The Eli-brary

Today was an exciting first. We took Eli to the library! Madison just opened a brand-new and expanded library branch about a mile from our house. This particular location is known for their children's books. Eli behaved himself in the library. In fact, he was as quiet as a mouse.

Initially I was underwhelmed by the book selection, but then I discovered their small collection of Mo Willems books. Back in 2001 when Shelby and I moved into our house, we installed Dish Network. As we surfed through the many channels now available to us, we discovered that we had the Cartoon Network for the first time. Remember that at the time, this was a pre-Adult Swim, very much children's network that showed cartoons. Somehow we flipped to this channel one Saturday afternoon and caught the end of the cartoon "Sheep in the Big City", a touching cartoon about a little sheep and his misadventures in the big city (and his attempts to elude capture by General Lee Outrageous, who is trying to make a sheep-powered ray gun). Though definitely geared towards children, the dialog was laced with puns (some very groan-inducing) and layered humor. We loved that show, which is unfortunately not available on DVD. I don't understand why it isn't - it seems like every other TV show ever aired has a DVD box set, no matter how awful. At any rate, that series was created by Mo Willems, who went on to write acclaimed books for children. In the back of my mind, I knew this because I looked on his website when we found out that Shelby was pregnant and I was looking for Sheep DVDs to buy. But I forgot about his books until I saw them in the library this morning. They are charming, funny, and infinitely more enjoyable than most of the other books that we've read Eli (though we are very fond of 'A Frog in the Bog'.) So it was definitely a good day at the library.

In terms of Eli's development, he is tracking objects very well. Today he was able to track a brightly colored toy from left to right, back to center, up, down, and back to center for nearly five minutes! He is also beginning to fix his gaze on the pictures in his books. Interactivity, here we come!

After several nights with little sleep, we put Eli down for a nap at 7 PM last night, only to have it morph into an all-night, sleeping extravaganza! Shelby fed him at 10PM and again at 2AM, but otherwise he gave us an incredibly long block of uninterrupted sleep. I'd like to say we took the opportunity to do something remotely exciting, but in actuality we watched 'How I Met Your Mother' and went to sleep. 

Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching. Yesterday we had Thanksgiving breakfast in the lab. Shelby and Eli made muffins and brought oranges. Today Shelby and Eli made cookies for dessert, and she will be cooking more tomorrow and Thursday. We both really enjoy Thanksgiving and are eagerly anticipating a few days off of work. Then it is back to work for a week before gathering up the family and going to San Juan for a scientific conference. Grandma Linda and Grandpa Mike will definitely get their fill of Eli. They are coming to Madison for Thanksgiving this week and San Juan to help care for Eli in two weeks.

Let sleeping baby's Eli

Shelby and I are recovering from our DC and Miami trip. The compressed workweek (since we didn't go to the office until Wednesday) led to long and tiring days this week. Wednesday also marked Eli's 10 week birthday. For the first ten weeks, we used a 'Miracle Blanket', aka baby straightjacket
' to prevent Eli from flailing at night. The blanket made an instantaneous difference in Eli's capacity to sleep longer than two hours at a stretch. He is starting to outgrow the blanket, however, and we do not want him to become dependent on it. So upon our return to Madison, we started putting Eli in a baby sleeping bag that is much less confining. The first night he woke up only twice. The second night was more difficult. Last night he woke up twice. So there is still some work to do, but we think that Eli may have turned the corner and is on his way to sleeping through the night more consistently. The next major challenge is to relocate Eli from the Pack and Play next to our bed. His nursery is ready, but he has only spent a few minutes in his crib during the day. Within the next week, we will probably try to move him to his crib at night. Other than our changes in his sleep routine, this week was relatively uneventful. I can't wait until the meeting that I'm organizing is over so we can take a few days to relax together as a family. 

Back from Miami

Shelby and I are back in the frozen tundra of Madison. After a very long night and day. Eli decided he didn't want to sleep last night. Perhaps we were getting cocky - he'd been falling right asleep for nearly two weeks! But last night he was overtired and wouldn't stop fussing. We resorted to taking him for an outdoor walk in his stroller at 11 PM in hopes of getting him to shut his eyes. After twenty minutes of walking, he finally did. We got to sleep at midnight, though I didn't really fall asleep. We woke up at 3 with Eli and started our preparations for our flight. We left Roz's house at 4:30 and made it to the Miami airport by 5:45. On the way, we dropped off our rental car (by the way, if anyone wants to know why the Big 3 automakers are in trouble, drive a Chrysler Sebring for a few days. I think there were more things wrong on the car than right. Including intermittent error lights for the airbags and brakes. Good times.) in the middle of the industrial wasteland where the airport car rental places live. It is an ominous area at 5 in the morning. Fortunately, we caught an earlier flight back to Chicago, which gave us a leisurely layover before our flight to Madison. The Madison flight felt funny, as though it was piloted by a novice pilot. Lots of erratic movement. Shelby was not pleased. But Eli slept great on both flights. 

Before we left, we had a wonderful day with Roz. Shelby and I got to swim again, even though it was pretty cold. More importantly, we celebrated an early Thanksgiving with Roz and Eli. We got turkey and fixins' from Boston Market and had a really nice dinner. 

Here are some pictures from the last few days:

Greetings from Great-Grandma's House

We finally made it to Fort Lauderhill late last night. Shelby and I had a tough time finding the right road out of Miami, were stymied by a police roadblock within a few miles of our destination, and were generally disoriented as we made our way here...but now we are here! Gg Roz is enjoying her time with Eli and is smothering him with love.

We are going to have a wonderful weekend here before returning to the cold, blustery north on Tuesday.

Adventures in Eliland

Our first trip with Eli has been tiring, but fulfilling. We left Madison very early on Tuesday morning. Eli slept through the first flight to Chicago, fussed a little bit in O'Hare, and then slept on the flight to DC. Even though Shelby and I packed very light, we still ended up with a huge amount of stuff: baby clothes, a pack and play, baby supplies, books, toys, and plastic bags. When traveling with a baby, you really can't have enough plastic bags. The other lesson we learned on Tuesday is that plane boarding requires exquisite timing. We wanted to change Eli as close as possible to the time of boarding, without missing preboarding. On both flights, Shelby rushed out of the bathroom just in time for preboarding. 

We also learned that the airline policy towards infants is very fluid. Everyone affiliated with the airline was accommodating, but this led to uncomfortable moments where we had a large car seat occupying a seat reserved for another passenger. We also learned that it is important for me to keep my frequent flier status, if for no other reason than because paying to check Eli's bags would otherwise be very expensive! It also helped on Wednesday, allowing us to jump on an earlier flight to Miami. 

Once in DC, we lugged our luggage (is 'lug' the root word?) on the train and met our friend Vicki for lunch. Despite one fussy spell in the bathroom, Eli behaved well. This was a landmark event, as we had not previously taken Eli out to eat in public. After lunch we took a taxi to Bethesda for our meeting. We had dinner with Shelby's cousin, his wife, and their son. Eli, again, was surprisingly well behaved, though Shelby had to leave dinner once to feed him. When we went to bed, Eli spent more time in a car than he had to date, took his first (2) plane rides, rode in a train and taxi, ate out in restaurants (twice), and set up shop in a hotel room - quite an eventful day!

On Wednesday I participated in an NIH workshop on AIDS vaccines. Eli met several of our collaborators and was far more popular than me. Shelby got to see a portion of the meeting, but spent much of her time in the hotel room tending to Eli. After the conclusion of an early afternoon session (that I actively participated in), we scurried to the airport. Security and check-in was easier than anticipated, and we managed to get a flight to Miami that is an hour earlier than scheduled. Eli behaved well on the flight. Since Shelby doesn't like to eat before flying, we didn't have dinner until we arrived in Miami at 10. Despite the perturbations in schedule, Eli slept well.

I had to give another talk on Thursday at an NIH transplant workshop, so I spent most of the morning refining my presentation while Shelby watched Eli in the room. The room configuration was more conducive to having Shelby lurk in the back, so she was able to see more of this meeting than the one in DC. After my presentation, Shelby and I ducked out of the last talk of the day and walked along the oceanside with Eli. There is a very nice walking path and park close to the hotel. Since it was already late in the afternoon, the sun had begun to set and the temperature was reasonable. When we returned to the hotel, our workshop had adjourned and attendees were gathering for drinks and dinner at a local restaurant. We brought Eli and had a nice dinner outside with a number of our collaborators and lab members. Eli slept well again, though not for seven full hours as on Tuesday night. 

Today brings the end of the official work portion of our trip, though we will likely be on email through the weekend. Tonight we will rent a car and drive to great-grandma Roz's house in Fort Lauderdale. To (great) grandmother's house we go!!

guess what?

Guess who slept 7 hours last night??

I'll be brief -- traveling with Eli went much better than I expected today. He slept for  most of the flights and then he was on pretty good behavior after we got here.  I'm trying to figure out how to feed and change him in public and keep him under my watchful eye.  But, that can be difficult when trying to clean up and take care of him and keep the fussing at bay.  We are doing our best.  Let's just hope he sleeps well tonight and tomorrow is just as successful as today!

Two more days

It is two days until we leave for DC and Miami. We are a little nervous about the fussing while we travel. Eli generally behaves well in the house and at day care, but we haven't even ventured out to a restaurant with him, much less full days of traveling in airports. How bad can it be, right?!?

We packed for our trip today. I think armies have invaded countries with less supplies. 

Otherwise, it is now chilly in Madison. Honoring the time tested tradition of cutting corners when a baby is in the house, I mowed, instead of raked, the leaves in our yard. In theory, it will make mulch that nurtures the soil in the spring. At the very least, hopefully it prevents us from killing the grass in front of our house. Most importantly, I could do it by myself while Shelby kept a watchful eye on Eli. 

We will probably report periodically during our travels. Wish us luck!

dave and shelby

Some more movies

Here are some movies we've made in the last few weeks. Thrill as Eli discovers his hand...be swept away as he stretches out in his crib...and smile when realizing that he will never remember a world where only white men could aspire to the presidency of our country (and he will have no memory of the last eight years).

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. 

More pics

more pics to enjoy!

Family Thanksgiving!

Well, we had a wonderful family Thanksgiving last weekend.  Both the Feinberg and O'Connor families descended upon Madison for a little time with Eli, Triscuit, Noodles, and, of course, turkey.  Eli enjoyed seeing all the people.  He smiled all weekend long!  And, with all the people holding him, he barely fussed at all.   Now, as people have left, Eli is stuck with me and Dave.  We'll make sure he still has a good time...

An all family Thanksgiving

Today should be an exciting day in the O'Connor household. Both sets of grandparents will be visiting for early Thanksgiving. In addition, uncles Jay and Jason will be coming from Chicago. this is the first time that Jay will meet Eli. We need to have Thanksgiving several weeks before the actual holiday because Shelby's parents need to work on the day after Thanksgiving. We have been having early Thanksgiving for three or four years, so it is becoming a bit of a tradition. Shelby enjoys cooking elaborate meal and I, of course, enjoy eating. But it will certainly be a crowded day at the O'Connor house.

Yesterday, we left Eli at daycare for the first time. Granted, it was only for a few hours, but that didn't make it any easier for Shelby. Though we feel very fortunate with the high-quality day care provided by the University Preschool Laboratory, the idea of leaving Eli with someone else is still hard to reconcile.

Tomorrow will mark another first. I need to fly to DC for an NIH study section. since Eli's arrival on September 10, this will be the first time that I have spent a night away from him. I'm sure that Shelby and Eli will be fine on their own, but much like leaving him at day care, that doesn't make it any easier for me.

One of the other major challenges now that Eli is six weeks old is trying to balance taking care of him with work. In an attempt to get more done in even less time, I am experimenting with voice dictation software. So if you find odd typographical errors, such as referring to the 'O'Connor house' as a 'neocon house', you will understand why. Generally I've been happy with the performance of voice dictation software. I'm even using it now. With that said, it did make a serious typographical error on one of my NIH grant reviews that I will have to explain away on Monday.

Confronting our own musical mortality

When I was younger, Grandma Linda and Grandpa Mike weaned me on the music of the Beatles. From an early age, I knew a few things: (1) there would be no new Beatles music and (2) their music was old. Before I was born old. As the years passed, Uncle Jay and I shared many derisive names for our parents' musical choices (old, boring, crappy, to name but a few).

In the presence of Eli, I've thought quite a lot about this. Can it possibly be true that music from the 80s and 90s will be as irrelevant and 'old' to Eli is the music of the 50s and 60s seemed to me? Perhaps even more importantly, will I be able to accept the music that Eli eventually likes with equanimity? Or will I silently curse 'all that new-fangled garbage'? 

In the interim, all we can do is control the house plalyist until Eli grows old enough to have an opinion on the matter. I believe that is why Shelby has chosen to listen to the Indigo Girls, Hootie and Blowfish, and other 90s bands as we've gone to sleep each of the last few nights. The strangest part is that until Eli arrived, many of these same CDs sat gathering dust on our shelves. It is only their status as future relics that motivated us to savor them while we can. 

More cute pics, and so on....

I just had too many cute pictures to post, so I felt the need to do so.  You can see pics of the whole family before Dave and I left for John and Ericka's wedding.  You can see that Grandma and Grandpa tired out Eli so much that he slept in his little pillow.  I also had to take a picture of Eli surrounded by jungle animals (Thanks again Renee!).  There are actually 6 animals in the set, but when I put up too many, little Eli got scared (aka fussy).  I also decided to see if Eli was big enough for his picnic tummy time playmat (Thanks to Deby).  But, alas, there is not yet enough head control.  

We are all looking forward to family Thanksgiving this weekend.  I hope there will be lots and lots of good pictures.  The one picture we are really missing is one of Dave, Shelby, Triscuit, and Eli.  But, when all 4 of us are on the couch, there is no one left to take the picture.  Maybe we'll get that one soon.

Enjoy!

More from the land of fuss

It seems like this week zoomed by in the blink of an eye. Eli visited the pediatrician on Tuesday and we learned that he is healthy and gaining weight - though he is at the lower range of normal. We is now up to a fighting weight of 8 Lb, 7 Oz. We also learned that he will need to get his first set of shots in about three weeks, one week before his DC/Miami adventure. 

The rest of the week was generally uneventful. Eli has taken to fussing a lot at night, especially between the hours of 8-12. Shelby has mitigated the fussing somewhat by instituting a more rigorous schedule. We know try to cycle between feeding, playing, and sleeping in roughly three hour increments. This works well, especially during the day. The true test will be how well it works when we stress the system by having Grandma Linda and Grandpa Mike watch Eli while we go to a wedding tomorrow. 

Yesterday we took another field trip downtown to pickup lunch from the food carts next to the Union. The big question looming right now is whether we will try to take Eli to the Obama rally downtown next Thursday. There are lots of good reasons not to, but if we don't explore the world with Eli (and learn to deal with fussing in somewhat crowded places) it will be that much harder to learn on the fly (literally) when we are stuck in a plane in a few weeks time.

Eli Enjoys the Weather

This weekend brought uncharacteristically warm October weather to Madison. Eli (or perhaps more importantly, us) really wanted to get outside to enjoy the warmth. On Saturday, I got to go on a 15 mile bike ride on the Capitol City Trial, while Shelby got to ride through the UW Arboretum a few hours later. Today we bundled Eli into his sling and brought him for a walk through the paths of the Arboretum. I'm still recovering from an ankle sprain suffered in early August, but I was able to walk reasonably well on the uneven trails (with Shelby holding Eli). Tonight we did something that we thought would have to wait until spring - we walked Eli down to Monroe Street to pick up dinner. For those of you from out of town, one of our pre-Eli rituals was walking the two or so miles from our house along the Arboretum to Monroe St., where we would pick up dinner from one of several restaurants clustered within about a one block area. Shelby, Triscuit, and I got to walk to Monroe St. two weeks ago when Grandma Linda and Grandpa Mike visited and watched Eli. Tonight we took the risk that a bundled Eli would handle the walk well on a full stomach. We were rewarded with a sleepy, sleeping, and generally docile Eli who stayed snug as a bug in his carrier for our entire walk. Taking the entire family (now with Eli) felt like a return to normalcy, though we are acutely aware that we probably won't have the confluence of ideal circumstances (time, weather, and Eli disposition) to do this again until the spring. 

Also, Eli has started recognizing objects a little bit. Here is a video of him trying to play 'swat the stuffed thing'.

Eli has had alot more "firsts" in the last few days.  Dad gave him his first bottle.  And, he tried swatting at the sun.  And, he is starting to grasp rings.  These new activities are giving us more to do during his awake time than just feeding and fussing. We all like that.  Oh, and as you can see, Triscuit is either beginning to take a liking to Eli, or he just likes the pillow.

Once again...

In case folks were curious...we got another 4 hour block of sleep in last night.  Woo hoo!

Four hours of sleeping bliss

Last night, the strangest thing happened.  Eli went to sleep around 11pm.  Dave and I woke up, naturally, at 2am.  But, alas, there was no crying or fussing.  I thought, "Should I wake Eli?? Does he need to eat??"  I thought better and left him alone.  Wonderfully, I was able to go back to sleep until 3am.  Then, I had to feed Eli.  But, 4 sweet hours of sleep.....  And, then, he went back to sleep for 3 hours more!  Overall, I only had to get up once to feed him last night!!  Woo hoo!!  Let's hope this continues....