Things And Relative Diversions In Stuff

A certain young lady went three days without a number two. Her streak* ended today during daycare. Looking at the bag of dirty clothing that got sent home with her, I'm not sure whether to call a dry cleaner or an exorcist. Maybe I should just get a flamethrower...


*pun slightly intentional.

A question I get very often, both from random strangers and my own grandmother tends to run along the lines of, "is your daughter a good baby or a bad baby?"

I'm never quite sure how to answer this one. It's not like she robs banks or abuses animals or anything. I know that they really want to know whether or not she cries a lot, but it always comes across like they're imposing some moral or value judgement. :-)

Another fun thing was when a friend of Aliza's grandmother, who definitely was trying to compliment RAB came out with the following:

"Kinnahora,* your child is too beautiful. A bird should crap on her head!"

I was able to stammer out some sort of a thank you. I would have gotten upset, but she seemed so genuine and complimentary about it that I let it slide.


*A contraction of the Yiddish "k'neyna hora," which more or less translates as "without giving you an evil eye." Hearing it pronounced Kinnahora makes me want to open a kosher Irish bar called Ken O'Hara's.

RAB is starting to notice that there are people in the mirror. This started last week at my grandmother's house, when I noticed that she was making eye contact with my reflection, and seems to have carried over until today*.

She seems much more comfortable with Abba-in-the-mirror than with baby-in-the-mirror, but started smiling at her reflection a little bit, after some encouraging.

It was lots of fun, and made up for my feeling like I was neglecting her by leaving her in daycare all day.



*Given that we spent the rest of last week in a shiva house, where the mirrors are traditionally covered over, we couldn't really play with it much when we were in Toronto.

I'm in the middle of my second week of paternity leave. I thought I'd record a few of my thoughts while I have a free moment. So, in random order:


-On some small level, it still doesn't feel "real." Part of me is still surprised that there's this new little person in my life, and is waiting for the other shoe to drop. The rest of me knows. :-)

- I'm impressed with how helpful people are when I'm out with the baby. Lots of folks do things like hold doors for me when I'm pushing the stroller. With the weather we've had lately, the sidewalks are narrower due to piled snow. People walking towards me tend to step aside and let me wheel by before I have the chance to pull over for them. I'm happy to note that this tends to come from all sorts of people, and there isn't some sort of age/gender/ethnicity bias, as far as I can tell.

-I get lots of compliments about my daughter. For some reason, this makes me feel a little weird. I mean, I think she's the most beautiful baby in the world, but I'm partial. I always try to be gracious about it and say thank-you, but it's still a bit weird for me.

-Weirdly, I seem to get a lot of attention from women of the "young and single" variety. It's nice and all, but curious.

-Rena is really blossoming. She's become more aware of her hands. While she's not at the point of reaching for things that she sees, she's taken to grasping my shirt/sleeve when Aliza or I hold her. If I'm wearing a short-sleeved shirt, she sort of plays with the hair on my arm.

-She's also making eye contact very reliably, and will try to catch your eye, or move into a position where she can see your face.

-She's starting to smile socially. At this point, you really need to smile at her and prompt her a lot to get a smile in response. Thus far, I've only ever seen her spontaneously smile socially at Aliza.

-As much as I enjoy taking Rena to Aliza's workplace so they can have a middle of the day feeding, I'm pretty sure that Rena has no idea that we're doing anything out of the ordinary. She really likes the stroller, though, and will fall asleep after being walked around for a few minutes.

-Fortunately, she's taken to having expressed milk from a bottle really well, and we haven't had to deal with nipple confusion or anything like that. The first time I fed her a bottle, she seemed a little confused, but took the bottle. The dialogue on her face pretty clearly said, "I'm not sure how you're pulling this off. You're not the person who usually does this. I'm confused, but I like the outcome, so I'll play along."

-When my brother Dani fed her a few days later, the dialogue on her face said, "who the hell are you? Are they letting just anyone in on this... omnomnomnom"

-Dani then proceeded to burp her, which she did. She then started making another noise. Dani let me know that she had the hiccups.

-I only had enough time to say "her hiccups don't sound like..." before she spit up on him in epic fashion. Epic. Fashion. Clothes needed to be changed, an unscheduled baby-bath happened, we counted our lucky stars that she didn't hit the couch. Epic.

-To his credit, Dani took it well. I'm sure I'll get that loaner t-shirt back eventually.

More as it comes to me...

Aliza and I will often sing to Rena when she's crying. Sometimes it helps her calm down, sometimes it keeps us sane. Sometimes things like this happen:


The scene- A changing table
The time- diaper changing
The mood- cranky
The tune- that song from summer camp and elementary school

A&A- "We love you Rena, oh yes we do"
Ari unsnaps a onesie, Aliza prepares a fresh diaper, Rena squalls a little.

A&A- "We don't love anyone as much as you"
Ari opens diaper, and begins wiping. Rena cries

A&A- "When you're not with us, we're blue"
Aliza prepares to swap the old diaper for the new one, when Rena sticks her foot into the old diaper

A&A (not missing a beat) "You stuck your foot in poo!"

But I suspect we're having our own little Wikileaks controversy here at home...

To follow up on my brief phone post, here's a slightly longer version of events.

( birth stuff )

tl:dr version: 27.5 hours of labor, followed by a c-section, and a little blue baby who took a little bit to get going.

( she's out! )