baby race

Next week at the UR basketball game is our favorite, favorite half-time entertainment show: the baby race. Now the halftime shows at these games run the gamut from sort of useless and boring (dancers) to wow I wouldn't have imagined that (dogs in hurdle races) to touching and awesome (young gymnasts flying all over). But no single halftime event keeps people in their seats more than the baby race.

It's a simple concept--one parent takes the baby to the baseline under one basket, and the other one goes to half court. First baby to span those 47 feet wins--and wins big. It's worth a $500 grocery gift certificate at one of the nice snobby grocery stores. 

We've watched the race for three years now, and it's hilarious. A little like a turtle race: some of the babies never get far off the starting line, others head straight for the other side, and still others get part of the way across and turn around to go back to the baseline. Some could use a corral to help them out. Then, of course, there's the baby who realizes she's sitting on a gym floor with music blaring and thousands of people looking at her and her parents yelling at her and she just melts into tears. That's not as funny, though it always happens. Of course, watching desperate coach/parents is half the fun. It's five hundred bucks, right?

So we'll be entering PC in the race. The only hitch? Well, um,  he doesn't crawl yet. He scoots a little, he has full 360-degree turn-ability when he's on his stomach, and he can walk along a couch or play pen while holding on. But he doesn't crawl, and he may not. Still, who can resist the baby race? I figure he loves his mom so much that if I take him to the starting line, he might just muster his first crawl out of sheer desire to reach her. 

Though early efforts were unsuccessful, we still have about ten days to train him. Buckle up, PC! Things are getting serious.

shopping at wal*mart

sleeping with the enemy?

He sleeps with us. That's the bottom line. We have plans for him to sleep on his own, in the beautiful cherry wood crib given to us by Grandma A, which we'll put the room that used to be our work room. But it hasn't happened yet, and it may not for awhile.

Parents we've talked to about where the baby sleeps seem split along two lines. There's the "teach him to self-soothe" camp whose babies sleep alone and the more casual, "do what works for you" camp who sleep with their baby.

Some say do what works. You sleep with your baby just like millions of people across the world have done for millenia out of lack of space or need of heat. Let's face it--the setting aside of a distinct baby room is a privilege of rich people (relatively speaking) with big houses. If you have an especially big family you're probably even more likely sleep with the kids. Babycenter calls this "sleep sharing." About 13 percent of families with a kid PC's age do this, and, for us, it has worked pretty well. He typically does not wake up much at all, and hasn't since he was a couple months old. And waking up to him smiling at me is really, really great.

The majority group is a vocal and passionate set of parents who advocate an early habit of putting him in the crib (say at a couple months) to avoid having to teach him to sleep apart from his parents down the line. Apparently, it is much more difficult to teach them to sleep on their own, away from their parents, when they get older. This group tells some scary stories about how difficult it can be to train your child to sleep alone and self-soothe, but these dedicated parents fight each night until it works or until they have run out of patience.

There are dozens more alternatives beyond these two, for sure. And lots of opinions, theories, and books to read. But in any case, what we have going right now works and it is in the clear minority for some good reasons. By most accounts, we will be dealing with a very unhappy, crying baby each night once we begin to train him to sleep on his own. Yuck.

This would be a good time for him to be Perfect In Every Way--to prove all the conventional wisdom wrong. They say that rules are defined by the exceptions, right?

baby talk

PC is still at the level of unintelligible babble when he "talks" to us, but it's fascinating to listen to him experiment with sounds (give a short listen). And I do mean experiment, because often times he is making the sounds and reacting to them in a little bit of PC Theater. This is the age of continual surprise, and when he surprises himself with the sounds he can make, it can be funny.

When adults talk like babies it's weird. The folks at babycenter.com actually coach parents not to repeat baby sounds, but to speak to your kid with fully formed words and good diction and some sense that what you're really doing is showcasing vocabulary (and memes, I guess. Is there a linguist in the house?) PC's grandpa reads books about this, and so I'll leave the science to him and my friend Gretchen at FSU, but suffice it to say that even in societies where parents don't speak to their kids much at all, kids on average grow up, learn language, and do just fine.

It's even more strange when adults talk baby talk when there' s no baby around, but this is what happens outside my office door now. Students, usually women, stop by to catch up and they see PC's pic (it's the same one from the profile to your right) and they are of course awed by the overwhelming perfection and they kind of start talking to the photo. Using baby talk. It's weird.

if the children are our future, then ...

Yesterday was the first day I taught a class at the University since last May. Among other things, the research leave that has now ended was a way to experience working-parenting on a more manageable scale. The first day back felt great, even exhilarating at times, but when it was over I was still wired, I had a thousand things on my mind, and I had been gone and away from the Prince for almost eleven hours. I did put a picture of him on my office door thus guaranteeing about a half-dozen PC convo's a day.

We are fortunate. Though C's job with the city schools does not afford her anything by way of paid maternity leave, if you have a baby at the beginning of summer you can at least begin your recovery without having to go into work. Still, it could be so much better for working parents in this country. Last month we were out to dinner with a colleague of mine from Stockholm and talking about work leave in Sweden. There, the government supports families by paying new parents to take leave from their jobs and be with the kid for a year and a half. This has to happen within the first five years of life, or so, which allows double-income couples to stagger their leaves. Some professionals take a pay cut when they go on the stipend, but I'm told that it is reasonable. Of course, someone has to pay for all that leave--hello, high taxes--but is this kind of setup not absolutely consistent with the totally pro-natal, pro-family culture we live in? The Swedes are onto something simple: money is a great resource but so is time. In the US we simply don't have a setup that allows us to be the wonderful parents we imagine ourselves to be.

new teeth

This is the first shot of PC's new bottom row teeth. (For you K8E!) We think he's doing quite a bit of teething these days, judging by his (by now common) practice of chomping on everything he can pull to his mouth, and by his face scratching, which seems to say--something's going on in my head!

He is very proud of his ability to hold himself up on his feet. It produces gleeful noises and cheery, showoff smiles.

new truck

holiday pictures

It turns out Flickr wants money after your first 200 photos are posted. While we raise that money and figure out if Picasa will work well with mac software, here are a few shots from the holidays. Enjoy, and happy holidays!!


























we'll plant this in the yard


PC's holidaze outfit blends prison and barbershop motifs



he's fascinated with trucks. The doll
on the floor talks--thanks Menomonie
clan!


sitting and spinning: still in vogue


what did Lola get?


Lola got JUICY COUTURE. Wow!


PC got 100 balls.

Paul needs his own blog

Essays on Prairie Home Companion, Baudrillard, "My Own Personal Everest": VERBOTEN! If it needs a citation, it does not belong.