of flour still tips the scales!

Of course gaining weight is his primary job right now. I notice that he is pretty good at it too, feeding for 45 - 60 minutes at a time. Sometimes that can be not so convenient - and so we interrupt him. I find such nursing interruptions to be a double edged sword. If we would really rather delay just a little, Rach can give him 15 minutes and then lull him into a daze for another 20 or so, but then we gotta give him full service. Recently we had one of these while on our way to take a nice walk at the park. We had to stop for print cartridges on the way and while I was in Office Depot standing in line, Sol had to have his fix. So Rach gave him 15 minutes, while watching freeway onramp traffic, and then pop! off the boob and into the carseat cause it will be better for all of us if we do this in the shade of this tree pictured here instead. I give major credit to Rach for her quick uptake on learning the skills necessary to nurse in public - its like you have to be a crusader in some crowds!

Lastly, I want to give credit to little Solly for being such a trooper as we "relearn" how to be in public as parents. Rachel's dad Greg came to town and wanted to take us out to a meal with Sol. We picked a favorite pizza joint and went in with a wide awake 2 week old baby. I am sure the waiter was thinking "oh great, new parents who think life will be just like the old days..." and expected it all to end with a crying baby or a fumbling breastfeeding. Instead, Solly decided it would be fine if I used him as a napkin in my lap to catch the pepperoni and mushrooms I dropped. Well, that's only partly true, I made sure not to drop any on him, but he was pleased as punch to lay right there on my lap for almost 45 minutes. I have high hopes of doing this up until he is 3 or 4 - and maybe even on all you can eat Tuesdays!

Routines: some old, some new.

As we begin to get into a routine with little Solly we are noticing how careful we are to keep some of our old practices while others are discarded quickly like outgrown clothes. We discovered that we could pretty well handle being woken up twice a night, but that three times was too much. So now we take an evening nap at 7 or 8 PM, getting up to have dessert or a glass of wine, and to nurse Solly fully. "Tank him up" Rachel calls it. This way we can go down at 11 or so for 2-3 hours, up for an hour to nurse, change him, and put him back down, get 2-3 more hours of sleep and do it again before we get up at 7 or 8.

We are trying to keep our habit of eating healthy home cooked meals. This is made so much easier by the kind delivery of dinners from friends and family. My new hobby is getting creative with leftovers, how to pair Puerto Rican food with fresh garden veggies was the latest challenge depicted here - not much of a challenge fortunately. Yes that is a glass of wine in the picture, a glass a night is healthy and promotes sanity (or so I'm told). Two glasses is not good when you only get 2 hours of sleep at a time. Harder than making and enjoying meals is cleaning up from them. Yesterday we had every dish in the dishwasher only to find that we were out of detergent! We called in a favor to have detergent picked up for us - such a community!


A new practice that we are working to adopt is the use of cloth diapers. Folks who know that I (Mike) am an energy geek will know that I have spent many a conversation discussing the energy and resource merits of disposable vs. cloth diapers. To tip the scale in favor of reusable diapers I've attempted to dry the diapers on the clothesline - creating a clear sign to all around us that we have a baby in the house. The blue garment in the picture is no diaper, its a handy binding devise marketed as the "miracle blanket" as in, "...its a miracle that he didn't break free of that swaddle overnight!"
Next they need to offer a miracle blanket for adults - "its a miracle I slept through the night!"

One Week Old Parents

This morning, after the four hours of sleep I received between 10 PM and 6 AM I realized that I had just completed my first week of parenthood. I'm told it is the hardest week of all. We'll see, its been quite a roller coaster ride; the birth experience, the welcome home events thrown by parents and close friends, and the new nighttime roles and realities. You could say we have our own circus here.






It was helping Rachel becoming an accomplished breastfeeder that was the biggest challenge of the week. I had no idea that nature had created a system that looks great on paper (and glossy photos) but is so complicated in real life - more so than even diaper changing. It was the wails of hunger combined with Rachel's wincing as he latched that led me to investigate a product known as the "nipple shield". The nipple shield truly saved us. A silicone relief of a nipple, the nipple shield acts as the layer of first defense against the mighty suction of a hungry baby.








Slightly less painful, but no less constant was the joint pain Rachel experienced from assuming odd positions holding Sol with one hand, her boob with the other, hunched over, twisted slightly in her chair, and then holding that for 20, 30, even 40 minutes afraid to move lest she break the hard-won nursing latch. In fact, at one point I would pack pillows around the final position Rachel would take, and then kneel next to Rachel and hold Sol in his position while she relaxed for a few minutes. I couln't imaging us doing this at the park or a restaraunt. Didn't get a picture of that unfortunately.

I'm excited going into week two with new skills and new awareness, but I know that above all I should be ready to have patience and love, cause I sure don't know what to expect.

Baby Solomon has arrived!

Solomon has arrived! On July 24, at 9:02 AM Solomon Lawrence Wheeler was born at Marin General Hospital. At 8 lbs. 1 oz., 21 inches long, we are feeling so blessed with the healthy addition to our family.

Now this is a happy beginning to a new life, but it sure didn’t go the way we expected. Many of you know that we had been planning to have a home birth, conditions allowing. Our “due date” of July 12 came and went with nary a stir and we began the longest waiting period either of us have ever experienced. On Thursday July 23rd Rachel went into Marin General for a non-stress test and AFI, routine for past due expecting mothers. Although the test showed very little amniotic fluid left and a distinctly aging placenta, baby Sol was doing fine. The doctor recommended being induced immediately. Having very low amniotic fluid “risked” us out of having a home birth because of the increased risk of cord compression. So our midwife became our dula and we were checked-in to the hospital that afternoon.

At 8 PM Rachel was given Cervidil, a “gentle cervix ripener” and we were settled in to stay the night at the hospital. Between 11pm and 12am Rachel started having very mild contractions (like strong menstrual cramps) but we were able to eat our dinner, a whole pint of ice cream, and watch a movie on the laptop. Mike commented that it felt like “some weird hotel” that we were in. But by 3 AM, the contractions had grown increasingly intense. We took walks around the floor, getting 15 steps before the next contraction came, only 2 minutes apart. Strong and frequent, Rachel gasped “what happened to my 8 minute break in between?” She was also feeling cheated out of her oxytocin rushes in between, because there just wasn’t any time in between each contraction. Her body had apparently skipped that part. At 5:45 we called our Midwife and she arrived at the hospital just before 6am when the Cervidil was removed.

By 6 AM we were offered a birthing room and told that we could set up our rented birth tub there, something that Rachel was quite ready for given the intensity of the contractions. Mike rushed to set it up (including a 7AM run to the hardware store for a new garden hose to fill it with) and began filling . Rachel arrived in the birthing room a little after 7am and got in the shower to wait until the tub was filled. By this point her contractions were coming almost one on top of the other and she commented to the midwife that she didn’t feel like she was going to be able to do it and started asking about an epidural. Our midwife suggested that she get checked first since she had yet to be checked and then make a decision. She was 7 centimeters dilated and the nurses told us it was hospital policy that while she could labor in the tub, she could not push. Half filled, Mike turned off the water and we got ready for the main event with no epidural. About 15 minutes later Rachel said she felt like pushing, and the nurses said go ahead and push.

Between 7:30 and 9:00 AM Rachel pushed in a number of different positions. She actually found the pushing to feel so much better than the contractions. This is interesting because before the birth she thought that the contractions would be easier and she was somewhat frightened by the pushing part. Solomon’s head was visible after only about 1 hour of pushing. At 9:02AM Solomon arrived, sucking on his hand. Mike caught Sol and brought him up to Rachel’s chest, excited, exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed, but finally complete.

All in all, we couldn’t have asked for a better birth experience despite the fact that it was at the hospital instead of at home. Rachel feels that maintaining a “don’t know mind” throughout her pregnancy and trying not to have any expectations allowed her to accept the fact that we needed to deliver in the hospital. Ultimately, her only criteria for her birth plan - to be allowed to try and have a normal physiological birth - was met. We all feel blessed by our experience and amazed by the little being that has already brought so much joy into our lives. Every day we still say to each other; “Can you believe he is ours?”

In the first week with us, Sol has demonstrated a propensity for suckling, learning to latch fairly early but also giving Rachel hickeys on her neck and chest. He seems to have a “hyper” rooting reflex and will suck on anything that comes close to his mouth. Although this presented some early breastfeeding challenges, he and Rachel have now figured it out. His nicknames however have remained- “Baby Leach” and “ Little Barracuda”