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!"