Trip to Chicago - end

This is the view from the terrace of Moody Church's Christian Life Center.  It was great being back in Chicago, but it made me miss it a lot more, even with the cold.  I guess I missed the cold a little too.

Tony's Gyros at Chicago and Rush

I seized every opportunity to take back a 4x6 souvenier of the city.

Much can be accomplished by laying on the ground and tilting your camera.  It takes a man of little shame to run ahead of his family on a crowded sidewalk, dive to the ground, and turn around to get what most people don't value in the first place, exciting, low-angle "nausea" shots.

Somehow on this one, I triggered the b/w function, and panicked trying to get back to the world of color.

Pooklet in the land of chocolate, Moonstruck, Chicago.

My old favorite, the Mint Tingle, next to Pooklet's old favorite, breast milk.

The Baby Bjorn is really pretty cool.  Not only does it come in a nice 0live green with vibrant lime piping, but it serves multiple functions:

1. It frees up both hands so you can strangle your spouse (or whomever) and let the pooklet participate
   
2. It soothes your pooklet by putting him next to your scent, warmth, and heartbeat.  awwww.
   
3. It consoles him when he cries if you bounce him up and down
   
4. It develops your back muscles (or your back pain, depending on your posture)
   
5. It allows you to board and exit aircraft, especially when the terminal's under construction and they make you walk out to and up a staircase into the plane
   
6. With a blanket, it lets you hide the pooklet and make strangers wonder if it isn't some kind of animal under there

BiPolar Bear

Last night, the pooklet was crying as per his nightly routine, going out with a bang before going down for the night.  Unable to soothe him, and lacking any better ideas, I resorted to "The Elevator," a technique proven to stop crying.  To my surprise, he not only stopped crying as I lifted him up and down, but he started giggling!  He even kept giggling a little when I stopped.  And then, as I cradled him gently again, he resumed crying.  Our little bipolar bear.

Out-of-sequence Pooklet updates

Things have been busy and I've been tired this past weekend, and this blog is dangerously close to being an idol sometimes, I swear. I just told my wife that I can't chat with her because "I have to blog." Truthfully, though, I just want to paste what I'd already text'd into my blackberry over the past few days. Be right there, Pookie!!


4.3.08
Pooklet was mind-numbingly cute when he arrived in the car after work yesterday. It's amazingly heart-warming to be giggled at by a 4-month-old with no teeth.

He still fusses when I hold him, though, as he reminded me after his dinner that evening. He likes to hold his own bottle, by the way, and only needs a little bit of help with that, even with the long, glass ones. He also sometimes clings to one of my fingers for dear life while drinking. Heh. Cute.

One of the precautions we've adopted lately is putting socks on his hands (OK, part precaution, part entertainment). He has little scratches on his face cuz he claws at himself when he sleeps. Despite the eczema that has shown up on his body, it doesn't appear that he's scratching an itch in this instance. He's just being a weirdo.

Plugging his mouth with a pacifier (binkification) is often difficult even when he's not scratching, cuz he keeps his fists against his face when he's waking or falling asleep. It's like playing the windmill in miniature golf, trying to get the binky in the mouth.

4.4.08
Pooklet's been talking more the last week or so, with more robust sounds and different combinations of sounds. I can’t wait for him to grow into his exuberance and get an actual English vocabulary.

Today he had his long-awaited GI specialist appointment in Sacramento, and it was a relief to learn that occasional (weekly-biweekly) bits of bright red blood in his diapie is no cause for alarm if he’s eating and eliminating normally. Good to hear.

Here are the latest stats, too:

15lbs, 13oz., and 66cm. = 26"

He does, however, have some “legions,” broken skin around his, um, diaper area, so for 10 days, we have to alternate nystatin (for legions/fungus prevention), and desitin (to kill bacteria), each twice a day, and air his butt out for an hour after changing each diapie. We’ve already cut that down to almost nil drying time.

We also got the go-ahead to start the pooklet on rice cereals at 6 months. The specialist also recommends 2-3 yrs of breast milk in the bottle, since it’s his best defense.

4.5.08
I learned that simply moving Pooklet’s arms laterally, and not necessarily making him tickle himself, makes him giggle. It also helps if you get him started by giggling yourself.

Trip to Chicago - 3/26/08

This is Pooklet wearing his first snowflake in Wheeling, IL, as we're leaving a friend's house. Our friend teaches at Moody Bible Institute and, along with his wife, gave us some beloved pre-marital counseling before we headed off to California. They continue to give us their beloved friendship. Our counselor is on his way to a doctorate with his recently completed thesis on Song of Solomon. Speaking of Song of Solomon, has anyone heard Tommy Nelson's series on it? Search for him on iTunes. Well worth your time.

Here's a grandpook with the pooklet.


We got to see Moody Church's new Christian Life Center for the first time, and man, is it nice. It has really great details, too, which is refreshing to see in a church. Modern, timeless, subtle. Here's one of the gathering spots...



The main purpose of our trip was to see two friends marry, two who contributed music to our own wedding. I went nuts with Moody's giant sanctuary and my new camera, and had a lot of fun with the elegance and scale of it all.
This young man at the organ is a true virtuoso. I'd forgotten how I used to admire his piano talent, coupled with an intensity and a reverence I perceived in him. He's a really good-natured guy with a sense of humor, which a shot this imposing belies.


We sat with friends during the reception, and the Pooklet met his match. They had a Cute-Off.


More to come as soon as I sort out the rest of the photos.

Trip to Chicago – 3/26/08

The last week was a hectic but enjoyable vacation to see isaac's grandpooks and a wedding in Chicago. Blogging was near impossible after the first day, so I have some catch-up to do.



vacation in the life of a pooklet

3/25
Last-minute packing last night and today before our drive from work to san jose. I don’t know how to get there, how long it’ll take, or even what time our flight leaves tomorrow. These are the things I’ve left to the wif, who is more experienced in coordinating peoples’ schedules and in getting the best price.

The night before our 8am flight from Mineta Airport, we stayed with three pharmacists-in-training from pookie’s small group. This was to give us a 15-minute drive to our flight, instead of a 2-knows-how-long-hours drive. We slept on a brand-new aerobed we got on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond and left it at our friends’ unfurnished apartment. Ah, modern living solutions.


Regarding re-packing, if you aren’t already conditioned to do this, I recommend taking extra empty Ziploc bags and travel-sized plastic containers (available at Target) for last-minute and unforeseen suitcase-content rearranging, like when pill consolidation becomes the crucial final stage in excising that smallest of suitcases from your entourage.

My coworker lent us her Eddie Bauer compact carrying port-a-bed for the pooklet, which we put to use only at our first stop, the house o’ pharmacists. It’s compact with a handle, and fits our 26” pooklet just fine. A Pooky recommendation if you can put it to use.

Our friend Steponme drove us to the airport the next morning. However, shortly after she dropped us off and we got into the security line, Pookie realized that we’d forgotten the car seat base, that which is forever latched into our backseat, and incredibly difficult to remember if you’re supposed to take it with you on a plane. So, set a reminder on your phone, write it on your hand, but avoid the mistake we made. In the end, it just amounted to a return trip for our friend, and Pookie standing in line again while I waited with the pooklet in the stroller. What we failed to remember, however, was the breast pump cups we also left in the car. That would’ve been disastrous. There’s probably some method of creating a checklist of every necessary item and ensuring that you know that they're all accounted for by the time you go through security, but I’ve yet to master it.
By the way, they let you carry bottles of milk through security. Just have them out. We’d been advised to feed the baby on takeoff and landing to help with the pressure change.

A fellow new mother-friend had recommended boarding as late as possible on assigned-seat carriers (like our United), to reduce the time spent cramped and trapped in the plane seat as much as possible.
For United’s 4hr 30min. flight to Chicago, however, with a 4-month old baby, we didn’t think it mattered much, and in the end, it didn’t, especially since pre-boarding is per section now, as in, pre-boarding for section A, pre-boarding B, etc., meaning you don’t get much of a jump on things if you’re not in the first section. And then, it was understaffed and disorganized at the gate, so we jumped into line late anyway.

We carried on our super-hecka-awesome BOB Revolution stroller (It’s so fun to break down, and even has a handle!) and Peg Pérego car seat (which fits the BOB if you buy the BOB’s car seat bracket). At the gate you just ask for a tag, and they apparently store strollers separate in the cargo from the luggage. I guess it’s a step up from risking mangling-proximity with the suitcases. Still, we were misled in advance to believe that it would be going in with the peoples, not some glorified check-through business…


We ran into my friend Sharon at the gate. The first from my old capoeira clique to see the pooklet.

We were blessed to have a down-to-earth and accommodating gentleman as our seatmate, who let both pookies get up to use the toilet twice. He assured us at the outset that we needn’t worry about any crying because “we’d never see any of these people again.” It helps to sit next to parents who can relate.

The pooklet flew well, snug as a bug in a flying rug. Someone told us that 4 months isn’t the problem age, though, so we’ll see what the future holds for the traveling triptych of pookies.

parenting field research

Our week-long trip to chicago has delayed things severely, but today begins a three-day weekend (well-timed!), so here begins the catch-up...

Before I post the details of the trip, I'd like to document what we've learned the past week or so in the way of parenting tips (Parents: please don't hesitate to weigh in).

Saturday, we attended our friends' wedding at The Moody Church, and during the reception, got to pick the brains of a family of five that we know. One tip they shared with us was having everyone sit together at dinner until everyone has finished their meal. They've done this since their first child was old enough to sit at the table. The benefit they've reaped is well-behaved children in restaurants.

I also observed an impressive mother of five frequently curbing her special-needs daughter's uninhibited gesturing during the reception. Every time her daughter vocalized or raised an arm, her mother would gently subdue the distraction, and always with a loving smile. It's interesting that constant behavior modification (or discipline, if you like) can amount to more smiles, at least more than many distracted parents give in conversation settings like this. Unique love reinforcement opportunities.

This same mother later reminded us to make an effort to continue in dating one another, in order to maintain the romance that acts as preventative marriage maintenance. The Pookies consequently discussed which habits we should and could implement in our week, and Pookie suggested that date night could actually be a date morning, since so often I'm tired at the end of the week at the end of the day and consequently less conversational during what's supposed to be a special time together. Saturday mornings after my coffee is a candidate on the horizon...

Sunday, the wifey pook read from one of my mother's parenting books, and gave us this tip: Spend 15 minutes a day with each child. During this time, the goal is to learn about your child's likes, and to avoid disciplining attitudes and measures as much as possible.

Monday, the parents of Saturday's bride impressed upon us the dangers of resorting to using the mommy-daddy bed as a sleep aid for your fussy pooklet. They reaped the consequences of that as one of their children grew as a toddler. However, they also gave us hope by relating to us that this same child learned to use the toilet at only one year of age. I think Pookie's mom gave us similar advice: Just sit the little booger down on the pot and get 'er used to her future potty home as soon and as often as possible.

I also read an article in the chicago tribune that reminded me of what a couple other books of ours taught, that babies should sleep after every 90 minutes awake. What I was more impressed by, though, was the writer's commentary on parenting philosophy on the first 6 months. In generations past, mothers stayed at home during the first half-year of the child's life, to ensure healthy sleep habits, something we are constantly preoccupied with. Nowadays, parents are all about retaining their social freedom at the expense of their baby's schedule. And it never fails, that the more we take the pooklet out and about, the more things with which we thwart his sleep regularity, the more likely he'll fuss that night.
Parenthood is sacrifice in service of your child. There's no getting around it. Yet I think our selfish nature tries to resist as much sacrifice as possible, till we're doing the bare minimum (according to society's current trends) as we can get away with.
I believe there's satisfaction in putting the child first (outside of facilitating co-dependence) just like there's satisfaction in putting your spouse first, in serving your family before self. The sooner you embrace that truth, the sooner you can concentrate on it and lose the tension that comes from fighting it, because, after all, the fighting, if you choose it, won't end. And there's joy in humility, especially in light of the future you can have with the greater rewards of a mature, loving family, instead of the lonely, logical end of a self-serving life.

It's just 6 months.

Freedom necessitates boundaries

Will adults in our society restrict their own freedom to promote children's welfare?

That's a question posited, in a wonderful interview in WORLD magazine, by David Tubbs, professor at The King's College, NYC. He's written a book that I'd love to read, Freedom's Orphans: Contemporary Liberalism and the Fate of American Children.

Tubbs examines "the great expansion of individual rights in American law over the past six decades" that came with little attention to their implications for children.

My favorite part of his interview elucidates the difference between positive and negative freedom. He reveals the enslaving consequences of undiscerning freedom:

The more widely known idea is "negative": It means "absence of restraint" or "the liberty to choose." But there's another idea of freedom, the "positive" notion. It means "self-governance." We can grasp this idea if we think of persons becoming "enslaved" to dangerous passions--such as drink, drugs, or pornography. This idea of freedom makes it easier, for example, to justify laws that ban the sale of addictive drugs (even though these laws restrict choice), because a person who becomes addicted is no longer "self-governing. ... Education promotes self-governance, and we don't let children choose whether they will be educated. Instead, we require schooling, because an illiterate person is radically dependent on others and therefore "unfree."

He also notes that religious observances, despite being alleged as oppressive, have, in the West, long been thought to promote positive freedom. He cites John 8:23, a crucial worldview passage by which Christians ought to live: "If you continue in My (Jesus') word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth and it will make you free." He then notes:

Religious observance helps many people to resist potentially destructive passions and impulses and therefore promotes their freedom.

Tubbs also differentiates between "classical" and "contemporary liberalism:"

Contemporary liberals tend to think that personal freeedom for adults is
presumptively more important than any competing social interest, including many
pertaining to the welfare of children. Classical liberals have a broader understanding of the public good and are less likely to accept such a presumption.

Another observation Tubbs makes is in regard to a wavering adult perception of children's vulnerability:

We no longer have religious exercises in public schools partly because the High Court has said that children who don't want to participate in the exercises can be "indirectly coerced" into participating. To accept this theory of "indirect coercion," we must assume that children are psychologically and morally frail. That is a broadly accurate characterization of children, but the Supreme Court should be consistent in applying it. When, for example, the Court decides cases in which adults assert free-speech rights to pornography and children are exposed to such images, the Court usually depicts children as morally sturdy and somehow "inoculated" against pornography. This is a huge inconsistency in First Amendment law."

As we consider the notion of homeschooling our kids, we regardless face with certainty our responsibility to define the pooklet's freedoms as he gets older. Likewise, it is incumbent upon us to consider the implications of a biblical worldview as we engage our culture. I struggle daily with presenting the winsomness of the gospel (and the worldview it creates), because it requires confrontation with the sin we're all loathe to part with, namely the pride of presumed rights and deservations (if that's a word). There is always a beautiful view of life atop the mountain peak, but it's getting through the valley of difficult truths that's the hard part.