start-up dad

2009-08-09T19:03:00.002-05:00

"Dad, are there people stronger than us?" Kaden said to me this evening.
"Yes."
"Dad, are there people faster than us?"
"Yes."
"Dad, are there people more gorgeous than us."
"Definitely."
"Even more gorgeous than Kate?" (our next door neighbor)
"Yes."

"...But nobody can try harder than me."

Tyler Durden is my bladder

2009-07-31T20:29:00.002-05:00

"Momma, my bladder is angry."

"Really?"

"And it likes to pee in my underwear"

"Umm. Can you just tell it to hold on."

"Okay momma, I'll tell it to calm down."

we're going to have to rename the blog

2008-06-13T11:12:00.002-05:00

IMG_0991

New photos of Liam Hadid Hyatt, born June 10th, 2008 are here.

keeping regular

2008-06-08T20:15:00.001-05:00

muffin, originally uploaded by Nabeel H.

When you find a balance between structure and choice with a kid, it can be a wonderful thing. For us, on Saturday's we wake up, he happily says goodbye to mama and we rush up the street to get to the bus "before it runs away."

As the bus comes into view he screams, "it's 72 dada, 72!" The #72 MBTA bus stops, he jumps on board, sprints to the back of the bus and hurries me to sit down to hold his hand before the bus starts going.

As an aside, the public bus system is absolutely responsible for my son's mastery of numbers above 20. Has anyone else noticed that no kids books go above 20? Isn't the whole point of inventing zero that it makes large number sets as easy to understand as small number sets? Did no one explain this to childens book authors?

Anyway, I digress. We were enjoying a happy Sunday morning in Cambridge.

When we get to Harvard Square and he climbs off the bus I always look at him and say, "you want to take the escalator up or the elevator?"

I think one of the things he really loves about these trips is that it is incredibly structured with a good set of discrete choices. It reminds me a lot of when a start-up feels right and when it feels wrong. If it is total chaos and no structure you're never sure if you are in rhythm, but once all the questions have been answered and you are smooth sailing, then it gets pretty boring.

"Elevator or Escalator?" "Muffin first or Curious George bookstore?" "Which muffin do you want?" "Which book do you want to read?" Our trips to Harvard Sq are the same basic rhythm, with a bunch of choices that he gets along the way. And it's our own private ritual for dad and son.

And then there were three

2008-03-14T23:42:00.003-05:00

Kaden turned three not long ago, and we've just gotten the photos up on Flickr. My parents visited and got a chance to see his outgoing nature in action. He took control of the birthday party, getting games of chasing, hiding, and attack of the birthday blowouts.

"Trick or Treat Time"

2007-10-31T21:41:00.000-05:00

Here on Standish St we are blessed with a capacity crowd on Halloween every year. It is quite a sight to see, so much so that one family I spoke to had driven 30 mins to come trick or treating on our street. So after Kaden was done with his short trip around the block collecting candy, I set him up on our front stoop to hand out the goodies to everyone.

Kaden took this responsibility very seriously, greeting nearly everyone with "Trick or Treat Time" and dutifully handed each kid their allotment. When there was no one around he would pull the hood of his bear costume up and practice his "GRRR." But make no mistake, as soon as anyone got close he would pull his hood off quickly to show that he meant serious candy-giving business.

We've got a little video and photos below. Happy Halloween everyone.

Click on the photos for a the Flickr photoset:

kaden turns two

2007-03-06T02:58:00.000-05:00

his favorite birthday present was the bubbles.

photos here. more to come.

2006-10-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

Today I was faced with this essay question:

We are committed to building and sustaining a diverse population. How would your family contribute to this goal?

I was not faced with answering this question because I am applying to financial aid at Harvard, or for my one child permit in China, this was the application at the local day care. They even were kind enough to suggest, "attach additional pages if necessary." Additional pages!?

I've heard a hundred times that it is tough to get kids into day care nowadays, but this is an application for Sept of 2007. This is like a college admissions test or something, are you kidding me? And personally I think asking for the IQ test at two years is stepping over the line (just kidding -- I think).

We also have a scheduled "tour" of the facility (read: secret test of the parents). What's a good question to ask a friggin' day care facility? "Umm - looks like your doing a great job keeping the snot off the walls. We were looking for a less-snotted facility, and this might be it."

And of course I'm sure at some point they'll have him come by and play with the other children so they can OBSERVE him (man that sounds ominous). It will take all of 30 seconds before they find what I consider his adorable trait of trying to conduct classes (e.g. when the teacher says its time to put the blanket back in the bag he sprints to the bag and yells "BAGBAGBAGBAG" at everyone until the blanket is properly put away).

While I see this as a nice sign of leadership abilities, this will no doubt be viewed as a dictatorial trend unbecoming of their free-loving commune of a Cambridge day-care facility.

I know you say they probably don't care that much.. but I'm telling you, these kids get tagged quick. This morning at a two-year olds birthday party we overhead chatter about another family that went like this. "We like his parents, but we didn't want to invite the biter because it would have ruined the whole party." Does his mom know he's called that? I also heard about the pincher and the pusher today. What is this, Dick Tracy mafia-tots?

Perhaps I could opt out of this whole high stakes game of day care, you say? Buck the trend and all, what could happen?

Simple, we don't get the convenient day care up the street. Instead, we get some ridiculous out of the way daycare in Boondocks, MA so that Start-up Mom gets totally stressed fighting traffic on her five hour commute to day care every morning. She's stressed out, so Kaden gets stressed, which causes him to lose his unbelievably amazing trait of quietly going to sleep (sometimes ASKING to go to sleep) at night.

Instead all this horrid bad-daycare induced stress will cause him to scream and cry incessantly at night, and so his parents will be too tired to be good parents and he will never get into the grad school of his choice and therefore will turn into a supervillain bent on the destruction of the universe (there's a dictatorial trait for you).

Anyway, as you could imagine when faced with this prospect, I wrote one hell of a tear-jerker about my family's emigration from Palestine and a roaring tribute to the benefits of exposure to international basketball students.

Welcome to the world Mr. Fawcett

2006-08-20T16:29:00.000-05:00

Upon announcing to my wife that our friends and fellow bloggers Allen & Elaine had their baby, both she and Kaden cheered. I can't honestly expect Kaden to have understood, but at this point he is understanding so much that I half expect him to guess the name.

Today at ~~2:30p~~ 2:50pm, Owen Grady Fawcett, was born.

Congrats to the parents, and to a very lucky kid. We hope to see Owen very soon, and I'm sure Kaden looks forward to playing big brother and showing him the ways of the 1.5 years older world.

This birth puts the Fawcett's clearly in the breeders category, and we are happy to have them with us. Welcome to the rollercoaster of incredible highs and sleep-deprived lows that is kid-rearing.

It is times like these that remind me of the feeling I had just after we had our kid. First, it was that unbelievably overwhelming emotion of being forever linked to this new being. Then, soon after, it is something like - "we've been tricked! the breeders made it sound all nice a cuddly, and all this thing does is crap."

I jumped any parent I could, demanding to know how they conspired to withhold information from pre-breeders about the difficulty of infants. These interchanges would always end with them saying something like "it will pass soon" and me angrily grumbling something about "the party line" and swearing never to obfuscate the horrors and joys of being a parent.

Well, I can safely say that starting this blog pretty much solved solved my non-disclosure worry, so let me also add to the happy new parents that this whole kid thing is totally rockin. We scampered around the Children's Museum today and he was a barrel of fun. My favorite moment was when, after about five minutes of working diligently, he successfully diverted the water fountain toy to spurt water all over himself, all the nearby children, the floor, and some unsuspecting parents.

But the Fawcetts are a bit of a ways from that, so in the meantime Megan and I racked our brain for the things that we found we could not do without and sent them a little care package:

- Swaddling blankets: of all the early voodoo advice we got about babies (eg do fat babies sleep better?), this one I totally bought into and have first hand knowledge of working

- Stack Up Cups (The First Years): from just watching it at an early age, to counting as he stacks them now, endless fun with tower building and destroying

- Take and Toss Learner Cups (The First Years): Kaden pretty much rejected bottles, so we started sippy cups very early and this was by far his favorite of the many many many we tried.

- Giraffe Blankie (funbath), this makes him feel less attached to us, right?

- Flipper Gripper Baby (Sassy), we ended up with a lot of Sassy products, but this one easily has the most hours on it. There were days on end where this little spinning rattle was the only thing stopping Kaden from completely losing it in his car seat.

One additional thing worth mentioning here that we left off the list but continue to use like crazy.. a humidifier. Not for it's intended use, mind you. It's not like Kaden is in danger of petrigying himself from lack of milk intake, he's thankfully gotten over that.

No, it's that a good *cheap* humidifier makes a lot of noise that provides a great cover for the fact that we do, in fact, stay up later than our kid and are not allowed to put him in a sound proofed outhouse. Huge loud fan = cavorting parents not worried about an errant laugh leading to twenty minutes of rocking a four month old back to sleep.

PS - since I know how music-focused the Fawcett's are, it is serendipitous that I just read yesterday via BoingBoing about the lullaby cover songs of such alt.rock standards as Radiohead and Nirvana.

PPS - Allen's firsthand account is now online here

It takes a...

2006-08-13T16:30:00.000-05:00

There's a perfectly good reason I haven't blogged in a little bit.. everything has been going so well! Its been generally so positive, and I know that the surest way to bore people to death is it to regale the world with tales of how the times are all so wonderful and pleasant and la la la.

The other shoe will drop soon, but for right now it's so damn good that when it's close to his bed time and we say, "ready to go to sleep" he actually nods his head, says "yeah." Then goes over to the crib ready to hop right in a snuggle off to bed. I can see my father shaking his head and mumbling under his breath, "I battled through being a journalist in Far-East Asia and this is the boring stuff my son can produce. Where's that drama!" as he unsubscribes from the now entirely mundane tales of his grandson.

Yep, life with Kaden has certainly stabilized a lot from the early months of uncontrollable crying and projectile poop. We are in that wonderful blissful period where he sleeps well, plays like a mad hatter, and talks up a storm (although mostly in a language we don't understand). And we are enjoying it as much as possible because if there's one immutable lesson about this child-rearing experience it is that just as soon as you adjust to something, it changes.

Anyway, I can't help but notice that the infamous "terrible twos" are right around the corner. So I'm sure there will be much to post about soon, and in the meantime I'm keeping the photos flowing every week.

Besides, just because he's been generally a fun (if exhausting) little guy to be around, doesn't mean that the rest of the world has been behaving. There was the recent incident in a Starbucks where Kaden was walking around with a plastic bag in his hand and the woman took the bag FROM HIS HAND and then scolded me saying, "he shouldn't have plastic, it could choke him."

I was about to reason with her that I was standing right next to him, so that was doubtful. But then I realized she is the type of person who lives her life in fear and is far from my help. She has commanded her relatives to give only wooden toys, and cowers in fear if she is forced into using a microwave-save plastic bowl in the microwave (if she owns one). Meanwhile her kid is full of splinters and bruises from swinging his heavy mallet-like wooden toys at both his own head and his parents.

I like wooden toys as much as the next person, and I certainly rant about the horrors of cheap, loud, plastic toys as much as the next guy. But do it because you like it, not because you are afraid of something. And please, I understand it takes a village and all, but scolding another adult for something innocuous like a plastic bag of crackers? More like, "it takes a village idiot."

what noah's kids must have done

2006-05-20T15:12:00.000-05:00

If you haven't checked the news lately, Cambridge has had the kind of rain that makes mayor's declare disaster areas and some to suggest we should be building arks. I would complain more about our brand new basement flooding, but it seems a little petty that we got a little wet concrete when several local towns had to be evacuated.

The rain also meant Kaden spent a week cooped up inside, which drove him absolutely batty. The only help was his extensive time with the most annoying toy ever. It is a mass of loudness, plastic, buttons, and primary colors. His grandmother (my mother) bought it for him. It's infested with Disney branding, I don't even think there is an off button, and even comes with repetitive Disney music that bores a hole into your Cerebellum only to creep back out five years later and bring you to your knees.

But of course, Kaden loves it. Grandparents everywhere take note, kids absolutely love the Mickey Fire Engine Team Activity Ride On (even the lengthy title gives you a hint at how over the top this thing is). Your kids will resent you for buying it, but who cares, you weren't buying it for them anyway. You were buying it for their no TV watching, Jack Johnson listening, sensory deprived grandkids.

Without it during the rainstorms I think we would have seen a re-occurance of cujo. So thanks mom.

But still, one ADHD inducing toy cannot sustain an entire week. So once we got so sick of the Mickey March I was ready to burn plastic, we packed in the car and headed to the one surefire place to entertain everyone. The grocery store.

Yup, I highly recommend in a situation like this packing up and heading to the local Whole Foods. First, there are tons of people for him to try to get the attention of, and all those colored items to pick up, mess up, and hope someone else cleans up. It's like a little activity center, only with massive heavy squeaky metal death-trap grocery carts rolling towards your son's head as he bends over to pick up a box of Rice'a'Roni. I like to think that adds the little bit of risk that keeps it interesting.

I would also highly recommend a toy store (no need to buy, they always have stuff out to play with), and when all else fails just go to a gym with child care. The cost of the child care at a gym is typically less than a babysitter, and you get a precious hour or two getting fit and ready for the wailing that ensues once he realizes that he is headed back to the your shiny new home/his worst nightmare.

The good news is that the rain has now stopped, the basement is dry, and Kaden finally got outside.

As life tends to be one adventure after another, he immediately found his very first rain puddle and rather quickly and set about cavorting in it. Click below for a little peak into the best thing about rain.

2006-04-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

I've been planning this post for a while now, but it's not quite turning out the way I intended. My hope was to tell you that I saw Kaden asleep in his crib in his brand new room for the very first time. I could describe him all splayed out and contorted, pleasantly dreaming of large cupcakes or a dozen golden retrievers that want to do nothing but sit still and be patted.

You see, we just moved. In our old place, the floors were so creaky that rarely could you get a peak at the little guy without waking him. I have particularly vivid memories of rocking him to sleep when he was a couple months old, then trying to tiptoe out the door stepping on strategically placed masking tape where the floor wouldn't creak.

And last night I did actually see him asleep in his crib, but it wasn't exactly as idealic as I thought. You see he had a hacking cough, so bad that he was alarmed and wouldn't sleep alone. Since we just moved we had a mattress lieing around that could easily be plopped down right next to his crib (convenient for me). So last night I woke every hour or so to his hacking and crying and then consoling him back to sleep. I think nature makes toddlers get sick all the time just as a final way to get even the most callous parents to fall for them.

Actually, despite his sickness he has really taken to the new place, and we are settling into life in Cambridge, Ma. We do miss our old place, though. We'd really made some great friends, there were wonderful parks everywhere, and the place did feel very much like ours.

However.. I'm happy to trade the squeeky floors for new bamboo floors, and the chance of lead poisening windows for brand new Benjamin Moore eco-paint. I can already see the teeth marks in the molding.

Here are some photos of the move through Kaden's eyes.

2006-03-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

Kaden did a total faceplant in the sand today at the park. I mean an arms splayed, feet up off the ground, mouthful of sand kind of faceplant. So after he falls, he pops back up immediately but is clearly upset. But not because of what you think. He's upset because his hands are dirty.

When did this kid, who used to not care if his hands were covered in his own projectile poop, become a neat-freak? He's a screaming, crying, holding his hands out until a clean them, then smiling and running on to play, kind of neat-freak.

Just when I thought I was getting to know this little friend of mine, he pulls the rug out and changes on me.

He used to hate getting into his chair at dinner, for instance. Now when I say, "ready to eat?" he runs giggling to his seat so fast it gives me a twinge of guilt that we've been starving him. Maybe he was laughing when I tickled him in the vain hope that eventually I would feed him. Maybe his baby fat is just fat and really he needs some assistance from Christian missionaries before he'll be a well nourished child. How am I to know? Not like I've actually done this before or something.

Of course, if he actually WAS starving, then we wouldn't be such a picky eater. Yup, the kid who used to down everything from Adana Kebab to Saag Paneer has suddenly become a picky eater. He'll still eat many things, but he's entered that control phase where he wants to feed himself. (Metrodad recently wrote a great post on the food topic)

This is cute when you watch him fill his face with mac'n cheese just so it's clear that there is no room for that pureed squash you have in your spoon. But it also means that dinner takes an hour as he eats one-single-pea-at-a-time.

I'm trying to adapt, knowing it always probably be like this. This week it's adapting to him going from wanting a really nice 15 mins of storytime before bed, to him demanding to be put straight into his crib so he can go to bed all on his own. Next week he'll want to dress himself, and soon enough it'll be him wanting me to drop him off a block from school so he meet up with his friends and show them how to light farts.

One thing has stayed constant though, he still loves to dance.

---

New Music

Air: **
Lemon Jelly: ***
A new mix of 40s swing (Duke Ellington, etc): ***
Franz Ferdinand: **** (especially when coming from my cell phone)

2006-03-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got a little glimpse into what this blog is going to be like in a couple years. It was our monthly board meeting (venture backed startups have board meetings constantly) and my friend Marc got a phone call during it. Turns out his ~~2 1/2~~ five year old has just learned his mobile number and apparently called him during the meeting. Marc picks up and immediately she pipes in,

"Hi. What are you doing?"
"I'm in a board meeting."
"Is it called that because everyone is bored?"

Well...

While Marc's kid seems to be adapting to new technology quite impressively, Kaden seems somewhat anti-tech. Sure he wants my mobile and my Tivo remote, but that's not because of the technology as much as it looks like an excellent chew toy with buttons.

For instance when I try to show him the benefits of streaming digital music, his interest only lasts so long. He seems to love the little experimental music sessions I've been having with him, but only a few minutes go by before he longs for the cold spinning plastic that is Compact Discs.

Like most parents I actively dislike the generally unlistenable category called "kids music." I am trying to show him the benefits of music that is not reminiscent of something a SWAT team would use to flush out hostage takers. He likes the stuff I've been playing, but seems drawn back to the tangible spinning discs. While I frantically try to flip to a new song ("Kaden, wait, we've got over 10,000 of them on the hard drive!") he rambles back into his room and gives the "want" sign up at the CD player.

If you're not familiar with the hand signal for "want" that's because Kaden made it up. Here we are trying to teach him "please" and "milk" and he invents an easier to demand things.

Admittedly it's cute, he points his hand in the direction of what he wants you to manipulate/bring to him/carry him to/use and then turns his hand kind of like he's screwing in a light bulb.

At first I thought, "how wonderful - he can communicate better what he needs and that should lead to less frustration." And it does lead to less frustration... for him.

For Megan and I, he is using his "want" symbol kind of like an old adventure video game. Kaden sometimes just aimlessly points his hand and signals "want" at inanimate objects just to see if they'll do something. It's like he thinks he is in King's Quest and suddenly some wooden board will flip over and reveal an apple core which will somehow, ridiculously, allow him to unlock the secrets of the CD player later on.

Despite the somewhat tiring work it can be to manipulate/bring to him/carry him to/use practically everything in sight, it is wonderful to have him communicating more. He's talking gibberish all the time, with a few basic words (mom, dad, apple, cheese, and thanks to his birthday, balloon). What's even more amazing his how many words he actually understands.

It is common now to come home and excitedly find that he now understands "belly button" and tries to lift up Megan's shirt to show you when asked. I'm predicting that particular trick will go over well with strangers. Let's hope he kicks that habit before kindergarten.

---

Kaden's new music this week (rated from 1 to 5 stars, with 5 stars being when he is so excited he does something I've never seen him do before - like a triple lutz or something).
Brazilian Girls: ****
Stevie Wonder: ****
Jamiroquai: ***
Kool & the Gang: ***
Cake: **
Spoon: **

I'm thinking next week's music appreciation will include a little Manu Chao, Jackson Five, and Jack Johnson (he did do the Curious George soundtrack after all).

What could possibly be poignant enough for his first birthday.

2006-03-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

For those keeping track of Kaden via the age tracker, you'll notice that Kaden turned one years old last week. You wouldn't have known from the blog because I fell down on the job of even posting about it. This is not for lack of trying, I've just found it hard to find the right thing to say.

I started this blog with the idea of keeping it through his first year, cataloging the early "shock and awe" of having a first kid. Originally, this was supposed to be the farewell post for the blog. A nice reflective look back at the year + 9 months and a closing of a chapter.

But I've found this blog to be really helpful. It has helped me take the time to reflect a bit on what has happened that day/week/month, to stay in touch with some friends that normally would have become more disconnected, and even to get some helpful feedback and advice from others.

So, the grand farewell is not to be, we'll push on and I hope you'll continue to listen in now and then. Thanks everyone.

In the meantime, enjoy some photos from his birthday. Both sets of grandparents flew up, and we have some wonderful obligatory shots of birthday messiness.

Here for the album
Here for the slideshow

we don't need no stinkin press clippings

2006-02-20T18:40:00.000-05:00

So, apparently CBS News has graced this dear blog with its presence. They've taken note of this here blog and not surprisingly do not find it up to the standards of CBS News.

Some fathers publicize their baby's latest party tricks. "Kaden now waves, claps, knows to back himself down stairs, and, get this, he WALKS," Start-Up Dad blogs. "He's tromping all around the house falling and getting back up and falling again." I'm hoping his audience is mostly family members.

Duh, it IS for family members and friends.. it's a BLOG. Although the mainstream press has been jumping on the blog bandwagon, they still don't seem to get the idea of the personal publishing revolution. I'm not even going to address their lack of understanding of sarcasm.

In other more relevant press news, Daddy Types covers our friend Allen's great video of him breaking the news of a baby coming before his Mom can get to the blog to read about it.

(CBS News, via Daddy Types, who does a better job summing up this article than I did)

For more on CBS News, you can see their ridiculous attempt at a blog. Where they try to reach the masses by posting by posting tidbit news not worthy of broadcast.

Filled with Wonder

2006-02-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

Congrats to our friends Allen and Elaine, who just did the "baby is eminent" post on their blog to announce they are having a kid. Nothing to put a smile on your face like waking up in the morning, firing up your laptop, and seeing an ultrasound of your friends' tummy. I look forward to the excited, harried, tired, frustrated, and jubilant blog posts that are sure to follow.

Since Allen is such a music fan, I know he (and anyone else reading) will enjoy a funny article in the NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago, the Preschool of Rock. It struck a certain chord because Kaden has become completely music obsessed.

Kaden started dancing pretty early. We'd play something with a beat and he would shift his shoulders back and forth as he wobbled his head from side to side smiling broadly. I'm glad I caught it on my cameraphone before he stopped doing it because it was adorable. He looked like he had been possessed by Stevie Wonder.

(no that is not him protesting his Gitmo-like treatment behind the kid-prison. yes that is actually him happily dancing even though you can't hear the music.)

Then a few weeks after he learned to walk he started using his legs to dance, doing the patented "leg press" baby jig. It's just the cutest thing when he walks over to the CD player, stares up at it like he's praying to the god of happy butt-shaking, and begins to stomp his legs and move his body up and down.

If anyone has suggestions, I'm looking to expand his musical experience very soon as we've worn through my patience with the 3-4 good CDs he has now (Schoolhouse Rock, Danny Zane, Squirrel Nut Zippers).

His addiction has gotten so bad that this morning after I had finished the morning wrestling match to get him dressed he immediately pops up all agitated. He's yelling angrily and waving franctically and I'm trying to figure out if I accidentally buttoned a body part improperly. Then it clicks that he's waving at the CD player.

"you want music?"

and he smiles.

What sound does a Panda make?

2006-01-22T17:06:00.000-05:00

You see, we've got this ark (of the small stuffed variety), and it has animals. I've been trying to teach Kaden about animal sounds because it seems like the thing to do at this age. Lions, snakes, elephants, all good. But what's a creative and emotive way to make the sound of chewing bamboo?

And don't even get me started on what I've tried for giraffes.

Kaden is in a learning frenzy, and I have done a terrible job keeping you guys up to date on everything he is picking up. In the last month it feels like anything we expose him to he mimics back immediately.

Kaden now waves, claps, knows to back himself down stairs, and, get this, he WALKS. He's tromping all around the house falling and getting back up and falling again.

Actually Kaden (could he read) would likely take umbrage at that comment. He's a pretty darn good walker and mostly falls when he has either gotten excited or gotten a double-ear infection to throw off his balance.

Double-ear infections, by the way, pretty much throw off everything. By mid-week I actually had Kaden sleeping in his old baby car seat next to me because it was the only thing that he could actually fall asleep in. The double-ear infection made for a particularly horrible week that culminated in me having to leave my sick and crying kid in my sick and exhausted wife's hands while I went to Europe.

Sitting on the plane across from an adorable one year old kid while you leave your sick family for business causes a particular kind of deep grinding guilt. I had visions of my parents calling me to tell me that I am SO not the modern dad they raised and needed to take better care of their grandson.

"We didn't raise you to conduct yourself in this manner," they would say in an authoritarian tone usually reserved for pets. By the time my plane landed I was rapid dialing my cellphone to make sure Megan was still alive and not filing for divorce. And I'm not even Catholic.

Such is the attachment I'm starting to form with Kaden. I knew I would love him, but I miss him in a way I hadn't anticipated. It's no secret that when Kaden was first born neither of us had the kind of immediate attachment to this crying lump of flesh that other parents talk about. But as he has developed a personality, we've developed a really strong relationship.

When I walk in the door and he stumbles towards me, arms outstretched and walking like frankenstein with a toothy grin, it's a highlight of my day. That certainly doesn't mean I'm going to pull back on the throttle with my business - other than delusions at 20 thousand feet my life is actually very balanced - but the feeling is a bit of a surprise to me and could take a little getting used to.

the snot heard round the world

2006-01-17T16:47:00.000-05:00

An old friend from High School (Sam Horoschak) just captured an absolutely great shot of her child. So great in fact that it rocketed to the #1 most viewed photo on Flickr for a day this week. Her kid is in complete meltdown over not being able to ride his tricycle in the middle of the street. One of those precious little tantrums about the tiniest of things, and a great photo.

NOTE: A few days later Sam seems to have become disenchanted with the attention that the Internet seems to send to it's newly famous (at least she wasn't the Tron guy). She has since made the photo private, but I've left the link up on my little tiny corner of the web for those friends that know her.

2005-12-11T21:10:00.000-05:00

I guess I had it coming to me, not being nervous at all about having my first weekend alone with Kaden. I was practically pushing Megan out the door to enjoy her weekend with Jenny in New York and not worry. I mean, I'm a modern Dad and all.. I've spent plenty of time with Kaden and done everything there is to do. Of course, I hadn't done it all one after another, but that's just timing. A mere formality.

So Megan leaves in the early morning and Kaden lulls me into a false sense of security by being all laughing and happy... then I try and put him down for his nap. Suddenly it's screaming, crying, crazy cujo Kaden for 45 miserably long minutes. I thought he was never going to go to sleep.

Then he wakes up and, sorry folks but this blog is about baby's, he craps the biggest crap you've ever seen. He must have channeled his inner horse because it's one of those out the diaper, down the pants, onto the sheets, covering his SHOES kind of crap.

So now I've got a crap covered baby who is full of energy and ready to play after his nap. As you can imagine, changing him is a writhing, squirming, total mess. On top of that I seem to have forgotten how the washing machine works because it has two identical detergent bins and I have no idea which is which. Finally, after reading the manual to the washing machine and going through a half-case of baby wipes in vain, Kaden and his now crap-covered father took a bath.

And that was about 10:30am.

If your happy and you know it hit a clown.

2005-12-03T09:44:00.000-05:00

When a baby learns the mechanical joy that is hinges, a parent would hope that leads directly to something like, I don't know, a love of turning book pages. Or perhaps constructing his own kiddy-gates to save me another trip to Target. Instead, Kaden uses his newfound knowledge to open the top to the diaper genie and plunge his hand inside every chance he gets.

Yep, Kaden is busy, busy, busy. He's in full Louis & Clark mode, turning up every pillow and diaper to see what's underneath. And once he's gotten a good look at everything, he's entirely bored. That's one reason why our recent trip to Chapel Hill for thanksgiving was so great. It's a new living room, kitchen, dining room, and dog to explore. Back at the old home in Boston, he's seen it all. Kaden even has this bored look that he pulls out at about 5pm every day. He backs away from his play table, crawls to the middle of the room, and turns around and stares at Megan like, "come on, DO something."

Parenting at this stage is pretty much like being the activities director at a Club Med. You are constantly coming up with new things for him to do. This leads parents to do some pretty unfortunate things. For instance, I took Kaden to a music class the other day called Family Music Makers, and it was clear that I simply had not been driven desperate enough to appreciate this class.

What I found was a room full of otherwise healthy adults clapping and dancing while their children utterly ignore them. With the exception of one or two kids who were old enough to get it, this was basically an excuse for parents to see other parents. Only, with the unfortunate prancing around like it was campground karaoke. I know we are desperate to occupy our kids, but couldn't we all just play with toys and talk?

That's not half as bad as the horror show that I missed because Megan took Kaden. It's called Gymboree, and it is either just horribly out of touch with the modern world, or it's a cult.

Gymbo the clown goes up and down, up and down, up and down... until you are sufficiently brainwashed.

First, you take your kid to some office park and into a non-descript room. In this non-descript room is one very creepy man with a really irritating therapist voice. You know the kind - where he is talking so soft and monotone you just want to throttle him. And behind him is... wait for it... a massive clown's head.

The clown is apparently named Gymbo, which sounds like a junkie's name to me. The creepy instructor also has a stuffed Gymbo that he uses as his "baby" for class. So here you are, in the non-descript room with a massive clown's head hanging above you staring at you. And all the while Mr.child molester is playing songs on a ukulele while articulating a stuffed clown in the manner that you are supposed to touch and move your baby.

Then when your done with your half-hour creep-fest you walk outside where there is a white van with tinted windows that you get into so they can take you off to their clown-cult brainwashing camp. Okay.. so there was no white van, but it's still pretty ridiculous right?

But that's what the little bugger drives you to try. His processors are just running too fast and he needs to learn more. Thankfully, there is Isis Maternity. It's just up the street, offers a bunch of classes, and has a complete absence of clowns. Just yesterday while I was off in Germany on business, Megan went there for a perfectly normal music class.

As usual, Kaden was completely ignoring all the adults making fools of themselves right up until they started singing, "If you're happy and you know it..." And he sat up, looked around smiling, and started to try and clap his hands.

He missed terribly, but it made it all worth it.

Re-startup Dad

2005-11-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

I didn't have a good frame of reference on parenting before embarking on this attempt to build a human from scratch. I never really had a pet, except an anole in the 8th grade that I kept on my shoulder constantly. Unfortunately the little lizard lasted only a few weeks as he was unable to hold on during a roller-coaster at King's Dominion. (I plan to treat Kaden a little more gingerly, and they wouldn't let me take him on the ride at this age anyway.)

So really other than that very brief encounter, my closest reference on what it's like to grow something, take care of it, and try to make it work are the start-up companies I've helped build. There have been four companies so far, and although managing a balance sheet is certainly different than raising a human, there are similarities. In both cases you can take the same set of founders (parents), they can have two kids, and life will somehow make them entirely different from each other. Also, by the time you get to your second or third, you are a lot more laid back about the whole thing.

But of course a company is just a company, and if the problems get intractable and you lose enthusiasm, you can leave a start-up. After four years building my last company, I've decided to move on to the next challenge. The first three companies I helped start were successful, and much like with a kid who leaves to explore the world my hope is they will flourish and grow more successful than I imagined. Then of course I can overstate my share of the credit for their great achievements.

Although I will likely be founding or joining another start-up momentarily, this is also a great opportunity to spend a little more time with the kid growing so quickly in front of me. I only hope some day to found a company that is 1/10th as engaging as Kaden is. Perhaps then I will be driven to grow it over decades instead of years, offering a place for a Kaden to try his hand at shepherding as he gets older.

Morning Glory

2005-11-06T11:41:00.000-05:00

Kaden spoke this morning! He said "Da-Da" -- and not just once, I got him doing it over and over again. Yes I think this is incredibly cool, even though at this point it is more of a parlor trick than actual recognition of the contributions of his paternal side. For instance, although he does seem to like saying DaDa, it still ranked lower than his affinity to click his tongue.

I sat on the kitchen floor this morning and was saying DaDa, when he made a gurgling sound that had roughly the same rhythm as my oft-repeated phrase. Grabbing hold of that thin evidence of recognition, I of course started bombarding him with the phrase. After the three of four-hundreth try, the drool had effectively left his mouth for it's more familiar place (his shirt) and he let out a little "DaDa" again. Then again, and again. We're in business.

Of course, he has since refused to repeat this feat this afternoon, but that's not surprising. I've noticed that Kaden's abilities to do new things seem to spawn in the morning, and then take a few weeks to work their way to the rest of the day. There was probably two weeks when he first started smiling that he would only do it prior to 10am. I was convinced that this was because he was happily thinking of the fine evening of malevolenty destroying our sleeping habits, but the pattern has emerged with crawling, standing, and will probably be the same with chatting.

I wonder if this says something about how all our brains work in the morning? After we have had some rest (some more than others), and not yet filled with the event after event - maybe that's when we are best suited to learn, react, and be our most creative? Hmm.. maybe the Today Show and reading Metro aren't the best ways to spend the first few hours of the day.

2005-11-06T06:18:00.000-05:00

I've found some of the lost shots I had of our trip to Vermont a few weeks back. I've added them to the original set here.

If you sign up for Flickr (the photo site I use to post these photos) make sure you add me as a friend. There are more photos of Kaden (like you need that) that only friends & family linked on Flickr can see.

2005-10-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

Kaden is sick. When he was first born we heard horror stories about newborns getting a fever. How if in the first six weeks there is some worry about bacteria or avian flu or something and you have to take him to the emergency room to.. get this, have a spinal tap. Images of that happening led me to simply err on the side waiting till the seventh week to take his temperature for the first time.

But our little Scrambles does not have a fever, and at seven months old he is long past spinal tap fears anyway. He has a cold. Just writing it sounds petty. It brings up visions of a cute little nose making cute little sniffles, perhaps him needing to cuddle a little more. With all my pent up fears about fevers, I hadn't even really considered the distructive possibility of the cold.

Why did no one warn me about colds? All the former smiles and happiness that we've enjoyed the last couple months are temporarily missing. He's pissed, he's sniffly, and he's tired - oh so tired. You see for someone who enjoys sleeping with a pacifier in his mouth, having a stuffy nose is like being caught between a rock and a pile of snot. Either he can sleep with the pacifier in his mouth or he can breath. Or, as Kaden has found, he can scream his head off like this decision is Sophie's Choice. Cujo is back.

And I feel like a total wimp Dad. This is just a cold? Cause this stinks. And it doesn't help that Megan has it too, so it's about as gloomy around here as the Boston weather.

Kaden + Start-Up Mom head to North Carolina with the grandparents while I'm off to Finland, so hopefully both will be nursed back to health by the grandparents. Get the chicken soup ready Leesie!

2005-10-09T08:16:00.000-05:00

We spent the first three months just wishing Kaden would start, you know, doing stuff. Anything really, other than crying and looking blankly at the ceiling as drool formed on his chin. Now the pace is blistering and we are just trying to keep up.

He has now entered training mode, and I can hear the Rocky theme playing in the background. For instance this week he started crawling. Not just the injured soldier crawl that he used to do, this is the picturesque stomach raised crawl worthy of some photos (and you know I've got 'em). The only reason he stops crawling is to practice standing up. I was in New York one night (one friggin' night!) last week and I missed him teaching himself to pull up from a sitting position.

Kaden is so motivated it's like he's got a silent little drill instructor in his head. He starts some activity, such as learning to walk around the table, and just does it over and over till he has it down. His new favorite game is doing squats by dropping stuff on the ground while he is standing and trying to maintain balance while picking it up. He'd be walking by now if his feet weren't so rounded that it must be like walking on peg-legs.

We're calling him Scrambles because he is always active.. always. Frankly I think he's trying to show me up, and I'm feeling pretty lazy.

It's all wonderful and stuff, but couldn't he just chill and do something more mind-numbing like watch television. It's got me calling in the reserves just to keep him occupied, which in yesterday's case was the trendy high school staff of Abercrombie & Fitch.

With their aloof attitude to customers and rare interactions with children they are the perfect distractions for Kaden. Megan seems not to agree, and I think it mostly has to do with my tactic of just facing the stroller towards the register in a very expectant, "well, he's facing you - DO SOMETHING!" kind of fashion. Megan seems hung up on this whole idea of not imposing on other people.

But it is not as if the high school girls behind the counter care about the customers. Plus they love playing with kids. We've got a friend who has a kid the same age and sometimes feeds her child breakfast at the local Starbucks just so other people can entertain the baby.

Like most parents we started out overjoyed that he's so engaged and alert. But there's always a price. As Megan says, as soon as he learns to talk, he learns to talk back. And in this case, with the alertness comes the era of constant entertainment. He's just constantly filling his brain with new activities, and not a second to spare. Time to pull out the old Physics text books and get him started.

How friends, monkeys, and period dramas can save your vacation

2005-09-17T08:03:00.000-05:00

Last week we had a great trip to Kill Devil Hills, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina with a bunch of old friends. That made the third beach trip this year, which is an awful lot for me. But it isn't exactly the same kind of beach action that you non-parents might be used to. Sit back and allow me to paint a picture.

You walk out onto a pleasant beach with this adorable little six-month old. He's smiling, likes the sound of waves and loves the breeze. You then set him down on a towel. He commences scooting, which involves being on his stomach (sand), grabbing whatever is in front of him (which was the towel he was put on to keep him away from the sand) and then pulling (bye bye towel). So in a matter of moments he is face down in sand, having moved 3 inches which was just enough to get him out from the umbrella, therefore he has the bright sun bearing down on his supple white skin.

You've got an overheating newborn with sand in his face and being roasted in the midday sun. Of course this most definitely causes him to make a sound like a terradactyl. And you haven't even gotten halfway down the first page of your book.

What's a lazy parent in search of a vacation to do?

So, first key to a beach vacation: increase the shear number of hands involved. Pack the house full of friends, all of which do not have children of their own to take care of (key for the "enamored-by-cuteness to sick-of-responsibility" ratio). They will happily enjoy 5-10 minute shifts of playing with Kaden. Get enough of them and you practically avoid parenting, voila! you have a vacation!

Thanks to the whole group pitching in we had a great time last week. Kaden crawled for the first time, albeit in a kind of one, two, bam hit the floor kind of way. He also slept like a champ most of the time. Unfortunately, he also developed his terradactyl scream, which I blame on Chris, and I have caught on camera below for your enjoyment (it is kind of funny.. the first time).

While we've largely solved the issue of who is going to take care of the little drool-bucket while we slack off, that's not everything. His determined need for three naps a day and quickness to heat up mean the kid is just not going to spend all day on the beach. That means several hours a day where someone has to sit inside while watching the rest of the world gleefully playing, flying kites, and enjoying their wonderous freedom while you are trapped unceremoniously in your beach-home hell.

The selfish way to solve this would be to simply call "first dibs" as I ran out onto the beach before Megan got a chance, but that hardly seemed fair considering she has to feed him in the morning.

The solution? Video games and chick-flicks.

If you're going to be inside, might as well suck in friends from otherwise enjoying the outdoors. A video game like Myst (which is so ridiculously difficult that is is impossible to solve alone unless you have the patience of a human who has never played another video game or watched cable television) is perfect for attracting some friends. Of course this only works with geeks, but when it does you get to additionally be the hero to the wife and say something galant like,

"No, go on honey you go out and enjoy the beach, I'll stay here while he takes a nap."

In my experience this "heroism-effect" lasts roughly two days before the wife catches on that you're glued to a video game and perfectly happy about it. At which point the tables are turned.

Then you need to pull yourself away, naturally in the middle of some ridiculously difficult puzzle involving powering up a spaceship by balancing the polarity of energy stones and go to plan B - the chick flicks!

As long as you are headed out to the beach, you'll need to provide amunition for the wife to pull in a group off the beach to keep her company. Pride & Prejudice is a perfect six-hour marathon that every trash-loving + well-educated female can enjoy (thx Elaine). This allows you ample time on the beach reading books, flying kites, or sleeping in the sun and dreaming about how to solve some ridiculously difficult monkey-feces-throwing puzzle in Myst.

All in all, a wonderful way to spend a week.

As always, I've got evidence of our adventures:
- Kaden-only photos from the beach (or view as slideshow)
- All photos from the beach (or view as slideshow)
- and for even more photo goodness see Allen's photos

For those who get spammed by the start-up dad

2005-09-13T07:41:00.000-05:00

There are a bunch of you that get email updates of the blog (you entered your email in that little form on the left side of the page). Anyway, the service was notoriously flaky, so I have switched to a new service called Feedblitz.

If you were a previous subscriber you have already been switched over, you don't have to do anything. In fact you have probably already received an update email this morning. This is just a note that the newly formatted emails with the orange banner are not spam, they are the pleasant opt-in reminders to smile at the chaos ensuing at the Hyatt house.

contact

2005-09-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

Just a quick photo from Kaden's 6-month checkup. For the first time he was completely fascinated with the mirror. At first noticing himself, then trying to look at objects in the room through the mirror, then see their correlation in the room itself.

and he's off!

2005-08-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

Kaden has started moving a lot lately. At first I suspected teleportation because I could not for the life of me see him move. And besides he often looks like he is concentrating deeply on something. I would put him down and go get a drink, or grab a sweater, or run around naked or whatever - and I would come back moments later to find him off his playmat and across the room under the computer desk grabbing at wires. The first time I found this out he had gotten on the other side of the day bed, so that when I walked in I couldn't see him at all. So I walk into what looks like an empty room thinking "he couldn't move, and now he's moved out."

But now Megan and I have seen it. It's kind of a pre-crawl that amazes me at his strength. He basically drags himself across the floor with his now well-toned arms like a (very cute) wounded soldier in some old WWII movie. I think it most reseambles... well... slithering.

Also, we just had a recent visit from Kaden's grandmother and aunt. Kaden got to walk a lot, and there was much smiling. Pictures up on Flickr.

everything's real

2005-08-26T16:40:00.000-05:00

On the back of a pretty weak article in Newsweek that almost everyone with babies read called Reading Your Baby's Mind, I was reminded of the Onion parody, 'Study Reveals: Babies Are Stupid', in which scientists give intelligence tests to 3,500 babies and conclude that the infants are "so stupid, it's not even funny."

Anyway, searching for it led me to an article that is actually worth reading, because it is so counter-intuitive. Judy S. DeLoache's totally Scientific American article talks about her insights into the lack of a children's ability to do "symbolic thinking." Basically, kids can't tell fake things from real things, they don't understand symbols.

Why is this important? Well, it can be amusing to watch your child try to reach inside a picture to pick up an apple. Or perhaps you'll use this information to play a game where you replace a real-sized chair with a little tiny 12" one and then watch the kid still try to get into it. But once your done with the shenanigans, there is the very new realization that kids learn worse when you use symbols.

Okay okay, I hear again -- why should I care? Think of the common method of holding up three apples, and then taking away two of them to try and teach about subtraction. Turns out it takes a kid twice as long to learn that way versus just using a pencil and paper. Kids have a hard time getting past the fact that the apples are just symbols for something. It's delightfully counterintuitive and really interesting to consider the implications.

Think of that the next time you're playing with alphabet blocks. (thanks Collision Detection)

the closet treatment

2005-08-21T18:03:00.000-05:00

We just got back from a long weekend in Nantucket with the Shahs and Kristen. Kaden definitely notices other kids now and loved playing with Jack. Of course, at this age playing mostly means the two grabbed at each other while the parents held them just far enough away that no eyes got poked out.

Kaden loved the sand and it was all boding well as a dry-run for our one week vacation in Kill Devil Hills, NC that is coming up soon. However, Kaden decided on the first evening that he would much rather play with his parents, who were clearly in the room, than go to bed. It was a miserable sleepless night in which Megan mercifully told me to go ahead and sleep on the couch at about 3am so one of us could get a few hours.

The next morning there was dread in Start-Up Mom's eyes at the thought of going through this sleepless hell for an entire week while everyone else cheerily enjoyed the waves and sunshine. I was determined to find an answer, and asked for ideas from everyone else (it was fairly obvious we had something going on when they found me on the couch). Jill recommended we do what the Conine's (god I love you Steve and Alexi) did earlier in the week... stick the kid in the closet.

The PackNPlay just barely fit in the closet, the slightly adjar door helping to make Start-up Mom feel like we were not going to be suffocating our child. Sure enough, the added darkness plus inability to see his parents made him sleep just fine. Whew.

If you're curious there are some photos of Nantucket here:

- Slideshow of Kaden-only photos from Nantucket
- Slideshow of Best of everyone from Nantucket

sleep nazi retreat, now in full historical color

2005-08-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

One thing I distinctly remember from the old days of child-rearing chaos and confusion (that being six weeks ago) was buying a book called Understanding Children by Richard Saul Wurman. RSW is an investor in my "other" start-up, so I'm inclined to buy what he's saying, and his book is exactly up my alley. It takes the subject of childhood; full of data, feelings, conjecture, and conflicting advice, and tries to explain some of the big concepts in crystal clear information graphics.

Despite my being excited about getting it, I actually haven't looked at the book much since I bought it on account of what I perceived as gross inaccuracies (GROSS I say!) in the data he was presenting. Let me explain.

You see, when I picked it up a couple months ago it said this:

That's a sleep chart in RSW's book, and in the orange box it is claiming that my three month old child will be having 2-3 wonderful naps a day. The chart is supposed to be a helpful reminder of the stages of sleeping development. This way when you kid is five weeks old you get a sense of how it will be getting better soon and you don't just go down a fifth of gin and pass out on the porch to get some sleep.

Now.. for comparison look at the orange box below, which signifies Kaden's actual sleep habits at three months.

Kaden's sleep chart was completely erratic and is fairly tiring to even look at now. So, according to my data clearly RSW was either grossly oversimplifying kids to the point of uselessness, or he was just wrong. Either way, the credibility of the book was undermined so I stopped reading and even shared my findings with a few friends.

However, two months later the picture has changed. So, to set the record straight, at five months this is how Kaden is sleeping.

In the orange square you'll distinctly see two bands of blue that signify he's taking two good naps a day (sometimes a third pops up). So despite my quick dismisal, it turns out RSW was generally right. Perhaps I was perhaps a bit quick to be skeptical, although to be fair RSW was at least two months late on predicting Kaden's sleep patterns (which is 60 days, 1440 hours, or roughly 20-30% of Kaden's life so far) with no warning about variability whatsoever. Just another little lesson about taking everything you read with a grain of salt.

Oh.. and just for fun, below is a view of the last two months of sleep for Kaden (the top is the most recent, then it goes back in time).

Start-Up Mom was pretty skeptical when I first started keeping track of his sleep. Actually, she thought I was an anal nutcase bent on overmeasuring our child, just as you do now (oh the wonder of blogs). But as they say in business, what you can't measure you can't understand (or some other adequate rationalization for having fun with charts).

It's interesting to look at how random his sleep was just two months ago (bottom of the chart), and then if you look at the very top you see it starting to move into more of a pattern. Despite Start-Up Mom's first perceptions, she has found it very helpful in seeing when his nap times were naturally developing and also whether he was getting enough sleep every day. And thanks to the wonders of web technology it is actually only a minute or so a day.

We're still in the dark ages of fastening

2005-08-06T18:04:00.000-05:00

So the kid is looking up at me on the changing table like, "seriously, it's been five months now, you haven't figured out a faster way to get me dressed? I've learned motor control, how to eat food, and I'm gonna lick walking any day now.. it still takes you five minutes to put a friggin' onesie on me?"

And I can understand his impatience, but I can't do anything about it. It's those stupid snaps! There are a hundred of them and it's ridiculous buttoning every inch and a half of a body like I'm stitching a hopped-up squirrel into a straight jacket.

Has anyone found anything better?

I mean tonight I tried putting him in with something that had buttons and I think he had time to ponder how Locke's Theory of Individuality is perfectly captured on Ebay in the time it took me to button his pajamas.

What gives? We can put a man on the moon (that example really doesn't have the same punch it used to) but we can't get a quick way to throw my kid in jammies? Where's silent velcro when you need it? Someone at MIT, stop working on some new fangled social software just to trade porno movies and get cracking on this.

All this studying, and the semesters already over?

2005-08-06T12:23:00.000-05:00

Kaden hit five months old last week, and this has been a whole new stage for him. He no longer uses the swing that used to be the only way we could get him to nap, there's no more swaddling, and we've taken down the mobile in his crib as it kept him from sleeping.

Along with all these changes, there is also an amazing amount of advice that we've accrued that now simply goes out the window. It occurred to me today that all this knowledge we gained; baby books, the classes, the late night blog reading. It was all really focused on that first whirlwind 3-4 months of life.

I've got color-coded folders with key items circled, things like rooming in, rooting reflex, and leaving the vacuum on for hours to sooth him -- it's all largely useless now. I think we did twelve weeks worth of reading and classes only to find out it covered the first twelve weeks of his life!

It did serve a purpose though, as I felt a lot more prepared and understood what was going on. Still, I'd be hard pressed to go through that kind of knowledge transferal for every three months of his life.

u-no-poo - the constipation sensation that's gripping the nation

2005-07-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

Everyone without kids is going, "another post about poop?" and all the readers with kids are saying, "yep, I remember that."

Yes, this is an excrement-related post. Actually, this post has no excrement, because there has been no poop from Kaden for EIGHT DAYS. He's swallowed a half gallon of prune juice (he loves the sippy cup now), I'm pressing on his stomach, and I've just taken his temperature about 600 times. No luck. A little longer and I might have to employ my Aunt's suggestion of, no kidding, sticking a pine nut up there.

He recently started eating pureed foods for the first time, which it seemed immediately banded together inside my boy and formed the Hoover dam. In the last eight days we've travelled to Kennebunkport, then to visit the Halloran's in CT, and been on countless walks. All that movement and still no.. uhh, movement. Frankly I don't know how there can be any room left in there.

Kaden has been fairly good natured about this whole crapscapade, but I'm afraid if it goes much longer he's going to poop his own body mass. And that, frankly, is going to totally mess up my weight charts.

2005-07-17T10:46:00.000-05:00

Kaden, I feel like we've got a repore going, you and me. I mean, communication lines are open. I get when you scream bloody murder the moment your butt touches the floor that you would much rather me wet myself than set you down for a moment to use the bathroom. After all, it's not like you need a little privacy to go or anything, right? You've adjusted, why can't I.

And I get that you love when I give you rasberries on your tummy and it makes you laugh. You like it enough you've been careful to make it the only thing that gets you laughing, thereby causing me to do it 200 times a day until my lips are chapped and bleeding and your stomach is red and swelling. But you laugh.

So the whole incentive/disincentive game is working out well. Except, if when I blow rasberries on your belly you continue to have to grab my hair and yank it like your pulling a Ford F150 out of a ditch single-handedly then I will have to cease your laugh enducing fun. Seriously, I've got enough worries about becoming an old dad without losing my hair this year.

Thanks Kaden.

Oh, and keep being cute, but do something about that breath. It smells distinctly like old milk.

PS - Yes, he's sleeping better. Partly out of exhaustion, and therefore I am sure he is simply resting up for revenge of the sleep nazi. But he has been converted back to his crib, we have our bed back, and we are ready with Feberization this time my friend. Cold, cold, people we are.

out of my way I'm sleeping

2005-07-12T11:23:00.000-05:00

We've got confirmation from a nurse (she's qualified for this kind of stuff) Kaden is likely teething! Score one for Joey and the first time parents. Although the nurse did warn it will probably be a month of pain before we actually see teeth (yipee!), this explains why his previous wonderful sleep habits have disolved.

Kaden has been in our bed the last two nights and it's getting better slowly but surely. I'm quite enjoying being socked in the face by a fleshy little fist instead of screamed at from across the apartment. Ah, but I hear intrepid readers asking, how is he hitting me from beneath his mummifing wraps? Well he's unswaddled now and exposed to the world, flailing like a beached octopus. All of my relatives and friends of the previous generation can now rejoice that the horror of wrapping our child has ceased. Kaden seems happy about it, although he has absolutely no idea what to do about some fleshy thing that keeps hitting him in the face when he's sleeping.

I know how he feels.

Take back the night

2005-07-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

So tired. This morning it felt like we needed someone in tights and a cape before we would feel better, because it's like sleep ghetto in the Start-Up house and there's a rescue needed. I feel like I should be making a badly Photoshop'd poster with our tired faces that looks like an old B-rated horror movie ("It came from sleepless land"). We are so tired we have become bipolar; switching between playing on a tropical island total euphoria as he smiles and plays in the morning, then by the afternoon falling into hopeless on a desert island despair.

And then.. well, this is why I love Start-Up Mom so much. She just woke up and put her foot down said "we're not going to take it any more." She put up a schedule on the fridge, and right there in black and white for everyone (including the sleep nazi) to see it says, "8pm sleep" and then she has the GALL, no, the CAHONES, to put no other events between 8pm Sleep and 7am Wake.

And it's like a beacon, a bat-signal for sleep. We are energized, we will vanquish the sleep nazi, we have a schedule.

With newfound motivation we have been talking to our fellow new parents. And at first they all gave strange looks, sometimes saying vaguely helpful things like, "yeah, sometimes they just go through periods of sleeping less." To which I would like to kindly reply, "LESS, less is like 6 hours instead of 10, this kid is waking every hour and a half. The Mossad use this tactic to drive people utterly insane until they will do anything." (hmm... is that Kaden's plan?) But despite their smiles they don't look like it's quite as rosy with their kids as they let on anyway, so I let it go.

We do probe a little more though, and after a little unfurling I find some blogs that mention this same issue. As we go back to several friends and press a little more they seem to remember a little more, and we start to see a pattern. Turns out just about every one of the friends we talked to had a problem around four months where sleep got worse.

So, at first I'm ecstatic that we are not the absolute worst parents in the world and completely incapable of sleep-training a child. But then I'm like WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL US THIS BEFORE. Is there some conspiracy here? Why didn't the utterly self-contradicting and patronizing books like Healthy Sleep Habits mention this AT ALL!

I know, there are a lot of fans of the book, and there are some helpful things in it. But you mean to tell me this so-called doctor who did all this supposed sleep training, which I now believe was conducted on three baby squirrels and a chicken, didn't notice this trend that I - a completely distracted first time parent trying to simultaneously help run a company - was able to un-earth? I feel like a freshman in high school getting hazed and after trying all sensible logic with the seniors they finally break down and say, "well someone did it to us, so we have to do it to you." Now, I know older parents and ranted-at authors will find this unfair and claim they simply forgot all the details of what happened when, likely as they wave their hands about distractingly. But I will have none of it. I am here as the deep throat of month 4.

Yes, they smile like everyone says, and they even laugh a little, and they are generally awesome little things you just want to eat up they are so cute, but THEY WILL NOT SLEEP. IT WILL SUCK. And they will wear you down until you are just short of breaking and then you will say ENOUGH and you will Ferberize or take them back to bed or take away the pacifier or whatever drastic action adheres to your particular worldview. And from everything I have been reading that action will work, and you will feel triumphant. And all will be well.

And then they start teething.

Ah, but that is another rant sometime soon. For now, as Vizzini advised, "when a job went wrong, you go back to the beginning." When he last had sleep problems we put him in the bed for a week and then we moved him back to the crib and he was great. So, we restart. Kaden, welcome back to bed while we recharge for round two.

2005-07-09T08:39:00.000-05:00

Slate has a roundup of interesting-sounding music for (and in some cases, by) kids that promises not to drive parents crazy. Since I've been on the search for cool kids music to replace the terrible tunes I sing him, I was very happy to see the roundup.

Kaden storms the beach

2005-07-06T19:46:00.000-05:00

Kaden's first trip to the beach went well, as long as we kept him off the sand, out of the sun, and away from the waves. Seriously, Kaden clearly could not fathom why people flock to a place that makes you hot, sticky, and lathered in sunscreen so thick it might as well be crazy glue. After all he's already got a massive noise machine at home (aka A/C) so what does he need the waves for?

But as long as we kept him not hot or sandy he was very entertained by all the people and had a great time. He thoroughly enjoyed playing with his Uncles, Grandparents, Jenny, Lewis, and even cast a few curious glances at the Guthridge's dog Maggie. For her part, Maggie was immediately protective of Kaden, slept outside his room, and seemed eager to help every time he was fussy. There was plenty of hands to play with Kaden, so Megan and I got to relax a little. Although there was a price to pay for that relaxation, it lead to us slipping on the nap schedule and therefore the sleep nazi arose. Which meant in the end it was a somewhat bleary eyed, but wonderful time, for us.

Photos from the trip here. Or if you are pressed for time, just view the shots from Kaden's first swim, they came out quite well.

growing up baby

2005-07-03T06:10:00.000-05:00

While it may be obvious that Kaden is picking up and learning from us, what's stranger is that we seem to be mimicking and learning from him as well. He does all these natural over-exaggerated movements; rubbing his eyes when he's tired, stretching when he wakes up, and of course the patented frown. I may have not really done them much in the last twenty or so years, but they feel really good. The next time you wake up just give out a big huge stretch in bed.. good stuff I tell ya.

correlation to causality

2005-06-27T06:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been a little while since the last post, but it feels like a little like cheating to be posting at a Dad blog when my kid is nowhere to be found. So what's a Dad-blogger to do? Some might say, "start by going to find your kid," but I do know where he is (really). Start-Up Mom and Kaden have been down in North Carolina since last Thursday. I had to stay in Boston a few extra days to attend some meetings (there's that whole starting a company and starting children conflicting again) but will join them today.

I could talk about how things are going here, but it is just much more interesting to contemplate the causality of certain behaviors of a newborn than it is to gab about Battlestar Gallactica and Chinese food.

So, let me present on ongoing conundrum for a curiously analytical parent.. so much is constantly changing it's incredibly difficult to pin down whether A behavior caused B effect. To put in economic terms, it's easy to find correlation and near impossible to prove causality.

Case in point: Kaden has previously been a very good sleeper, and up until recently woke only once a night. But he has now become nighttime Cujo (or perhaps the Sleep Nazi would be more appropriate). What started as a low "drip, drip" of slight wakings turned into a gush of "no sleep for you!" over the course of a week.

Simultaneously, Kaden has recently figured out how to nap during the day (finally) which is great. So it's logical to think that his longer day naps were enough to mess up his night sleep patterns. Except, we don't know if it was the napping. While true that he started to nap longer at the same time his night sleep screwed up, there are plenty of other possible causes.

He has started drooling like crazy. Seriously, we could use a mouth diaper.
We installed an air conditioner the same week
He started sucking his pacifier a lot more, which could mean waking up a lot and wanting it
Kaden is stronger and getting out of his swaddling
He has just learned to roll on his side, which is cute. Unfortunately previous to this the only times he was on his side is to breastfeed.. which means his life experience has tied the two together. So now he rolls on his side in the middle of the night and then assumes that because he is there, a nipple should be presented soon.

While I try and hammer away at what the cause is, it's pretty clear that the solution is just to help teach Kaden to be able to soothe himself back to sleep. If he can take care of himself then the problem goes away (well, technically he still wakes up so I guess it just becomes his problem and not ours). While in DC they apparently have Brazilian families to help with this sort of thing, we're on our own. So I have begun putting him in the crib after his eyes are closed, but just before he's really asleep.

It's interesting, before I had Kaden I thought of parenting in very distinct stages. The first 15-18 years was about looking out for your child, showing up at soccer practice, and so on. Next you'd start trying to teach them how to live on their own and be self-reliant, somewhere around late high-school/early college. But it would seem that from the very first day of trying to get him to put himself back to sleep, it's all just a continuum of teaching how to be independent.

a present for dad

2005-06-19T10:13:00.000-05:00

There's not a lot a three month old can give his dad for Father's Day. Kaden can grasp things, sure, but he doesn't yet have the motor control to "offer" them to someone. He doesn't really own much anyway. But today Kaden did indeed find a way to give me somethin.

Kaden was born with the instinct to get one thing, milk, and he very quickly developed the instinct to give it back again. So Kaden is hanging above my head playing airplane when he realizes this is his time to strike. He's smiling and shaking. And I'm smiling as I lock into his bright eyes (just as he planned). We're just having a grand old time and POW - spit-up and gravity did their thing right into start-up dad's mouth. His timing was perfect, like a mother bird feeding her kids.

I won't even bother explaining the taste, you can imagine. I must admit being slightly curious about the taste of breast milk, but not quite this way. Happy dad's day everyone, may your child give you something better than regurgitated breast milk.

and now for something completely different

2005-06-13T20:24:00.000-05:00

This medium makes for an excellent place to vent, but that may lead to a skewed view of how things are going. Ranting just comes off better (not to mention more naturally for me) in writing. It just does. So to be clear, things are going fine. There is no need to call the cops (or social services, or nanny 911 or whoever you call in these situations).

So to try and tip the scales a little back to normal, I present:

Kaden likes...

trying to roll over (that's new as of today!)
holding things, like plastic rings
immediately thrusting those things in his mouth
drooling (seriously, it's raining drool, I wish the NBA would send over some of those floor wipers 'cause we've got pooling over here)
air conditioning
bright lights
white noise
ceiling fans (like a husband watching football while his scantily clad wife tries to get him to pay attention, I can not for the life of me get Kaden to play if there is a fan nearby)
standing, and standing and standing
smiling in his sleep (everybody now.. awww)
smiling in the morning
smiling at new people who talk to him
standing
napping in the Cradle Swing (the tackiest, most tricked out, hugest monstrosity of a battery-powered blessing you could ever get - great review here, 2)
and of course, being sung to (especially high tones, and especially bad music).

many faces of kaden, pt 2 (now in motion)

2005-06-11T19:30:00.000-05:00

i just couldn't help myself. but will try to keep such glistening perfect multimedia renditions of our child to a minimum (at least I included a frown)

Sharing made simple by JussPress.com

many faces of kaden

2005-06-11T18:00:00.000-05:00

many faces of kaden

We love Kaden's frown. I've been trying to catch it for you guys since he started it in early april. This naturally means that just as kaden is getting sad I'm diving for the camera..I'm sure that's not what he intends, but it's just so hilariously overdone. But just look at this photo and I bet it'll make you smile. And we might as well laugh now because soon he's going to realize the unintended effect and then resort to screaming, then the "i hate you" tantrums, and eventually the storming out of the house to get married to his pet lizard in Reno.

But for now, it's just cute.

pacifier roulette

2005-06-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

One of the primary ways we know that Kaden has actually fallen asleep, versus merely resting his eyes, is that his pacifier falls out of his mouth.

So, if the cause and effect relationship is: pacifier falling out of mouth = asleep then could you expect the reverse to also be corollary?

My natural affinity for judging things from empirical evidence means I needed to test this. Does removing a pacifier make him fall asleep? If I want the little cujo to hit the sack do I just yank the pacifier out of his mouth?

Before you scoff too loudly, it turns out that this does (carefully & sometimes) work. No, I have not found the magic baby OFF switch that allows me to plug him with a pacifier when he's wide awake and hungry, then by quickly yanking it out cause him to turn into a calmly snoring lump of jello.

But it does work. Turns out that if he has a pacifier in his mouth he gets into sucking it.. enough so that it keeps him awake longer than he would otherwise have. So (here is the tricky part) if you just catch him when he is close to asleep (eyes closed, sucking away calmly) and gently tug the pacifier out of his mouth then he puckers his lips for a second upon exit and then BAM he's asleep. We go on with our lives, he gets extra shut-eye, everyone is happy.

That is, unless you timed it wrong. Then he starts throttling back and forth because he was perfectly happy and you had to go yank something out of his mouth FOR NO GOOD REASON. You've added a good 15 minutes to his going to sleep time, all because of this ridiculous shortcut you read on the Internet.

Start-Up Mom doesn't have the stomach for it (risk isn't her thing). She starts to pull on it and he starts sucking back and she backs away in horror. Me, I just yank the sucker out and wait five seconds to see if I'm a champ or a chump. She gets consistency, I get volatility, it fits us both.

PS - we've solved the noise issue I ranted about in my last post by purchasing the loudest white noise machine we could buy, which also has this rather unique cooling feature (see more here).

a note for firemen

2005-06-08T12:16:00.000-05:00

Kaden now regularly* takes a nap at 1pm. I understand there are fires, and that firemen are not content to simply slide down their poles and play with dalmations. Please, unless there are children inside, and unless they are napping and therefore cannot get themselves out, just let it burn until 2:30ish. If you must go squirt some water at it, please do so without resorting to those ridiculous sirens. Brookline isn't that big, you'll get there in time, meanwhile my kid is screaming awake and won't take another nap and therefore will be his own siren for the last two hours of the day.

This goes for you mr. fedex ring-buzzing delivery man - it's a package, just set it down (SLOWLY AND QUIETLY) and walk away. Same to you mr. ice machine, one more noise outa you and I'm pulling the plug.

* regularly = it's happen more than 50% of the time in the last 10 days. i admit this is not the "regular" you might refer to when expecting, say, your airplane to take off (although now that think of it...), but this is regular when your kid being one week older just added 7% to his accumulated lifespan.

2005-06-05T13:43:00.000-05:00

Well if the post on Kaden leaning left led us to buy a Che onesie then maybe we should be out purchasing some Star Wars onesie's based on Megan's feeling of the "force" the other day.

What's that? Think Star Wars baby attire might be too cute and not hip enough? Thankfully, Modern Day Dad tracked down some so-trendy-it's-silly Star Wars baby stuff from the so-trendy-it's-silly store, Hot Topic. I think I'm leaning towards either the Darth Vadar-themed "who's your daddy?" or, based on how much he's been trying to stand and cycle his feet lately, perhaps the stormtrooper.

We could do a "revolutionaries" series with Che, Mao, and Luke Skywalker. Big board points to someone who can find a Mao onesie.

does that mean he's the chosen one?

2005-06-03T16:30:00.000-05:00

An interesting phenomena is that Start-Up Mom's milk comes in on the same schedule as Kaden eats, so even if we are not near the little bugger we know when he's hungry because she feels it.

Yesterday we saw our first full length motion picture in the theatre, Star Wars Episode III (finally a good Star Wars, that would have been even better if they limited dialogue to the animated characters only - R2D2 carried the picture).

Anyway, watching the movie was a nice little miny escape from parenting, but we hightail it out of there afterwards to get back in time for Kaden to eat. As we're hoping in the car I mention that I forgot about the whole parenting thing for almost the entire movie. My baby-free escape was going great up until the last ten minutes of the film I was suddenly staring at 20 foot high newborn Jedi's cooing at me. So I'm telling Megan about the breaking of the baby-spell with mini-Jedi's and she concurs by saying, "yeah, they made my boobs hurt."

the largest vacuum cleaner in the world

2005-06-01T08:48:00.000-05:00

Like many babies, Kaden takes well to vacuum cleaners, shower sounds, dryers, and just about any incredibly loud consistant sound. So I have no idea what I was nervous about putting him on a plane from Boston to DC to visit the folks. Sitting outside his window was his own personal massive noise machine. All went well, and he's even operated well in the uber-social environment of tons of relatives and friends the last couple days (photos here).

So, on the positive side - he's into people, he adapted after a day to his new sleeping environments, and the travelling was pretty simple. On the bad side, he just absolutely refused to take a bottle even after days of trying many things. So Megan needs to stick nearby and our non-baby time is limited to 2-4 hour streches. That's really not a big deal for us, but I'm sensing the grandparents wouldn't mind getting rid of us for longer so they can have him all to themselves.

Baby sleeping is like religion and politics

2005-05-27T15:22:00.000-05:00

Wow, I feel like I accidentally started attending church thinking it was just a cool place to hang out on Sunday. Apparently mentioning sleep theories is like bringing up religion or politics, everyone has made up their mind, and you will offend them with your opinion.

The tactic of putting Kaden on a cycle of "sleep, feed, play" that we started the other day is one tenet of a whole ~~theory~~, ~~religion~~, ~~cult~~, belief system about how to be a parent, called Attachment Parenting. Like all good ~~theories~~, ~~religion~~s, ~~cult~~s, belief systems, Attachment Parenting comes with it's own set of books. Apparently all parents but me knew this. So for those who have yet to have kids, let me sum it up.

Attachment parenting believes anything that might inconvenience the child constitutes child abuse and will make your child grow up feeling unloved, eventually leading to his/her committing grave acts of violence in a bid for attention.

This is in contrast to the Babywise & Ferber methods. Ferber believes anything done to console the baby makes you a total weak-willed loser bound to raise a hopeless brat who will fail at life.

Ferber also has books, mostly focusing on sleep.. but this also leads to offshoots like the middle of the road Baby Whisperer (you non-parents see how desperate us parents are that we would actually entertain a book with such a creepy title, and I know several people who swear by it).

I had a conversation last week with a friend who has a two month old, and he was asking questions on whether he should let his kid cry until he threw up (or more likely his mom did), or if he should duct tape his kid to him while they slept.. or something like that.

It's all so confusing, trying to pick what theory of parenting you are going to be a part of. So let me make it easy.

You've already made up your mind, stop fighting it.

All these theories you read (or are brought up by friends and loved ones) make it easy to get confused about what you really believe. It's like a business school graduate so hopped up on case studies he wouldn't know what his gut was s if it was removed from his body in a tricky at-home operation and then made to speak in a faux smarty-pants English accent.

You should listen closely to advice from friends and books, because many may match your beliefs. We've learned a lot from comments from friends, family, and the blogosphere. But just like religion and politics, you can't really fake it. Either you are a coldhearted disciplinarian, or you're a weak-willed love-dovey -- that was decided long before you had your kid. Maybe we can read a book and try to be a different kind of parent for a couple days, but eventually the kid is going to catch on and then we're done for.

Worst of all us for you to fake it, and be an inconsistent parent as we trend back to our normal selves. He's going to be shaped by what mom and dad's personalities are like, which is not going to suddenly be subsumed by some book or advice that forever alters our behavior.

Doesn't that sound a little more sane?

Now that I'm fairly sure I've offended absolutely everyone (chances are I didn't get your particular belief system exactly the way you see it), I'm heading home to my crying son.

2005-05-27T08:36:00.000-05:00

Like throwing one of those animals in water, it's a kid in a flash! Note to non-parents, this is not realtime. Actually growing your own child will be longer, more painful, and involve more equipment than depicted.

2005-05-25T19:34:00.000-05:00

Still no luck on the bottle, and his little body has quickly adapted to our tactics. He's adapting so quickly it's like he would grow gills if we threw him in the water.

We are skipping feedings and trying to make him drink from the bottle instead. He adapted by tanking up at his late night (2-3am) feedings, spending over a half-hour nursing so he could make it through the early morning starve-off.

I'd try skipping two feedings, but I'm worried he would adapt by growing a milk-storage hump.

Despite this, overall Kaden is great. Two subtle changes in our behavior with him seem to have had dramatic affects on his behavior. Either that or he was getting a little paranoid we might give him back.

The two things we've done:
a) Make sure he's tanked up and rested before playing. This is also called the "sleep, feed, play" cycle. It makes sure he's got the energy to play, and the play helps work out gas from eating. It does mean you can't nurse him to sleep, which is such a nice crutch, but we've instead resorted to plenty of other napping apparati (the great nap experiment results will be coming soon).

b) Keep him awake only as long as his last nap. If his last nap was for an hour, play with him for an hour and try putting him back for a nap. I noticed he started trending toward this as I charted sleep cycles (yes I am crazy enough to have been sampling his sleep cycles, and MAN was it worth it). It works well to ensure he doesn't get overtired.

(Note: all rules are suspended between 5-8pm when he is in ballistic Cujo mode, still no cure for that)

our continuing valiant effort at bottle feeding

Gandhi he is not

2005-05-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

"Hi dad, take me to mom I'm hungry."

"No mommy, hmm... Hey, what's that!? You think that looks like a boob? I am so not taking that stinking bottle. No way is that a boob. Does mom know what your doing? "

(20 minutes later, gasping and crying, rapidly being bopped up and down, shower running)

"So.. hungry.. running.. out of.. hollering.. energy. Mom is so gonna get you for this."

"Okay okay. Let me catch my breath while I drink for a second, then I'll really let you have it."

He barely ate, but 2 oz the first day is a nice early victory.

Hunger Strike

2005-05-21T09:32:00.000-05:00

No, Kaden isn't on a hunger strike, he's completely content with his eating situation. Unfortunately we are not happy with his abject denial of plastic versus organic-based milk dispensation.

After some reading and talking with friends, apparently babies often fall out of the bottle habit. Many parents simply go a week or so without giving a bottle and the baby falls out of habit, a fair amount seem to actually never quite make it back on the bottle. But we're determined.. so with a little research courtesy of La Leche, there seem to be a few basic approaches.

I'll skip all the dramatic naration and present Cliff Notes Bottle-Feeding Boot Camp :

Starve him out: "No baby will willfully starve herself. Once she realizes there are no other options, she'll take the bottle"
but, he's may turn out to be more stubborn than you and turn into a night feaster: "At night Simone would nurse a lot more than usual to make up for her not eating during the day-be prepared for that possibility."
Meet your babies refined tastes: "Try different nipples. We went through six kinds before one worked for us. It was a rubber, orthodontic nipple that she finally accepted."
but, that just depends on how discerning your nipple connosoir really is, "...tried every type of nipple possible, all to no avail."
Sneakyness, including little tube or dropper feedings, and getting him while he's still asleep. "My husband ended up having to put her in a sling and inserting his pinky finger in her mouth for her to suck on while using a medicine dropper to put milk in her mouth with the other hand."
but, this generally only seemed to work marginally, "Krista never conceded to take more than eight ounces during the day."
Skip bottle, insert toddler-hood. "We ended up using a sippy cup with a soft rubber spout designed for babies three months and older."

So, after reading up it sounds like Start-Up Mom's breasts will be going on strike this afternoon. The theory being, if the child gets hungry enough, he'd eat from the end of a rusty pipe. Dr. Sears, who we've generally found to be right if a little rigid, disagrees with this tactic on the notion that just like adults, babies are better at adjusting to new things when they aren't hungry and cranky.

I'll update later as we give it a whirl.

2005-05-21T07:32:00.000-05:00

It's month three, so it's time for new photos of Kaden. I've tried to update with new photos about once a month (here are Month 1 & Month 2 if you want to watch his growth in rapid stop motion animation-like fasion).

This time instead of just a batch of photos, I've added a Flickr photostream to the top of the site. I've put in a starter bunch of pictures from the last few weeks, and it will continue to update as I add photos of what he is up to every few days. As some of you have already noticed, you can make comments on the photos, share them, and print them. Or of course you can just rely on the more textual descriptions here.

Some people have said they prefer a slideshow like Shutterfly -- you can still do that by going here

New habits die hard

2005-05-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

Another, less benign, habit that seems to have formed is that Kaden no longer will take a milk bottle. We went about two or three weeks without using a bottle because.. well, Megan's milk bar was generally open. That gap in time was apparently not a good idea.

Before that he had been hip to the bottle. Then this last week we had our friend Carrie babysit, and no dice on the bottle. I tried again today and the results were very loud and teary. He knows plastic from skin, and he ain't happy about it. We've got two weeks to kick the habit before we travel down to DC.

A leftish manifesto

2005-05-15T15:47:00.000-05:00

Was he born looking left?

I was putting Kaden to bed the other night and happened to face him in the opposite direction from usual. Now, previous to this I always thought no matter which way I put him down he wanted to be facing the windows.

(He loves windows. Absolutely loves staring at them. I'm pretty certain his first word is going to be window. That or, "get me out of here." He either loves geometric bright objects, or he's planning his escape.)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes.. so I put him to bed and his head turns away from the windows and faces the crib wall. And I think, "well that's odd because he hasn't shown a proclivity for wooden jail-like bars before." Perhaps he just always likes to look left?

So, after restraining myself from waking him up again to test this theory (I mean, I love theories, but let's face it I like sleep more - and anyway he slept for a record six hours) I mentioned his left-leaning tendancy to Megan.

Start-Up Mom: "Maybe that's because I always hold him on my right shoulder, so he's looking out to the left."

Start-Up Dad: "Huh. That's interesting, because I always hold him on my right shoulder too."

"And he's usually sleeping on my lap when he's on his right side."

"Uh oh, I smell a trend."

It turns out that Kaden's parents have somehow taught him in the first 11 weeks of his life that all of the interesting things are to the left of him. Today we went to get burritos, we played on the playmat at home, there was even some free-head movement standing action in there. All of it, virtually every last minute - Kaden looked left or straight.

Now to be fair, if I really try then he'll look right briefly. And when he's full-throttle screaming his head is going right/left/right/left quite a bit. But still, it's unmistakable that when given a choice, he prefers left.

Maybe it isn't us. Maybe he was born that way and we were just adjusting to his queues? Who are we to pre-judge his leftness? Maybe he's right? Perhaps it's a subliminal sign of his political sensibilities? This could be some weird nature vs nurture thing. We have no idea, but until he shakes the habit it is now a lot easier to check in on him by sneaking up on his right.

no.. your other left

Do fat babies sleep better?

2005-05-10T20:31:00.000-05:00

A basic constant is that all parents get tons of advice, often with no way to verify authenticity. You're still in the hospital room five minutes from birth and a friend is congratulating you while simultaneously advising that you should circumcise to avoid infection.

Try explaining, as a first time parent, your unique approach and they are liable to form a crowd around you to heckle about your naivete like a new member of British parliament.

So of course you listen, and many of these sound like very good theories (especially your ideas, dear reader). And we try many of them. But most are frustratingly untestable for a quantitative mind like mine.

Case in point:

"Just fatten up the kid and he'll sleep just fine. Once he hits 11-13 lbs he'll sleep through the night."

I have heard this from at least a half dozen people. The idea being it's not about the kids age, it's about his weight. Sounds like a compelling claim with a logical base: babies were destined to be docile sleeping dreamboat but that stinking pea-sized stomach of theirs gets in the way of their (our) angelic sleep.

One thing I really love about this idea is that it transforms Start-Up Mom's boob from an often sore food dispenser into the primary weapon in the sleep war. More feedings = fatter child = sleeping child. But of course I come from a world where people make plenty of logical claims that turn out to be completely false. And since most kids grow at basically the same rate, weight is also a half decent proxy for age.

But in this one instance, we now have a little counter point thanks to my friend Ross and his daughter Katlyn:

"Last night we hit our first major milestone with Katlyn - her first full night of sleep - 7pm - 6am... it is true, it will actually happen at some point."

Not bad for a five month old. But, thanks to her being premature she's -exactly- the same weight (~12 lbs) as our ten week old Kaden. One myth debunked. Two babies, same weight, months apart, significantly different sleep cycles.

Unfortunately this also debunks my "must have drinks with friends for Kaden to sleep well" concept. As well as Start-Up Mom's "must have Volvo for Kaden to sleep well" theory that was previously espoused.

It's only a little bit of disease

2005-05-06T21:51:00.000-05:00

I tried to explain to Kaden that the two shots of antigenic components from an infectious organism he was given were just trying to help. He would hear none of that.

Kaden summarily got even by creating a mess of the rest of the day. He (you can follow along clockwise from the bottom right of the adjoining photo); peed so much it soaked all the way through him AND through Megan's pants, puked so much it drenched my entire shirt and his second outfit of the hour, then made me spill powdered mac 'n cheese all over the myself.

Okay.. I'll take a little responsibility for my own instant meal mishaps.

And do you notice how satisfied he looks with puking so well? And I mean it was a serious excorcist like puke. I'm thinking his head is going to start rotating and instead he just smirks at me. He's got no problem smirking at at his father drenched in puke. But how about when I'm trying to get him smiling for mommy by dancing like a monkey? Stonefaced.

I think I heard him taunt me a little while I was changing my second shirt of the day.

Night & Day, a mixed blessing

2005-05-06T20:32:00.000-05:00

Babies are not born with any real knowledge of night and day. In fact, Kaden had quite the opposite tendency early on. Apparently our bat-like child was born with the oh so convenient instinct that a dark, quiet place (like say, a bedroom at 11pm) is the place to be the most awake of the day. His eyes would pop open and he'd gaze around the dark room. Meanwhile, all day he's collapsed and sleeping.

We heeded the advice of other parents, and our quickly depleting sleep resources, and really tried to teach him the difference between night and day (co-sleeping for a week around six weeks of age really did it).

The good news: he pretty much conks out around 8:30pm and won't wake up until somewhere between 12am-2am. He gets what night is.

The bad news: unfortunately he also gets daytime. I'm not sure what he thinkgs it is for, but it's clearly not for sleeping. It's for meeting with friends, drinking coffee, starting companies.. at least that what I think I hear him asking for between the screaming.

So he's jacked up on daylight, not sleeping at all, which makes him cranky and horrid. If anyone can figure out how to make this kid sleep during the day, throw it out there. We'll try something new every day and call it The Great Nap Experiment.

And yes, this complaining will certainly be picked up by Kaden and cause him to get back at us by not sleeping at night either. (update: it's 11pm and he's woken up twice..I'm so not surprised)

As long as you say something both smart and funny then it'll be fine.

2005-05-02T15:41:00.000-05:00

Sometimes people actually find out about this blog. And when they do, it's an immediate reaction of either excitement that they have a new channel with which to peak into the world of a friend, or complete dismay at why anyone would spend time hurling personal anecdotes for anyone to read.

Daddy Zine wrote a great piece that sums up why people do parenting blogs. He talks about what drives the desire to write on parenting, along with the hazards of taking some of the adventures and making light of it. Namely, that people mix up a story with a hapless but funny outcome as what the parent actually intended to have happen.. instead of, you know, just laughing).

I'm sitting here at the end of a couple of decades of social change, where...we hit our mid-thirties before we have our first kids...and do not have extended families around to help us raise our kids? So when I began as a parent, I felt a little isolated and uncomfortable with these feelings of isolation? And so maybe I bang these entries out in the twenty minutes or half-hour I have before I go to bed -- in part to remind myself of where I have been, and in part to find others who might express some recognition of a common experience.

What animal do you want to be when you grow up?

2005-04-30T12:36:00.000-05:00

Week six was simultaneously the week that I nicknamed him Cujo, the week he began to see things across the room, and looking at the chart below, the week Kaden took a break from growing.

Concidence that all these events happend in the same week?

Let's review, using illustrative animals as examples of the newborn stages (just trying to get into the parenting groove):

week 1 - Panda - serene and either sleeping or nursing, which is autopilot every two hours

week 2-5 - Ostrich - still sleepy, but now seems to realize every now and then that he's awake and in this world, and he's usually not happy about it. Not really comfortable in his skin and sometimes just needs to cry. Nursing for him is a recongizable, and comforting event.

week six - Cujo - Suddenly able to track things across the room, Kaden starts to really get interested in the world around him. Unfortunately this led to many partial feedings where he got interested in other things. Kaden would pop open his eyes mid-feeding and scream, batting his hands and shaking his head wildly trying to intimidate the boob in front of him so it would move.

Thankfully this largely subsided in weeks 7-8, and he started sleeping more and acting like a normally fussy baby again. However, his alter-ego Cujo does rear its ugly head every now and then. We've found we now need to force him to take naps, and if we do, we get a slightly less ferocious baby come the witching hour of 6-8pm.

Welcome new start-up dad!

2005-04-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

Welcome Alisha Sophia Gandhi into the world. Her father, Pritesh, who works at the same start-up as I do, can swap stories on the joy of having two endevours in their formative stages simultaneously. He plans to keep a blog, which I'm sure will be updated just as soon as he actually takes an eye off his daughter for a moment (that could be a week or so).

2005-04-30T08:32:00.000-05:00

One last check up on the kid's major developmental task for the first 8 weeks - fattening up. I've never been particularly nervous, after all as an American, I'm certain he can outpace his cousin Adam in Paris. According to some of the nurses we spoke to even birth weights are higher in the U.S. I think along with floride they've started adding calaries to the water over here.

This will be the last weight chart for a while. Mostly because he is actually beginning to do things that are far more interesting than getting pudgy, which, lets face it, isn't all that interesting. Despite all of my far more compelling models, Kaden is adhering to growth matching a competitive analysis of peers (what normal humans call "average growth"). Although he did have a short pause in week 6 (also known as the week of weeping), more on that later.

2005-04-30T06:23:00.000-05:00

Over at Daddy Types, there is a great link to Rob Cockerham's documentary photography of their recent birth. No, it's not all blood and gore.. it's much better than that, it's largely wacky commentary on the scientific equipment.

It was funny recognizing so much of it all, especially the birthday hat (which we still have). I've always thought it interesting the conflict between how unique childbirth is to the participants, combined with how often (and similarly) it occurs. It's simultaneously a great big deal, and par for the course.

2005-04-28T10:44:00.000-05:00

Kaden has passed the two month mark, what's he been up to? Well, you may have a decent idea in prose, but there's a new set of photos for your multimedia pleasure.

Just click for a photo montage (it may take a minute or two to load).

also.. added post-facto, a little playtime video

Sharing made simple by JussPress.com

2005-04-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

There is an interesting psychological-biological link between parent a child that shows up immediately. If Kaden is crying, megan's boobs hurt. If Kaden is laying on my stomach, my body temperature rises. I imagine that my body is protectively trying to warm him. Although sometimes I wonder if my body doesn't mistake him for a parasitic attachment and tries to sweat so much he slides off.
Managing a volatile start-up company and a volatile newborn certainly does not leave one with a lot of rhythm in life. But somehow karma-wise it seems to work, when I have a off day at work Kaden tends to have a good day. (no, I'm not going to chart it)
Kaden got his social security card, so he's officially on the grid and no longer below Uncle Sam's radar. Although this does make a life of computer hacking somewhat more difficult, I suppose it will help him when he's old. I wonder if the odds of social security actually being around when he is old enough are as high as the odds of someone using his SS# in an identify theft?

Like a fine wine

2005-04-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

A quick biology lesson (without getting too graphic), despite him still being on an exclusively milk diet, let's just be clear that it is obvious that the smell of poops and farts is directly proportional to the period allowed for fermentation.

Part of the fussiness recently is that his digestive system is going through yet another transformation. Roughly two months ago his system switched from taking nutrients in utero from mom to having to actually digest food. Now he's decided that he wants to suck every last nutrient out of his food. So instead of his digestive system working through every two hours it is....well, we weren't really sure what digestive schedule he had moved to. Once a day? nope... every other day? nope... by the third day we gave up worrying. We just kept changing diapers for days, the tension building (figuratively.. or perhaps literally, I'm not sure exactly how it works in there).

We were happy to find out finally today that he did indeed not forget how to digest milk. We are unhappy that this generated a new record in terms of laundry.

2005-04-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

Lest recent posts about smiling and sleeping make you think that hitting six weeks made everything smooth out, Kaden wanted to ensure that we understood who was still in charge. The last two nights his sleeping patterns have gotten erratic again, lots of crying, and apparently we were not appreciative enough of his smiles for they have not returned. The sound of the shower and the dryer are about the only things calming him down.

This was not helped today when I got him completely drenched trying to take him to the UPS store during a rainstorm. Apparently the rain guard attachment for the Bugaboo is not intuitive to put on.

Wet stroller, wet blankets, wet child... if only our dryer was big enough to fit us all in.

One small step for Kaden, one giant step for his parents disposition

2005-04-21T08:31:00.000-05:00

I got a call from Megan while I was at work yesterday. I could immediately hear the bubbly, giggly, sound of her voice. Kaden was smiling at her for the very first time, and she was appropriately incredibly happy about it.

After a particularly troublesome Tuesday where he was a frustrating mess of upset crying, bored crying, and frowning all day, it was definitely something we needed. This fits into my friend Ben's hypothesis that smiling is the babies evolutionary way of ensuring that you don't just get sick of it and give it back. Just as you are at a height of frustration, he develops the facial movements that make you fall in love all over again.

This here's a jam for all the fellas

2005-04-19T10:59:00.000-05:00

Metrodad reminded me to discuss music. Without further ado, the songs currently being sung to our child:
- sweet child of mine
- bust a move
- she talks to angels
- blister in the sun
- itsy bitsy spider

I have also tried Superfreak several times, but for some reason Kaden is not down with the funk just yet.

These are the songs I sing mostly because I can't remember the lyrics to any baby songs, and those happen to be the (incredibly cheesy) songs I can remember the lyrics to. Kaden doesn't mind that he doesn't get proper baby songs, he likes pretty much any singing as long as it uses high notes. That means Axel Rose tunes are perfect, and for songs like She Talks to Angels I need to move things up an octave or two. Based on last week's music listening, I'm pretty sure next weeks featured acapella is going to be Fiona Apple's Not About Love.

Sleeping babies aren't a conspiracy? Honestly, I'm a little dissapointed.

2005-04-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

I've always heard other parents tell fantastical tales of how babies sleep all the time once they are past 8-10 weeks old. Even as I kept repeating these stories of babies sleeping 10 (no 11!!) hours to Megan, I began to suspect they were all just a ruse. That, in fact, all babies are horrificly awake all the time.

I began to believe that perhaps these other bright and shiny parents knew that we had such a murderous journey ahead of us, and had staged the release of information. The only way to make it through was to create some false hope that it would all be done in a few weeks. We would hit our eighth week, hope getting us to what we believed was the edge of relief, and we would be brought into some dark room with yuppies wearing matching black logo'ed jumpsuits with hoods who would then tell us that, yes indeed, newborns never sleep more than a few hours. Ever. (or at least until preschool)

But, thankfully, it seems that Kaden has turned a corner. He's asleep on my stomach now, and was asleep most of this afternoon as we tooled around Brookline getting ice scream and watching the Boston Marathon go by. (Kaden did get angry at the cheering people who were being incredibly rude during his nap time)

We've gone out the last three nights and he behaved wonderfully. He has actually slept more than four hours in a row for three consecutive nights (I can't believe I'm saying four hours like it's a trip to Sardegna). Coming back this afternoon Megan remarked that she was just beginning to feel human again.

It feels a little like we just got out of boot camp.

Mom's, present your boob. Now start the show.

2005-04-18T11:33:00.000-05:00

Went to a Mom & Baby movie night last night (Ocean's Twelve). A real key is to NOT feed your baby before you arrive. Because if he's hungry, then you've got at least a half hour of the movie where you can actually hear the dialog (over the sucking sounds of course).

It was my first time getting to see other dad's struggle to seem all under control as their baby wails in their face and everyone looks. Very satisfying. Especially since Kaden and I struck a deal earlier that I'd let him poop all he wanted that night if he would behave. We came out like champs.

You lasted five straight hours!?

2005-04-17T21:18:00.000-05:00

Kaden has a newfound stamina.

Friday night we had dinner at a friend's house, and some combination of events led to Kaden sleeping for a full five hours that night. I mean dead asleep.. He was out and not a peep. My body was so accustomed to waking in 2-3 hour segments I still kept waking up. I would lean over, ensure that Kaden had not stopped breathing (or snuck out of the house with his stroller to go crusin' for chicks) and then I'd happily go right back to bed.

It was incredible. But, much like in business, what actually caused this glorious event is open to interpretation. So, I attempted to capture the basic set of parameters (click to zoom) for analysis and later reflection.

I'm convinced should we enact the same evening we will again speak to Kaden's subconscious "wavelength 'o peace" and he will be in a slumber for most of the evening. But, how many of these elements are critical?

Was it:
a) The ride there and back in the Volvo SUV, which he seemed to quite enjoy
b) The several hours of stimulation by friends carrying him, showing him a new home, and listening to lively banter just before bed?
c) That his parents were so relaxed at bed time, having had a fine dinner and a couple glasses of wine. Note: before I get a call from the feds on the chart below, the "Milk intake" is Kaden, and "Wine intake" is my own.

Perhaps we will figure out the reasons in the next couple of days. I think the charts prove the key to his happiness is that I need a glass a wine after dinner. Megan (aka Start-up Mom) says it clearly states that we need a Volvo.

2005-04-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

This baby is seriously threatening to break out in a smile. I swear I caught two this very morning that were distinctly not "I have gas" face contortions. From the sly look in this photo it is clear that Kaden figured out to smile about a week ago and has just decided to taunt his parents.

Today's Madison is tomorrow's Britney

2005-04-14T09:16:00.000-05:00

Interesting article on the migration of baby names from the afluent to the poor. Levitt has been getting a lot of press the last year or so for his counter-intuitive econometric insights. Personally having not seen the rigorous data it seems just as much the kind of empirical-based, cute but never really bordering on truth, information as Malcolm Gladwell. Here's a great rant about how the data is sound, but the conclusions are not.

We of course avoided this debate altogether by choosing a name that is neither afluent nor poor, as we don't know a soul who uses it.

Kaden draws company

2005-04-14T09:01:00.000-05:00

Megan's mother Leesie was visiting the last few days, which meant the faint smell of old milk was replaced by the wonder of sparkling cleanliness that I vagually remember from, oh, two months ago.

I haven't checked with the wife, but I'd say at this point if absolutely anyone wants to come visit for a few days and help out come on by. No need to email first, we'll just hand you the vacuum cleaner on the way in.

(sorry about the blurry kaden, but this should be the hint that he does, in fact, generally not stay still for more than several seconds at a time)

2005-04-10T17:25:00.000-05:00

It's finally spring in Boston! Not coincidentally, we received our first Red Sox-related baby gift yesterday (thx Andy & Allison).

And just when I was getting all excited about my boys new cognitive abilities, according to the NY Times chances are it will go to academic waste compared to girls. Well I say forget a PHD, right now I'd be happy if he would smile.

Little smell machine

2005-04-10T11:16:00.000-05:00

Kaden's spitting up has reached a whole new level. Interestingly, his spit-up smells remarkably like his poop. I guess when all you got is milk going in and out, it's not a big surprise. It's not a strong smell (I think that comes as soon as we introduce food), but it is the slightly unpleasant odor of rotten milk.

Unfortunately his exploding poops alongside this new spitting up means his wonderful "new baby smell" has been replaced by the faint yet pervasive smell of old milk. This smell has also spread to his clothes, my shirt, the bed, the changing table and virtually everything else. Yes, perhaps we should bathe him or wash the clothes more often, and we will as soon as he learns to do so. In the meantime my neural synapses are quickly ascribing foul odor to "my boy" and therefore replacing the scent with thoughts of goodness.

2005-04-10T10:58:00.000-05:00

The telling signs of a surprise awaiting inside. Kaden goes through roughly four outfits a day at this age. We're hoping either a) this slows down b) he learns to do laundry rather quickly c) he has a future in fashion.

Anyone figured how to track brain weight?

2005-04-09T16:41:00.000-05:00

Kaden gained 10 ounces last week, which is a better than the ridiculous weight gain we were seeing previously. The story lately has shifted from his fast weight gain to his leaps in cognitive ability.

A quick caveat though. Generally first-time parents are teased for making a big deal out of the little things ("he can put his thumb in his mouth! he's likes to look at windows! He blinks twice as often!"). Previous to Kaden I thought this was because deranged parents had become so mipoically obsessed with their children's advancement that every little bit needed to be recorded and heralded.

However I am excited to see wonderful new behaviors because, by and large, the baby is pretty boring at this age. It's all worth it and I love him, but in general I wouldn't suggest to others having a child under six weeks of age if it could be a conviently avoided part of having kids.

So forgive me if in the midst of the 120th diaper change, he starts to cry and I get excited because the cry is different. I can tell he's not really upset. He's learned the behavior that crying elicits, he's actually trying to fake cry, and that's the most interesting thing the baby has done in days! Cool! (Well, it's cool up until the second time he fake cries then you're just annoyed he's figured out another way to make loud noises)

But for that afternoon, anyway, it's a great little leap.

Other great tiny things his brain has figured out in the last week or so:

An adorable, purposeful frown to show he's dissatisfied. He juts his bottom lip out incredibly far trying hard to get me to fix whatever I've done. So far it just causes me to laugh. (I'm trying to catch a photo of this because you've got to see it)
He's tracking objects across a room, instead of just in front of his face. He loves our ceiling fans, and will watch Megan walk away after handing him off to me.
He also gets what a pacifier is. His first few weeks he didn't really know the difference between a nipple and a pacifier. Then he realized that it was a faux nipple and hated it. Now he's beginning to understand that it is a faux nipple, but it can be great fun on it's own. He uses it to soothe himself when he's upset, which is a good early indicator that we are a few weeks away from beginning to try the crib.

2005-04-02T22:17:00.000-05:00

Congrats to UNC on making the final four, we'll be watching tonight of course. What a great service the NCAA tournament has done for our home. I'm convinced Megan planned the whole pregnancy knowing she would be stuck at home this first month and might as well have something to watch. Thankfully the tournament has delivered some excellent games to keep her entertained, and even a few I got into as well. Yes, resistance was futile and a couple years into our marriage I have officially been colonized with basketball. We were even trying to adjust Kaden's sleep slightly this last week to catch some late games.

At this point, the squeaking of sneakers on the court is probably as familiar a sound to Kaden as his parents voices.

Oh, I also added a little feature on the left column that generates how old Kaden currently is.

2005-04-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

Doesn't our little 9 pounder already look older than a few weeks ago?

Actually, it seems that pants make people look older than unitards, who knew. This was Kaden's first adventure in pantalones, and I'm thinking with pants he looks old enough to get assigned some chores around the house. Time to start pulling his weight and all.

2005-04-02T20:23:00.000-05:00

The results are in, Kaden gained -another- pound in the last week and now weighs in at 9lb 12oz. We've officially retired about a dozen outfits already, and have moved him up to size 1 diapers. Three weeks ago he was in just the 12th percentile of weight, last week jumped to 24th per, and he now is pushing the 50th percentile. Currently, somewhat illogically, the organic growth model is holding up and he is pushing past his peers.

A model baby

2005-03-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

Last night he seemed to hit a point where he now has enough weight to sleep a little longer than the on-the-dot two hours mark he was pacing at previously. Seriously, he was so accurate you could bake a rhubarb pie to it.

Anyway, Megan should be weighing him today at her newborn group to find what weight class he just entered that allowed for this newfound sleep ability. But, even without that data I should be able to properly model his growth at this point, right?

Using the forecasting that would be typical for any other start-up, you can figure that based on his weight trends he could be. But what trend do you model against? All of the below could be plausible based on his last few weigh-ins:

- 9 lbs 12oz (avg. of 1 lbs per weeks) aka organic growth
- 9 lbs 8oz (avg if staying 25% percentile in growth) aka competitive analysis
- 10 lbs (avg. body mass increase of 11.1% per week) aka "hockey puck"

Click below for how these extrapolations would play out over a year.

Using this same logic.. I will now infer from the behavior of the last few days that a brilliant night of sleep (See: In search of sleep) leads to a stuffy nose, which in turn leads to two miserable evenings of virtually no sleep as Kaden tries to scream the boogers out of his nose. I will staunchly and stubbornly maintain this belief until Kaden is able to manage two nights of sleep in a row.

In search of sleep

2005-03-28T11:03:00.000-05:00

(new favorite anti-fussy device, the bouncy seat David R. gave us, thx!)

Every Friday I give Megan a break and she gets to sleep in our bed, while Kaden and I sleep in his room. Usually I still get enough sleep to function, and it's an important break for Megan. Friday before last was a breeze, he slept next to me in his car seat, bottle-fed easily, and we had a great evening. Megan was refreshed in the morning and it made for great start to the weekend.

This last Friday, however, was a nightmare.

Kaden would have none of his chivalrous father getting away with a little sleep on the job. I still don't understand how this kid, who according to most books is supposed to be sleeping sixteen hours a day, can stay awake for so many hours straight. I think he slept a total of an hour the entire evening, and they were in such small bursts I had no chance to actually fall asleep with him.

By Saturday afternoon I was a bleary-eyed mess determined to solve this once and for all. I've been pushed far enough. I read the passages on sleep in every book we have, read online articles, and finally watched the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD that we've had sitting on our table for a couple months.

And you know what? It worked. Everyone that tells you to just be a "natural parent" and respond to your child is full of it. Despite the incredibly cheesy nature of the Happiest Baby DVD (and the social pressure implied in the title) it was actually helpful. Mostly it just reinforced our thoughts on "re-creating the womb," which made us much more confident and persistent in the things we thought might be right.

He slept for two hours straight last night without a peep. That's his longest stretch since he's been born. And he had three other great one hour stretches. Enough said. I feel like a million dollars today.

2005-03-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

If there was any question about how myopically kid-focused your life becomes in the "fourth trimester" (ie first three months) - it leads to almost conversations like below. Thankfully Megan picked up the phone because when she recounted it to me I reacted something like this.

Unfamiliar caller: "Hello. You have a turkey."

Nabeel: "I have a what!"

Unfamiliar caller: "You have a turkey."

Nabeel: "I resent that derogatory comment, our child is doing a great job. Did you see how much he grew last week?"

Unfamiliar caller: "What?"

Nabeel: "What?"

Unfamiliar caller: "This is from Poultry Farms, you have a turkey."

(pause)

Nabeel: "Oh. Um, it would seem you have the wrong number."

Poultry Farms delivers? Who knew.

Kaden's language, circa week 5

2005-03-26T10:27:00.000-05:00

It is easy to forget what his noises might mean in the midst of the hazy fog of early parenting, so it's worthwhile to record what he means when he talks to us. Since Kaden is not quite to smiling age, all of his language is basically expressing dissatisfaction. It is certainly a little grinding that his only communication is negative, but on the flip side any time he is not making noise feels like a triumph. Also, any such noise can be temporarily halted by swaying him up and down or jiggling him.

Whining - this is kind of a "pre-cry" sound, signaling an impending cry if the situation is not remedied. This situation is:

I have gas (you have 2-4 mins to fix this before escalation)
I am hungry (you have 15-30 seconds)
I am unhappy with the suction in my nose, or being flooded with saline drops

Grunting - just popped up recently, Grunting is usually employed when he is unhappy with something other than gas or being very hungry. While Whining sounds more like a need, Grunting comes off more like a demand. Such demands include:

I can't breathe. (AKA stuffy nose, see above suction & saline for requisite next step)
You are moving me, and I was comfortable
I can't kick my legs. (Usually due to him pulling his legs out of the feet on a onesie and trapping them in his crotch. Because of this foot issue we now favor "gowns," which I would prefer to be called "manly robes.")
You did a pre-mature swaddle maneuver while I was still too awake to be mummified.
Hold my hands.
I'm feeling unloved and need to be held.
I'm feeling unloved and bored, so I need to be carried around and entertained.
I am bored again with whatever was previously entertaining me (walking, mobile, geometric patterns, etc).
Stop/Start singing
Lastly, the super-bonus grunt he started this week is that Kaden grunts loudly a couple of times right before he is done nursing. (Note to precocious newborn readers: grunting into your mother's breast is not the way to endear yourself to your mother)

Screaming - compared to the news in other Dad boot camps, Kaden cries relatively little. Perhaps a couple times a day does he gets into a full roar. These are generally caused by gas, or if his internal feeding timer has gone past about 90 seconds from his first squeak or grunt. Other things Kaden says by screaming:

I am naked.
I am naked and wet.
I am naked, wet, have soap on me, and people keep moving all my parts in different directions.

Interesting thing missing from this list are diapers being wet. He can pee all over his face, in his pants, leaking onto his outfit until he has a huge stain that probably resembles the Elvis or the Virgin Mary and he seems perfectly comfortable to sit in it until we finally get up enough energy to change him.

About a pound a week

2005-03-24T13:58:00.000-05:00

Kaden turned one month old yesterday, and he has gained - get this - 2lbs in the last two weeks! This is weight gain that would actually cause a full grown college girl some concern. For comparison, a typical baby gains 5-7 ounces a week, and he's been gaining 16 ounces a week for the last two weeks straight. His growth is fast enough it has actually moved him up from the 10th percentile in weight up to the 25th percentile.

I'm actually not sure how abnormal a growth spurt like this is. But I will assume good news, and the only action taken will be Megan keeping an eye on his bullying tendencies around the other newborns now that he's bulking up. I don't think he's actually noticed there are other babies yet, but it could happen when you least suspect it.

(click to zoom)

And yes, I do think that parents who overly evaluate their children's every achievement (including involuntary one's like newborn weight gain) are silly and should be beat about the head with a measuring stick. But
a) I'm having fun, and
b) charting and modeling is my brains' way of making sense of any new startup, even if not used for grading.

So the charting will indeed continue, but much like horoscopes, for entertainment purposes only.

2005-03-21T15:07:00.000-05:00

Kaden loves grunting. I'm convinced it is because he is a little self conscious of being a slightly smaller, premature baby and he thinks it makes him sound manly. He squeezes his face together and does a constipated Grrrr. Still not entirely sure what it means.

His signals are changing rapidly enough that it's hard to establish a pattern of exactly what he is trying to say. First, he was kind of squeaking when he needed people, then he moved on to to these grunts right about the same time he had a stuffy nose. Based on the timing we assumed it meant "Hey, I have a stuffy nose. And since I'm an obligate nose breather this grunt is trying to tell you I feel like I'm suffocating."

But, now the stuffy nose has subsided, and the grunting continues, largely replacing the squeaking. So apparently what he meant was, "I just figured out a whole new noise that I am fond of using to tell you I need something."

An example of how this rapidly changing communication method can be confusing is how we understand he is hungry. At first, there was the aforementioned "squeaking," as well as smacking his lips and beating himself about the head (trying to get his hand in his mouth I presume). That's your pre-warning that in 60-90 seconds he will cry if we do not present milk.

This weekend, however, the "cue" period unceremoniously went away. On Saturday Kaden was fast asleep on my shoulder, not a peep, when he just suddenly up and started wailing in my ear. Not so much an "I'm hungry" wail, but more of an "remove me from this boiling oil" wail. Impossible to figure out if this was because he was sick (no temp), clogged nose (nothing in the aspirator), or just impatient (yup).

This poses a problem to my natural way of dealing with a new start-up. I am compelled to understand this new adventure by establishing my own set of methodologies, practices, and beliefs that surround properly managing a baby. However, every time I seem to have been able to conduct the proper double-blind study to ensure that my method is correct, he up and grows out of it.

Grrr.

Projectile poop

2005-03-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

Despite our best efforts to cover his little pee-machine with a towel when he is being changed, Kaden finds ways to time it so he can hit both his parents faces and his own with regularity.

But that is so typical for babies, and our Kaden is clearly setting a higher standard. Bored with urine sports, he actually managed to projectile poop onto my pants about a foot away from the changing table. I had naively placed the diaper only underneath his body while I was cleaning, believing oh so falsely that poop obeyed the laws of gravity.

He looked very triumphant.

kaden is due!

2005-03-19T13:10:00.000-05:00

Kaden's due date was Friday, so it seems fitting to post a little slideshow of what Kaden has been up to in his three week head start.

2005-03-17T21:01:00.000-05:00

quick update. I don't care how many times you do it, shooting drops of saline up a baby's nose until he seems like he is choking and drowning is not natural. But, as directed, it worked. After what seemed like pouring a liter or two of saline to clear his nostrils over the course of a day, Kaden's nose started clearing up. And once we found out about this amazing gas-killing juice (thanks Gen!), Kaden slept very well last night. I'm pretty sure he was just as exhausted as we were from not sleeping for two nights (& days) straight.

The positive of all that being sick was that he seemed to have finally gotten desperate enough to use the pacifier again. Although, he does now know the difference and clearly eschews the little faux nipple for the real thing when he's actually hungry.

Rocking out with the kid

2005-03-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

I must admit one of my fears of fatherhood is the oncoming dearth of being able to listen to music I actually enjoy. Just because I had a kid three weeks ago does not mean I'd like to stop listening to Radiohead, Iron & Wine, or Thievery Corporation.

I know They Might Be Giants made a kids CD which seems to me exactly as immature as any of their other CDs. Thing is I was never really fond of them (that hasn't stopped them from planning a second kids CD).

But today in the Washington Post (via Daddy Types) I read about an awesome local show in Washington DC called Pancake Mountain. All you DC friends and family must check it out, it's apparently on channel 6 or 10 or something. It's a kids show, but features the likes of The Scissor Sisters, Thievery Corporation, and Arcade Fire performing (at the 9:30 club no less!). Checking out the clips on their website it looks incredibly interesting for both parent and child.

It will be some time before Kaden will be enjoying this type of fare, but anything I can find should help. If anyone else has cool music or video suggestions for all ages, toss them in!

Brief history of the pacifier

2005-03-15T14:25:00.000-05:00

fill me!

Megan and I started out trying to not use a pacifier with Kaden. Visions of Kaden crying when his first grade teacher tried to take out his pacifier out made us shy away from using one. I admit, chances are slim this would occur, but we just figured no pacifier - no problem.

That lasted about a week before we caved. Second only to his desire to be still in the womb was his desire to suck 24 hours a day. So we used the pacifier, but tried to sparingly. It was wonderful.

Then, somewhere late last week his quickly evolving brain decided it knew the difference between a pacfier and a nipple, and clearly had a favorite. Pacifier is out. And now he hasn't slept in two nights because he's got a stuffy nose, and all I can do is try and coax him into please taking the pacifier and going to sleep.

So, a brief review:
1) nah, we'd rather not use it
2) okay okay... I guess a little can't hurt
3) more more more

I have a feeling a lot of things are going to exhibit this pattern.

2005-03-12T10:52:00.000-05:00

For those not yet with children, let me briefly sum up every single book and DVD on how to soothe a newborn and make him happy.

1) Recreate the womb.

Yup, that's it. Kaden spent 36.5 weeks in the womb, and has 2 weeks outside (roughly 5.5%). My guess is that for at least his first nine months he will be enthralled with anything that reminds him of what it was like in the wonderful beginnings. Case in point, does Kaden look uncomfortable in this strange sling below? Well he isn't, he actually falls asleep in approximately three seconds every time I put him in it becuase it curls him up (like the womb), he can hear my speaking through my chest (like the womb), and it holds him tight to my body movements (like.. well, you get it).

Kaden's feeding schedule - first two weeks

2005-03-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

My cousin Maha put it well when she emailed me lately and said, "don't even think about sleeping until the baby is 13 pounds."

(click to zoom)

To get a sense of it, take a look at 3am.