December 2011
MY FOUR MONTH OLD ISN'T AFRAID OF FIREWORKS
Its’ New Year’s Eve and there’s a fireworks display just down the street in Waterville, New Hampshire. So we bundle Conor up, and with our friends Carolina and Waldek, we head over to watch. Suddenly, the sky lit up and the noise sounded like a gunfight in Kabul. Conor peeked out from his blanket and watched quietly. He never peeped and never squirmed. He just watched quietly.
Do babies have no fear of the unknown or was he just mesmerized by the pretty colors? Hmmm...
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BABY IN TOP 8% FOR BODY LENGTH
Our son is now 10 weeks old. It’s been a great 10 weeks. I think I can remember every day since his birth if I were to sit down and recount it. So in that way, it hasn't gone by in a blur. Every cry, every smile, every fart and every diaper change I witnessed is imprinted on my brain. And today's graduation from bassinet to crib is yet another milestone to remember.
No longer does he fit in the bassinet that came with our stroller. (Yeah, he slept in the bassinet part of the Uppababy stroller.) He is now 24" long which puts him in the top 8% of all kids his age. It's another indicator that he's growing at the speed of light. (He also doesn’t fit in his swaddles any more which is alarming since that's my secret weapon to get him to calm down and go to sleep. I'll have to hit up the baby store today since I forgot when I picked up the crib.)
Buying a crib was an interesting experience. From $299 to $1200, the cribs are displayed like new models on a car showroom floor; complete with display tent stickers that read, "Take this home today!" There were big cribs, little cribs, fru fru cribs and modest cribs. They came in natural, white, espresso and cherry. And even though every research study on SIDS says not to ever use bumpers on an infants crib, every single crib had a bumper set and its cost rivaled the crib purchase itself.
After studying strollers and finding myself thoroughly confused by the options, I decided not to fall into the same trap with the crib and so I didn’t google the subject at all. I made up my own criteria;
a. Must fit in the space we have allocated for the crib
b. Must be dark to match the other furniture in the room
c. Must be made of hardwood so it doesn't dent or scratch easily
d. Can't be over $500
d. Don't want to see the screws. Sign of cheap design to me.
e. Can't be overly ornate. We gave birth to a baby, not a king.
So after walking around for 20 minutes, my wife and I narrowed the choices to 2 cribs. We decided on the fancier of the two modest choices. The surprise came with talk of a mattress. The mattress was another $200. (And you can spend more.) Turns out you can buy a spring mattress that's either cheap and crappy or expensive and good. Or you can get a tempurpedic memory mattress that can be used on one side for an infant and then flipped when he turns toddler. They don't last for multiple kids but I'm trying to get through this one first so we got the tempurpedic mattress. Then some plain sheets and a duster sheet later and we were out of there.
It took about an hour to set up and was pretty easy. I remember how plain it looked without the expensive and colorful bumper set with the jungle animals on it. I looked like a cheap bastard when I placed the 13 lb. child in this vast space of a crib. It looked as though tumble weeds might blow through this empty cribbed desert at any moment. But since tomorrow is Christmas, I climbed up into the attic and fetched last year's fake garland and wrapped it around the top of the crib where Conor can't reach it. I even hung a few red Christmas bulbs and had instant color, warmth and holiday cheer to boot. And it cost a heck of a lot less than the fru fru bumper that we left behind on the showroom floor back at baby Central.
Conor or has slept in his new digs for two nights now and appears to like it just fine. Would he sleep better in a $1200 crib? I doubt it since we'd still have to buy the same mattress for either crib. So, I'd say Conor sleeps like a million bucks for a bit more than chump change. But he'd still rather sleep in my arms which is where he's sleeping right now. Sweet dreams.
OUR 8-MONTH OLD JUST TAUGHT ME THE MEANING OF LIFE
I woke up early Saturday morning to the whimpering of our 8 week old son, Conor. The past week had been busy and I was tired and exhausted. I rolled out of bed and groggily reached down to pick up the little noise maker. As I held him in my arms, he locked his deep blue eyes on to mine. And grinned mischievously. I froze. I was unable to unlock my eyes from his. He can’t speak but yet he told me all there was to the meaning of life; This is it. This is all there is. What happened yesterday no longer matters. What will happen tomorrow isn’t important. All that counts is right now.
And for two eternal minutes we lived in the truth. We shared with each other all there was to communicate. And then he farted and turned to stare at a crack in the wall I keep forgetting to repaint. I gave him a bottle, he went to back to sleep, and I headed out the door to a meeting. With Conor and happiness on my mind.