Increased growth, etc.

(Editor's note: Some of the pictures below, and actually in a bunch of my other blogs, are movies. You can tell they're movies because there's a green triangle on them. Click on the triangle to play the movie.)

Max and Delia, Lake Tahoe, last week.

Max and Delia, same venue, etc.

Max's first try at real (nonpureed) food. The green objects in his mouth are broccoli.

My mom (Grandma Kaplan) and Max.

Max in box. I don't know how else to describe it.
Delia's mom and dad giving Max a bath.

Delia cutting Max's toenails.

Putting Max in his car seat.

We interrupt this blog to discuss the iPhone 3G, offered on AT&T. After hearing many people atwitter about this device (now $99), and, quite frankly, being called a loser at work for not having one despite having AT&T as my cell phone carrier (at least, I presume that's why I'm being called a loser) I decided to buy one this morning. After a quick Google search, I am redirected to the Apple online store.

Wait, that last sentence was really boring, but hang on! After getting highly personal data about me and my cell-phone plan, I was offered the iPhone 3G for $299.

"Huh..." I thought, "$299 is a lot more than $99, even for relatively low values of $299." I looked around the Internet and kept getting redirected to Apple's store. But on the same page as my quote, Apple had a description of the phone which says:

"The 8GB iPhone 3G has some great new features. It even has a new price — Just $99.^2"

$99 is better. "Hmmm...I want that phone instead." I thought.

I can feel those relatives currently working in telecom, shaking their head at my naivete. The only important number in their sentence was the "2" footnote. You see, I'm in the middle of a 2-year contract with AT&T, and because I'm already a loyal AT&T customer, they don't want to give me the phone at the same price they offer non-customers. I have to sign on to a new 2-year contract, and pay an additional $18, to be able to spend $299 on the iPhone 3G. The $99 price repeatedly puked out all over THE SAME PAGE AS MY QUOTE was apparently there to mock me.

OK, where was I...yes, I'm sure this related to Max somehow. So the last few weeks, Max became more proficient at crawling and standing, and especially, staying awake.

Max at his bedtime.

In fact, there is an ancient Eastern saying, which says "And when your baby yawns, and he rubs his eyes, and you wish to put him to sleep, you must realize that instead it is you who are tired." Of course, I wrote this, but I feel ancient and am east of, for example, Vacaville.

Because if he yawns and we try to put him to sleep, he works himself into such a rage that he's wide awake again.

Max is just getting started.

Max being put to bed last night, 10:30 PM. You can imagine how this ended. (Hint: "WAAAAAAHHH!!")

And don't tell me we need to calm him down with a book. He just uses that time to regroup. Massages irritate him. When we carry him, he tries to flip over and crawl out of our arms (or just cry). Far better to let him pass out on his own, illustrated by the following photos:

Max might be ready for bed now.

He might have also hit some milestones, which I would learn if I cared enough to find the baby book. Actually, he did hit a major milestone, one that requires some background. When Max was younger, he was a great hiking baby. We put him in a baby carrier, he fell asleep, we hiked, and life was good. But as he stayed awake longer, the complaints started. We suspected our Baby Bjorn carrier was the problem. Now we find it's outdated. The ErgoBaby is the newest addition (even based in my college town of Boulder!). I was attracted the carrier after seeing a mom with a very happy baby strapped on her back. On ERGObaby's website, it says:

"There is no better feeling than holding your baby close! Using the ERGObaby carrier gives you continuous connection, fabulous feeling of freedom, and security knowing your baby is safe."

We bought one, and after several attempts, returned it about 2 weeks later. If you wish, go to their website to see lots of photos of babies in the carrier acting exactly the opposite of Max. Max feels the continuous connection as well, which is why he immediately tries to push away when we put him in one, and follows this by screaming. The only good thing to take from this is, we can at least embarrass the sales staff by putting Max in the ERGObaby in front of customers.

So, anyway, we pretty much gave up hiking. But a long time ago, Delia's aunt & uncle, Allison and Peter, gave us a backpack where Max can be at head level. Max's neck wasn't strong enough when we got it, but we finally tried it out, and here we are:

Lake Tahoe, last week.

This could be a game changer. (Thanks, Allison&Peter!) I must say, he's very entertaining to carry. I can't see him, but I can tell what he's doing by how my backpack is lurching. Then I can feel the feet in my arm, and the occasional tickle on the back of my hair. I heard from a coworker there will also be the spitup, but it's a small price to pay for a happy kid.

The climber

Max at Pioneer Park, Nevada City, CA.

In the last few weeks, Max has become a reasonably competent crawler. Immediately after reaching this point, he decided crawling was passe' and started climbing everything he can find instead. This includes kitchen chairs, walls, unstable baskets, mommy and daddy, and any of the massive assortment of items littered on our floors. Given our house, he apparently decided climbing was a survival skill. We can also easily identify what he likes to climb. A good example might be a brightly colored soft toy box, with lots of grippy handles to use. This is what Max will ignore as he resolutely tries to put all his weight on a lead-lined, thin, glass cabinet filled with a collection of Medieval weaponry.

He's gotten pretty good at pulling himself to standing on lots of different furniture pieces. However, what goes up must come down (except, I guess, for rocket ships) and here the story gets ugly. For really the first time, Max can hurt himself, and he does it frequently. There's a variety of falls: The worst is when he spaces out and lets go of, say, the couch, falling straight back spread-eagled onto his head. If he falls straight down, he whacks his chin on the table on the way down. Even the wall isn't safe - he was on his knees moving his hands up the wall, but slipped and whacked his nose on the wall on the way down. None of these have happy endings. Max freezes into "I'm about to scream" face, and tries to cry but can't breathe. By this time, usually someone has picked him up and is hugging him. Soon, he gains enough composure to let out the biggest scream he can. At this point, he'll pretty much cry forever unless we distract him with, for example, a book.

What can we do? Yes, I know. Kids have been around for 700 billion years and they've survived this long. But when I hear the "thump" of his head on our hardwood floor (strand-woven bamboo - over 3 times harder than most wood!) and think "Hey, glad that wasn't my head!" then, well, we'd like to do something. We bought floor mats, which Max immediately crawls off of. We follow Max around, tensed like Charlie Sheen in "Platoon" for any impending disaster. We leave him in a safe enclosed play area, causing him to cry uncontrollably.

So, finally, we bought Max a helmet. Yes, scoff if you must, but Max comes from purebred nerd lineage. Some background: I surfed in Los Angeles, and for a while I was kinda cool. I'd have these conversations with other surfers:

Other surfer: Yo, whassup.
Me: Dude. Awesome waves.
Other surfer: Yeah man, it's been insane.
Me: Yeah, I know, man.

The other surfer was probably a computer systems admin, but that's besides the point. I was cool. I also whacked my head on the sand, on my surfboard, and finally, after getting nailed so hard in my jaw that I couldn't eat anything larger than a grape for a week (and hearing stories of other surfers with coral in their brain), I got a surfing helmet. It's the nerdiest headgear ever invented. No one ever talked to me again. But my helmet let me try stuff I'd be way too scared to try otherwise, so it helped my surfing.

Umm, where was I...so Max now has a helmet, as shown below, and better yet, he's too young to know we made him a baby nerd.




OK, perhaps there were some initial difficulties, but after some persistence, we got Max to tolerate it. And, finally, Max in action.