Where has summer gone?!

Hello friends. Long time no blog. I've been busy, herding Ivy from one baby gathering to another, and trying to unearth myself from the ever-growing collection of digital pictures on my computer that I can't seem to organize. Ugh. And we got a little video camera, so now I'm getting into making little movies, though clearly I did not need to add yet another memory-making project to the already full plate. For crying out loud, we still have a few thank you notes to go, and a small stack of birth announcements to still be sent. But I am making a little progress, and I've gotten crafty to boot. I even made wall letters for Ivy!


Well let's see...we've hit some great milestones in the last few weeks. Ivy is smiling up a storm, and laughing and cooing. She's has pretty much mastered all the vowels, which is awesome. Only 21 consonants to go.

Her motor skills are developing right on track. Her neck is getting super strong and is great at lifting her head. She has also recently discovered her hands, and that they have a purpose beyond idly and randomly batting objects within reach. The other evening, I had a blanket on her in the stroller and she pulled it up to her face and tried to chew on the edge! She does that more and more, grabbing and pulling them to her mouth. Yum.

Ivy has also figured out how to sleep through the night, more or less! What a godsend. About 3 weeks ago she had her longest stretch - 9 hours!!! - and since then had slipped back to about 6. But this last week she's improved back to 8-9 hours, so we are all feeling more rested around here. It's also nice to have some time in the evenings after she goes to bed to get stuff done around the apartment and chill out with a bad Netflix movie.

It seems that since Ivy was born, things have been periodically and randomly disappearing into the ether. I have no explanation for these disappearances, but it's quite troubling. Items lost to date into the Silverstein Vapor:

• A check for $20...sorry Jon.
  
• Multiple binkies...despite daily attempts at Binky Roundups
• Mike's bluetooth. Shoot, there's that CA hands-free cell while driving law.
  
• A pair...no make that two pairs...of my comfy pants (awesome for hanging out with Ivy without having to worry about the last 5 lbs of pudge)
• Is that it? Feels like more...Mike, feel free to chime in here.

Only 2 more weeks before going back to work...trying not to think about it, and trying to enjoy every moment with my little one.

Here are the latest photos, for those STILL not on Facebook. Even 90 year old GGH has jumped on!

Hanging out at Home
First trip to San Diego

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.

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

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:

My Traveling Star
Ivy Discovers her Inner Gelles

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!

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

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!