Ultimate Owen

Owen started creeping (moving forward on his stomach) about a week ago. Boy, does he learn fast - he was all over the place today! We now have to be careful about anything we put within reach anywhere we put him down.

Owen rolled over to Daddy's Ultimate bag earlier today. I was worried he might grab the suntan lotion out of the side pocket, so I watched him closely. Instead of grabbing the lotion, he pulled out the two discs that were in the bag. Go Owen! They were old dirty ones, so I took them away from him and instead gave him one from on the wall. He played with it for about 10 minutes.

Later in the day, I set him on the ground. He creeped past the toys that were in front of him, and picked up the frisbee!

Looks like we have a future Ultimate player on our hands!!

And if today is any indication, he'll be fast and hard to catch. ;-)

New tricks

I will concede the commentary is substandard, but it is what it is.

Peace be with you

You may recall a previous post of mine where I explain how Owen was at the age where he must be the easiest to take care of - sleeping through the night, immobile, eating well, etc. You may also recall a more recent post where Keith mentions how I noted how Owen is showing his own personality and becoming more independent. Well, I have a feeling his independence means his "easy" period is coming to an end.

Last weekend he showed the first signs of being uncomfortable with strangers. Marisa came over, and at first Owen stared at her and then turned away and cried a little bit. The good news is I kept holding him and talking to Marisa, and by the time she had to leave, he was smiling at her. Same thing happened this weekend. When Kate and Teague first came over, Owen wasn't sure what to make of them. But by the time they left, they were getting smiles too.

Owen is definitely taking more of an interest in things around him and wants to be involved. He has a hard time breastfeeding when people are over - he doesn't like being covered up, so I end up going upstairs to feed him. He normally falls asleep at church, but today he was very fidgety and too interested in looking around him to sleep, even though he was due for a nap (he finally fell asleep on the ride home).

He is very close to being able to sit up on his own, and could probably turn over from his back to his stomach if he wanted to. Crawling (or at least creeping) can't be too far behind. Which means that we need to start baby proofing. Which leads me to wonder how much do we really need to baby proof? We have one gate for the stairs which we haven't taken out of the box yet. But do we need to worry about the three stairs between the kitchen and the family room? Am I going to have to banish all of my plants to non-reachable places? How about all of the electronics that we have in the family room? Are we really going to have to start vacuuming more than once a month?

I'm also struggling with the move to solid food. I understand what food to offer him and how much, but I am unsure of the best scheduling. How do I adjust his breastfeeding given my work and Ultimate schedule?

I won't even go into how frightened I am of teething.

In the Catholic mass there is a section of the service where we turn to our neighbors, shake hands and say "Peace be with you". It's one of my favorite parts. Today Owen was in the baby carrier during that part of the mass. One woman, after seeing I had a baby with me, seemed to put more emphasis on the statement. It was as if she knew that I would have some not-so-serene moments in my future. While I know that is true, I'm taking it one day at a time, and thanking God for such a beautiful blessing.

Wearing Owen

New parents have a lot of choices and methods they can choose to employ. Food, sleep habits, waste disposal, even methods of interaction. In the case of the last one--there's the differing levels of babywearing, which can be a component of attachment parenting, or simply a means of transportation. Most new parents do end up getting a carrier of some sort, with Baby Bjorn being the dominant name in carriers, but I was attracted to some of the other benefits that proponents of baby wearing claim. Even if some of the outcomes aren't provable, it was something that felt right. Afterall, everyone likes to hold the baby. What is odd, though, is that when I was looking into this, I felt like we'd be on our own here because outside of a BB here and there at ultimate, I've seen very few carriers amongst friends, but that may be more a function of lack of events in which they'd be required.

We got a hotsling in late March, which allowed Owen to be held cradle style, and keeping Joanne's hands free. The sizing gave us some hope that we'd both be able to use it, but it didn't quite fit me, and since I only tended to have Owen in small chunks of time, it didn't seem necessary to get a sling just for me. In retrospect, Slinglings might be a better deal, as you can get 3 for the price of 2, though that might be more of a commitment than new baby wearers might need.



The sling generally worked pretty well, though it took Joanne some time to become comfortable with putting Owen in and knowing he was in right. Then, when she was used to that, Owen was too big for cradle style, and was ready for a front facing position, which resulted in his feet being squeezed up to his face. There are additional carrying positions, including a hip carry position, but the sling may be close to retired since we finally got a more adjustable carrier.



Meanwhile I spent time researching other more dad-friendly carriers, ie not wraps--mei tais and soft structured carriers were the primary styles. In function, they are largely the same in their positioning. The key difference is that mei tais are entirely fabric, while SSCs have buckles. Since this was more of an interest to me, I got to largely pick what I wanted. I had ruled out a good chunk of SSCs like the Baby Bjorn (or some of their models) because of the hold type--the idea to suspend Owen from just the crotch just seemed... uncomfortable. I guess there's some research that it can also affect spinal development. I was more interested in a carrier with front and back carries in a froggy style--with the legs splayed out around the carrier's waist. This shifts the baby's weight to not just the spine, but to all of the butt and thighs.

The initial leader was the Ergo--very popular as the Bjorn alternative, but it struck me as very bulky, particularly for AZ. It just seemed hot and heavy. The next consideration was the Patapum. Very Ergo-like, but it looked a bit lighter, and it was up to $30 cheaper. Still, I never quite pulled the trigger. After becoming a member of The Baby Wearer forum, I came across mei tais like the Babyhawk and the Connecta. The Connecta was especially interesting because it is in between a mei tai and an SSC. It is the highest rated SSC (since it has some buckles, it is categorized that way), and it even comes in a solarveil fabric, but Joanne didn't see a carrier as being worth $120 (it is made and shipped from the UK.

We ended up getting the Action Baby Carrier, largely from comments that it was a very light weight and cool. Although it was new to the market in May, the same company has made other well received carriers, so I finally pulled the trigger about two weeks ago, buying it from McKinley Kidz, even though the Patapum was a little cheaper.



The first reaction we each had was how comfortable it was. Owen's not that heavy yet, but neither of us found it a strain at all--the hip belt works well to distribute the weight. He hasn't been in yet for more than 30-40 minutes yet, but in that time, the only discomfort has been a little heat. I've taken him out once because of it--more to prevent him from getting upset than my own discomfort. Joanne had Owen fall asleep in it once. I also put him in today when he was a little upset, and he calmed down pretty quickly--maybe even faster than if I was holding him. In the pic above, his arm looks trapped, but it's just restrained. The other one is free, and he's OK with that. We haven't used the back carry yet or taken it out on any adventures, but that will change Saturday when Owen & I go to pick up our co-op order. Not too adventurous, I know, but we're breaking him in slowly to the excitement that is our lives.

Oh, that's right. Owen is the excitement in our life.

Screw you Gerber!

Back in the heady days when we thought it would take forever to use up $500 of credit at Babies R Us, we contemplated getting a swanky highchair. Pneumatic lift, 1 piece molded plastic seat, made with style and flair... why not? We quickly realized $500 doesn't actually go that far, so we did a complete 180, and went ultracheap with the Ikea Antilop--$25 with the tray, and a similar, one piece, easy clean seat!

Owen hasn't complained about sitting in it in the trial runs, and Carter Hale and Myra Streit survived their meals using it. So we were all ready to give Owen his first try of solids this weekend, but all we needed was the right feeding utensil. Having been interested in the Boon high chair, I became familiar with their other products, generally well reviewed, if not sometimes a little overkill. On a previous visit to BRU in May, we got the Boon Squirt, which keeps the rice cereal in the handle and the feeder can squeeze the feed onto the spoon. In retrospect, this seems more neat than super functional, but it's possible I don't have enough experience to know what I'm talking about.

We returned with our BRU haul, and as I'm prone to do, I researched what we just bought, rather than being prepared and doing it before hand. The Squirt has BPA! But a BPA-free version was scheduled to be available later in the summer. Joanne made another sojourn to BRU on Saturday to exchange the Squirt, but, alas, the BPA-free Squirt was not yet available. In what can only be described as knowing her mate well, Joanne bought two types of spoons, knowing the chances of getting one I'd be happy with on only one try was small.

It didn't even take any reviews to make my choice. On the back of the Gerber spoons, it says, in its entirety:

Long, slim handle makes feeding baby easier for mom

The hell?! Did the ink for "and dad" cost too much? If my mom didn't read this blog (hi Mom!), I'd be busting out some F-bombs (No, Mom, i wouldn't actually do that if you weren't a reader. I don't have a potty mouth. Honest!). Seriously, who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?

So the Meal Mates it was. Just on principle.

Sunday, July 27, Owen got his first "taste" of something not from a bottle. And a taste may have been all it was. I'm not sure anything actually went down, but at least he had a fun time with it!

My life is hell

I made up a song to sing for Owen based on "99 bottles of beer on the wall" and sung it to him fairly often over the weekend, and now I can't get the damn thing out of my head.

The ditty goes like this:

99 bottles of boob in the fridge
99 bottles of boob
Take one out, suck it down,
98 bottles of boob in the fridge

And repeat.

PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

Life is Good

My Mom has stated that when their baby is 6 months old, parents often start to think, "I can handle this, I could do this again!". I was recalling this as I was thinking how this is probably the easiest time in a kid's life to be a parent. Owen is sleeping better now (he can sleep 6-7 hours at a time; we just need to get him to start when I want to go to bed). We don't have to keep an eye on him all the time since he's not mobile (he just turned over for the first time this week!). He doesn't eat solid foods yet, so he doesn't make a mess and his diapers are still relatively tame (although you should ask Keith about his recent experience!). I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight and most of my pre-pregnancy activities (Ultimate practices). And he's as cute as ever with his smiling and babbling.

I think the only really tough thing right now is that I have to watch my diet. Owen is lactose intolerant and gets fussy if I have peanuts. It's amazing how much that limits my food choices (I feel for you Jason!). The good news is that he will probably grow out of it, although I'm not sure when.

So right now I thank God daily for giving us such a wonderful gift, realizing that I will soon wonder what the heck we got ourselves into!

Reading is Fundamental

I have a very clear period in my life in which I was a "reader": January to August of 1997. Oddly, August is when I met Joanne, but that is coincidental, not causal. This period of lots of reading on my own was largely the result of a certain amount of peer pressure resulting from Alex, the other American in my flat when I studied in Edinburgh. He was always reading. In his room, while walking to class, while eating. I think he even read before the lights went down in a movie. So despite all the reading my courses there required, I added on a bunch of pleasure reading on top of it. This was pretty easy to do, though, with no TV, no radio and no internet in the flat. And I read a lot, frequently going to 3 of the bookstores nearby, including one used bookstore where I scored first editions of Churchill's account of WWII for 20 pounds. (completely unread). I ended up with enough books to bring home that I send a couple of shipments as they wouldn't fit in my return luggage.

Alas, it did not last. It wasn't an abrupt stop, but it became less of a habit. Oh, I'd occasionally finish something, and Book Club helped a bit, but my small collection of Revolutionary books remains started but unfinished, and the last book I read completely on my own was... dunno. It's been a while. I'm afraid it might be the Da Vinci Code, which I realized was crap at a certain point while reading it, but that didn't stop me from finishing in very short amount of time.

This isn't to say I don't read, but that Google is making me stupid. That is, so much of my reading is internet based that my attention span is not what it used to be. Long cogent thoughts or narratives are lost on me. Of course, part of this could be the material I'm choosing to read when I do read. Not that it's a book, but each issue of Foreign Affairs is like one, as is the Economist with its condensed print type. But the amount of each I read when I get them is lacking. As is the retention. I've had an excuse the past couple of months, but still--it's an area that needs some work.

And Owen is helping. Or at least I hope he does/will. We occasionally read some of the baby books we received to him, but he still doesn't show much interest in the pictures, so we're left with realizing (as Joanne did) that baby books are horrible--it seems like anyone can (or everyone has) written one. Since it doesn't really matter what the words are (since it's more important that he hears our voice) and Owen would rather look at the ceiling fan than colorful pictures, I decided to read a regular book to him. Why not start with my favorite?

Joanne loaned my reading copy of this book to a friend last year and it was finally returned. Oh, I have the first edition on my bookshelf, but that's a collectible more than a book. So I started reading A Prayer for Owen Meany to Owen last weekend (hopefully it's not too adult for him).

At this point, you may be thinking to yourself that we named Owen after Owen Meany. That's not really the case. I was the one pushing/advocating for the name, but I don't recall the book explicitly being talked about. I didn't say I want to name our son after the main character of my favorite book. It's more that the book gave me a certain acceptance of the name that might otherwise not have existed.

But I digress...

We're already on page 72! Owen (my son, not the character) in 4 of the 5 reading sessions so far has starting "talking" a lot after 10-15 minutes of my reading aloud. It's the most babble I've heard from him, and I don't hear it with such volume or constancy in any other situation. It gets to the point where I have to speak over him and Joanne tells me I'm reading too loud. Or perhaps I'm just missing the cue that he wants me to be quiet, as he just wants to look at the fan and drift off to sleep.

A couple of notes/passages of interest in the first chapter:

• In baseball, Owen Meany wears the number 3 (representing the trinity). Our Owen was born on March 3.
• Tabitha Wheelwright, Johnny's mother, tells Owen, "Everything you need, Owen, it will be taken care of" in reference to him attending Gravesend Academy when he's old enough. I read the line twice (or maybe three times) to Owen. Joanne got a little choked up.
• Owen was small perhaps due to being born premature.

We'll see how well the novel form holds his attention. Or mine, when I'm reading it aloud and it's not my favorite book.

In the Woods

Two topics to talk about today - one I've been meaning to write about for a while, and one more current.

First, golf. If someone says that golf is boring to watch, they didn't watch the US Open this weekend. I've never been a fan of Tiger Woods (too dominating, too much of a following, too whiny about the Phoenix Open...), but after watching him play on Saturday, I jumped on the band wagon (albeit just for a weekend). For someone to be playing in such pain and end up in the rough/crowd so many times and then make 3 Eagles and end the day in the lead was just fun to watch. I've had my share of injuries, including to the knee, so I know how much it affects your game, (whatever that game might be), both physically and mentally. How he could bounce back from the pain and still manage to win a tournament that ended up being 19holes longer than normal, is crazy. The TV crew showed a slow motion replay of one of his tee shots and said that they could find absolutely nothing wrong with his form. How in the world do you do that with a bum leg???

Now, don't worry, I still rolled my eyes when they announced that you could check out every single shot that Tiger made this weekend at NBC.com. And by the end of Sunday I was kind of hoping that Rocco would win (how could you not like his personality and the fact that at 45 years he was the oldest guy there?). But for a while there I bought into the hype.

Now to a different woods - Owen and I went to Flagstaff with my parents May 31-June 3rd. My parents own a time share in Sedona and traded their week for the Wyndham resort in Flag. I was worried at first that Owen would not like being away from home and that the elevation might bother him. But apparently he enjoys going on vacation to a cooler clime. He didn't cry hardly at all, and slept better than he had ever slept before. By the second day I was able to relax myself. It was a very laid back vacation, as we didn't feel like we could go out for more than 2 hours at a time (Owen is eating every 3 hours during the day). We had lunch downtown, went to Walnut Canyon National Monument, walked around the Flagstaff Arboretum (where we saw a really neat bird show), went on walks around the resort, and enjoyed the hot tub (my first time being in one since before my pregnancy). Owen cried a little on the way home and then wailed when we got home - it was like he knew vacation was over!!

In other news, Owen is sleeping better now - he is close to "sleeping through the night" (the books define that as sleeping 5-6 hours). After the last feeding at 10 or 11pm he sleeps until 3 or 4am. We're still trying to figure out what to do for daycare, so I'm still working part time. The Grandmas come over a few days a week to let me go into work a couple of hours. Owen is getting bigger and bigger, and is smiling & talking more and more!

Mother's Day

As you might be aware, when it comes to projects, I'm not exactly the most timely or quick person around. And despite the monumentalism of May 12 (Joanne's first Mother's Day), I didn't quite have her grand present ready/purchased--a DSLR camera. In my defense, I did share with her my idea for a gift a couple of weeks beforehand, which she appreciated, but I/we dawdled on doing the necessary research. So Mother's Day came and went without anything wrapped prettily in a box. It was about that time that we finally got on the ball about looking into what best fit our needs/wants. Just after all the Mother's Day sales ended.

Actually, that's not true. Sony had the A200 and A300 with 2 lens kits heavily discounted through May 19th, and Nikon (still) has a sale on 2 lens kits for the D40 and D60. But my previous research/awareness was that when it comes to cameras, you buy the best Canon you can afford, so that's where my research started.

Funny thing, though. Camera reviews are unreadable. Or at least they are unreadable to non-photographers. 20 pages of comparison shots with very minute differences. Discussions of features you didn't know you need, but in reading about them, afraid not to have. Realizing that to make the best use of an SLR, you should know how aperture, ISO, and shutter speed (among other things) interact to get the picture you want than what the camera gives you. Trying to figure out if features like 3200 ISO, live view or 5 frames per second is really needed. Or if it's better to have image stabilization in the lens (supposedly better quality) or in the camera body (supposedly cheaper lenses). And that's not even touching the issue that what matters most are the lenses. A good camera, afterall, will reveal the weaknesses of a bad lenses, just like a good sound system will reveal the weaknesses of a bad recording.

Taking all this into account, we took the approach of looking for the best deal (having just missed out on the last batch) and finally got around to actually taking a look at the cameras. When we did that, we both found the Canon Rebels to be uncomfortable--the grips were tiny and the interface was lacking a bit compared to the Nikon (Joanne liked the Sony as well). The Canon 40D, a step up from the Rebels was too extravagant, but the Canon 30D was generally available used/refurbished at a price competitive with the Sonys, Nikon D60 or the Canon XTi. Even before we missed the window of opportunity for the Sony (A300 plus 18-70; 70-300 lenses for $600), the 30D was my favorite because it seemed to offer the fewest compromises: reasonable cost, no bloated picture size (I viewed its 8mp a good thing, not bad), extra features of Canon's prosumer line, and Canon lens availability as all good things.

But there was 2 negatives. First, the weight. It's magnesium body weighs quite a bit more than a Rebel or Nikon, and it's quite a bit bigger. Some believe, though, that the extra weight can be a benefit by providing a better balance when telephoto lens are attached. Second, when I asked Megan about it, she said "that's a better camera than I have" (she has 2 20Ds), so we thought we perhaps were getting more than we needed (or even overstepping our bounds).

She came over one day to let us check out the 20D, and soon after Joanne took another look at the other options at a Best Buy. After time holding, checking out the interface, looking at the condition of the demo models (as a sign of durability), she agreed that the 30d looked to be the best option. Next came trying to find a deal.

We already missed out on one prime opportunity. A woman listed a full kit for $500 on Craig's List. I called about it, but didn't hear anything. The ad stayed up, and I convinced Joanne to call on it as well, as it was a price too good to pass up (this was before we decided for sure it was the camera we wanted). Joanne spoke with her and found out that Kate, the seller, had received a number of calls, mostly from men, many rude, so she just decided to follow up with the first woman who called. Which made Joanne second in line if that fell through. It didn't.

Adorama sells refurbished kits for $650, which was the fall back option. Ebay prices seemed to be between $530-600, so I started tracking auctions. Last Saturday (the 24th), an auction was winding down. A 30D with a lens far superior to the kit lens was being sold by a Las Vegas pawn shop. It was missing a fair number of kit items (manual, some cables, software cd), but it was over $100 less than what I expected it to go for with under 5 minutes left. Joanne said sure put in a bid if I didn't think it would go for that low. So I put in a bid with a minute left (which was about 10 minutes after I made the comment "maybe we shouldn't even get an SLR" after Joanne made a comment about the convenience of not having that many lenses, a reflection of her leaning, at the time, to getting a Nikon D40 and the two lens kit (18-55 and 55-200)).

As might be expected to maintain karmic balance in the world, our impulsiveness led to shopping victoriously, but we were a little surprised we did so. Joanne was fine in the aftermath, but I started to have doubts. THe missing accessories weren't a huge deal, with only the software disc being an issue. What concerned me the most (but only after we won) was the missing body cap for the camera, meaning perhaps a dusty (or damaged) sensor and that the camera would be shipped with the lens attached. The other concern was that the camera came with only those things that one would take on a vacation--meaning that it was hocked by a gambler. This could go two ways--the camera could be lightly used; or it could be not well taken care of because, well, it's just a camera (I suppose both might apply). Concern continued to mount when the seller was a less responsive in responding to emails than would be considered optimal. The sales ad noted they would ship within seven days of receiving payment (which meant it wouldn't arrive before Joanne's trip up to Flag), and they sure did use that entire window, but they never did send a shipped notice.

Anywho, that's kind of a long winded way of saying "I got Joanne a DSLR for mother's day, and it arrived today". And only days after our other accessories, including the "nifty fifty" arrived.

We are now proud to present some of the pictures taken on day 1 of the Camera, or what will henceforth be known as "Owen in 30D":


Camera info:

• To purchase: Amazon, B&H or Adorama
• Canon gear reviews: The Digital Picture
• Nikon gear reviews: Thom Hogan
• Lens reviews: FredMiranda.com
• Discussion forum: Digital Photography Review
• General reviews: DP Review and Steve's Digicams
• Third party batteries: Diamondback Batteries

The third of the month

The third of the month has been fairly eventful this year:

January 3rd: Diablo got shutdown, casting doubt on the plans of spring league. We showed them! We got in two leagues!

March 3rd: Goes without saying...

April 3rd. Actually, not much happened. It was a Thursday. Nothing for May either. A Saturday.

June 3rd: Owen comes home from his first vacation. That's Grandpa K. He's come a long away in a couple of weeks. At the baptism, when offered the choice between the wine or Owen, he chose the former. It was a matter of priorities. I guess he figured it wasn't actually an either/or. I'm not sure about this, though. I thought we had a clear "No drinking and holding" policy, but Joanne says we never discussed this.





Oh yeah, and February 3rd: The second best day of the year:

It's a very well done fan vid. Couple of notes: BJac's 4th and 1 isn't in the clips, it should be. Also, the last Brady pass shown is the third down throw, but it cuts to the 4th down pass deflection. The third down was downright scary. And I found it ironic that on Moss's TD, Webster fell expecting the fade, and on Plax's Hobbs got juked expecting the slant.

12 weeks later

Finally, another post (from me)! Let's see if the readership numbers more than my number of league championship game losses (Doh! that number used to be zero, but not anymore).

I've actually spent a decent portion of the past 12 weeks composing blog posts in my head, but, alas, that hasn't actually translated to actual posts. JT stated at one point that post-baby arrival, I'd still get the same amount of stuff done out of greater efficiency and scoff at the ineffectiveness of the pre-baby Keith. So I stand as a rebuttal to JT's thesis. I've accomplished very little outside of child rearing, and even that's giving me to much credit--Joanne's doing practically all the work, mainly because of evolutionary effects that make me less than necessary to Owen's well-being in his current state.

But that doesn't make me completely worthless to the cause. I'm sure it's been stated before, but it was something I don't remember reading/being told, and that is: after birth, of critical importance isn't being a good father, it's being a good husband. The first (almost) 3 months has been less about the travails of parenthood (for me) and more about making sure I'm supporting Joanne to the best of my ability. It's funny how that works, though. At Easter, we had the family over and it came up that Joanne had yet to do any cooking since Owen's arrival--I had taken care of that, most of the cleaning, shopping, etc. I was praised for that. Less than a week later, though, Joanne said she wanted to do some of that because it made her feel more normal. Even if she wasn't going anywhere, or if Owen was no more than 20 feet away, she still got a little separation to refresh herself. So now we've split that up a little more, which means, apparently, I do less "work" around the house, yet that's a positive. Joanne gets non-Owen time, I get Owen time (even if it's not real work, since I get to play with him) and everyone is happy.

You'd think after 10+ weeks of thinking of this post, there'd be more to it. I suppose there was insights I made during my on-the-job training, or realizations of how I need(ed) to change, but that all seems old hat now. I remember the impatience the first couple of weeks when Owen wouldn't go to sleep and not understanding why--I thought that's what babies did. They wake up long enough to eat and they promptly fall back asleep. I suppose some are like that. Not Owen. I don't think he gets that 16+ hours of sleep that is recommended. Not that we don't try to make that happen, but he seems happy to be awake. Or maybe that's just the weekends. I know Joanne's had some rough days and nights in which I wasn't really in a position to help, but I'd say the number of periods Owen has been difficult to deal with for over an hour numbers in the single digits (that number would be higher if the time criteria was say, 30 minutes or more), as he's only had maybe 2 bouts of what might be considered colic, and food pretty much always calms him down.

Joanne previously mentioned that the Hogg's EASY method has helped and could be a contributing factor to Owen's "goodness." But the Hogg also offered/promoted some other ideas that to me seemed questionable, which brought up issues of who/what to believe, ie what approach is best. This issue is exacerbated by these approaches coming off as holistic--you have to do everything or it just won't work. But we seem to be doing OK with what we're doing. I guess we'll find out in 14 year if it didn't work.

One of the Hogg's peeves is/was "accidental parenting", that is, doing something that works for now, even if it will lead to bigger problems in the future, generally centered around sleep (ie the tricks necessary to get the newborn to sleep that will soon become the inconvenient crutch they can't sleep with out). I confess we do one form of this--how we handle Owen's daytime sleep. We have yet to make a habit of bringing him upstairs during the day. We're content with putting him in his rocker downstairs so we can keep an eye on him and letting him sleep in that. However, he tends not sleep in it unless the vibration is on. IF he's asleep and we turn off the vibrate, he tends to wake up within minutes. I suppose it might be a crutch, but, thus far, it has negatively impacted his ability to sleep at night without the same sensation.

His nighttime sleeping, though, has also benefited from us having two stories. Having been in the house for five years now, we draw a pretty clear line between upstairs and downstairs. Unless we're cleaning or need something, we're rarely upstairs during the day. Even though it's only 11 steps, the world up there is very different. This is a positive for Owen, because once we (by that, I mean Joanne) puts him to sleep around 7:30, we don't bring him back downstairs. I commented to some friends that we have yet to watch a movie since Owen was born. We're not in the habit of watching things 20-30 minutes at a time, and we've found pausing movies multiple times negatively affects our enjoyment. We thought about watching one earlier this month, but we didn't have anything short enough that we hadn't watched yet to fit into our time frame--it would be suboptimal to watch the first 1:50 of a movie then take a 30 minute break to feed Owen and then come back for the last 15-20 minutes. So someone commented, "You know, you could just feed him while watching the end of the movie." And that concept of that was.. "shocking" is to strong, but it will have to work. Why would we do that? That would just wake him up more. Once he's upstairs, he's staying there. So the person's rebuttal was "I guess you're a better parant than me". I don't know if he was being facetious or not.

Even more than his vibrating chair, but not quite as much as the feeding apparatus, Owen loves ceiling fans. If you go back and look at the lead picture, and if you're familiar with our house, you'll recognize that yes, he is indeed looking at the fan by the front door. He just loves them. He doesn't show a lot of interest in mobiles (I made some homemade B&W cards for his PnP and there are some attachments for the rocker), but fans? He can't keep his eyes off them. In the past week, I've even taken to holding him up closer to the fan in the TV room. He seems to enjoy it.

This veered way from being my thoughts on fatherhood, but that's to be expected when the system isn't quite set up to have me on completely full active duty. Or at least not as active duty as will soon be forthcoming.

"Congratulations, you're no longer a pagan!!"

This past Saturday was Owen's baptism. The whole affair was a lot less formal than I thought it was going to be. Which was probably mostly due to the fact that it was run by Deacon Dutch, who is constantly making jokes ("I've got more chins than a Chinese phone book!"). It's a good thing I didn't spend $45 on a fancy outfit on Owen that probably would have been huge on him. It was a night of connections: my friends Clint and Deb were there for two baptisms; the third baby being baptised was the grandson of a family that we did Religious Education with growing up; my parents had Nebraska and Virginia in common with my friends Mark and Lois - just to name a few of the many. The biggest surprise of all was seeing Jason from the Burque (Albuquerque) show up during mass after he responded to the evite that he couldn't make it. It was also great to have my brother Ken and his wife Katie in town from San Diego to see Owen for the first time.

After the ceremony we invited our Catholic friends and family over to our house for food. It was great to visit with everyone. Owen's favorite part was probably Evelyn's (multiple) goodbye kisses. Which led Keith to comment that Sarah must be teaching Evelyn to go for the younger men. Josiah pointed out that Evelyn was robbing the cradle - literally!

Sunday was my very first Mother's Day as a Mom. How special! Keith made me an omelette for breakfast and made sure that I didn't change hardly any diapers all day. He is also getting me a digital SLR camera, which has me really excited. In college I took a b&w photography class which turned out to be one of my favorite classes in college. It was a lot of work, but I started seeing the world around me in a new way - I started freeze framing my daily life. I pulled out my old textbook to freshen up on concepts and terminology, and am researching the web for more digital-specific subjects. Keith has done most of the research (surprise!) on the actual camera to get. We are currently debating the Canon XT, Canon XTI, or Canon 30D. Once we get that figured out, we get to have fun with lenses! Anybody who has any thoughts on the subject, please let us know.

It's so E.A.S.Y.

One of the cards we received at our shower had several pictures of babies crying on the front. The captions for each said "Hungry", "Hot", "Cold", "Wet", etc. It was meant to be a guide to understanding your baby. Of course, every picture was exactly the same. As Keith would say, "It's funny because it's true!".

When we were in the hospital (the first time), the nursery had Owen on a 3 hour eating schedule. They/I would feed him at 11:00, 2, 5, 8, etc. It was fairly easy to do because he would sleep most of the rest of the time. When we got home, we quickly got off that schedule. He appeared to be hungry every 1.5 to 2 hours, sometimes wanting to eat for an hour or more. The pediatrician told us to see a lactation consultant. We did, and $70 later, we still weren't getting more than an hour of sleep at a time. (Not to say she wasn't helpful; she did help me work on my form.) The good thing was that Owen was gaining weight, so we didn't have to worry too much about that.

Then our friend Jill let us borrow some books by Tracy Hogg, the "Baby Whisperer" (Keith calls her "The Hogg"). While I don't necessarily agree with/like everything she says, we learned some very important information. The most helpful to me is how to interpret you baby's cues. For example, if he is sucking his tongue, he's not hungry - it's self-soothing. We realized that we were probably feeding him when he wasn't hungry. He wasn't going to refuse the breast - he can use it as a pacifier. The main point of the Hogg's books are that babies like to be on a routine: Eat, Activity, Sleep (E.A.S.; the Y stands for You time while he is sleeping.) The whole routine would repeat in so many hours, depending on his age. The idea is that if he starts crying at hour two in a three hour schedule, he's probably not hungry; if he hasn't been sleeping yet in this rotation, he's probably overtired. Or, if he was sleeping, he may be wet (butt moving side to side), cold (bottom lip quivering), or he has gas (pulling his legs up).

The Hogg also has suggestions on how to get a baby to sleep for longer at night. She promotes doing a cluster feeding and a dream feed. A cluster feeding means feeding him before the normal time (2 hours on a 3 hour schedule; say at 5 and 7pm) and then feeding him without waking him up right before you go to bed (at 10pm).

I am happy to report that some of her strategies are apparently working for us. We are now on a 3 hour schedule fairly consistently (which is normal for his age). I have employed the cluster feed and dream feed (although I don't think he necessarily has to be asleep), and he is now waiting until 4 or 4.5 hours before he wants the next feed. Still some room for improvement, but things are getting much EASIER!

Other developments: Owen now has some tears when he cries (they don't start off that way). He is also showing more interest in visual things. When we put him in his rocker with the hanging toys he will first look at the dog, and then the cat. He will also turn his head to see who is talking. Every once in a while he'll give a look that appears to be a smile (not quite a conscious smile yet, but we'll take it!). His neck strength is also getting better day by day. He is getting better at getting his thumb in his mouth. Overall, he's getting cuter and cuter!

529 decision

I was aware that my content had been minimal since Owen was born, but I didn't realize it had been so lame even before he was born (only a handful of posts in January and February--I really thought I was a little more productive than that). And I've been putting off the "new father" post for five (!) weeks--missing 8 personal deadlines (weeks 2-7, one month and 50 days (yesterday)). But instead of finally addressing that, I'm going to follow up on my 529 post from January, since it's now easily fundable since Owen is here.

In retrospect, that post, while a nice summary, didn't really contain any content not easily obtainable from many other sources. I will rectify and maybe provide some alternate considerations.

After that post, I had settled on West Virginia's DFA plan, despite the higher expense ratio associated with the portfolio, because of DFA's allure and the structure of the all equity fund. Now that it's crunch time, there's some waivering between it and the Ohio College Advantage plan, which has a number of Vanguard offerings for one to get to a reasonably good self selected allocation, rather than something fixed (this is what put Ohio over Illinois. IL is cheaper, but there's fewer and less flexible options).

IN trying to decide between the two, a couple of questions have come up that I think are important to clarify how one will invest in a 529:

1. Is the 529 considered its own portfolio, or is it simply a component of our overall portfolio?
2. Are contributions to the 529 the full extent of the planned contribution to college, or do we expect to spend more outside of it?

These two questions speak to the risk (or lack of) that one can/should take in selecting a plan. To respond "own portfolio" and "all contributions" might mean one takes more risk early, and a lot less as college approaches. For Owen, the plan is to treat it as part of our overall allocation, but we don't plan on the 529 being the extent of our contributions.

What are the ramifications of that decision? For starters, it means finding a 529 that offers the asset classes we're already invested in. Not a problem--many plans have Total Market, S&P Index, International Index, Bond funds, etc. So then it becomes a matter of placement. One option I considered for a bit was "transferring" our REIT allocation to the the 529 by opening up a Virginia VEST account, which has a REIT option. This would allow us more tax deferred space and a straight forward approach to filling a gap of our allocation, but some of the costs of making that switch didn't quite appeal to me, not did splitting the allocation into different accounts. So then I started looking at Bond options--the Ohio plan offers a TIPS (Inflation protected securities) and Total Bond fund for a low ER. And I almost convinced myself that that was the way to go, until I remembered that a 529 is similar to a Roth in that all earnings are tax free, so we're better off investing for growth in the 529 to take advantage of that.

Which leads to the second part of whether the 529 is the extent of our contributions to Owen's education, which I find to be unlikely. This means we'll be using other assets outside of the plan. This is another reason to go for growth (equities) in the 529, rather than using bonds. As was mentioned in the exchange I had with Jot in the comments of the original post, you can borrow for college, but you can't borrow for retirement. So if the extra risk in the 529 doesn't work out, since it's part of one's overall allocation, that means there was even less risk (ie, more bonds/fixed income) in the retirement accounts. That means a more stable growth in a 401k/IRA. The two extreme scenarios are: (1) a lot of growth in the 529 to better pay for college, but less growth in the 401k/IRA (which isn't all bad, as that will all be taxed as regular income when the day comes) or (2) the 529 unfortunately doesn't take advantage of the tax advantages, since equites dropped. but because there were more bonds in the 401k, retirement is better accounted for. Sounds reasonably win-win to me.

The above isn't to say I plan that we'll have the 529 in 100% equities until Owen is done with school, but by treating it as part of our overall portfolio, it provides more flexibility in terms of how to structure our account, the risk that we can take (since risk elsewhere in the portfolio will be reduced), as well as taking greater advantage of the tax benefits of the 529.

This brings us back to the two main contenders. The DFA/West Virginia all equity option is 40% large cap; 35% small cap, 25% international, with a heavy value tilt. This doesn't quite fit our equity allocation (2x, 1x, 2x), but it is made up of 8 component funds that are constantly rebalanced so that minimizes risk to a small degree (not as much as it could since there seems to be increasing correlation of returns between different equity classes). The ER for the all equity plan is 0.88%

The options in the Ohio plan are broad Vanguard Indexes that can generally match our allocation. The only minor issue is that Extended Market and International Developed Markets don't quite fit the allocation areas I'd like to hit (small cap and a broader international index such as the FTSE all world index), but these same limitations are in my 401a/403b and that doesn't stop me from using them there. A mix of S&P INdex/Extended Markets/International similar to our overall allocation would have an ER of .29%. Splitting it into 4 funds (the 3 mentioned and either Total Bond or TIPS) would cause little change to the ER.

Based on the write up, it should be a clear Ohio is the proper option, but I still am compelled to strongly consider WV because of DFA's structured approach and strategies. But to use it, I'd have to either disregard that its stock allocation doesn't quite match our own, or break down the numbers (not a big deal with a properly set up excel sheet) to have it match our allocation plan. And then there's the potential rollover to another plan in 12-15 years. Another point not in it's favor is that the 529 is never likely to be more than 5% of our portfolio (or at least not for a while), so any super outsized gains that may be derived from DFA really wouldn't have a large impact.

But, then again, when it comes to college, every little bit helps, right?

How's it Goin' Owen?

Catchy, isn't it? This is one of our favorite things to say to Owen, perhaps only second to "You're a cutie! Yes you are!". (It's no wonder he's got a big head.) I once said "What's up, Doc?!", but then Keith reminded me that the cost of schooling would be outrageous, so I changed it to "What's up, Engineer!"

Yes, Owen, your parents are weird.

So, to answer the question, he is doing well. He had a good visit with our friend Amber yesterday. He also had a very brief, but important, visit with JT. (Don't worry, JT, there will be many more chances for a longer hold.) We had a group of people over to visit with Jim and Amber, who were visiting from Florida. It was great to see Jim and Amber and many of our friends. For me it was also a big step in a return to normalcy. Don't get me wrong, having a baby is great, but for a while there you think that you will never get your old life back. I realize that you don't ever fully get your life back, (which is a good thing imo), but pieces of it can return. I always like hosting, and our house is finally somewhat clean and orderly. I'm also starting to play Ultimate again, and getting out of the house more.

I'll also start working part time from home in a week. I have to work 20 hours to keep my benefits. I really don't know how anybody could go back full time at this point. Even if you do use daycare, it takes too long (about 10-12 hours) for me to get a good night's rest.

Speaking of daycare, we visited Bright Horizon's near my work last week. They had an open house with food and games for the kids and tours for those interested. It looks like a great place except for the price - over $1K a month! We're going to look into other options, including using the grandmas and working from home 1-2 days a week in order to delay daycare. But there are some pros to using daycare, but I'll leave that topic to another post.

Other things happening: We're still dealing with Owen's gassiness (which is apparently painful to him and smelly to us!). I gave up dairy to see if that helped. I'm not sure it has, although I haven't exactly done a good job at getting rid of all dairy (I still use some cheese). I think I'll drink a big glass of milk this week and see what happens. It could also be caused by other things in my diet, which I am also trying to cut out (excessive citrus, iron, peanut butter). The list of possible suspects is pretty long. Hopefully Owen's digestive system will mature soon!

Owen's Birth Story

(Written by Joanne)

I know this is pretty long, but I wanted to get the details of the birth down on paper before I forgot too much of it. I was really interested in hearing other birth stories when I was getting to the end of my pregnancy.

On Sunday, March 2nd we went to bed excited that the next day we would get to see LBA – we had an ultrasound scheduled for Monday morning. Little did we know!!

At 6 am Monday morning I started getting ready. I had actually spent the night in the guest bedroom since Keith had just stained the trim around the recently-installed windows in our bedroom and we didn’t want LBA to get any fumes. I noticed something was a little different when I went to the bathroom, but I wasn’t sure what was happening. Pretty soon it became very obvious – my water broke! (I had read that it can be helpful to have some adult diapers on hand for this occasion – they weren’t kidding!) Other than that I felt fine (no contractions), so I wasn’t freaking out. I woke Keith up, got dressed, and went downstairs to have breakfast. From the tour we took of the hospital the week before I knew that once they gave me any medication they wouldn’t let me eat anything. So I sat on the toilet (still leaking!) eating cereal and was telling Keith what to pack. I had meant to pack the hospital bag that weekend, but I wasn’t in a big rush so I didn’t get around to it. I had some thoughts that I would go into labor early, but I didn’t think it would really happen!

Surprisingly, neither Keith nor I were very nervous. We had an enjoyable car ride to the hospital, (despite the 7 am traffic), making jokes and getting sentimental. I didn’t really think I was going to have the baby that day. I thought that they would stop me from going into labor. Once we arrived at the hospital I checked into triage. When they checked me in I had high blood pressure and they kept asking me if I was nervous. I was going into labor 6 weeks early, of course I’m nervous!! But actually I wasn’t that nervous, I was just kind of going with the flow. Keith was also calm and in a good mood, which helped me a lot. The nurse in triage also thought that they may keep me from going into labor, but it really was up to the doctor. It just so happened that the doctor I had seen the most at my OB/GYN was on call that day (Dr. Frausto from Today’s Women’s Health Specialists). He said that the risk of infection went up when the water breaks, so since I wasn’t extremely early, they would induce me. Wow, we’re having a baby!!

So they moved me into a Labor & Delivery room, which are actually very nice and large at Chandler Regional. At this point (about 9 am) I measured 3 cm dilated. The nurses inserted an IV of Pitocin to get the contractions started a little before 11 am. I called my Reflexologist, Robin, during the wait to see if she could visit me in the hospital. I had heard that Reflexology (the massaging of pressure points in the feet) could help move labor along – a sort of natural inducer. She was thrilled to help out, and got to the hospital about noon and worked on me for an hour or so. Between the reflexology and the Pitocin the contractions were getting stronger. Since I was hooked up to the IV I couldn’t walk around that much. Keith was in deep study to prepare for what was to come, primarily by reading The Birthing Book, which came in handy for him. The first suggestion he made was for me to use a birthing ball, which is really just an exercise ball. Sitting on the ball really helped my back. This also allowed Keith to apply counterpressure to my lower back (the book he was reading said emphatically “if you learn anything from this book, learn counterpressure”). He would push on my lower back during a contraction, which helped at first, but once the contractions got really strong I couldn’t tell if it helped or hurt.

Keith’s parents had arrived at the hospital a little after 2 pm (despite getting lost, which is another story). It was nice to visit with them, but by 2:30, the contractions were very strong, at less than two minutes apart with very little relief between them, so I wasn’t up for visitors. I really wanted to avoid an epidural, but I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. The nurse could see I wasn’t getting relief between contractions, so she kept lowering the dosage of Pitocin, eventually shutting it off altogether. At about 4pm they measured me at 6 cm. Only 6?!! I was hoping for a lot more than that. I really didn’t think I could take a long labor if it was this difficult, so I asked for the epidural. It seemed like it took them forever to get everything set up. They gave me the epidural around 5:30 pm, but it didn’t seem to help me at all (a nurse later told me that was probably because of my high blood pressure). It did make me vomit though, which I had read speeds up delivery. I don’t know if it was the epidural or the vomiting, but when they measured me again at 6pm, I was fully dilated at 10 cm! So the doctor and all of the support staff (a nurse to help me and 3 people to take care of the baby since he was a preemie) came in the room and I started pushing at 6:10 pm. I could still feel the contractions, but couldn’t really feel the pushing, so I had to follow their instructions. I had told Keith previously that I needed him to keep a positive attitude and encourage me along the way, and he did an awesome job of that. While I was pushing he kept saying “You’re doing great, you’re almost there!”. Even though I wasn’t actually almost there! J (Keith says: my excuse was that I was seeing the back of his head, not the top. So for about 20 minutes, the head was basically rotating out and getting bigger, so I thought she was really close. Hey, it was my first time!). I had my eyes closed during each push, but I could tell from Keith’s voice how emotional he was getting. It really kept me going to know how excited he was since I was in too much pain to fully grasp the situation.

Finally, after 45 minutes of pushing, LBA’s (he was named later) head was out at 6:55, and the rest of him was out soon thereafter. He arrived into the world at 6:56pm to a very proud Mom and Dad (who was able to cut the cord). Since he was a preemie, they had to take him to the heater in the corner of the room to check him out, which was fine with me since it gave me an opportunity to rest. The placenta came out without a problem, and then the doctor sewed me up from the episiotomy which he performed (which I didn’t feel due to the epidural). After he was checked out and wrapped up I was able to hold him. Both sets of Grandparents were then brought into the room and we got our first Aspinall family photo taken.

I would’ve liked to avoid the epidural and episiotomy, but I now realize that the details of how he came into the world don’t matter all that much – as long as Mom and baby are healthy, that’s what is important!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

But a picture doesn't always tell the whole story.

I'm not sure if blogspot shows who the author is, so I'll start off by saying this is a guest post by Joanne (just call me Caffeine Free).

When I announced I was pregnant at work, one of my coworkers gave me a journal to use during pregnancy. It had various questions to answer for each month and space to write in. I've never been much of a journal/diary writer, so I wasn't that into it at first. I kept up with it for the first couple of months, then ignored it for a while. At some point I realized how important it would be to remember everything I went through, so I started up again. Well, as you all can guess, the section for the 9th month is completely blank. :-)

Now I have come to realize that remembering everything that happens after the birth is equally important. Sure, we have lots of pictures to remember by (we post them to http://picasaweb.google.com/keithaspinall/Owen), but there is more to the story than just pictures. So I've made it my goal to start writing more of the story. At first the idea was to have some journalling for his scrapbook. But then we received more requests for updates from friends and family, so I am now entering the world of blogging. Owen is six weeks old today, so I have some catching up to do!

This weekend we celebrated Owen's due date. He was 40 days old on Saturday, but his adjusted age was 0!

Baby Calisthenics

Owen was moving, but I caught him a little late. So I captured a different moment instead.

It's still entertaining!

Homecoming

Owen entered his home at 9:02 pm.

Mad props to Jeff Hale for having the same camera as me, but unlike me, knowing how to work the video function. We won't talk about his quality as a color commentator, other than to say it far exceeds his ability as a swimmer!

Owen awaiting departure from the hospital:


Family Aspinall:


Grandma Aspinall's best moment recently: