Max reading a book

Max now likes to be read to about an hour a day. It's one of our most effective ways of calming him down when he's upset. His strong preference is for books with tons of sounds (these days babies' books have lots of things you can press to get sounds.) Regular books, even with lots of pictures, even really cool ones like Dr. Seuss, are a dicier proposition right now. Max makes his preferences pretty clear and they're pretty consistent - if he doesn't like a book today, he probably won't like it tomorrow. The instructional video below shows how to identify which books Max likes. It provides comedy on several levels.

Instructional video: How Max rates books.

6 months old, Part 3

We aren't ready yet.

Finally, Max is starting to crawl. We've seen it coming for a while - Max started to lift his tummy in Colorado around a month ago. I must admit I'm proud of him because he's been trying really hard to move around for a very long time - but the flip side is we didn't prepare. We ordered some baby barricades from Costco about a week ago and they are arriving Thursday. In the meantime, our house has transformed from, how should we say, "casual relaxed clutter," to "baby death trap". Max is now trying to climb up our reading chair, pull boxes on top of him, and, well, see below.

What makes him gravitate to the stuff that will kill him?

The naive reader would think I put Max in this pose. Nope. Max wanted to be there. He crawls over the couch so he can be upside down. He's happiest trying to fall headfirst onto the floor.

We are nostalgically remembering the days when we could drop Max somewhere and come back to find him in the same place. We can no longer do this without duct tape. So now we're beginning to babyproof our house. We bought a cheap door barricade a couple weeks ago. I came home from work to see Max crying his head off while Delia was sitting nearby, completely exhausted. What happened? Did Max hurt himself? (With mobility comes falling, we've learned.) Nope, Max crawled to the barricade, tried to push it over, and when it didn't budge he had a temper tantrum. I wonder if he knew the barricade was for him.

Well, I think we're actually current now. And he's 7 months old today.

6 months old, Part 2

OK, I'm still up. So, here's some more photos. I'm actually getting caught up!

Delia holding Max up on a park bench in Nevada City. Note slobber stains on bench. Max was teething on this day, but additionally, as it has been written: "Nothing has been truly explored until it is in the mouth. " Actually, did anyone write that? No? Well, if babies could write poetry, someone would.


Again, we're getting blog-worthy photos far faster than I can write about them, so I'm continuing my photo dump to catch up. Basically, we're starting to do stuff again. Granted, Max factors in heavily, and currently he's only happy when he's on a blanket playing with stuff (more to the point, trying to get off the blanket), so now our activities are heavily, well, blanket-oriented stuff like picnics, outdoor concerts, etc. However, Max can be in a stroller for a limited amount of time, which leads us to....

My good friends from Los Angeles, Gordon and Ali, saw Max for the first time in Palo Alto.

We also went to California Worldfest - a gathering of eclectic group of bands and even more eclectic group of people (think hippies and Rastafarians) in the Nevada County Fairgrounds. Despite the name, it's a beautiful, tree-lined park that has one of the best outdoor music venues I've experienced. The Indigo Girls and Los Lobos headlined this concert. However, there were much better groups playing. Why? We are now very keenly aware of what it sounds like to be burned out after singing the same song jillions of times, and those two bands all the symptoms. How do we know this burned-out feeling? The answer in a moment.
Delia, Delia's mom, and Max listening to Fishtank Ensemble, a gypsy-style band.

And, since Delia's family was around, I didn't have to worry about Max and got a lot of sleep.Getting sleep at Worldfest. The gentleman behind me is Delia's brother, Dan.

Max and Delia. Max loves putting his hand into people's mouths.

The next night: Thanks to Delia, I now have photograhic evidence of Max falling asleep while I'm reading to him. I though this was theoretically impossible. Max hates going to sleep. We've watched Max start screaming mid-yawn. Instead of drifting to sleep while being read to, Max almost always gets restless, closes the book, and starts crying. We'll put him to bed and he'll generally attempt a 5-minute protest before drifting off.

Finally, Max has taken his hatred of shopping to a new level. The last two times we went to Sacramento, Max flew into such a rage that we could only calm him down by singing the "A-B-C" song. For 45 minutes straight. And never deviating. He would cry if we switched songs. He would cry if we improvised, "A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-God I hate this stupid song." He would cry if we tried the A-B-C song in rap. Or opera. He was a bit more tolerant of Vegas-style ("A-B-C - thank you. You're a lovely audience. Great to be here. D-E-that's a lovely dress...") but not much. Remember, we had to do this on two separate trips. As a coworker said, Max has trained us very well. We are still getting over PTSD-type symptoms from the trips, although I think we'd be okay if we let Max play on a blanket for a while before putting him in the stroller to shop for, oh, 4 minutes.

Now then, I'm caught up. Actually, I'm not. Coming soon: A major change sends the Kaplan family into chaos. Wait, was that Jon & Kate + 8? Hmm...no, it's us. Stay tuned.

6 months old, Part 1

Me, Grandma and Grandpa Kaplan, and Max at Whole Foods.

My mom and Max in Whole Foods.

My dad and sister with Max in my parents' backyard.

Max and Daddy near the Boulder Creek path, Boulder, CO.

Max in Boulder Creek path, Boulder.

Mom and Max in Pasta Jay's, Boulder. Despite the photo, Max is not peaceful. He tried to grab all the food and we eventually had to take turns walking him around Pearl Street.

Nevada City Bicycle Classic, about 4 miles from our house in Grass Valley. The gentleman in the black and yellow in both photos is Lance Armstrong.

Max enjoying the Nevada City Bicycle Classic.

Max is now 6 months old. Actually, by the time I post this, he will most likely be 7 months old. Perhaps 8 or 9. Maybe that's too long - Max has gone through so many changes and we have so many photos and movies, I'll have to take a break and just spill some of these photos/movies out here.

But here's update #1: People tell us parenting gets easier and, when our brain capacity was high enough to process the entire sentence, we'd perhaps laugh ruefully. But it has. "Easier" perhaps isn't the right word, although Max's sleeping through the night was a huge step in the right direction, but he's a much more solid kid now with a definite personality. Before, when he cried, we were pretty convinced he would soon die if we didn't intervene. Now we know he'll cry if we don't let him play with the computer keyboard or if we take liberties with the "A-B-C" song. More on that later. He's now a very entertaining kid, as probably shows in the photos. He's his most charming around strangers, which has given him a large throng of admirers.

And he's restless. And curious. Actually, that word isn't strong enough. Before becoming a dad, I knew our baby would cry a lot and he'd want hugging and later want some play. I was totally taken by surprise at his intensity. Very often, he'll play, sort of, but he is very intense, dead serious, and even a bit desperate. What's it like? Picture yourself working on an important project due tomorrow morning, and you're way behind, and you just injected 15 espresso shots into yourself through an IV tube. You're now in the ballpark. He's also easily bored and craves new challenges - I suppose it makes sense, given that babies need to develop, so that instinct should be there - but I'm floored he has all this motivation despite having not heard a single Tony Robbins tape.

He's happiest either trying to crawl over the side of a couch or trying to touch an electrical socket. We used to laugh at Max kicking while we attempted diaper changes. Now he flips over as soon as we put him down, and we desperately try to put a diaper on him with one hand, while the other hand grabs his ankle in an attempt to prevent him from crawling into our sink. Putting a diaper on him while he's standing in front of a mirror helps - he can talk to his new friend and his legs can't really go anywhere.

Now, then: We took Max to the beach with Delia's extended family.

Max explaining what he thinks about the beach.

Delia and Max. Delia has quickly learned you can't leave him alone for a second. He's grabbing sand and trying to eat it. Max's conclusion: He loves sand, hates sand in mouth.

Max in the water near Santa Cruz. The water was pretty cool, but Max didn't mind.

Max making his way towards the sand.Max and Aunt Allison.
The picture says it all.

Max is too curious sometimes. Mommy may stop feeding if Max can't focus.Mom showing her magical powers with Max.

Dad and Max at a free concert in San Francisco. Actually, we were in a mini-park behind some dumpsters because that was the only place that had enough level ground for Max to play around and stop screaming.

Well, it's getting late, so I'll put more photos on the next entry. But that doesn't seem right! Where's the story? Ahhh, things look normal but soon...a SHOCKING REVELATION threatens to tear the family apart.

Wait a minute...that's not my life, that's Jon and Kate + 8. Anyway, stay tuned.

Solid food

Yes, I know, I'm way way behind on writing blogs. Teething issues not withstanding, Max has been pretty well behaved and has mostly slept through the night. We've celebrated by spacing out a lot and sleeping constantly. He's also getting twice a day helpings of solid foods. Here's Max enjoying one of our meals.

Max enjoying an old family recipe: Baby food mixed with rice cereal and water, and heated. We call it "rocket fuel."


All-Righty, then. Even though I'm behind, I'm going to take a major detour and talk about cooking, if only because it's a big side effect of us having a baby. The audience for the blog, actually, is people who don't know how to cook or don't cook much, because, well, I'm with you, man. Those who can cook are free to snicker at my cooking attempts.

It's never been a big deal to me to cook when I have to - every 4 months or so, I'd cook a chicken spaghetti. I got to the point where I could make way too much of it in 45 minutes, including cleanup. Despite my talent, however, and despite the fact that chicken spaghetti is a very nutritionally complete meal that one could repeat every day for years with little adverse health effects, Delia always found someone else to cook our meals during Max's first few months.

With the departure of Adriana, however, I was forced to expand my cooking repertoire. This caused major problems. We have our share of fancy cookbooks with scintillating pictures, but my experience with them (once every 2 years or so) consists of me searching in frustration for Chanterelle mushrooms at Raley's, spending $50 on 15 ingredients or so that will go bad because I didn't use them all, and finally ruining the dish because I, well, had no idea what I was doing, and perhaps used 5 cans of anchovies instead of 5 anchovies. The recipe wasn't specific! On the other side of the spectrum, we have an easy cookbook with recipes like "raisins in Jell-O", which hasn't inspired me either - in fact, it left me wondering, who would want to ruin Jello? Millions of dollars were probably spent creating the perfect combination of food additives in Jello. Why mess around with perfection?

Now, there are some good recipes online (in epicurious.com, for example) but I honestly am not organized enough to take the time to search out a meal out the night before, sort through all the recipes for an easy, healthy and tasty one, print the recipe out, gather the ingredients the next day and somehow know what to do with the leftover ingredients once I finish cooking. If you can, God bless you.

But, I remembered, some of the fitness magazines at the gym had pretty decent-looking recipes in them. So I looked for these magazines online and soon found "Guy Meals Made Easy." You click on a protein (like salmon) and one style (Italian Style) and it gives you a recipe with an easy Italian sauce, and similar stuff for a carbohydrate side dish and vegetable. What becomes apparent pretty quickly, however, is that the recipes repeat - it's exactly the same for "salmon" or "chicken" except for the word "salmon" or "chicken". The cooking didn't matter either - it just tells you to put the meat in a broiler or grill or on a skillet. What a ripoff.

Then I changed my mind. I now think it's brilliant. All you have to do is learn how to grill, for example, and with 5 sauces and 5 different meats, you magically have 25 different meals. And, there's not a slavish devotion to a particular food combination - some of the sauces work fine with any meat or any vegetable, or, for that matter, rice, or potatoes, or bread. Granted, some combos were better than others, but if one is willing to experiment with different combinations (and potentially mess up the meal) you can get some very interesting food. I tried a spicy sesame oil on a yam (sesame oil, peanut oil, green onions), which was fantastic, but even an Italian-style yam (garlic, parsley, olive oil) I made later was surprisingly good, as long as we didn't overdo the sauce. And, the recipes were simple enough that I could begin to understand the effect of different ingredients on the food.

That website kept us going for a while, but I started researching the recipe's author, Mark Bittman. As many of you know already, he's a home cook and food writer for the New York Times, whose passion is basically making good meals as simply and quickly as possible. He also has a book, "How to Cook Everything". Which I bought.

The book is 1046 pages long. It makes a terrifying thump when dropped. And It's "Guy Meals Made Easy" on steroids. It has a recipe for everything, including a boiled egg and for toast. It tells you how to chop an onion, while saying you can be a good cook even if you don't use the accepted chef's techniquie for onion chopping. It tells you what cooking tools you need to buy. Apparently a roasting pan helps when you put stuff in an oven, for example. And it's got zillions of recipes, lots of them pretty quick, with tons of variations. It's organized in a way to make it easy to mix and match different items. Pretty much all our family recipes (and Delia's) are either listed in the book or have a pretty close cousin in there. And the ingredients are generally pretty simple and repeat a lot - if I have some garlic, lemon, olive oil and a couple other spices at home, I can pretty much buy whatever I want at the store and find a recipe I can make with it. So I've been cooking for over a month from it now, almost never repeating a recipe, and the results have ranged from pretty good (even those I screwed up) to fantastic. I have a feeling one could open a pretty good restaurant from some of the better recipes in there. So if you suck at cooking but are forced to do so, try the book. And the website.

OK, I got that off my chest. Max will show up more prominently in the next blogs.