Tuesday, July 29, 2008

My daughter is a player

Literally, as she is certainly getting around to various play dates. I don't know when the last time you went to a park was, but I had totally forgotten how sweet parks are! I mean there are trees and grass...the simpler things in life. Well, life with Ivy has caused me to rediscover parks. We've now had a bunch of play dates, also bringing about a realization that at this age the play dates are really for the parents! Who knew! What a concept. It's been great for my social life, as it's easy to feel like a prisoner in your own home if you don't make an effort to get out.

Ivy and Abby Gabby whoop it up on the floor...Ivy takes no notice, and Abby on a number of occasions accidentally whaps Ivy in the face.

Ivy and Jonah - born 2 days before her - are also blissfully unaware of one another as they chill on a blanket in the park.

Ivy meets her newest friend (she's now no longer the youngest IKARite) and Brentwood neighbor, Noa...or NoJo as the kids call her. Noa here is 5 days old. That Lisa and Dave sure made a cutie!

Let's see, what else... Thanks to Grandpa Harvey, Ivy is the proud new owner of 3 pairs of Adidas sneakers, her first soccer uniform (it was only a matter of time), and not one but 4 Red Sox hats. Classic. She rocked out with her grandparents this weekend, while Mike and I had our first night out alone! Fortunately for all involved, Ivy was asleep the whole time as Grandma pushed her in the stroller around Brentwood and went to dinner. We had a lovely dinner together, and bought Ivy a new carseat toy. Who says we'd never get out??!!

In other news, Ivy continues to grow like a weed. She's already outgrown some of her clothes - a onesie was busting off her the other day - and we've moved up to size 2 Pampers. Size 1-2 goes up to 14lbs, but she was pooping through them too regularly and they were a bit tight. So we've moved on. This is my life.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Wash your damn hands

My latest rant involves hand-washing. Now some people raise their babies in a super-protective plastic bubble and refuse to let any potential germs or bacteria in, but that's just not us. I mean, pretty soon Ivy's gonna be having tea parties on the bathroom floor of the WJCC with Abby Gab and NoJo anyway, so a completely sterile environment is just not happening. That being said, we do ask people to wash their hands (or Purell, though soap and water is more effective) before holding the baby. I don't see why this should be a problem - people should want to eliminate germs from their lives anyway. Plus with all the funky soaps and lotions now available (my favorite flavor is "tester"), hand-washing time has become more fun than ever.

Younger people, I've noticed, have no problem with this. They wash, dry, hold Ivy. No biggie. It's the older (50+) generation that seems to have beef. "Can I hold the baby?" "Do you mind washing your hands first?" "Huh!" (like we've called their mothers prostitutes). No we don't think you're especially grubby; we ask EVERYONE to wash their hands before holding the baby. This is then usually tested by the person: "Wash my hands? Did you ask so-and-so to wash her hands before holding the baby?" YES lady, we tell EVERYONE to wash their hands. Sheesh.

Then when other people go to hold the baby, the first person makes a big deal out of it. "Did that person wash their hands? Cause I had to wash my hands, you know. You made me wash my hands." YES lady, they washed their hands too. You don't have to be so snide about it. It's just hand washing! It's not like we asked you to donate a kidney before holding the baby (though organ donation is a very commendable act).

The funniest example of this was at Gelles's wedding (mazal tov!). This crazy yenta lady came up to me and said "That is the cutest baby. Oh my Gd what a gorgeous baby. Let me hold the baby. I HAVE TO HOLD THE BABY!!!" I said, "Do you mind washing your hands first?" and she has a conniption fit. Finally after five minutes of arguing I say to her "Look, if you have such a problem with washing your hands, would you mind putting on some Purell?" She agrees to that. I hand her Ivy, who has been asleep or quietly happy the entire day (it is now about 11 pm), and within ONE SECOND of being held by this woman, Ivy starts screaming and the woman hands her back to me. So after all that agita, she held the baby for less than a minute. Maybe Ivy knew this woman was whack; she's very intuitive.

So wash your damn hands! Who knows where those hands have been? Grody. - Mike

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Love that dirty water...


We just returned from a wonderful vacation in Boston. Our main reason for travel was to witness the nuptials of one Andrew Gelles and Jess DeNino, but we also got to spend some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa and some other east coast friends. I appreciated all the relatives clamoring for Ivy's attention, at last giving me more than an hour at a time of free hands. I frittered most of that time away, but that's what vacation is for.

Highlights of the trip include:
  • A VERY easy plane ride, although American Airlines no longer allows "passengers traveling with small children" to preboard. WTF??!! It's not that costs them any money!
  • An interesting moment in which GGH revealed a bit too much of himself while holding my precious daughter. I'm trying to block that image from my memory.
  • The main event - the wedding. Especially the bad-ass candy bar. Oh yeah, and the love.
  • A shopping spree at Carters at the Wrentham outlets, courtesy of Grandma. In fact, the whole trip was really an extended fashion show.
  • Ivy hanging out with Audrey. Future Penn roommates, perhaps?
  • Ivy sleeping for marathon stretches of time...awesome for her, not so much for the boobs.
Now we're back, and trying not to drown in thank you notes that need to be written and other paperwork/bills that need to be addressed. At least we finally unpacked. Whew. I miss vacation! And in other news, we may have found a day care for Ivy. It still breaks my heart to think about someone else taking care of her, but procrastination finding an arrangement would not do any of us any good. So alas, we are bringing a deposit today. Siiiiigh....

Enjoy these two picture albums of our vacation adventures:

Monday, July 7, 2008

One month!

WOW! Well that flew by. I can't believe I've had my little girl for one month already. As Mike mentioned, time is at a premium these days, and while I know you are all anxious to see more pictures (at least I hope you are because she is one friggin' cute baby) I am going to post links to Facebook albums from here forward, unless there are stand-alone winners that I have time to post here as well, like this one:


PHOTO ALBUMS
Ivy's First Week and Simhat Bat

Sleepy Time and Baby Shower

More to come, as quick as I can post them!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Buncha stuff since last post

Hey there bloggerinos - A lot has happened since we last posted. Apparently when you have a baby, your free time is at a premium and things like "writing a snarky blog post" take the backseat behind "eating" and "showering." Hence, lots of the following bullet points probably deserve their own fully fleshed out blog posts, and in the past would have gotten the proper treatment. But that ain't happening in the post-birth world. So without further ado, here is a numbered list of items to discuss:

1. "Are you sleeping?" is the new "Are you ready?" Everybody asks us if we're sleeping. It's getting ridiculous. The truth is, the sleep deprivation is not that bad at all. Ivy sleeps pretty well, only needing to get up once or twice per night, and if you anticipate getting up every 3 hours, then when it happens it's not the end of the world. (I've heard that babies often sleep well in the first 3 months and then become awful sleepers in the following 9 months, so hopefully I'm not jinxing anything here). But even when we tell people this, they don't really believe us. It's like they want us to be walking zombies. This then raises the question, "If we were really sleep deprived, would we want you to be constantly reminding us of that fact? Wouldn't the asker of said annoying question deserve a swift kick to the crotch?" A lot of the people who ask us this question (and have asked similar stupid questions while Kim was pregnant) are people who have children, which brought me to the realization that being a parent is kind of like being in a fraternity. You look at the pledges going through all this hell, and you laugh at them, even though you remember when you were doing it and how much it sucked. Well when I was in a fraternity, I was always nice to the pledges and never had them do anything crappy, because I remembered all too well that awful feeling of pledging. And that's the kind of parent I'm going to be, at least with other parents. Moral of the story: I rule.

2. We went to the movies. Did you feel that? That was your mind getting blown. One thing that EVERYBODY said to us while Kim was pregnant was "Go to the movies now, cause you won't go again for another 18 years! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Well this morning all three of us went to see WALL-E, and not only was the movie awesome, but Ivy slept through the whole thing and did not cause any trouble. So SUCK ON THAT, everyone else. Mean parent fraternity members.

3. I survived a baby shower. Three of Kim's mom's friends threw us a baby shower in the SD area last weekend, and I have to admit it was pretty fun, despite the fact that I was the only guy among 30 women. There was free food, and crafts, and a lot of booze. During the present-opening section of the shower, Kim had to go feed Ivy, and so I was given the task of opening gifts. I decided that instead of taking my time reading every card, then meticulously opening the present, taking out the gift so everyone could see, saying things like "Oh, it's so darling! How precious! Oh my Gd thank you so much, this is perfect!" etc., I just sped through the whole thing. Cards - who cares. Wrapping paper - meant to be ripped up. Present - yeah it's cute, they're all cute, making a onesie cute is like shooting fish in a barrel. Thanking people - eh, they'll get a card in 2-3 weeks. We all have lives, we gotta make this snappy. The ladies appreciated my attitude, and I think they were a little sad when Kim came back and took over.

4. Sun morning - a morning that will live in infamy. Last Sat night/Sun morning was a big one in the Silverstein household, because not only did Ivy have explosive diarrhea on me once and Kim TWICE (causing multiple outfits and towels of ours to be trashed), AND not only did she also barf all over Kim during one of those major poo sessions, BUT the cat also decided that he was fed up with being a second-class citizen in the apartment he used to rule with an iron fist, and so he retaliated against us and our reduction of playtime with him by barfing all over the place. We're talking multiple times in each room. And I didn't discover the puke until about 5:30 am when I went to the kitchen to get a new plastic bag to line our trash can with, so at 5:30 in the morning Kim was changing an insanely poo-ey diaper while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing cat barf out of the carpet. At this point I said to Kim "What is with these two stupid little things we have to keep alive?" And thus, the nickname "stupid little things" was born.

There may be more to report but I don't remember - we've got a lot going on here. Since Kim is more photo savvy than I am, she will soon post some pictures, including highlights from the shower and the now infamous Don Rickles Photo. (These are all on Facebook so if you're not on that, you're late to the party). Ta. - Mike

Thursday, June 26, 2008

This is the first day of the rest of your maternity leave...

...is what I thought on Tuesday morning as Mike headed to his new job and Ivy and I were faced with the realization of what the next 10 weeks would be like.

Staying home with a person who is pre-verbal is hard. Not to mention the lack of the extra pair of hands (Mike's). I realized how many things you CAN'T do while holding a baby...everything from eating a bowl of cereal to washing your hands. Showering and doing laundry are out of the question. But at least I can one-hand type on my laptop with Ivy cradled in the other arm. Because gd forbid I didn't get a chance to update my Facebook status.

We survived day 1 okay, but day 2 (yesterday) was a whole other story. I had a major meltdown in the afternoon, and it would have been the second of the day if Stephanie hadn't shown up earlier, impeccably timed to prevent what would have been the first one. I spent about six hours of my day, the last two of which I was also juggling a fussy baby, on the phone trying to fix our downed internet. It was a classic situation of Verizon tells me it's not the DSL so I need to call Belkin (the wireless router people), and they of course tell me they can't fix it blah blah blah giving me wrong information and to call back Verizon. We play this game for hours, and I'm on the verge of tears. Then at one point I actually hang up on the guy and just start bawling. It was not pretty. At least Ivy was asleep for most of this show.

In the end, the internet was fixed, I took Ivy on a walk to Starbucks and when Mike came home I left her in his arms and made a mad dash for Target. We did need a couple things, but I really just needed to get out by myself and where better than to find soothing retail therapy than Target? A two-story one no less!

So yup, that's my life these days. This week is my getting adjusted grace period. Next week, I plan to be more productive and active...we shall see!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Two Weeks Notice

Ivy is two weeks old today...I can't decide if it feels like 2 hours or 2 lifetimes. Being super-preggers seems like years ago, but I feel like we just came home from the hospital. It's amazing how time loses all definition when the days and nights blend together, and the daily/nightly rhythm is punctuated by feedings and diaper changes, not to mention the cabin fever of laying low at home. It's been great, but we're definitely getting more aggressive at getting out. Our sanity depends on it.

So let's see...Mike's description of labor and the birth was more or less accurate. If you want to talk about a mind-f**k when it comes to time, let's talk about 28 hours of labor, which really meant being awake for nearly 72 hours. I woke up normally on Thursday morning and didn't really go to bed until Saturday night, with a couple brief catnaps interspersed (post epidural and then when I was moved to my recovery room). Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I pushed out a 9 pound kid. No sweat. So now here we sit 2 weeks later, reflecting on our accomplishment of keeping Ivy alive for 14 days strong.

First week at home was relaxing...once all the family left, we were left to our own devices and had to figure out this new lifestyle of ours. I have to say, it's really not at all what I expected but in a good way. Ivy is a great sleeper (although I hear this is common for the first couple weeks, and every parent thinks their kid is going to be sleeping through the night any day now), and I've actually had to wake her to feed her. Hopefully once she's back to her extraordinary birth weight and we know she's gaining steadily, we can be back to feeding on her demand, not that of my breasts. That's the other thing - modesty has become a virtually nonexistent concept, as I imagine is the case for most women who give birth and breastfeed. It was not uncommon to hear me talking about my cervix with friends before she was born, or about latching and nipple leakage recently. My friend's 10 year old daughter was a little creeped out by this, but strangely fascinated at the same time. I feel the same way, frankly.

Anyway, back to the sleeping - I'm sure Ivy has a long road ahead of her before I can ever dream of an 8-hour night's sleep again, but it really isn't that bad. I feed her before we go to bed around midnight (though it is hard to stay up that late most nights), she eats again around 3:00 or 4:00, and then again around 6:00 or 7:00...after which we usually go back to sleep again. And since I'm responsible for input, Mike takes care of the output so the division of middle of the night labor is quite reasonable.

And as far as the days are concerned, it's been so wonderful being at home with her and Mike. After a couple days we ventured out for a walk in the neighborhood, which we now try to do every day or so. We've been playing a lot with photos of her, and trying to stay in touch with everyone. And we take naps, which are awesome, especially when Ivy is passed out on our chests. She's been such a great baby, and we love staring into her eyes and talking to her and being goofy with her. We call her our little Chicken Wing because of the way she keeps her legs tucked up sometimes, reminiscent of her time in the womb. And last night we ventured out to IKAR for the first time...she screamed the whole way there, though if she's already hot and bothered by LA traffic now, we better start saving for therapy so she can deal with her road rage 16 years down the road.

Here are a couple pictures to enjoy:

Poker loves the new chair...he keeps it warm when we're not using it.
First walk in Brentwood!
Hanging out with Grandpa Harvey

Chillin' with Dad

Ivy receives her name at her Simhat Bat

The Silversteins
The Rogoffs

Kim and Zuzana, with Ivy and Abby respectively...we're already gearing up for the first sleepover!
My personal fave...our little rock star!