Poop Watch Day 3

Any good christian knows that Easter marks the end of a period known as Lent. It is traditional to choose a vice or something less than holy to give up during the 40 days preceding Easter. Most people choose things like Chocolate, Alcohol, Cigars, etc. but I guess it takes a few years of life and some influence by the rest of the human race to know what is a proper thing to give up for Lent. In Claire's case, it appears she decided to give up pooping. However, the other concept she hasn't figured out is that after Lent is over it is okay to resume consuming Chocolate, drinking your Alcohol, or hanging out in the Cigar shop with your buddies. It has now been 3 days, yes 72 hours, since Claire's last successful bowel movement. If this happened to me, I'd be downright grumpy and likely be walking around very awkwardly. Although Claire doesn't walk, she's happy as a clam right now. And to use the same word twice in two consecutive sentences, her intestines must be clammed up good right now. ... but wait, all the baby books we read tell us that it is quite normal for babies to go several days without a bowel movement. This is in stark contrast to the 45 poops she used to take everyday, so you can see why this might be cause for concern for new parents like Sarah and I. However, breastfed babies are rarely, if ever constipated and as their bodies and digestive systems continue to develop, they become very efficient well oiled machines. (no pun intended). I'd like to boast that perhaps Claire is the world's most efficient human being. She is now able to extract 100% of the nutrients from Sarah's milk and simply excreet loads of water. I should point out that she is still wetting herself a million times a day. The other theory I have is that Claire isn't that special, but it's her mom (my beautiful wife) who is the one to be impressed by. Perhaps the milk that she produces is so perfectly formulated that any baby could easily and quickly digest every last vitamin. I'm thinking of selling Sarah's milk on Ebay touting it as a perfect baby formula that will completely eliminate the need for your baby to poop. Think of the way the world would be changed. No-one would ever poop again because we'd all continue to drink breastmilk for the rest of our lives. Doing some quick math, I think we'd save the world about 5 billion gallons of water a day, not to mention the amount of toilet paper saved (especially for those of you who use half a roll each time you go). The only problem with this solution is that Sarah would somehow have to produce enough milk to be the wet nurse for every human being on the planet. This would be hard, but I think she might enjoy it because she'd be able to eat all the Cheesecake and Meatloaf that she wanted.

Anyway, Grandma and Grandpa are now packing and getting ready to head back to the great state of Iowa, which to throw in some trivia, has now surpassed California to become the nation's second largest producer of wind power in the country (Texas is first). We had a great time with the grandparents, and Claire appeared to enjoy the extra attention. And now that I think about it, she was so caught up in the events of the weekend that she simply forgot to poop. Yesterday we all went and hike up Mission Peak in Fremont. Its a 6 mile hike round trip and involves about 2000 vertical feet of elevation gain. At the top there are sweeping views of both the bay area and the central valley. In retrospect, taking a 10-week old baby up a mountain that has so much wind that hang gliders launch from the top, was probably a bad idea, but she's still kicking and screaming today, so I guess it was okay.

For Easter, Claire got to wear her first dress as we all got prettied up and had a lovely brunch at the Cinnibar Hills Golf Club in South San Jose. With her dress, her pretty pink tights and the bow in her hair, Claire really did look like the belle of the ball and probably would have turned a few more heads if the boys in her age group were actually capable of doing so. Fine with me though, because before I know it I'm going to be fighting them off with sticks.

How about a post from Sarah for a change? This weekend we have grandma and grandpa Sivitz visiting us from Iowa. At 10 weeks old, Claire is entertaining them with her kick-boxing demonstrations and enthusiastic cooing. The cooing is enthusiastic up to the point that she realizes we don't understand a word she is saying, then she launches into high-pitched screaming to tell us that she "wants milk now, damn it!!". In our attempts to bottle-feed Claire to prepare her for daycare, we have discovered that she has gradually become very picky about the type of bottle nipple. Apparently the playtex silicone nipples "just like mom's" aren't at all just like mom's! In fact, they're so different she has felt obliged to spit the milk out of her mouth as she screamed like a banshee, rather than to give in and actually swallow some. We have since found a nipple that she seems to like, but feedings still aren't our favorite time of day. Bring on the advice all you parents out there!



As you can see we've been out hiking again, and this time Claire was actually awake and forward-facing in the baby-bjorn. She discovered trees during her journey and spent most of the time staring skyward. The other part of the time she spent staring down at the ground because she had nearly blinded herself from staring up at the sun. So it went, back and forth, gazing up then down with brows furrowed. We still think she enjoyed herself regardless, since she did not have to do an ounce of work during the 5 mile journey. I would be all over adult sized baby-bjorns if they made them. I just don't know who would volunteer to carry me...

You're probably wondering what Claire and I do all day while Brian is at work. The video below pretty much sums it up. You're going to have to watch it sideways since I am unable to rotate it! Anyway, aside from her friend Mr. Fan, there's also Mr. Projector, and Mr. Shelf with whom she converses every day. It makes for a busy schedule, so now you know why I don't have time to answer my cell phone or respond to email messages.

Happy Two Month Birthday

Today is Claire's 2 month birthday and while we thought about inviting friends over and having a big to do, Sarah decided to celebrate by attending a mommy and me yoga class. Now I don't really know that much about Yoga but the way Sarah describes it to me, I picture a bunch of Mom's perched in pecarious positions trying to avoid falling on their babies lying on the mats below them. And while they are wobbling over their babies holding one leg high in the air and twisting their arms behind their backs they sing songs like "Row Row Row Your Boat". Then when the baby has had enough of Mom teetering over her and starts crying, Mom gets a timeout to feed or change the baby while the rest of the women continue to contort their bodies. Near the end of the class the "real" fun starts. Apparently this is where everyone gets into a big circle and dances while holding their babies in front of them. As if this wasn't enough excitement for the babies and the mom's the dance culminates in a roaring chorus of the Rainbow Connection. Sarah admits that it was cheesy but proclaimed that "when you are forced to be in a room with strangers doing something embarassing, you really feel like you bond with them" This bonding also appears to have rubbed off on Claire who had a few flirtacious moments with a dashing young 2 month old who goes by the name of Diego. When I later asked Claire about this chance encounter, she simply ignored me and continued to suck on her pacifier. I guess she's at the age where its not cool to share your love life with your father.
As part of the 1/6 of a year celebration, Claire also paid a visit to her favorite pediatrician's office where she our unsuspecting youngin was on the receiving end of 3 shots and an oral vaccination. Unfortunately dad was in the nation's capital saving the free world when this all went down, but mom described her response to the shots as many loud shrill screams. In addition to being inflicted with pain, she was also again forced to strip naked and be placed on a hard metal scale. While not as excruciating as the shots, I've never heard anyone tell me around the water cooler at work that they spend their weekend sitting sans clothes on a piece of metal. That's beside the point though... Claire again tipped the scales this time at a sizeable 12 lbs 3 ozs. That makes her officially heavier than both of our cats and puts her in the 90th percentile for her weight. She is also 90th percentile in height, standing tall at 1 foot 11.75 inches. Unfortunately her head is a mere 36th percentile, but she appears quite smart to me so I'm not worried.... Claire just woke up from a nap, got to go tend to the screaming baby.

Picture Page

The week in Summary: More Hiking, more cuteness...
Here are the pictures:

Hike till you can't hike no more

Its not yet clear if Claire likes hiking or not, but she certainly doesn't complain when we take her out. Yesterday we took her on her second hike, this time to Alum Rock park in San Jose. This is a really nice spot in the East San Jose hills. The park is made up off a nice big valley with a river running through it and is surrounded by mountains (which is actually redundant to say since I've already mentioned it was a valley). There are many miles of hiking trails, some of which cut through the valley and meander near the streams and some of which climb the steep hills on the outskirts of the park. From several points in the park there are nice views of San Jose and the South Bay. Santa Clara County park officials did not pay me to describe the park so you can rest assured this is an accurate assessment of the park. Anyway, we took Claire there yesterday and we hiked for about an hour and a half and attempted to show her the views of the surrounding cities. She may have briefly opened one eye and looked at a clover, but she pretty much slept the whole time we were in the park. She even slept through a somewhat smelly and uncomfortable visit to the public toilet. It should be noted that I discovered yesterday that even though the baby may not be able to use the toilet, if the person carrying the baby needs to use the restroom, you can't simply leave her outside to play with the dirt. Because of this Claire got to experience the dirt and grime of a park men's room for the very first time. I apologized to her for this experience and attempted to explain that the sorry state of the restroom should not be used to form a stereotype that all men are dirty pigs. I figure that if I can start breaking down these gender barriers before they're created in her mind she'll grow up to be a more tolerant individual. I'm actually quite proud of this seemingly inconsequential event as I feel like even though she won't remember this that I've done a service to humanity or at the very least to her husband of the future. That's right little Johnny or Mickey or whatever your name is, you can rest more comfortably in your diaper tonight knowing that little Claire will treat you with more respect and is less likely to curse the male race on the account of you forgetting to properly load the laundry machine. Now with that said, if you are reading this, that doesn't give you an excuse to be a lazy bum and not treat her like a princess. By the time she's old enough to marry you, there will be technology to allow me to watch your every move. And believe me, I'll be watching you like a hawk with extra special super duper glasses.

Claire's First Hike

California is in the middle of a very big drought. The water conservation board is talking about mandatory 20% water cutbacks this year and the Governator has declared the state of California officially in a drought. It is only fitting that all of this is going on during a period in which we received non-stop rain for a couple of weeks. I think we went from 4inches for the season to 10inches and 95% of normal. This doesn't really help much though as this is the 3rd consecutive year we've had below normal rainfall. We need to have something like 130% of normal rainfall this year to end the drought. The reason I bring this up is that Sarah and I have been itching to go out for a hike but the rain has dampened our plans for several weeks. This "cabin fever" as we Californians call it when the temperature barely reaches 60 and the skies cloud over for a few days caused us to go ahead and buy some tickets to visit Hawaii in a couple of months and in the meantime the rain has finally stopped and we've been able to take Claire out hiking. Nothing major just a two mile hike (we tried to make her walk it but she refused) in the Saratoga hills at a lovely place called Villa Montalvo. It was a wonderful time and Claire mainly slept as we carried her up the hills. At the top we met a nice couple who were expecting their own baby in about 4 months. We chatted about babies if you can believe that and then headed back down the mountain. At the bottom we meet a nice couple I'll kindly refer to as the Bizzaro Sivitz's. If you've watched Seinfeld you know what I mean. Anyway, they drove a Silver 2002 Mazda Protege 5 (ours is Black), had a baby boy (ours is a girl), carried her in a sling (we use a bjorn), and their little one was 9-weeks old (ours is almost 6 weeks, which is 9 upside down). After talking with the Bizzaro Sivitz's about an upcoming meeting of the Bay Area Baby Wearer's group we parted ways and of course headed in the opposite direction. We then had a picnic outside of Coffee shop in Saratoga and took Claire to a nice little bamboo patch at the Hakone gardens. After this full day Claire slept for 6 straight hours. A new record for us.

Into the 2nd Month

Well its been a long time since I've posted and for all of you itching to see more cute pictures of Claire I am sorry. In fact it has been so long since I've posted that Claire is talking now. She says things like "goo" and "kai". In addition she seems to be laughing in her sleep as well. Sarah and I like to speculate about what the contents of her dreams. We figure that as a 1 month old she could be dreaming about milk. In her dream she is likely sitting next to a pool of warm milk, wearing a onesie and drinking a warm glass of the white stuff with a little yellow umbrella. The other thing she tends to do in her sleep is grunt. Not sure why she does that, but believe me it sounds more like a 80 year old man than a baby. Anyway, last week we took her in for her 1 month checkup. This was very exciting because not only did Claire tip the scales at a whopping 10lbs 5oz but the doctor also told us we were some of the most mellow parents that he has seen. This seems to be happening a lot to us lately. Friends have commented that we look very comfortable around the baby and strangers have mistooken us for having another child already. The doctor thinks this is a good thing because he believes that mellow parents yield mellow babies. I can't quite place why we come off as so mellow. We definately don't have too many questions for the doctors, but it might also be that as such big time planners (remember this baby was planned 5 years in advance) we are well read on subjects ranging from the dudu (down-up-down-up) swaddle to the differences in a babies stool as she ages. I wonder what the non-mellow parents look like. Do they come in to the office with frazzled hair and shaky hands holding the baby upside down because they don't think the baby is getting enough blood in its head? ... wait strike that, I'm remembering back to the baby classes that and the parents fell into three distinct categories: Comedians, Happy-go-lucky, and just plain Idiots. The comedians, consisting of about 5% of the couples, would made jokes about all the different gizmos used to extract stuck babies from the mommies. I'm guessing most of these couples were outwardly laid back but inwardly scared to bits about having a baby. Another 5%, and the category into which we fell, were the happy-go-lucky parents who just sort of absorbed the material, made light conversation with the others and quietly left the class at the end. Of course, I do admit that while we were practing breathing techniques I couldn't stop laughing and I think at one point the teacher looked at me and wondered if I was actually a 5 year old girl. Anyway, the vast majority of the parents, about 90%, fell into the my IQ can't be higher than my age category. These parents just didn't seem to get simply concepts like passing items around for everyone to see. Remember when you were in Kindergarden and the teacher would bring in something special to show everyone.... If you were in the front row and the teacher handed you the gadget of the day, did you look at it and then simply set it on your desk? Of course not. Somehow you get two adults together, insert a baby into one of them and they forget the basic principles they learned in school. Another concept these parents seemed to lack was the ability to think their questions through before asking them. One parent was so fixated on the fact that newborns are supposed to get a screening test 12 hours after they are born that she actually asked the teacher if the 12 hour clock starts from the time the baby is born or from the time they cut the umbilical cord. For you non-parents out there, the time difference between these two events is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 seconds.