sup

I think she’s settling in around here.  Getting comfortable.

So I’m up late tonight because I’ve been trying to get my replacement Withings baby monitor to connect to either my iPad or iPhone.  Whichever.  Just connect, damn your replacement hide.  But I’m not super concerned.  I had the same trouble when the first one came out of the box.  After a day or two it randomly connected like a champ, and I had almost no trouble after that.  Until the port broke.  A huge and grateful thank you to Withings and Tekserve for cheerfully replacing it.  That’s how you make (and keep) a happy customer.

Happy once I get it working, anyway.

Little Pepper might have slept the whole night through if we’d let her.  That might have delighted us a couple weeks ago, but now we keep an eye on the calorie count.  Gotta fatten this turkey up.  We’ll check the score next Thursday and go from there.

Christmas plans are simmering up.  The Phillips clan will share their Christmas morning with us.  The Taverner clan will probably reach maximum density on Christmas afternoon.  Not sure how many Christmasses we’ll continue this bouncing thing, but for this year everybody gets a taste of home.  And yes, I will love having two families, two Christmasses, two stockings… my spirit knows no bounds.  If it were physically possible to get both clans in one room for Christmas morning, I would totally do it.  Probably just once.  Because that’s a boatload of people, in the political refugee sense.  But that would be awesome.  So fun.  The designated (self and otherwise) cooks are glaring at me right now.  But c’mon.  It would be awesome.

Avery is at that awkward stage.  (What?!)  Yep.  Too big for newborn clothes and not big enough for 3 month clothes.  She’s a noodle.  BUT!  She’s less linguini and more fettuccine these days!  And such a doll.  Belches like a trucker… and also various other trucker-like behaviours.  Not that I mean any disrespect toward the profession.  Ha – that was untrucker-like of me, right there.  Sorry.  Oh, did it again.  And again.  Moving on.

Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow we add to [the secret TV project] team one Brian Dobson, best known for about a bajillion voice roles in animation.  Considering we have been trying to reel him into a project with us for, oh, ten years, this is a big day for us.  Some might say it’s about frickin time, Mr Dobson.  Please.

I keep thinking of things I want to write about.  Blog about.  And I should have those thoughts (and act on them) about four hours earlier.  So I’ma shut up now.  You got your adorable baby pic, so be off with you.  But seriously, thanks for reading, feel free to say hey in the comments, and don’t forget to hug somebody as soon as humanly possible.

There, as they say, is an old soul.  An old bald soul.  As shot at the pediatrician appointment today.  That is the image of a girl that has gained nearly a pound in a week.  Marjorie has been a soldier, grinding away at feedings every three hours round the clock (Avery has been great as well).  Grab your calculators and confirm that means 56 of the last 168 hours manning the milk station.  I was going to say milk cannons but it seemed gauche.  So I didn’t.  Did not.  Stop grinning.  You’ll get me in trouble.  So immature.

Now, that 56 hours is conservative, because Marjorie wasn’t holding back.  If Avery wanted more than an hour at the Milk Bar, then she was welcome to it.  I frequently jumped in with the bottle, but if we’re going to be fair, this was Marjorie’s campaign, and a chubby cherubic Avery her one shining goal.  Respect.  And mission accomplished.

The doc said we’re doing great.  Pepper is into the 15th percentile for weight – that’s a mile high leap from last week.  Doc Chris says, “Keep it up.”

I says, “Pardon?”

In the end, with no physical threats whatsoever, we agreed that waking Avery for feedings every three hours isn’t necessary, so long as we keep up the calorie flood.  On demand feeding is fine.  Little bunny will be at the pumps (stop it, you) at her command, with followup formula fortification.  We’ll weigh her again in a week, and if she’s still gaining strong (at this rate she’ll be playing women’s rugby by Christmas, and men’s rugby by New Year’s) then we can ease off the formula.  Mum wants a breast-fed baby.  I’m a little more relaxed on the subject, figuring that so long as Avery gets all the breast milk she wants, and we just keep the tank full with formula, she’ll have all the benefit and none of the detriment.  Also, I would like to rescue my wife from under the baby and/or breast pump so she can feel human for a few hours every day.  Like a prisoner with his one hour of daylight.  Not that she would ever even consider looking at it that way.  She loves being a mom.  And she’s very good at it.  It’s very fun to watch.  Still, a husband wants to help.  Both his girls.  And I like feeding Avery!  Quite a lot.

Hey!  Look at this moron!  He’s still up at 1am because his kid’s doctor said he could sleep more now!  sigh.

On the biz side, CBcom is in the tweaks stage.  Exciting.  The software project is negotiating its next phase.  Awesome.  The… what vague title do I use for this… I dunno.  TV series project.  There.  The TV series project is developing nicely.  Super great.  We can write us some comedy.  Us we can.

And I just chatted with my sister on FB about Christmas plans.  We’re just getting started.  We have some dates.  That’s a good start.  Will run them by my beloved wife in the morning, after we’ve had a relatively spectacular night’s sleep.  Robyn ducked out before I could make sure we’ll be seeing plentiful and awesome pics of my nephews in Halloween costume, so here I am doing that.  See that, darling sister?  Oh I’m looking at you.  Making sure.  We’ll be seeing.  Pics.  Aplenty.

That does it.  I’m going to bed.

I don’t have a new picture of my little bunny today, so here is a different bunny.

Today, despite the lack of pictures, was better.  Partly because I managed an hour and a half nap yesterday.  Essential survival at this stage.  Also, Avery is eating like an eating machine that eats quite a lot.  She didn’t nap so well, and she had a couple momentous squawks, but her chubby little cheeks make it all ok.  Mum decided that despite the purported benefits of fenugreek, it’s off the list, because side effects can include a restless squawky baby.  Not the existence of one, which can’t really be blamed on the fenugreek, but the behavior.

For those of you that are shopping for such things, the Avent bottle we got as a freebie at BuyBuyBaby has turned out to to be the best of our little collection of baby bottles.  It features a low flow nipple.  As any baby burper will tell you, less air swallowed is a good thing.  That low flow nipple thing – that was new for me.  I had no idea they came in flows.  Important.  Also, keep her at a gentle angle so it’s easy to swallow, and hold the angle of the bottle so that the nipple is always full (remember the air thing), but no higher – no need to drown her.  If she starts dribbling more than she’s swallowing, give her a break.  She needs to catch her breath (or she’s just chewing on it).  She’ll squawk, but that’s fine for a few seconds.  She’s just being indignant.  It’s a good opportunity for a mid-stream burping.  Do not neglect the burping for any reason.  That includes a diaper change.  Burp first.  Do not under any circumstances give her a warm bath before burping her.  You’re welcome.  Nobody wants to take a shower at 4:30 in the morning.  Unless it’s a vacation travel day.  Then I will do that thing.  But always remember the burping.  To put it gently, less air in the stomach means more room for keeping the liquids down.

Interestingly, we haven’t used a bib yet.  We cut up a few of my old super soft brushed cotton t-shirts.  Awesome.  I imagine that will change with the volume and blast radius of her meals.  Or would it be more politic to say “share radius”.  Ha.

Current favourite baby essential – the swing.  Without the twenty minute break it buys us, nothing could get done.  You know how, when our friends or friends of friends started having kids and they told us all their woes?  How sleep was a forgotten luxury, and how they couldn’t get the simplest tasks done in less than quadruple the time it used to take?  And how we all sympathized but quietly thought they were probably just out of their depth?  And how we could probably do better?  Well… I have a better understanding now.  I like to think of myself as a strong organizer, in the sense that because of my advanced laziness, I can crystalize any mess down to its component pointy bits and grind them out.  For example, I keep the house pretty clean because I hate huge cleanup jobs.  A pretty constant low-level maintenance is much easier to deal with than a disaster zone.  Because of this sciencified laze, I have identified the baby maintenance essentials, including love and attention, and I can hit those targets as they come.  Stay ahead of it, or it will overwhelm you, is the heart of what I’m saying.  To bring me back to the original path of this ramble (still with me?  yay!) I can say with confidence that despite having a firm grasp of everything that Little Peppermint needs to live and grow, happy and healthy, and despite having an excellent partner in Avery’s mom, and despite having a life-long proven record of systematizing in the pursuit of avoiding great effort, I can say that I have no frickin idea where the time goes.

There are two of us.  You’d think that would by definition leave one person free to, I don’t know, handle the world beyond that tiny little girl’s orbit.  Take shifts.  Tag off.  Get stuff done.  That’s what I always thought.  That’s what every dad in the Western World has believed with casual confidence since… well, since there was a Western World.

Yet we get up, change a diaper, warm a bottle, breast feed, pump, have breakfast– you know what: Marjorie and I have already tried this exercise.  It doesn’t translate on paper.  The numbers just aren’t there.  And it’s not because we’re bad at this.  Without feeling cocky about it I think we’re doing a pretty great job.  It’s just that, somehow, despite having two capable and level-headed people on the job, the hours drain away.

I think it’s just that we’re used to Accomplishing Things.  Things that can be Checked Off The List.  You could count the Things Done Today.  And these days, the math has changed.  Fuzzy logic.  Imaginary numbers.  Quantum physics.  Raising a baby takes a massive amount of energy.  Very flexible, patient, and loving energy.  Forget your systems.  Well, I take that back.  Let’s say that systems have to be designed around that most enormous of all random elements: baby.  Having two people on the job means having someone with whom you can commiserate.  It doesn’t mean the effort is neatly cut in half.  Just a sec while I LOL.

Look at the clock.  Nearly 1am again.  Foolish mortal.  Marjorie went to bed before 10.  She’s a smart lady.  I am a silly man who likes to write at the deep end of the day.

Time to go.  The center of my universe needs changing.

Hey.  Did you hug somebody?  Like I asked?