New Health Report

We just got back from the doctor's office. Arthur is looking rosy and was looking so good they didn't want to give him another heel prick blood test (which he hates). Arthur is now 22 inches and has gained another 5 ounces since his Tuesday doctor visit.

Health Report.

Aurthur's doing great. He initially lost 5 ounces, which is normal for babies. Last we checked, he had gained back 1 ounce.



He sleeps a lot, and drinks a lot. It looks like he's settling into a 2 hour 15 minute cycle (plus or minus 45 minutes) of sleeping and then eating. Mark was a anxious that Arthur was eating too much formula because Arthur wanted 2 to 3 ounces at a feeding. This works out to 24 to 36 ounces per day, which Mark thinks is a little too much. Arthur doesn't agree; almost everyone (and about four of them are mothers) I've spoken with says, "If he wants more formula, give it too him."


Arthur was a little jaundiced, but he's looking better. The poor thing had to endure 3 heel pricks so the doctor could get a bilirubin count. (Most babies' livers don't turn on all the way at birth and they have a really high count of red blood cells; when the cells break down and the liver can't process the waste, the result is a yellow baby.) We've chosen a pediatrician who is able to look at Arthur and predict his bilirubin count, which is a great pediatrician super-hero ability.

So far Arthur's not a fussy baby. He likes being held firmly while the holder bounces up and down on a Swiss Ball; I'm hoping this will tone my abs, and I'm pretty sure that my biceps are toning up from hours of "the football hold." He also likes to sleep on us.


Arthur also can smell progesterone at about 10 feet. The first time Julie visited and held him, his eyes and mouth opened wide and he started rooting around for her breast. I'm pretty sure he did it later in the day when Sarah H and Reverend Caroline visited.

On the subject of smells, the other day I was urinating and I was struck by the thought, "My urine smells like the baby." I'm still pondering if maybe the baby simply smells like urine and I'm suddenly more sensitive to smells or if there's some weird baby-biochemical voodoo going on. Or maybe I'm just sleep deprived.


Mark's been going crazy with the camera, so I should have some baby shots up soon.
There've been a lot of firsts; so far we've had, Arthur's first rain water (which I sprinkled on his forehead). We've had Arthur's first eye-booger (which Mark did something with -- I hope it doesn't show up in a scrap book). We've also had Arthur's first package addressed specifically to him.

Superpowers

First off, no one told us we would get superpowers when we became dads.

I should have been suspicious that this might be the case several years ago when Keith Packard leapt across a fifteen foot room and snatched a piece of clear cellophane out of his daughter's mouth. The cellophane was invisible to me, and I was standing right next to her.

My superpower is judo-chopping friendly German Shepherds as they rambunctiously jump up. This happened with my sister Julie's dog, Sierra, while Julie was holding Arthur. I swear it was spinal cord reaction. Before Sierra hit the ground I had turned to Julie and said, "I'm sorry, that was a reflex." I'm not sure who was more surprised: Julie, Sierra, or me.

Just for the record -- because I know there are some stories floating around -- when Julie came near Arthur a little later on with a cup of tea (which it turned out afterwards was cold) I did not judo-chop her.



Mark is jealous because his superpower is the ability to unflinchingly suck spit-up baby formula out of Arthur's nose with his mouth. And not being sick afterwards.
Mark's secondary superpower is being able to rattle off "diapers, formula, and baby-wipes" without thinking whenever anyone asks us what we need.


With chagrin I'm noticing that the Infant-Military-Industrial Complex is trying to slither its tentacles into our home. For some reason Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger are on the front of the diapers we use, and there's a Gerber Baby looking up at us from one of the receiving blanket labels. At least the hospital didn't want to stamp Arthur with a hospital logo (although now that I think about it, he did have to wear a security tag on his ankle while he was there).


To counter marketing schemes, I've continued work on the baby mobile, which Mark now refers to as "The MOMA project." Mostly because it's big and looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would have installed. I think Mark was a little surprised at how big an icosidodecahedron is; all the polyhedrons have the same unit side, so the pentagons make all the dodecahedron-based polyhedra soccer ball sized. I still need to make an icosohedron and an octagon to complete the set of Platonic solids, and I'd like to make a snub cube and then I'll be done cutting and pasting paper.

It's A Boy!

But we knew that all ready.


The child was born 3:04 PM, Saturday, June 11.

V was induced around 8 AM. She started having labor pains about 10 AM, and they broke her waters about then. Some time before 11 AM she was given demerol. The hard pushing began about 2 AM.


He was born facing up, head first, with no complications. The attending physician allowed Mark to put on latex gloves and help the baby out. Mark got to see his skull plates shifting around as he came down the birth canal. I managed to get photographs and video of a lot of the birth. I also got to cut his cord.

V had very little interior tearing.

My mother laughed when I told her the baby was 11 inches long and my sister condemed me with all other men who ever attended a birth and had to guess what the birth weight was. For the record, he was 22 inches long, and he weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces. He scored 9 (out of 10) on the Apgar Baby Health score. He has very big blue eyes, long fingers, long limbs, some fuzz on his head, and looks a little like his uncle Kevin.



Then began the naming process. This consisted of me looking down into his plexiglas bassinet and asking him, "Is your name Corvus?" (baby kick -- yes) "Is your name Philip?" (no response -- no). "Is your name Arthur?" (baby kick -- yes) "Is your name Bootes? (the constelation of the shepherd in the sky)" (big baby kick). "Is your name Orphinchus?" (no response). At this point Mark said something about sticking to the list.



Melora also participated in what Mark called our "pychic communion with the baby."

And...

So...

Let the child be called Arthur Corvus Jackson Burridge

Things Are Getting Started

Just a quick post. This morning we went to the hospital and around 8AM, V got induced. I think she was three to four cm dialated. Sometime around 10 AM they broke her waters and contractions have started. It's looking like it might be a long labor.

The hospital is a no cell phone zone. They also don't have internet access. So... the next posting might be a voice-post. If I don't answer my cell it's because I'm not in the little waiting room which is the sole cell phone area on the materinity floor.

Maybe Friday Night

I just got off the phone with Melora.

The doctor says that V is another centimeter dialated and that he'd be surprized if the baby didn't decide to come tonight and if the baby doesn't come they'd do and inducement Saturday. They're running around right now doing last minute errands.

More as I learn it.

He's Not Coming Out

No baby yet. The amniotic fluid is crystal clear, so clear the med techs were saying things like, "Look at how clear this is" to each other. If the results of the tests show that the baby's lungs are ready to breathe air, they'll probably induce this weekend; maybe Sunday. Given my track record at reporting on what the doctors will or won't do, don't quote me.

The baby name game has taken a new twist. If the baby was born while Mark, V and Melora were bowling, his middle name could have been "Lane." If the baby was born while they were at Ambrosia (a Eugene restuarant), the middle name could have been "Ambrose." If the baby is born on artist Cristofaro's birthday, then his middle name will by Cristo. If the baby is born on William Butler Yeats' birthday, then I'm going to have to change my name to "Maud Gonne." (Although I've always thought "Gyre" would be an interesting name...)

Secret Agent Dad

The child is docked (or engaged). This means that his little forehead is firmly nestled into V's pelvis. I understand this is uncomfortable; sort of like having a beachball-sized cueball banging around between one's thighs. I'm pretty sure V's in the get this thing outta me! stage. At this point in time, calls to us (or left on our answering machine) of "Have You Had The Baby Yet?" are really not very helpful. If you simply cannot resist saddistic urges to call and ask, you'll have to use a secret code. I suggest something like the following:

John (picking up the phone): "Madam Vaal's House of Air Dusters."
You: "Hi, it's me."
John: "Oh hi! How are you?"
You: "I'm fine. If you haven't had the baby yet, say, 'Oh! We love our Denby!'"
John: "Oh! We love our Denby." (indicating the child is unborn)
You: "Oh well. If Veronica is doing OK, say 'Our pattern is 'Storm.'"
John: "Our pattern is 'Storm.'" (indicating V is OK). "We love it."
You: "I'm glad she's doing well. If dishes were days, how long do you think she'll be?"
John: "Oh we have one large platter, but we could use eight ramkins." (indicating 1 to 8 days; by the way, we really could use eight ramkins....and a new tea kettle)

Let the Child Be Named Gerbil

Still no child. The doctors don't seem to be as gung-ho to induce labor as they were last week. So now we wait. Veronica and Melora have turned to cooking.

In a related item, last night I dreampt my son was a small black gerbil. I was trying to do the father-son bonding thing by laying the baby on my chest. Only he was a gerbil. I had to chase him into a corner and under the hospital bed. I remember thinking, man, this baby sure is small; and I was concerned that I needed to support the baby's head (although as near as I could tell all the leaping around wasn't hurting him too much). I said to the nurse, "You know, I don't quite remember how the birth went."

"Oh," she said, "you passed out right away."

The dream concluded with a (possibly mechanical) bat side-kick trying to help me bottle feed the gerbil-boy as I lay in a very narrow hospital bed that became more and more tree limb like as the dream progressed.

Post-New Moon

Still no child. But... Melora did have a dream that V was in labor and the doula wasn't able to make it. And V stepped on a very large snail last night. In bare feet. In related news, I finished a double-tetrahedron (technically not a Platonic Solic) and a cube. I think I'll work on a snub-dodecahedron next.

More baby news after V visits the obstatrician.

Still No Child

Despite a marathon day of shopping, napping, and some "restless behavior", V is still great with child. I believe she's reached the get this thing out of me stage.

Mark and I sat down and wrote out our top-twenty baby name lists. Much to the dismay of various people over seventy, Corvus, Kepler, and Rigel are still in the running. Other names include Arthur, Henry, Blake, Edward, Harold, Martin, Phillip, James, and Jason. Mark told his mother, "If you want to name a baby, you can have your own." After my father groaned particularly loudly, I told him, "If you keep that up we'll ressurect Greek names like Orpheus or Agamemnon."

Work on the baby-mobile continues. I've finished construction of a regular dodecahedron, a regular tetrahedron, and a cuboctahedron. Mark has warned me that this (paper) mobile is not allowed to fall onto the baby.

New Moon on Monday

New moon is June 6, 21:55, Universal Time. That translates to 2:55 PM, Pacific Daylight Time. Two new moons ago, Mark and I were just touching down in Orlando, Florida (we couldn't see the annular eclipse through the airplane windows).

The Summer Solstice will be roughly two weeks later: June 21 06:46 UT; or June 20, 11:46 PM, PDT.

Latest Doctor Visit

Veronica visited her obstatrician. Mark and I entertained a 3 year old with kooshes in the waiting room. The doctor told Veronica that she is 75% effaced, 1 cm dialated, that the baby is tall, and that if the baby isn't born by June 6, she'll induce labor.

Veronica's happy with the June 6 date; her mother, Melora, is flying in late Thursday night (tomorrow), and V wanted Melora there for the birth.

The Fisher-Price King

I feel so banal. I’ve just discovered the Infant-Military-Industrial-Complex. And I know I’m not the first. Walking through the aisles of kid stuff, I want to write about the forced choices before me: pink frilly, or desert camouflage.

But all this ruminating is so forty years ago. I can see back to one of my writing idols: Judith Viorst. She wrote Nice Baby in the sixties. How can I top Judith? Damn these baby-boomers anyway! First it was Wicca, then it was the Radical Faeries, now it’s child-care; everywhere I go they’ve had a twenty year jump on the writing market.

So, pink frills or desert camouflage? I choose neither!

Okay, Okay, I can hear all of the progressive parents in my audience tisking, shaking their heads and saying, “Before I had children, I swore I would never have plastic children’s stuff on my lawn. You want to know what’s on my lawn?”

“But I can be strong,” I say. “I refuse to be pulled into this game by falling for a false choice.”

“No,” says the parental Greek chorus, “You cannot resist. Every Bohemian Parent believes they will be the first to preserve their ‘stubbly with goodness’ lifestyle. But they get worn down. Give in; you can go gracefully, or you can go kicking and screaming, but you’ll still go.”

The only protection I have from the Cult of Anne Geddess is to shriek, “But what about the well-being of the child?” This pops me out of the desert frills level and up to the Politically Correct or Commercially Complacent level. You want to know something? The baby-boomers have written all about this, too.

What is is about our society that makes it want to present us with all these choices that aren’t really choices? And what is it about being an expectant parent that makes us examine these false choices? Stumped, I leave the keyboard for a moment for a bathroom break and stumble across this quote: “I arise each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.” -- E. B. White.

Gracious. I found portent in the bathroom. There must be a metaphor in there, somewhere.

Invasion of the Fisher-Price Link-A-Doos Snatchers

When I first encountered Link-A-Doos, I was reading a Fisher-Price catalog thinly disguised as a Pregnant Mother's Magazine. The first page I opened to had a half-page glossy photograph: Small, brightly colored, plastic, flower-shaped mutant creatures swarmed through an open window and proceded to hang from every concevable vertical surface. There wasn't a baby in sight; obviously the mass-produced, churbic faced ones were waiting for an unsuspecting parent to leave a child in the room for a nap so they could whisk it away to the mothership. Other brightly colored items with Very Round Faces And Eyes littered the room with highly-athropormorphized baby expressions.

I stabbed an index finger into Mark's shoulder. "This," I said, stabbing the photo next, "is *not* (stab) what our house (stab) is going to look like (stab-stab-stab)."

I can deal with bright colors and high-contrast. I can deal with animal shapes. I can even deal with flowers. And I thought Ellenor's pull-string toy that wiggled was cool. But I draw the line at smiling, insipid, Anne-Geddes-on-Steroids faces. What lesson do these toys teach beyond "look cute so you won't be left for the wolves?" Don't children know how to do this already? Doesn't modeling "cute behavor" undermine a child's intrinsic motivation to be cute spontaneously?

So. This:

http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?a=get&t=product&s=linkadoos&p=default&site=us&cat=links,linkspeg

out. *Way* out. Escape-velocity speeds aren't too slow.

This:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PlatonicSolid.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ArchimedeanSolid.html

in. I'm working on constructing a baby mobile this week.


In a related topic; we now own an iMac G5 -- so we can watch DVD's. We will not be watching any Teletubbies at our house. Instead we will be instilling a sense of cultural hertigage into our son by playing a Books-on-CD version of The Oddessy and watching DVD's of the Original Star Trek series ("See, son; Mr. Spock always has to save Captian Kirk; what do you think that says about doing well in science?...:).


- John

PS: Thanks to everyone for all the advice on straight -- er swaddling. Now I really want a leopard-print swadling sack.

http://www.cozycocoon.com/cc.html