7 weeks plus

As Eli rounds the corner towards the end of his second month, life is settling into a pattern. He still rarely sleeps for more than four hours in a stretch, but his fussy periods are waning a bit in intensity. Shelby and I are more or less accustomed to the interrupted sleep, though, as I've written before, she suffers more than I do because of the feeding obligations. Now that Eli is more than six weeks old, we are able to utilize the day care that we've been paying since August to care for Eli on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Last week Shelby brought Eli to day care for a few hours on each of those days, allowing her to work and run errands. While we will probably wait until 2009 before leaving Eli in day care all day, it is liberating to have the option now. It is also liberating to feel like reasonable parents when we bring Eli outside. For those of you without kids, a subset of people believe that you should keep newborns indoors for their first six weeks. We don't subscribe to this. Eli walked with us almost as soon as he came home and suffered no obvious ill effects. 

This week Eli visits the pediatrician and receives his two month shots. Parenting books tell us that he will probably be fussy for a few days afterward. Hopefully his fussy period will pass before we leave for DC and Miami next Tuesday. It seems strange that we will be traveling for one whole week with Eli, or, at that point, for more than 10% of his life. 

Below are some pictures from the last week. Shelby and I both caught a cold that is making the rounds at work and are trying hard to recover this weekend. Since we were under the weather, we didn't take Eli out for Halloween. We did dress him up in a Dalmatian/cow costume bought by Grandma Linda when he went to day care. We also took him to the Farmer's Market at the capital yesterday morning to get some fresh air. Much like our walk to pick up dinner earlier in the month, being able to take Eli to the Farmer's Market this year was a pleasant surprise. 

Also, before I go, I really should mention that when I was in DC earlier this week, I looked for a Sarah Palin onesie for its unbelievable kitsch value. While 'Lifetime member of the NRA' would have worked, I would have accepted anything anti-choice, pro-exploiting natural resources, or pro-ignorance. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to shop around and nothing in the airport fit the bill. As a consolation prize, I will hopefully be able to buy the same items for up to 90% off after Tuesday. 

And lastly...last week's post on our musical taste generated several comments, so I thought I'd post an update. While Shelby is still favoring a lot of Indigo Girls music (I like the Rites of Passage CD too, but three times in a week? Though it did bring back a memory of Jeff Kaplan playing their cover of 'Romeo and Juliet' on single-song repeat for more than an hour 10 years ago. Not a great memory), I've been branching out. In addition to rediscovering some of the mellower tracks in my library (Sixpence None the Richer, anyone?), I also stumbled across an MP3 CD entitled 'Singles 1', a compilation put together by me, Tom Friedrich, and Bianca Mothe back when we shared an office in 2000. It stands the test of time as a testament to one-hit wonders and guilty pleasures. The erosion of time had erased 100 of the 150 songs from my iTunes library, but thanks to the miracle of disk restoration software, I now have all the music back in my library. It is debatable whether this is a net positive.