Today, Julian is 5 months old. Every day, he looks more and more like his father. Apparently, his behavior and development are a lot like his father too.... in that he has a voracious appetite, is an early teether (both bottom teeth had appeared by 21 weeks, and I suspect he is working on the upper two now), and is already showing signs of trying to figure out how to crawl. Thankfully, his crazy quick weight gain has slowed down (by our bathroom scale, today he is 19lb 9oz) or else we'd have gargantuan baby in a few weeks time.

These days, Julian is an absolute delight to hang out with; he grins, he coos, he laughs up a storm. I have absolutely no regrets about deciding to have a baby while in grad school. However, our finances are not exactly so happy. While I was applying to grad school and pondering the question of why there are so few women in academics past the ph.d., I think I was accurate in pinpointing the whole baby question as a huge culprit. What I did not consider, however, is the immense financial strain a kid is in a metropolitan area. Infant daycare in the bay area is just insane. What we are paying for 5 full days a week of daycare is more than the rent on our first 1 bedroom apartment in Palo Alto, well over half my grad student stipend. When you consider that most grad students who are coupled off are with other grad students, I don't know how anyone has kids while they are students. The only way it can be afforded is if grandparents are in the immediate neighborhood (free daycare) or one is independently wealthy. Robin has a good job, and we're just barely staying in the black.

I guess I answered my own question there. My schedule is flexible enough that I can be home for Julian when I need to be, but Robin and I will be packing our lunches and not eating out much until he gets a decent raise.... and in this financial environment, that won't be for awhile.

things I have learned about baby care in the first 3 months

I was writing a card to a friend who is expecting a baby in a couple months, and realized that some of the advice I was giving was worth putting down here as well.


- Even if you aren't going to cloth diaper, get a pile of prefolds. Those things soak up liquid like no one's business! Use them for burping, and for covering every surface the baby lies on, cause babies leak from practically every orifice. And keep them handy for diaper changes, cause YES, he WILL pee as soon as the diaper comes off. Speaking of which....
- Peepee Teepees don't work. I don't speak from specific experience, but lemme tell you, there is serious force behind baby piss. I laid a baby wipe on top of my son, and he peed... and the stream went THROUGH the wipe, and up a full inch above it. A Peepee Teepee would go flying.
- Humidifiers are useful both for moisture, and as a source of white noise to lull baby to sleep.
- Slings = insta-nap. I like the Maya wrap, or any other ring sling for newborns. Now that Julian's quite a bit bigger, we've moved on to a Kangaroo Korner pouch.
- Take advantage of baby's suck reflex - there's a reason pacifiers exist. It's like baby opium, totally calms them down. If you are convinced that pacifiers are evil, then you could also use a finger if desperate.
- Babies are adept at picking up your mood. Try to be cool and collected even if he is FREAKING OUT. If you are freaking out yourself, and just need to cry for a bit (totally ok!) give the baby to someone else to hold for a bit.
- Turn your cell phones off after 8pm to guarantee you and your partner a less interrupted night.
- Put a size reference in photos of your baby. I saw a series of photos of someone's baby next to a loaf of bread, and really wish I had done that.

Hope

Julian -

You turned 8 weeks old on quite a momentous day - Election Day 2008. Your father and I voted, as we have in the past two elections, but this one was different. It wasn't just that the guy who won happens to be half black, or that he is a Democrat, or even that his election triggered massive celebrations in the streets all over the country, and even the globe.

It was that we voted with your future foremost in our minds.

I was brought to tears as we watched the news coverage of the crowds cheering in Times Square and Grant Park, but mostly because I was hugging your father, with you in snug in a sling in between us.


Hope is a much stronger word, now that you're here with us, little one.

Discovering/remembering muscle movements

Julian is learning to smile; he is most likely to start grinning first thing in the morning, and in general, after he eats. It's very different from his little gas smiles from previous weeks; these grins open up his mouth, and crunch up his eyes. The first couple of times he smiled like this, we startled him by cheering and shouting at him. Now, he grins at us all the time, and it's SO CUTE.

In the meantime, I am officially allowed to exercise again, and tried to ride my bike the 10 minutes to the Caltrain. It took 15 minutes, and I was nearly dead by the time I got there. I shouldn't have been so surprised... I hadn't even broken into a jog/run since, oh, sometime late July. Of course I am horribly out of shape!

milk issues

First, a hilarious photo of the men in my life. I wonder if Julian will decide to imitate Robin's scorn towards cameras once he has conscious control of his facial expressions.

I am both allergic to milk and lactose intolerant. Thankfully, these conditions are on the mild end; I can still eat cheese and yogurt and ice cream without much consequence. I just can't drink milk straight. As such, I'm not used to the taste of plain milk; I have never liked lactaid, or goat's milk. So when Julian was born, it was very weird to suddenly be a milk spout. I know I know, cow's milk does not equal human breast milk, but it sure looks similar.

Unfortunately, it seems that Julian is sensitive to my breastmilk when I eat dairy products. So I am now abstaining from my daily cheese/yogurt intake. This is not too huge of a deal. However, since becoming pregnant, I have a newfound appreciation for ice cream. The idea of not being able to eat ice cream filled me with angst.

So I decided to take a hint from PETA. I already had plenty of expressed breastmilk in the freezer and fridge, including a bag of milk that was expressed before I stopped eating cheese, and couldn't give to Julian anyways. If this stuff is good for my baby to eat, why can't I eat it? So we made a batch of vanilla ice cream. And it is delicious.

adjusting

Julian is 3 weeks and 2 days old, and we're all still adjusting. Every few days, as Julian grows, the game keeps changing. I like to think that his extreme activity in utero prepared me for interrupted sleep, but every once in awhile, we have a rough and weird night. The first or second night we were home from the hospital, Robin woke me to feed Julian and I did not even recognize him as my own baby; I groggily asked "why are you giving me Joe Biden?" (I was clearly listening to too much NPR.) Last night, Julian was waking to feed every 1.5-2 hours instead of every 3 hours, as I had gotten used to over the past week, and my body did not like it. At one point, I woke to his crying, and it took me 2 minutes to remember that he needed to be fed. (At least I recognized him as my own son!)

The most interesting side effect of me nesting with Julian is watching the big things happen in the world on as Robin, Julian, and I deal with dirty diapers and midnight feedings. It reminds me of college all over again; what a bubble we are in! Hurricanes, financial meltdowns, political machinations.... There are big adjustments going on in the world, in parallel with the smaller ones affecting my new little family. I hope that it will be a better world for Julian, in the end.

and then there were three

It had been a running joke amongst Robin's family that Julian would be born on 9/9; after all, Robin's grandpa was born on 1/1, Robin's dad on 8/8, Robin on 10/10... and sure enough, Robin's son waited 4 days past due date, to be born on 9/9 (in labor and delivery room 9, no less). My parents were thrilled with the date as well, as 9/9/08 are good numbers in the Chinese language; 9 sounfd like forever, 8 sounds like prosper. Interestingly, the Chinese name we chose for him, Wing-Kei, means "forever, rare jade".

Labor was maybe 20 hours, with an epidural about 12 hours in; that almost seemed like cheating, as it turned labor into a simple waiting game, but I'm so glad I got it. The Lucille Packard hospital staff was absolutely wonderful; every doctor and nurse with whom we interacted with was so patient, so nice, and it made our hospital stay a really positive experience.

Robin has been, of course, a great partner and father. The first day after birth, while I was really
out of it, he completely took over taking care of Julian. To this day, over a week later, he still changes almost every diaper (and boy are there a ton of diapers... glad we are doing cloth, I shudder to think about the sheer volume of disposable diapers one child would contribute to a landfill). Robin has one more week off work, then 2 weeks on half time; I will really miss him when he's back to work full time.

As for me, recovery has been, as I anticipated, harder than labor (the lack of sleep doesn't help) but is going smoothly. Julian eats like a champ, so the wacky schedule is worth it. It's really nice to be able to roll over in bed again. And I wish I'd had these sized breasts 10 years ago!

I head back to school when Julian is 6 weeks old, and my mother will take care of him till he is 10 weeks old, at which point he heads to daycare. While I am absolutely loving this new little man in my life, I am also looking forward to getting back into a (likely scaled back till New Year's) routine in lab. In the weeks immediately prior to Julian's birth, I was slightly worried that I might want to quit my ph.d. pursuit after he arrived, which would be a shame, given how much effort I and my thesis advisors have already put into it. But, a week post partum, I can definitely detect that I miss science, and I am sure that I will not lack the motivation to work on my thesis. In a way, I am really thankful that the desire to work is still there. My life is obviously changed, and I fully embrace motherhood. But the other aspects of who I am are still there, I'm still Wedge. Which is great; I rather like who I was and what life was like before I was pregnant, and Julian's arrival is only making it better.