Ez and the Greatest Generation

After a weekend of pundit shows and bailout news, Ezra is pretty tired. Or perhaps world-weary is more like it.

We did our part to lube up the credit markets this weekend by visiting a string of chain stores. We topped it off today with a reluctant trip to Babies R' Us that, I'm pleased to say, was our quickest and most efficient ever. Speed is paramount there, to prevent daddy from having a conniption and/or aneurysm. We came out mostly unscathed, and Ezra managed pretty well in all the shuffling. He's getting to be quite the resilient little lad.

We also brunched this morning with our great friends Alex, Marion, Maggie and Ingeborg. This senior-discount crowd is easily more lively, fun and active than most of the doughy 30-somethings out there. Alex, is easily my favorite nonagenarian. They were all thrilled to meet Ezra ... and he them.

We also took him to meet his future caretaker, Felice. He'll start daycare at Felice's place in January, 3 days a week. He was not exactly on his best behavior for her, but Felice seemed unfazed. She's been doing this for many, many years, and she seemed to have an appreciation of Ezra's charms.

Ez seems to have settled into a pretty good place in terms of eating and fussing. He still loses his cool sometimes, but we haven't had the really rough days of a few weeks ago. I suspect Ash eliminating dairy has done him some good -- good for him, rough for my cheese-worshipping fiance. The whole family owes her a great debt of gratitude.

One more week, and then Ash and Ez depart on their great adventure Eastward. Any advice on traveling with an infant? Post your suggestsion to the comments, or send 'em to blastolives@gmail.com.

And one last thing ... today's Poop Report: greenish-brown, curdled, copious.

Too graphic for you? Hey -- how do you think WE feel?

Love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez

All Smiles (Well, Some of the Time)

Eight weeks ago today, Ezra James plopped into this world, all scrawny and bewildered. Now he's a chubby little baby, full of smiles and topping 9 lbs, and eagerly taking in the world around him. We're so proud! It's amazing to see him so interested in everything around him. If he's fussy inside the apartment, the instant we take him outside in the sling, he perks up and opens his eyes really wide. He can't stop staring at everything - cars, trees, people, sky. It's amazing to think what that must seem like - to not know exactly what all this stuff is. But he doesn't seem overwhelmed, in fact, he just soaks it up and loves it.

And he reached an important milestone (to us, at least). He started interacting with one of his toys! Hooray! It's a cool soft hanging toy (from Aunt Emily & Uncle Pete) that we have on the Moses basket, and all of a sudden one night last week he started batting at it. Here's a video:



His fussiness hasn't really gone away, especially in the evenings. It may be acid reflux - I've read that some flap in the esophagus of a baby doesn't develop for a while, so acid backs up and makes them spit up or just generally unhappy. Still, we seem to be finding measures to cope with it - when the Weego doesn't work, we swaddle him, when swaddling doesn't work, we sing to him, and on and on. And I've been told the reflux starts to go away by 12 weeks, so maybe it's just a temporary little hurdle to overcome before we have to start worrying about him sticking his fingers in electrical sockets and drinking Drano and stuff like that.

But like I alluded to in the title of this post, he's smiling a lot! Especially, for some reason, on the changing table. He seems to adore being naked. All the better if he can douse his parents with a stream of urine. Here's a little clip of him being smiley:



And we've been keeping the kid on a pretty active social calendar. So many friends to see, so little time (between feedings)! Last weekend, Ezra met our friends Ben, Catrin and Shawn for the first time. After some fussiness, he settled down into amazingly cute and cuddly. Here's a pic of him snuggled up with Catrin:


Sorry for the delays between posts! Gabe's been busy with work, and finding time to post when I'm holding Ezra all day can be challenging.

Love,
Ash, Gabe and Ez

Great Moments in Head Control

I'm pleased to report that we've managed to string together several good days in a row here at Rancho Spitzero / Casa Grossa. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to our mental health and general well being when the kiddo is happy.

We continue to see excellent progress on the smiley front, and especially in head control. It's been so cool to see him start to learn to look around and begin to understand that he can choose what to look at. That must be a pretty big deal for a 7-week-old -- suddenly, he gets to decide where his attention goes, instead of the world just barging in on him all the time. See the vid below for evidence.

We are beginning to gear up for our first major trip. In a couple of weeks, Ash and Ez will board a plane for Boston and on to Martha's Vineyard to see the extended Gross familia. I (Gabe) will follow a week later, and we'll head off to Cape Cod for our great friends Pat and Christine's wedding. We are excited about our big voyage, but a bit anxious about the logistics. Ash will have to navigate the airport, a bus and a ferry with kiddo, luggage, car seat, stroller and infant carrier in tow. Yikes, just writing that makes it sound daunting. But I'm confident that mama can handle it, and I'll be there to help on the way home.

Well, wish us luck, and enjoy the clip.

Much love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez

The Rollercoaster Continues...

Life on the homefront has been more challenging lately. Ezra starts crying just a few minutes into each breastfeeding, spitting up and drooling milk. This is particularly distressing to me, his Ma, because we had such a good thing going for a while there and now I'm worried yet again about whether he's getting enough to eat. But the handy-dandy infant scale that Gabe bought says he's packed on another 8 ounces since the doctor's visit and now is almost 9 lbs. So I guess I don't have to worry that much. But the crying is distressing and wears us all down.

I went to a La Leche League meeting today and met lots of other cool moms and got some tips on how to maybe solve the crying/feeding issue. We'll see if the tips work. I have to say that La Leche League is an amazing organization. The leaders even have their phone numbers on the web - I called one of them in semi-desperation one Saturday night for help, and she was really sweet and helpful. Gabe still insists on calling them "man-hating milk zealots," but he's starting to concede maybe that label doesn't quite fit, even though it's funny to say.

Still, when Ezra's not crying, he's the most charming baby on the face of the planet. And he's developed amazing head control! He can almost prop himself up on his front arms and hold his head up like a little turtle, looking around, surveying the scene. And he's just started looking us in the eye AND smiling at the same time, which of course melts our hearts.

I promise we'll make a video of all of these latest skills one of these days soon. But in the meantime, I'm posting a couple more pics to keep the Ezra James fan club happy! He sends his regards.

Love,
Ashley, Gabe and Ezra

The Doctor's Opinion ...

Not a ton to report ... I just wanted to post something in order to bump that incriminating video of me off the top of the page.

Ash took Ezra to the pediatrician today, and the report is excellent! He's still way down there in the percentiles of weight, length and head size ... but, Dr. Minkus was impressed with his weight gain and his muscle tone. Ezra is up to 8lbs 7oz (that's from a low of 4-15!). He also said that Ez is, indisputably, a beautiful baby. That coming from an accredited professional Ah, we love Minkus ...

We're noticing more progress almost every day in the kiddo's development: head control and eye contact are improving, limbs are getting chubbier, smiles more frequent (semi-smiles, anyway). Sleep, well, there's room for improvement there, I suppose. He's also taken up the pastime of sucking on his hand. He seems to really enjoy it. I gotta try that.

We're also introducing a new feature to the blog today -- The Poop Report. Today's report: green and abundant.

Much love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez

A Trip to the Zoo (and a Lullaby, Too)

We're so excited to show Ezra lions, polar bears and monkeys (beyond the ones we painted on the wall of his nursery) that we made our first trip to the zoo on Sunday. Of course, the little guy pretty much slept through the whole thing. But his parents enjoyed eating cotton candy and watching the monkeys pick nits and swing from their fake jungle vines. We went with our friend Alexandra, who's expecting her own little baby girl in just a couple of months. We can't wait for her to make her debut so Ezra can add to his bevy of girlfriends to play with.

In other news, the food elimination thing seems to maybe be having good results. That and different breastfeeding poses seem to maybe be pacifying our cranky little boy - let's hope! Oh, and thank GOD for the Weego baby carrier Grandma Andi bought - it's the best sling yet! (see above family picture in front of the lions.) Ezra goes to sleep within minutes in it. Now if only someone would carry his mom around in one of those, maybe she could get some sleep, too!

Another sleep-induction technique - Daddy Gabe has been singing Ezra lullabies but recently exhausted his repertoire. So he moved on to the Beastie Boys. (See video). I figured it's my retaliation for the ABBA video.



Love, Ash (and Gabe and Ez)

P.S. I've updated the slideshow at the bottom of this page with pics from weeks three through five (many thanks to Aunt Katy for her wonderful contributions!)

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me ...

Well friends, we seem to have set a new record for slacking on the blog posts -- one week.

So, they say parenthood is a roller-coaster ride. Well, I'm saying it, at least. Ezra has had a few days of nonstop fussing this week, which have the cumulative affect of turning his parents into wide-eyed, bedraggled heaps of sleep deprivation. Things have at last improved in the last couple of days. Ash is experimenting with eliminating certain food groups in her diet (read: anything with flavor). We're not sure if it's that or just the natural cycles of babyhood, but Ez has calmed down a smidge.

On Friday we finally dragged the little guy into the office. He was a smashing success, and seemed to delight in disrupting everyone's work day. It was a lot of fun to pass him around to our co-workers (after disinfecting them carefully ... you never know what bugs those public radio people are carrying around with them). We intend to teach him how to cut tape and book interviews just as soon as he can sit up and keep his head upright.

Meanwhile, we gave Ez his first bottle feeding last night. We had been advised to start getting him used to it so the transition is easier when Ash goes back to work. We were a bit nervous about this, as we've read some horror stories about parents who can't get their breastfed babies to accept a bottle. But Ez took it up right away, and drained that sucker with abandon. His daddy was very gratified at being able to participate in the feeding. This phase has brought with it a whole world of gear and processes to learn: bottles, electric breast pump, freezer storage, microwave steam bags, various tubes, funnels, nipples and mechanisms. It's a lot to deal with, but the kiddo seems to be taking it all in stride, so we're happy.

Ezra will have his one-month checkup at the pediatrician's this week (though he'll be 5.5 weeks by then). We'll be sure to report the results in this space.

And lastly, I recently reviewed a bunch of our video, and uncovered this little chestnut, which I am posting without permission from Ashley. Enjoy!



Love as ever,
Gabe, Ash and Ez