Saving Somebody's Baby

Today I gave blood for the first time since Caleb was born. The whole process went very smoothly, and my whole donation took about 5 minutes. You have to love the increased blood volume while nursing.

I had been worried about my physical reaction to losing a pint of blood, but I should have known the biggest reaction would be from my hormones. As soon as the donation was finished, I felt a sense of connection I had never felt before. All I could think was that my blood would, in not very long, be going to someone who needed it.

In my hormonal melodrama, I was saving someone's baby.


-- Post From My iPhone

Skype

Caleb has officially joined the digital revolution. Tonight we talked to Bubbe on Skype.



Interestingly enough, Caleb seemed to pick up on the concept right away, because he was talking and smiling and responding to my mom as she talked to him. The picture quality looked lousy to me, but maybe that is what he is used to with baby vision and can't tell the difference.

Next we will Skype with uncle Brian and then with Ella and Aunt Suzy!

-- Post From My iPhone

Group Play Date!

On Sunday Caleb attended his first group play date at Dana's house.  He had a great time playing with Dana and Layla (both of whom he had already met), and also got to hang out with Reah and Max and another little boy.  This was the first time Caleb had ever had a play date with boys there - I told him not to get too used to it. Even though Caleb was the youngest participant in the group and he slept through the first half of the morning, he was quite the social butterfly once he was up and alert.  He even wore his "hunk a burnin' love" shirt to impress al the ladies.

Caleb has really been enjoying sitting up lately, so I thought we would try out Dana's Bumbo Baby Sitter.  He absolutely loved it!

So, of course, as soon as we got home, mommy took Caleb's bumbo out of its box the top of the closet.  The bumbo is a basically a foam rubber molded seat that props the baby up in a sitting position and doesn't allow them to fall over in either direction.  I wouldn't put Caleb in it so young if he didn't have such good head control, but he seems fine and really loves to be sitting "on his own". 

One thing we noticed at our play date was that every picture I took of Caleb involved massive amounts of purple and pink.  I told him he would just have to get used to it, as pretty much all of the babies his age were girls.  He didn't seem to be bothered by it anyway.  In fact, he just loved playing with all of Dana's pink toys!

Of course Caleb enjoyed playing with Layla (in purple) and Dana (in polka dots), but perhaps most exciting was his first ever opportunity to play with another BOY (well, outside of day care where he gets a lot of attention from his friend Brody).  Max, who is 10 months, thought Caleb was fairly interesting, and Caleb seemed to think Max was pretty cool too!  Caleb especially liked that Max was happy to share toys and brought him a nifty pink rattle to play with.

After the play date we headed home to spend the rest of the day with Daddy and to celebrate Daddy's 30th birthday.  We just know 30 is going to be a great year is going to be a great year!

Caleb Actively Plays with a Toy

Check it out! Our latest milestone!

-- Post From My iPhone

Bar Mitzvah Boy

This morning at Shul I looked over at the row of kids there as friends of the Bar Mitzvah and I let myself daydream a little about the bar and bat mitzvah circuit Caleb will be working 13 years from now. Obviously we can't know exactly what the future holds, but I looked over and saw Ella, Layla, Dana, Alexa, Reah, Ari, Bella, Edie, Max, Joseph, Baby Mellon, Baby Lawson, Baby Pickelner, and Baby Lurie sitting all together in a row. And even Noah and Shane and Emma and Adam and Shayna and Aaron and Sarah, who will be old enough to drive by then. Heck, Noah, Shane, Aaron and Sarah will be graduating High School! Hopefully Will would be there too.

I cannot even imagine what our kids will look like in 13 years, heck some of them have not even been born yet! I do know there will be a whole lot more skirts than ties (at least if the same crowd stands), but that is pretty much the story of my son's life. I imagine by that time we will have met and befriended a few more boys anyway.

Don't get me wrong. I am not in any hurry to see my ten week old son become a Bar Mitzvah. It is just hard to imagine that the row of kids at Shul today - boys in sport coats with messy hair and braces, and girls with lip gloss and heels and slightly too short skirts - were all once babies themselves.

And someday, thirteen years from now, some other new mom will start tearing up in Shul as she watches our children become men and women in the eyes of the Jewish people.

It's all pretty cool, I think.








-- Post From My iPhone

Patience Please

As you may have seen, I just started this new blog. No offense to those reading, but my motivation was moreso to keep a journal of all the emails and updates I have been sending out to family than to have some public record of Caleb's life. Conveniently, however, it can serve that purpose too!

You will notice that currently there are many photos that don't work and posts that are messed up. This is because I have done the entire thing so far from my iPhone using a mixture of emailed-in posts (which I didn't realize failed to post pictures), and an iPhone app called blogpress.

I am gradually backdating things and fixing pictures, so have patience please. I hope that in the next week or so everything will be up to date (and back to date).

Thanks!

Caleb Shakes a Rattle!

So this has been a big week for us thus far! On Monday mommy brought Caleb to work for his first Wine & Cheese event, and he got to impress the CEO with how talkative and smiley he was.







Then Tuesday we went to visit Caleb's girlfriend Ella, who is doing great! That afternoon we visited Daddy at work and walked around the mall, and then Celebrated Israel's birthday at the JCC.






Unfortunately, all the outdoor fun at the J meant Caleb inhaled a lot of pollen (the pollen count is the highest in recorded history here right now), so last night he was VERY stuffy. Caleb didn't seem to mind much, but it kept mommy awake all night long.

Also on Tuesday, Caleb had his first laugh! He laughed when mommy kissed his tummy after changing his daiper, and then he laughed twice today! They are still just short hehe laughs, but so cute none the less!





This evening we had another first. Caleb had been holding into his lovey and putting it in his mouth, so mommy thought she might try something else. After shaking a few different rattles in front of a very excited little man, mommy found one he could hold onto and wrapped his fingers around it. He held on and was delighted to find that he made noises whenever he wiggled. This led to extensive amounts of noisy wiggling and a very smiley baby.





Now we are curled up on the couch with mommy and the lovey for our evening nap. Hopefully we will have a nice long shluff after he eats later tonight, and a very tired mommy will be able to get some rest.

-- Post From My iPhone

Caleb Turns 2 Months Old!

It is hard to believe that Caleb is already 2 months old!  He got the best birthday present of all, his girlfriend, Ms. Baby Minc!  (Born this evening, with no name yet.)

Caleb is enjoying a visit with Nana and Gramps this weekend. He has also been enjoying his babysitter, Talia, with whom he has stayed daily since Wednesday.

Mommy started back at work Friday, but Caleb did great. Now if mommy can just get the pumping thing right we'll be good to go.

Caleb is sleeping pretty well during the night now. Once he even slept 6 hours!  He was a little gassy throughout Passover, so that was hard, but now he is the happy little man once again!

Mommy bought a baby swing at a garage sale for 5 dollars. It is the beat $5 ever spent. He loves it and will sit in it for up to 20 minutes at a time!

That's all for now!  Just looking forward to meeting Ms. Minc and working on sleeping through the night!

Caleb's First Pesach

It's Caleb's first Passover!  We had a lovely seder at the Ackerman's house on Monday night, then went to the Shul seder on Tuesday.  Of course our little Matzah Ball was dressed for the occaision!

We went to the doctor Thursday and he is now 9 pounds and 22 inches! No more newborn clothes for this little man! Everything else looked good, but we have to go back in a couple weeks for his shots because if they give them before the 2 month birthday he will have to get another unnecessary round before starting school when he is 6.  Mommy is going back to work part time starting next week, so Caleb will be staying with Miss Talia during the day.

This weekend we went to Caleb's friend Layla's baby naming, and Caleb got all dressed up! We are looking forward to a picnic at the arboretum and visits from isaac's friend Ann and mommy's friend Amy (who is coming in from Atlanta for four days).

Besides that, life is good! We hope everyone has a wonderful Passover or Easter!