Cluster Feeding

The doctor tells us that while babies are experiencing growth spurts - they cluster feed. And, around the sixth week of life, many babies experience growth spurts. Thus, as Elliot shares many traits with many babies, he's cluster feeding. It has a weird sound to it - cluster feeding. But, that's what he's doing. For the last couple of days, about every hour, he hungers for the boob. Now, I've heard about insatiable breast men, but this is ridiculous.

The good thing is that all of his cluster feeding has paid off - he's been growing like a little knot weed. Little Elliot Kahlil is now 25 inches long and a whopping 13 pounds, 2 ounces. In just six weeks, he's added about two-thirds of his starting weight. Wow. He seems like a prime candidate for the South Beach diet. He should be sweatin' to the oldies with Richard Simmons, or at least dining with Jenny Craig. But, instead, he continues to cluster feed - 'chompin at the tit' you might say.

Actually last night was a good night. We thought, because he just returned from the doctor and received four shots - that's right four little pricks in his little legs, and a blood test on top of that - that he would be a royal mess last night. And, to our surprise - quite pleasantly - he was in a great mood and slept for a record five hours. Maybe it was the tylenol we gave him, or maybe that shot of morphine I slipped into his drink (in baby terms, wine I slipped into Justeen), but he slept well. And so did parents.

So we've been taking lots of pictures, but I haven't been able to keep up with the blog as much I'd like. I apologize about the week between posts, but I hope to pick up the pace now that my semester is coming to end. I give you several pics from the last week. And as Elliot spends more and more time awake, in what we've taken to calling 'happyland,' we hope to have more opportunites for eyes-wide-open pics.

I'll leave you with the lyrics for the song I sing to him when he's about to get fussy. If you want to sing along at home, just insert any generic jazzy groove.

"So when you feel like you want to fuss,
Just turn around and get on the bus...

To happyland...to happyland...it's happyland!"


Elliot and Izzy have a little thing going. Here they are hamming it up for the camera.



And here's the little guy with his favorite stuffed toys. What a rock star!

Waking Up is Hard to Do

Almost more difficult than falling asleep, waking up poses its own challenges. Elliot can sometimes spend ten minutes transitioning from a deep sleep to waking life. These transition minutes can be quite difficult for the little guy as he stretches all his muscles and bends his body in every way imaginable. I'm not convinced that there is too much of a cognitive distinction between these two states - waking and sleeping - but it would seem that there is a rather extreme physical disjunction that he contends with as he drifts back and forth between them each day. Speaking as an onlooker, I enjoy this process quite a bit. When he's in what I'll call a "slaking" state, he's very fun to be around. When I talk to him he seems to respond with extreme expressions. This supplies oodles of amusement for his motion picture starved parents. So imagine that I'm talking to him and I say, "Elliot, the Democrats might take the White House in 2008"


And then I say, "But Bush will be in office for another three years."


And then, just as urgently as he struggled to fight his way out of his slaking state, he falls back into a deep sleep. And Izzy, always an accomodating sibling, joins him.

Passover Elliot

The bean had his first two passover seders - and he slept right through each of them. We hope that as he gets older he takes a little more interest in what's going on. It's been a very busy week - two seders in a row have kept baby and parents running around town. On Wednesday, we went to Karen's house (Justeen's colleague) for a lovely seder meal, and on Thursday we drove up to Salem to go to Rob's seder (Eric's colleague). Both nights were great - interesting, inspiring, and passionate. But, again, our son slept straight through. I find myself apologizing for his rude behaviour. He's meeting all these new people, and sleeping through the introductions. How does he expect to network if he can't even stay awake?

It's Saturday morning and we're about to go work in the community garden. I wouldn't put it past him to sleep through the work day. This is why communism doesn't work - because people like Elliot shirk their duties. Why, he's sleeping now - sitting in his neglect-o-matic, facing the window - looking peaceful. I mean, he should be studying, right? There are pre-school entrance exams to take, records to break, intramural sports to play. His constant sleeping is making it difficult for us to program his life.

I suppose we'll have to accept him for who he is - a beautiful, sleepy, poopy, baby boy. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Pics from Grandparents

Here are some pics that my parents took during their last visit. Notice how they photoshoped away Elliot's blemishes. Now that's love.

Pics of Dad

So, we discovered that I looked a lot like Elliot when I was a tyke. Here's me at six weeks old.

Grandparent visit

It's been quite some time since the last post. There are a number of reasons for this pause in service. One, lack of sleep and reality of work has caught up with me, and two, my desire to take pictures of our little boy was reduced by his unfortunate skin condition. And to be honest, I also lost the AC adaptor to my camera, so the thing ran out of batteries. All those things combined produced the perfect storm of photographic inactivity. While problem number one is still in full force, you'll be happy to know that problem number two is clearing up, and problem number three was solved yesterday when I looked in the big bag of apparently useless technologies I keep in the closet.

Now on to the topic of the post. My parents, Elliot's grandparents came to town this weekend from Los Angeles. They were thrilled to see the little bean, and dare I say, the little bean was thrilled to see them. He performed all of his important biological functions for them and even added a few more for prosperity's sake. What a good boy.

We were quite active this weekend. We went out to eat three times, and took a trip to the New England Aquarium. Elliot was impressed by the penguins and jellyfish. Everything else bored him to sleep. And to be honest, most of the time in the jellyfish exhibit, he just stared at Justeen's boob. I'm trying to expose the boy to culture, but all he seems to think about are breasts - the original pornography. I wonder how the republicans feel about that.

And now for the pics:

Here's Elliot after he found out he grew three inches since his last doctor's visit.



And here he is hanging with his grandmother. She doesn't like this photo, but because of the problems posted above, it's one of the only shots I have of them together. I don't think it's so bad - so it goes to the blog.


Justeen looks like she's being ordered to smile by rebel soldiers. And Elliot looks like his calling his buddies for help. It's quite a disturbing image - but this blog is about "telling the truth" and that's just what I'm doing.

Speaking of truth, here's the little man in his favorite knit hat made by his great grandmother shirley. He loves this hat. I know that because he hasn't spit up on it yet. I know what you're thinking - it's hard to spit up on a hat, but you don't know the power of my son's power to purge as I do. It's very possible...all too possible.

Third Week Funk-meister

With Elliot's third week of life came a little bit of fussiness. He's been harder to please lately and were not really sure why. Justeen went to a breast feeding class yesterday and she heard rather consistently from the parents of three-week-olds, that it's a turning point in life. Perhaps it's like an early adolesence - he's rebelling against his naive youthful days. Those first three weeks of life, he was taken in by the man and he bought the repressive ideology of capitalism hook, line and sinker. Now, man, he's going to fight back. Fight the power! Or something like that. All I know is that mom, dad and baby are getting less sleep than they would all probably like. Also, to make matters worse, Elliot's acne has gotten worse. I suppose it goes along with his youthful rebellion. Hormones are surging through his bloodstream and erupting in his poor pores. He's still cute, but I'm having terrible flash-forwards to his teenage years and I'm not liking it. I figure I should have at least a good decade before he starts his obligitory rebellion. But, I suppose you take it as it comes.

So today was a beautiful day here in beantown. It was 72 degrees and simply stunning. People are stupid with spring fever as they emerge from their winter hideaways and stumble deliriously onto the streets soaking in the warm sun. Days like today make living here really spectacular. Everyone, and their children, were out looking for smiling faces and it was like a big party in the neighborhood. We planted some pansies in the front yard and we're eagerly awaiting the budding tulips, lilacs and forsynthia. Even Elliot, when we took him outside was stunned by the general feeling of goodwill that a sunny day in March could bring.

Here's little Elliot taking a break after a long day of fussin' n' sun.


And here's mom and baby having come to a mutual understanding.

Pizza Face

No new pictures today. Partly, because little Elliot has some gnarly acne and I don't think he would appreciate a photo shoot just about now, and partly because the little guy has taken to not sleeping, ergo his parents have taken to not sleeping. Just getting by with the minimum amount of work I need to do to keep my job is challenge enough. But, thankfully for me, Justeen is still taking the brunt of the sleeplessness. For the last two nights, she, Izzy and Elliot went downstairs and let me get a few hours of sleep. I thank them all for their merciful indulgence of my sleep needs. Being that I teach a class until 10pm this evening and I'm mired in hours of academic counseling this week, those four hours of good sleep are priceless.

So, we go imageless for just another day or two. By Thursday I'm sure I will have subjected our little acne boy to some more representations. Maybe it's a good thing to record his first acne outbreak - then when he's fourteen and depressed by his skin ruptures, I can show him that he's already fought and won a battle with those little red confidence killers.

Oh yeah, one more thing. We discovered the name "smelliot." And we thought his name was tease-proof.

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

Just got back from a walk. Lesson learned: make sure the little bean is fed before venturing too far from home. We stopped on a park bench near the lake, had some lunch, and Elliot figured that he wanted to have lunch too. Well, all hell broke loose and the little guy screamed and wimpered throughout the speedy fifteen minute walk home. We were hasty. We left the house without proper timing.

I learned something else: selfishness is immature. Obsessing over one's own needs above all else, the inability to empathize, the lack of awareness of other consciousnesses, is simply immature. It's OK for Elliot, because he's only two weeks old. But, what of people in their thirties, forties, and beyond who are still incapable of acknolwedging the existence and sovereignty of others? They've never grown out of that primal impulse for self-preservation. I think Elliot has taught me more about adults than he has about children. He's the ultimate anthropological subject - a true human "native."

But I excuse my son for his selfishness. After all, that focus on self-preservation is certainly what has secured the persistence of humanity. But interestingly, the inability to grow out of that self-preservation instinct will surely be what destroys it. I hope I can teach my son one day what he's just taught me.

Lost Post

I had a long, descriptive post about the past several days of Elliot's life and my computer crashed. And I'm too hungry and tired to write the post again. So, for now, those days go unremembered. But, I have pictures to share.

This is Elliot in his warm, fuzzy bunny (or bear) suit. Whatever it is, it has ears and it's white. And he looks very suave when prancing about around town in it.


The little guy looks really sweet when he's sleeping. But don't all people look really peaceful when they're asleep? Consciousness can really get in the way of our ideal sense of what it means to be human. And when I stare at my son, I find myself thinking about those questions of human-ness, but totally in the abstract, because there's no pesky consciousness to get in the way.



And there's Justeen, someone who looks just as sweet awake and asleep. Actually, sometimes she drools when she sleeps. So, Justeen is much more peaceful when she's awake.



Here's Elliot pondering what it means to be in a bunny suit (or is it a bear suit?).


And he's asleep again. One day he'll look back on these pictures and wonder what happened to all those hours of sleep. Especially if he ever has kids of his own.

Waking Life

One of the strangest things about babies is that they are sometimes awake without activity. When Elliot isn't pooing, peeing, or eating, mostly he's sleeping. But, every once in a while, he just stares, wide awake, into the ether. There's something wonderful and disconcerting about this. It's great just to see Elliot be, but I've gotten so used to filling up my time with activities, that my immediate response to his being-ness, is that he's bored or something is wrong. Why isn't he reading a book, watching TV, or making lists? What a wonderful things babies are when they remind you that "just being" is an activity too.

Here he is in the bathroom, just chilling out while his mom takes a shower.


Still chillin'


I think I surprised him with my camera. This is one of those shots that you can imagine on the cover of Star Magazine, with the headline "Caught in the Act: Baby spies on Showering Mom"

Taking a Walk

Can't seem to get this picture to load...I'll try again later.

On a cold early spring day, the family went out for another walk. Despite my lament in the previous post, it's getting a lot easier to mobilize everyone. Elliot sleeps through most activity. Here we have him snuggled in like six blankets, a sleep sack, and a hat. I'd sleep through just about anything too if I were so snuggle-ificly modified.

Exhaustion Setting In

It's saturday night about 9:30 and I'm feeling exhausted. I think the interrupted sleep schedule and the obsessive planning for absolutely everything (the prep time to go to Target this afternoon was practically longer than the outing itself) is taking its toll. We had some friends over for a brief visit this morning, took a walk, and went to Target. And that's a full day in my new world. However, I think once we figure out all the many outing gadgets like the car seat and stroller, the outings will become easier. But it's not as though we're not going out. In fact, Elliot has been to three restaurants, three long walks, Trader Joe's and Target in his first ten days of life. That means he's been out to eat 33% of the days he's been alive. That's more than I can say for myself.

Ten Days

Here's Elliot in his new truck outfit. It says "Heading Out to Save the Day." I don't think he's heading anywhere to save anything right about now. But, because babies serve the function of dolls (real pooping, peeing dolls), we dress him so that we might laugh at the subtle absurdity of his shirt.


Izzy is so overwhelmed by the cuteness of Elliot that he attempts to give the little guy a kiss. Don't freak out - all you germ police - we didn't actually allow any contact.


Here's that smile again. And if you look real closely, you can see Justeen's toes growing out of his head.


This is Elliot after I told him about family responsibility and duty. I told him that he would have to plow the fields when his parents get too old, and that he would take over the family business when we could no longer run it.

Cord Loss

His cord fell off today. It's gone. The bloody, stinky reminder of his in utero days is dead. I am relieved. In yet another new parent panic moment, we called the doctor last night because his belly was smelling like three-week-old beached whale. The doctor called back this morning and said that it was normal. What dark beginnings we have. It's no wonder we've lasted so long. If not for the almost sinister cuteness of babes, the human race would have long been abandoned by the weak stomached for something more pleasant like flowers or hamsters. But when that little guy stares up at me with his blank wide-eyed wonder, I can't think of anything but him. When he twitches his little arms, the whole world twitches with him. Yes, a baby is a masterful design - a totally dependent, stinky little lump. A little lump that is destined for evolutionary success because not only does he contain our potential, but in his absolute innocence, contains what we can never be again. When I look into his eyes, I gleam with anticipation because I know he'll become like me one day, and I mourn the perfection that wanes as he approaches that goal.

Above all, I've learned that Elliot's cuteness trumps his grossness. I guess that's the first lessons of parenthood.

One Week Old

Well, the little bean turned one week yesterday. I suppose birthdays will become less frequent as time moves on. We'll move from every week to every month to every year. And then I'm sure at some point we'll stop caring all together. But for now, every minute is remarkable. Every minute is the lead story on the nightly news. And with every lead story - there MUST be good pictures. If there's one thing I learned in film school, it's that a story is only as good as its representation. So, I take pictures constantly. I'm trying to prepare him for a life of being followed by paparazzi.

Here he is looking dramatic.















When he's not posing for the press, Elliot's posing for family photos.


And here's Justeen looking fondly at Izzy. Not sure why because just moments before this picture was taken, Izzy got into the Diaper Genie and spread "poopie diapers" all over Elliot's room. Love is a funny thing.


Check out this new outfit. Very slick. He's practicing his Michael Jackson crotch grab.


And a fancy new sweater. This boy is well dressed. Although, what's with the face?

On the outward appearance of smiles

It's funny that in the first days of life, a smile can either be an external symbol of happiness or gas. Now, it might be that these things remain closely connected throughout our lives, but there's something disconcerting about their absolute parallel early on. Kind of like a happy-faced clown, who very well might be masking a frown, a happy-faced baby is masking a fart.

Just hanging out

Finally, the little guy opens his eyes long enough for us to take a picture. This is a document of his longest waking span yet - practically 2 hours. Man, I can't remember the last time I was awake for two hours straight.



During this same "waking session," Izzy tried to introduce himself to his new brother.

Elliot's first outing

Elliot had his first outing on a beautiful early spring day. He slept the whole time, but I'm sure, if he were awake, he would have really enjoyed it.
















He appears to be pondering the beauty of the situation.

The Yellow Menace

Little Elliot was home for exactly one day before we had to take him back to the hospital. He was pretty jaundiced and he had to go sit under the tanning lights. So, we checked him back into the hospital last night. Justeen stayed the night and Elliot sat naked with little sunglasses on under these solar lights for about twelve hours. He didn't much like it, but he was lookin' pretty cool. I came home and got my first full night's sleep in several days. And while Justeen was woken up a few times to feed, she also was able to get lots of rest. The good news is Elliot's levels are down and we're back home once again. We both feel rested, which I imagine is a state that won't come easy in the coming weeks (or months).