Rosie and Andrew Visit

30 May 2008

Today began for me at 4am. It began for Heidi at 2 am. That is when Amelia, lovely Amelia, began to cry. I noticed the crying but tried to stay asleep, but when 4 came and some real screaming was going on I thought I should wake up and see what was going on. Heidi was certainly ready for a break and, while groggy, I was happy to take Amelia.

My first attempt was to simply turn on the TV and hold her. Amelia noticed this pathetic try after 3 minutes and let me know with some good sqwaking. Next, I tried to start a load of laundry and hold her near the machine. I was careful not to let her bounce off but she still did not calm down. So at about 4:30 I suited her up, put her in the car seat and headed out for a drive.

I had a ton of talk radio recorded on my iPod and within 200 feet Amelia was asleep. I knew from past experience that driving would be the best thing to keep Amelia calm so I decided to drive for a while. I did hope I could get some coffee for the ride.

First I looked at the local place--closed.

Then I drove on to Alton to look for coffee. No big deal, I had to drive anyway to keep her calm.

But all of the places in Alton were closed too. I was now 9 miles of 35mph driving from home and I really wanted coffee. It was only around 4:50 so I decided to keep driving. I knew there was a Dunkin Donuts in Wolfeboro 7 miles north. The drive from the southern tip of Winnepesauke up along the eastern side was beautiful. As the sun rose to my right it illuminated the lake on my left creating incredible scenes.

At about 5:10 I arrive in Wolfeboro. The Dunkin Donuts was indeed open and I got a large coffee and a bagel. DD bagels are often terrible but this one was fresh out of the oven and terrific. As I spewed sesame seeds all over the car and spilled sugary coffee on my work pants, Amelia made....not a sound.

I dropped Amelia back at home around 6 and went to work. It was a long day but I actually will remember it as a fun one because of Amelia and I's morning together. It was further highlighted by the fact that our friends Rosie and Andrew came for dinner.

Andrew and Rosie are going to teach in the Philippines for 2 years and this was one of our last visits. It was great to see Rosie hold Amelia and rock her to sleep.

Push Up Contest

While adults sat and watched the youngsters had a pushup contest. Anna can do a lot but Becky can do them one handed.

Amelia in her swing!

Here we have some footage of our indispensable swing. You will see why when you watch. In other news, Amelia and I (this is Heidi) went to the chiropractor yesterday - he adjusted both of us! Supposedly, it will help with the crying... but there were no noticeable results as of last night. I, however, am feeling much better!

Lake George for Memorial Day

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/LakeGeorgeMemorialDay2008?authkey=gcdXDAI9M7k

Here are a bunch of pictures from our Memorial Day weekend.

Holding Amelia

This weekend we went to Lake George to for Memorial Day. Everyone got to hold Amelia.
















You can't see Liz but she is holding her her. This was the mini mob scene that greeted us when we arrived.















Here is Becky.















Sergei got to hold her too.

Grammy Perkins















Olya, Amelia and Sasha in the background.















Sasha with Vanja in the background. Vanja held her too but I didn't have a picture of it.















Uncle Scott.
















Sarah.
















And Anna. Thanks to everyone for helping us to take care of Amelia this weekend. It is much easier to calm her down with 10 people to help.

She Finally Sleeps

Amelia finally goes to sleep after about 2 hours of rocking her.

Just a little video of Amelia doing what she does.

Why all the screaming?

24 May 2008

It is currently 8:38. Amelia woke up at 7:00am. Total screaming time so far today = 1 hour 38 minutes.

One thing I have learned is that having a baby is a little bit like teaching. (Yes, everything relates to me.) In teacher's college you spend a ton of time reading about teaching and talking about teaching. But not a ton of time actually teaching. And no matter how much you read or talk about teaching, the only way to have any perspective on it is to actually teach yourself. The same holds true with Amelia. I've read so many different books but nothing prepared me for how many different kinds of fussiness Amelia would have in her arsenal. I thought it was cry or not cry, dirty diaper or not dirty diaper--but all of this changes every hour.

Another thing that happens in teaching is that, at the beginning of your career, you develop a few lessons styles that seem to work all the time. Then one day you try the same lesson style and the kids are bored of it and the day goes terribly. This is what happened with Amelia. For several weekends my system has been to pack Amelia up in her car seat and go for a ride. This gives Heidi a chance to sleep in and me a chance to catch up on podcasts that I have collected through the week. The noise of the car also calms Amelia very well. At least it did until today. She cried while I was putting her in her car seat, while I was driving slow, while I was driving fast, while I was driving from the passenger seat and while I was in line to get coffee. If you listen to commentary on the earthquakes in China with a baby screaming the news is all the scarier.

Which deftly brings me to my second point. Raising a newborn is not that energy efficient. Examples?

• We calm her sometimes by running the shower. She can sense when we try to do it with cold water so we just pour our hot water down the drain.
• We have gone from 2 loads of laundry per week to about 8.
• We have noticed that 50 dollars no longer fills up the truck or the Civic.
• We, Amelia more than us, use 10 diapers a day.
• Leading to about 2 extra trash bags per week.
• We have to clean the cat's litter boxes. Which has nothing to do with Amelia but remains my most hated chore. Probably tied with adjusting the slip cover on the couch 10 times per week--ahhh the day that we have couches that are nice enough that they don't require covers--maybe after we get out of college.

So you might be wondering what we are going to do about the crying and the energy inefficiency. Well, we are going to pack everyone into our 20 mpg truck and drive 3.5 hours to Lake George to honor Memorial Day with Heidi's family. I am very much hoping that Amelia's performance from this morning will not be replicated in this afternoon's drive. On Monday we will send out all of the pictures from this weekend. I'm looking forward to many where cousins and aunts and uncles are holding Amelia. My arms are getting tired.

Until then...Happy Memorial Day Weekend.

Video of Amelia on Her Tummy

All the books say that we need to give Amelia time on her stomach. This makes her neck stronger I have read. All I know is that it gets me closer to the day that I can put her in the back pack and go hiking.

We've Missed You

23 May 2008

All I can say is No Child Left Behind. There are many federal guidelines to it and that is what my job this year entails. Two weeks ago preliminary reports came out and I have been working many, many long days. Heidi, of course, has been awesome and supportive as I have put her and Amelia through some days that begin and end when it is dark. I love what I do--its just a busy time. It must be somewhat akin to tax time. No matter how much you prepare, all your work is right before April 15th.

Our friend Gooch gave us a great surprise break from work last weekend. It was supposed to rain but it turned out to be a fantastic weekend. While Heidi was over at her mother's Gooch and I hiked nearby Mt. Major. To be clear I have no particular love for this mountain but it is the closest to our house so we hike it often.

While I have hiked Mt. Major many times, this was unique because we were hiking it for the first time after a fire. A few weeks ago 100 acres of the mountain burned over the course of 3 or 4 days. As we went up we saw many patches where the underbrush had burned. In between gasping for breath on the way up we entertained ourselves by talking about a favorite book--Reading the Forested Landscape. I highly recommend it. With pictures and economical text it describes how you can look at any type of of forest situation and figure out what had happened there years ago.

In the afternoon we retired to our deck and, while trying to keep our bald heads from burning, we chatted about a possible house that we might build someday in the future. Our friend Gooch is a philosopher, lawyer, carpenter so he was perfectly suited for this discussion. Heidi and Amelia finally returned and Amelia was quite good while Gooch held her.

We wrapped up the day with a dinner of kabobs and steamers. Do they have steamers in Texas and Ohio? Anyway--they're clams. It was a great hike, a great dinner and a great weekend--and we thank Gooch alot for his many trips over to see us.

Porker

Guess who weighs 10 pounds 8 ounces now! Amelia has gained exactly 5 pounds since she's been born -- basically doubled in size. Can you imagine doubling your weight in 2 months? Ha. Her doctor is very impressed -- and we can now let her sleep as long as she wants both day and night and let her feed when she wants -- not by the clock like we have been doing. Hopefully she won't continue to double in size because that means she'd be 20 pounds in 2 months...

She is also smiling at us and she is laughing in her sleep. We are looking forward to some awake laughing soon!

Who is that Baby?

A week or two ago I posted a picture of a baby that was actually me. I gave you some time to call me on it but no one ever did. So it must be true that she looks like me--people have been telling me this all along. For the record I am sticking with my assessment. I think she looks like Great Grandmother Perkins, Heidi's grandmother.

Here are a few more of me as a baby.

Fishing and Mother's Day

We are currently enjoying our first Mother's Day with Amelia. We celebrated with a trip to church and a picnic in the park in Concord. It has been a beautiful day here in Concord. The only time today that Amelia has been calm was during church. We postulate that she likes the loud music. From the time returned from our picnic lunch until now (6:30pm) she has been awake and screaming. We have tried everything except for another car ride. We are still leaning towards keeping here but this has been one of those afternoons. We are hopeful that she won't be as fussy in the middle of the night due to all of this afternoon crying.

This weeked Heidi proved that she was an awesome mother by letting me go fishing with some friends up on Squam lake. Here is a link to pictures of both fishing and Mother's Day.

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/FishingAndMotherSDay?authkey=fTLrdXoPsKQ

Amelia's Many Faces

Tummy Time

A little video for today:

Church

Today we took Amelia to church for the first time. It was fun to take her and she did quite well. I had to take her out for a walk for a bit of it but she was able to stay calm in the sanctuary for about 1/2 of the service. After church we went out to lunch with Granny Perkins.

The rain finally stopped about 4pm so I put Amelia in the baby bjorn and went for a little walk. I also did some raking and shoveling in the yard. She does very well with all of the movement.

We didn't have many posts last week because dear Amelia has entered a pretty fussy phase. In the evenings she cries constantly unless she is held. Not held in any easy way like sitting on your lap--held with both hands and constantly moved. So that leads to no computer use in the evenings. Heidi continues her greatness as a mother. This week alone she has read 2 books on fussy babies and still does all of the feeding and taking care of Amelia during the day. She is great.

Oh--on Saturday we went up to Squam Lake and saw our friend Chip. He had not met Amelia yet and it made for a great day trip. We were very glad to see him.

Picture

Thought you might enjoy this one. Seems like a nice picture to me.

Tom

Not About Poop

After an earlier post that included some descriptions of poop we received some feedback that many readers did not wish to think about poop even when described in comic detail. And called poop.

But I need to share what happened today. I took Amelia to the grocery to pick up some haddock for dinner. When I returned home and pulled her out of the car seat she felt very warm--and a little damp. I will spare you all the detail of color and odor and say just this--when I opened up her clothing I found poop in the following 4 locations: between her shoulder blades, above her belly button, on her left thigh and on her right foot. It was such an impressive performance on her part that we took her right to the bath and threw all of the surrounding clothes and blankets in the washing machine.