the eelfang chronicles

Within the last couple months, Seth has really gotten good at answering questions and telling us what he wants by either nodding or shaking his head. Occasionally it seems arbitrary; I’ll ask, “Are you a monkey?” and he’ll nod (every time! At least he’s consistent in his thinking that he’s a monkey :] ). But for the most part, it really is him communicating his preferences and needs to us, whether or not we ask.

Also starting a few months ago, Seth lets us know that he notices when he pees. For a week there he was even peeing on purpose when we would change his diaper (we thought that was only a newborn thing!). This has really ramped up within the past month, because he has a spot of rash that gets aggravated with cloth diapers. I have been putting him in ’sposies often because it helps a lot more than constant changes and diaper cream do. But he’s also about to graduate to the next size of disposable diapers, which of course means less diapers per package for the same price — not to mention feeling bad already for using and throwing away disposable diapers.

A couple friends use “Elimination communication” with their kids, and I knew a little bit about it already from Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent. I checked out a book on EC yesterday just to start learning more, and read all of about 10 pages, when I decided that we might as well get a potty now. We would have to get one eventually, right?

Which leads us to today: I asked Seth if he would like to get a potty to use. He nodded emphatically, and yipped and yelled with excitement. We picked one up at the consignment store, and stationed it in the bathroom. I hadn’t really thought how it would work beyond that, but Seth wanted to use it right away. He peed a little in the potty, and then a little on the floor (mostly Mama’s fault, as I’m obviously a slower learner than he is), and then some more in the potty. We poured the contents into the real potty, and waved bye-bye to it. Then because the remaining clothes got wet, I let Seth run around naked for a while. He was thrilled about that also. I put him back in diaper & clothes before dinner, but then after dinner he ran into the bathroom and wanted to use the potty again. We took his diaper down, and he peed in the potty again! Since it was getting close to bath time anyway, he got some more naked time. During the two naked-times, Seth did have two minor accidents outside the bathroom, but I must say, I’m floored by how much he is into peeing in the potty. I really don’t want to rush or push it (other than finding a good solution for his rash), but it’s almost as if he has been waiting for us to see his readiness for, if not total potty training, at least EC. Woot! now I gotta catch up and read that book!

A few months back, one of our priests at church asked if I knew of anyone who could give a talk on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s) at our Sunday morning adult education (I work for a farm that has a produce box program similar to a CSA, so the question wasn’t completely out of nowhere ;] ). I volunteered myself, and then put off planning until the very last minute, but in the end, gave what I thought was a pretty nice talk that mentioned CSA’s as part of a larger picture of making sure our food choices are sustainable, and honor Creation.

In preparation of the talk, I finally watched Food, Inc.– if you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to, or you could take Todd’s suggestion and read The Omnivore’s Dilemma instead if you would rather read about than see slaughtering imagery… Long story short, I am a newly minted vegetarian unless I know the source of the meat I’m eating. What do you call that? Ethical omnivore? Flexitarian?

I’m hoping to be gracious about it, and if I’m at someone else’s home and they serve me meat, I’m not going to question, scold or refuse. We went over to Jake and Cerra’s house a few days ago, and when I mentioned that I wouldn’t be having a beef hamburger, Cerra found me an awesome black bean burger in the freezer. That was super accommodating of her, but I don’t expect that everywhere we go. (And plus, I later turned a blind eye and ate a marshmallow…:/ )

I also really have no intention of raising Seth as a vegetarian, nor could I impose a no-meat policy on Todd even if I wanted to, nor do I want to make two separate meals at dinnertime. I’m trying to find a good balance between veggie and meaty meals at home; few enough meat meals to not raise our grocery budget by too much, but enough so that Todd doesn’t go on Arby’s benders on the sly. Todd, lovely guy that he is, spends a lot of time making sure that I don’t feel stressed out as a mostly stay-at-home mama, and is hoping that I don’t feel undue stress by having to make special trips to find “happy” meat, as a friend calls it. So far, I would say that it’s actually renewed my excitement in grocery shopping and cooking. 101cookbooks.com is an all vegetarian recipe blog that is always fun to look at, but I’ve started a delicious account to bookmark the recipes that I think look especially good (and quick and Seth-friendly*). This also gave me an excuse to visit the Grainery, a natural foods store in Burien, for the first time. I probably got way too much joy out of buying french lentils in bulk. Anyway, we’ll see how this goes, but at the very least, I won’t feel guilty every time I sing a round of Old MacDonald to Seth.

*Seth is a really good eater so far. He likes lots of different veggies, and loves rice, other grains and beans (maybe he likes beans a little too much), so it’s less to cater to typical toddler tastes, but more to make sure that it’s something that he and the rest of us will enjoy. :]

Trouble for his parents today, trouble for your daughters’ hearts 17 years from now…

With a baby as active, curious and destructive as Seth, “baby-proofing” has always been a relative concept. The only way we could make things completely safe would be to put him in a featureless room with rubber walls, and then, there would still be the question of which we were trying to keep safe – our precious baby boy, or all of the books, pictures, electronics, toys and other things that he loves to chew and throw and mutilate.

His favorite activity is exploration, and he spends all day walking around and looking for something new or different that he hasn’t seen or tasted yet. His physical skills are still well beyond his capacity to recognize danger, though, so we spend a lot of time following him around, encouraging him when he sees something interesting and lifting him up to get a closer view, and doing our best to keep him our of harm’s way. (He still bonks his head at least once a day, despite our best efforts, but after a few hugs and kisses, he’s back on his way).

There’s really no way to make a house 100% safe for him or for our property without making it unlivable for the adults. That means there’s a number of places where he’s not allowed to go or things he’s not allowed to do, like chewing on books or yanking the Christmas tree over. We’ll correct him with a gentle “no-no” or “uh-uh”, and redirect his energy to something exciting in a safer part of the room.

About 2 months ago, he started to show that he understood the difference between what he was allowed to do and what he wasn’t – he’d stay away from turning off the computer or opening the cabinets he’s not allowed in, and play happily with the things he was allowed to touch. This has made things easier for everyone, and peace and happiness reigned in our kingdom (in relative terms, of course).

However, in the last week, he’s come up with a new game. He’ll intentionally go to the oven or another forbidden area, touch it, and look at us, waiting for a reaction. As soon as we move to redirect him to something else, he starts laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world. We’ve created a rebel! And not only that, but a rebel who openly mocks our authority and laughs in our faces!

The motivation behind this is pretty obvious, too. These little acts of rebellion almost invariably happen when we’re trying to work on something on the computer or watch a bit of TV. He might be the happiest guy in the world, playing by himself quietly, but as soon as he notices that our attention is directed elsewhere, he begins acting up. I want to tell him, “Seth, misbehaving as a plea for attention is such a cliché. Can’t you try something a little more original than that, like learning how to yodel as a plea for attention? Or, at the very least, make your mischief more spectacular. By next week, I want to see you robbing banks or counterfeiting expensive works of art, not something silly like chewing up the spines of your books.”

Of course, as soon as we turn off the TV or computer and get down on the floor to play with him again, he wanders off, content to play by himself and ignore his parents. It feels less like he’s hungry for our attention, especially as he gets that attention 95% of the day, and more like he’s just jealous of us using the remaining 5% of our attention on anything other than him.

As Seth grows up into a little boy with his own personality and likes and dislikes, we’re all adjusting to being part of a family. We’re trying to show him positive attention and interaction as much as possible during the good times, keeping the corrective attention short and to the point, and figuring out times when Mom and Dad can relax without Seth feeling underappreciated. It works fairly well for everyone, and even in the last week, we’ve noticed Seth’s acting up has started to calm down. It should be noted, though, that I’m typing this on the bus on the way to work… there’s no way Seth would give me enough time to type this at home.

Before Seth was born, I pictured my life as a father being somewhere in the Bill Cosby or maybe Paul Reiser model. Sure, there would be spit-ups and diaper blow-outs early on, then maybe a baseball would break a neighbor’s window or someone would get caught fibbin’, and in later seasons some first girl troubles or trying to make the high school track team – in short, it certainly wasn’t going to be easy, but I’d get a chance to say something witty and/or profound, we’d share a hug, and everything would be wrapped up neatly in the space of 22 minutes. I may not be exactly what one would call “hip” (never have been), but I’d have my unique and likable style and generally be considered to have it all put together in my own idiosyncratic way.

Well, maybe I didn’t watch close enough, but I sure don’t remember the episode where Clare Huxtable comes down with bronchitis and is in bed most of the day, where Theo is teething and hyperactive and jumping and whining and drooling and spitting up all over Cliff’s sweaters, and where that episode just kept going, and going, and going…

Fatherhood isn’t just about dealing with the little disasters that blow up in your face when you least expect them – it’s about dealing with the long, drawn-out issues that keep blowing up in your face exactly the same way and all you can do is smile and take another. It’s an endurance event, not a sprint – or, rather, it’s an endurance event that keeps tossing sprints at you but expecting you to keep running when you’re done with each one.

In many ways, I’ve had it easy as a father so far. Seth has been officially certified by all relevant local, state and international boards as the World’s Most Beautiful Baby, and as such, he’s an absolute joy to spend time with. We’ve been incredibly lucky with how well he sleeps. He’s very good tempered, and really only fusses when he’s hungry or when he’s frustrated by the limits of his own arms and legs to explore the world around him. And above all, I have an amazing wife who is similarly certified as the World’s Best Mother (tied with my own).

This year, though, Father’s Day took one look at how lucky I’ve had it, and said that if I was going to celebrate this holiday, I was going to have to earn it. So just as I was starting to get my feet back underneath me from my recent illness, and still running at about 70% energy, sickness knocked Betsy down for the count and left me as the sole parent in charge. And Seth just wanted to explore and bite and pull and yank and chew on everything he could, all day long, with a “no naps over 10 minutes long” policy.

But that’s what you gotta do. The end credits don’t roll until everyone in the house is fast asleep, and the opening music starts up again way too early every day. We earn our right to be called a Father by picking up the rattle for the 100th time no matter how sore our back is, by working hard at work and then even harder at home day after day, and by just putting it all together with sweat, love, and yes, the occasional witty remark (even if it’s just to a baby who doesn’t understand yet).

Happy Father’s Day to Kyle, Jason, Gabe, Dave, Doug, Jake, Scott, Bobby, Zack, Casey, Jeff, Eric, Frank, (soon) Corey, (hopefully soon) Aaron, to anyone who I am forgetting to name in my half-asleep state, and above all, to the best father-in-law and to the most amazing father a guy could ask for.

And happy Father’s Day to Betsy, who is not a father, but she does everything I just mentioned above solo every day I’m at work, and pretty much every holiday belongs to her for that.

We made it back home, and introduced Seth to Seattle. The trip went really well, for the most part – less than 30 seconds total fussing on the airplane, and pretty good behavior through all of the car trips and airport terminals. He did end up being fussy in the evening, but there were too many variables that day (travel, different diets expressed in breast milk, increased usage of home-made formula to supplement, etc) to determine exactly why he was grumpy. He was pretty happy all day today, though.

I had gotten fairly sick Thursday night (chills, fever, etc), and while I felt somewhat better Friday morning, all the travel had definitely drained my energy. One of my biggest worries, therefore, was trying to figure out what we would have for dinner. We had thrown away anything perishable before leaving the house a month ago, and unless we wanted plain pasta and dry cereal, I would have to leave immediately to go to the store, which was the last thing I wanted to do. When we came home, though, we found that our fridge had been stocked with lots of the essentials – milk, eggs, bacon, cheese, yogurt, etc – by our friends Tony and Melissa who were taking care of our mail. They had also left us a very nice present and balloons for our front gate. I was so happy to find that, and they are definitely awesome beyond measure for thinking of doing that.

(A few times since then, I’ve found things in our pantry that I didn’t recognize, and I’ve told Betsy that “Tony and Melissa must have left this can of soup for us as well!”, only to be told that that Betsy had bought in back in November before we left. Now anytime I find something surprising around the house, whether good or bad, I’m giving them the credit. “Oh, you have a poopy diaper, Seth? I wonder how that got in there. Tony and Melissa must have left a poo in your diaper while you weren’t wearing it!”

The first few days back have been dedicated to figuring out our routine around the house, and visiting with immediate family members and friends who live in New York and are flying back to New York on Sunday 1/4 (a small set of friends, to be sure, but an important one).

Betsy’s parents and Seth. They picked us up at the airport.

Betsy’s sister Sarah, who came to visit us this morning.

Heather sees a baby!

We’re having my immediate family come over to our house tomorrow, which will be the first chance for my sister and brother-in-law to meet their nephew and for Seth’s cousins to meet him. We’re making dinner for everyone, which might sound daunting for new parents, but cooking in my own kitchen and with my own equipment (especially my knives!) is probably the thing I was most homesick for, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to entertain again.

Do you want to come over? We should be ready to start having people come over starting on Monday. Please just give us a call, email or comment on here first (your best bet is to call me, as Betsy often has her hands full and neither of us are on the computer very often). Let us know when you would like to come over – usually any time between 10am and 8pm should be fine for the next two weeks. It’d be harder for us to try to send out invitations or coordinate times, so just invite yourself over, and we’ll let you know if the time works or not.

See you soon!

Still waiting here. The due date isn’t officially until tomorrow, but we’re definitely all getting more anxious as each day passes. The mellow wait-and-see approach of a lazy Sunday afternoon is different than the feeling of a Tuesday evening after another day of telecommuting and missing the comforts of our own home (which is not to take anything away from our hosts – they’ve been fantastic – but it’s not our own house).

One of the biggest adjustments for me personally has been missing the Christmas season. Christmas has always been a big event in my family, with some complex structures surrounding what is done when. When I was growing up, we had the calendar set for December before we even entered the month – what weekend we’d get our tree, when the lights would go up, when we’d watch which Christmas movie, official food for every meal Christmas Eve dinner through Christmas Day dinner – through the month, we built in a lot of traditions, and the familiarity of these rituals on a yearly cycle helped make the season feel like a safe, warm place rich with the memories of previous years.

Marrying Betsy was a bit of an adjustment as we started to build our own traditions and see what fit in our lives, but we’ve negotiated the first few years successfully and had just started to codify our Christmas traditions together in our new house last year.

Now, it’s December, and it’s a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the mid 60’s to low 70’s every day, hot-tubbing available every evening, and palm trees growing on green grassy lawns. And if that’s not the most perverse and disgusting thing you’ve ever heard, well, I don’t know what to say…

Ok, so maybe that’s overreacting a bit (it’s actually extremely pleasant down here), but it’s definitely been an adjustment to be going through Christmas in California.

And it’s good practice for me. There’s going to be a lot of adjustments that I’m going to have to make to my life and traditions in the extremely near future. Everything from the way we celebrate holidays or go on vacations as a family, to the daily stuff like cooking complex meals, reading casually on the couch, or sleeping – it’s all going to be changing, and not every change is going to be pleasant or easy. But the overall result of building a new life with little Eelfang in the center of it is well worth it.

Even if I have to trade my traditional grey overcast Christmases for the occassional sunny one.

Photo time!

Standing in front of the Lakeport library, aforementioned palm trees in the background.

Betsy and Aria at the lake

We attended a Christmas parade in downtown Kelseyville, which was a lot of fun. In the foreground is the back of Dave and Carter’s heads.

I helped Dave put together the lighted deer for the front yard.

Probably my favorite picture of the trip so far.

Gale and Skyler decorating a small Christmas tree.

Carter in front of the big Christmas tree that we all helped decorate.

So, it’s been a long time since I last checked in here, but at least we have some good excuses.

Last Monday, Betsy started a new job. The story of what happened to her old employer is a long and sordid tale, but suffice to say, getting out of there was a very positive move for her. She’s now going to be working for a farm out in the Fall City / Carnation area – her daily work will be much the same, but it’s both a more interesting environment (working in a barn, surrounded by fields of veggies, parking in the mud with the farm dogs running around) and a more difficult environment (did I mention it’s in Fall City? We’re looking at about an hour-long commute on a good day).

Then, on the drive home from her first day on the new job, our old car broke down. Betsy’s parents bought that car back in 1989 when it was brand new. Between various members of the family, they put nearly 19 years and over 240,000 miles on the car. However, after that amount of time, it was definitely starting to show its age – oil leaks needing a new quart every couple of weeks, squealing brakes, rattling steering, bad tires, etc. The final straw was a timing belt, and while we could have fixed that, it was really time to let that car go off to car heaven. So on the same evening that it broke down, we went out and got ourselves a new (to us) car. It’s pretty sweet to be driving something that was made this decade. Did you know that they are putting CD players in cars now? And with all four speakers working, too! Incredible.

And finally, I’m starting a new job on Tuesday in Bellevue. I’ll be leading a team of people who maintain and troubleshoot SharePoint websites for various clients – our big client being Microsoft. I’d been with my previous employer for nearly 5 years, so this is a pretty huge change for me – but one that I’m really excited about.

So, we haven’t been doing anything specifically related to adoption recently, but in another way, everything we do is related to adoption. One of the reasons why Betsy took her new job is that is has the potential to turn into a part-time telecommuting job in the future – if she was able to log even 10 hours of work a week when she’s at home with Eelfang, that would help out with the bills tremendously (assuming, of course, that she has the energy to work part-time and raise our child full-time – that might be a big thing to ask for).

For the car, it’s been a long point of contention between us about whether or not the old car was suitable for a family. Betsy, in her embrace of simplicity and not wasting things, wanted to drive the car until it stopped working, and only buy a new one when it was absolutely necessary. Todd, in his embrace of being neurotic and a worry-wart, was not at all comfortable with the idea of putting both his wife and his child in a car that was anything but supremely safe and reliable. The car dying now was as good of a compromise as we could hope for, and the new car was definitely bought with the idea of spending a little bit more for reliability, safety and a long-lasting future.

For me, I’ve been looking around for a new job for a while now. I had worked with my manager to try to expand/extend my current role, but it just wasn’t in the budget, and to keep growing my career, it was obvious that I had to look outside. Additionally, there had been a lot of changes in the past couple years, and I wasn’t 100% comfortable with all of them. I had been looking pretty aggressively last year for a new position, but came up empty.

Once we got in the pool, I assumed that I would have to wait until after the adoption happened. It would be difficult to find a new employer who was okay with my “I may need to leave for several weeks with only a few minutes notice” requirement, so I figured I’d have to grit my teeth and stick it out for a while longer. I stopped looking for a new job, and as these things often happen, as soon as I stopped looking, a great opportunity fell in my lap, and with a company that is extremely employee-focused and more than willing to work with my requirements.

Insurance is the one tricky thing – my old insurance will go until the end of this month, and my new insurance will kick in at the new job on July 1st. So while it works out okay for my personal insurance, it would be exceedingly difficult to add a new baby during that time. So Betsy and I took a tiny step backwards – we’re marking ourselves as being unavailable for any adoption where the birthmother would be due before July 1st. The last-minute placements, therefore, are off the table for the next few weeks.

That’s actually probably a good thing – we’re still working on putting together the nursery, interviewing pediatricians, and putting together our emergency “we need to go RIGHT NOW” kit. I’ll write more about those processes in the next post.