Ticket to ride

A dismal 21% of Americans own a passport. Micah was issued his first passport at just over 3 months of age. Now I must share with you that obtaining this photo with the requisite head shot measurement was no easy feat with our pinhead child (recall he is below 50th percentile for head circumference. I speak only truth--not biting cruelty). After several tries and some very tired biceps we captured this dopey shot of Micah balancing on my hand with his head at the height of a 6 foot tall man's, perfectly angled behind the flash bulb. Phew. Mexico here we come!

Snotty boy

Surprise, surprise, Micah has a cold. This means it was time for our first cold-related test as parents: the nasal aspirator. Now I must confess, I was looking forward to using this thing, delighting in the thought of all the mucusy-green-gobbledy-gook I was going to suck from my poor babe's nostrils thereby bestowing upon him the gift of unobstructed breath again. Perhaps those of you with a penchant towards similarly mildly gross, yet utterly satisfying bodily maintenance tasks can relate (I'm thinking specifically of the sheer glee I get from peeling a particularly large piece of sunburned skin off or plucking those pesky-barely-grown-out eyebrow hairs.) The again, perhaps you don't exist and I am all alone in thinking this would be a satisfying experience. But wait. I know I'm not alone. I know at least one other who is out there and her name is Kareen Hawkins: my mother. The mother who would pick my own scabby knees while I sat in her lap as a little girl. I guess it is hereditary.

Any way, back to the nose hose. Well, I am here to tell you this experience was horrible. Not only does a nasal aspirator suck (oops--that was a Zack pun), the gravity defying cruelty you must put your wriggling, snorting, crying baby through before hand to loosen up the mucus is simply...well, I don't even have the words. We followed Dr. Sears' advice and squirted a saline spray up each nostril, held Micah practically upside down so the salt water could do its cleansing magic and then attempted to suction it all out with aforementioned nasal device. The thing is, to really work the nasal aspirator has to make a seal in Micah's wee nostril, and given that Zack and I were both THAT kid who always got nose bleeds growing up, we were hesitant to stick it up there, fearful of hitting a weak blood vessel. In the end we just sucked it out with our mouths.

JUST KIDDING. But seriously folks, until he is old enough to blow snot rockets of his own, this nasal aspirator-thingy appears to be the only option. Bummer.

Breast milk: the elixir of life

Did you know that breast milk provides complete nurishment for a baby up until 6 month of life. Breast milk is even so clever as to start out watery and then towards the end of a feed, fatten up its content so as to fill up the baby. Did you know I had to squirt breast milk into Micah's eye during his first few weeks of life? Why, you may ask, did I hover over my son's eye frantically trying to both express some milk and aim it directly into his eye while he peered up in bewilderment, tracking my roving nipple with his open mouth? Full of antibodies too, that breast milk. You see Micah was suffering from a gunky eye that would get so crusted over he couldn't open it at times. Presto, a few squirts in the eye and it cleared up over night. I bet that was more than you wanted to know.

I am reminded of the beneficial powers of breast milk at present because I am sick, sick, sick and yet I must still feed Micah. I am comforted by knowing that while I exhale my germ infested breathe over my son and expose him to bouts of microbe dispersing sneezes and coughs he is being provided lasting protection from my milk. Now we can all sleep better at night.

Micah gets his wings

Here are photos to document Micah's first airplane travel. Looking at that first picture he looks as though he could take off himself with those ears! I blame myself for this. We were prepared to disperse earplugs amongst our neighbors--but we didn't have to. He was such an angel!

One hundred days old

I wish you could hear his gurgles. We're working on that.

Baby Mullet

We're thinking of sending this one in to MulletJunkie.com

i LOVE being 3 months old!

Here is baby Micah on his 3 month birthday, September 9th 2006. Note the head holding as he peers over his daddy's shoulder. Such a little man. We're so proud.

Catching up Part 3: The third month

First off the stats: At his 2 month (plus a week) check up he weighed in at 14 lbs 8 oz and 24.5". That equated to 95th percentile for both weight & height. Of course he is also a pinhead (seriously: below 50th percentile for head circumfrence)

So I finally picked up a baby development book and lo and behold...Micah is right on target. Hand play characterizes this month and man, has he ever found his hands. The sound of contented finger sucking is often back ground noise. He is particularly fond of stuffing both his little thumb and index finger into his mouth at the same time.

Oh...and I'm officially a horrible mother. I was clipping his wee finger nails (the ones that seem to grow a full centimeter over night) and well, I clipped the tip of his pinky finger. Yes, I drew blood. You can imagine how I felt. If only he wasn't so spastic and flailing his arms about all the time scratching his face, I'd just let them grow.

Oh and the noises are just too cute for words. He is very verbose. Coos and exaggerated sighs. Little conversations with himself. Zack swears he heard him say, "gingham" (He also thinks he heard him say, "enema" for that matter). He has this wonderful deep laugh that I wish I could bottle.

We have begun to take Micah out for short spins in his awesome BOB stroller (Stop with the disapproving looks, already! We realize everyone says wait until 6 months, but the manufacturer claims it is safe from birth up. He is a strong boy and is holding his head quite well, certainly well enough to cruise smoothly on some pavement. Besides, he loves it).

The other amazing thing about this month is that he actually has started holding on to you. It brought tears to my eyes the first time I felt his little arm around my neck holding on as I carried him around.

Catching up Part 2: The second month

Two words: Baby Acne.

So this was not Micah's most photogenic period--but I made myself feel better by googling "baby acne" and looking at other parents' spotty babes and felt much better. The heat wave we experienced didn't help either and if I wasn't such a novice at this baby thing I would conjecture that he had a bout of prickly heat too (suuuure, prickly heat, you say).

In any event our little boy just got bigger and bigger this month--and even started filling out a wee bit. He absolutely LOVES his ugly doll, OX (as in Hug and Kiss).--featured prominently in these photos. While being changed he looks over and pokes at him--any day he's going to pull him on top of himself. Hmmm, would that be a suffocation hazard?

I think the cutest thing about this month was that towards the end he finally noticed his hands. I'd catch him staring at his tiny fists, as is to say, "You again. You're still there..and you appear to be attached to me." He'd marvel at that fist until he was practically cross-eyed.

Catching up Part 1: The first month

Oh geez, where to begin. Let's start with noises--both endearing and god damn maddening. Endearing: 1) Micah's sneezes. He makes this high pitched sound that stretches out the last syllable of the sneeze (A-chooooo!) --a sound that is virtually impossible to describe in words just how cute it is. 2) Micah's sweet baby sighs while napping. It is this melodious sing song noise in rhythm with his breath.
Maddening: The grunting. Hands down. I'd take crying any day over this. We have dubbed Micah, "Gruntzilla" for his early morning--and I mean early-- sleep-grunts. And no, he is not constipated. He, of course, is sleeping merrily along--just grunting the whole time.

In terms of physical developments, by the end of the month he definetly started to notice his world beyond two feet and my breast. He was even able to be weight bearing on his legs--a feat not accomplished typically until the third month according to my baby book (she says brimming with pride).

Other than that I guess I'd add that this boy likes to eat! By his two week check up he had gained nearly two pounds over his hospital discharge weight of 7 lbs 5 oz. The doctor explained that by the 2 week check up they usually hope that they've made up the weight they lost in the hospital. Micah was well above his 7lbs 13 oz birth weight. Somehow I wasn't surprised thinking of the nightly feeds every two hours I had been enduring up until that point (and presently I might add).

Micah arrives

First off, this is Amy, Micah's mom. I'll fill in until Micah is of an age where he can not only recognize his own name but also has the motor skills to update his own blog.

Where to begin...I expect at the beginning, which would be at Micah's birth, June 9th 2006 at 12:25 in the afternoon (I'll spare you all the details of his 11 hour passage into this world, except to say it was both the most physically difficult and rewarding experience of my life and I did it all without an epidural).

When they placed him on my belly, I actually had to ask, "What is it?" as in this era of ultrasounds and "sexing" your baby (there's a new term I learned and no, Megan's Law does not apply) there was no jubilant cry from the doctor, "It's a boy!" He was beautiful. I realize I was slightly biased and though they could have been lying to my face, the nurses all agreed too (yes, I asked them to confirm his cuteness). Before we were even discharged to the post-partum room, Micah was surrounded by so much love. Zack, my mom and Ann, our friend and doula, had all attended the birth. My dad and brother soon joined us from the waiting room and shortly after our friends, Rachael, Rodrigo, Becca, Forrest and Erin were all there too--having skived off the rest of their work day for this momentous occasion.

I was on a high and sleep evaded me for hours. Who knew it was possible to stare at a sleeping baby blob for as long as we did. What struck me most about those first couple of nights in the hospital was the cacophony coming from Micah's bassinet. Whoever thought up the expression, "sleeping like a baby" clearly had never heard a newborn. He sort of snorted and wheezed all through the night--scaring me half to death because I thought for sure he couldn't breathe at times.

Soon enough it was time for the three of us to leave the womb of Alta Bates Hospital and go back to our former lives. It is a weird thing entering a hospital pregnant, spending three days there in which time your former life as you know it changes irrevocably under one roof, and then you leave said hospital to return to the streets and home you knew before, only with a babe in arms. Not to mention they just let you leave...with a BABY...with nothing but a quick check of the car seat and loaded up with a nasal aspirator and some cheesy stuffed bear with "Food Service" written across the belly (a gift from none other than the Alta Bates Meal Service Team). I mean, there is no parenting test you have to go through--no Diaper Changing 101, no certification of infant CPR...they just let you leave...with a baby.

So we did. We packed our proverbial bundle of joy up in the car and headed home--driving about 10 miles under the speed limit the whole way.