Finally, Thanksgiving Photos

Here are the much awaited best-of-the-bunch photos from Thanksgiving. To see them, go to our gallery here.

If you're too lazy to go there, here's a taste.

Counting Our Chickens...

It's only half way through our trip home on the ferry, but I'd say that it's a COMPLETE SUCCESS. Apart from the awesomeness of free wifi on the whole crossing from Nantucket to Hyannis on the Steamship, the trip is gret because Margot it being super happy.

Finally, Something Margot Doesn't Like

We don't have any pictures of Margot's first ferry ride because she was inconsolable and pictures of a screaming baby aren't cute. The other people who have to listen to the screaming baby also aren't very patient with you pausing to take pictures of her. Not that we tried!

Actually, everyone was amazingly nice and still asked us about her They were"what's her name" and "where are you from" sort of questions rather than "can't you get her to stop crying" and "why don't you go away". Adam had the magic touch (gait?) and soothed her by walking around. It was kind of funny looking. Imagine a bowlegged cowboy on the rolling seas.

Today we take the ferry back. I sure hope she doesn't give us a repeat performance!

Breaking the Log Jam

So, it's been a busy buncha weeks, no surprise. Starting with Thanksgiving, when I posted a teaser and never got to the follow-up, various (and sundry) things have resulted in a general lack of posting - so, Sorry! Thanksgiving blended into a busy first half of December, culminating in my trip to Tel Aviv (as some of you guessed) and Christi's first week caring for Margot alone. The second half of December blew past as we recovered and then prepared for the holidays, and we've been with Christi's folks on Nantucket since Friday. Don't you worry, we've accomplished Margot's first Xmas - with over 500 photos snapped, so it's well documented. And that's ignoring the ice dam and water damage at home that our neighbor called about! (No big deal for us, in the end - but thanks to my folks for going to check it out!)

Topics I'm hoping to somehow find more time to post on or at least share top photos:

• Thanksgiving photos with the McKernan side of the family
  
• Margot's amazing progress and development
  
• More photos from Tel Aviv
  
• Margot's astounding development and progress
  
• Nantucket/Christmas photos
  
• Jolly vs. The Atlantic Ocean
  
• Etc
  

Guessing Game, Part Four

OK, these might actually give someone a decent clue, possibly.

Note that the second one shows a live orange tree, suspended in midair with no contact with the ground. "It's art."

Guessing Game, Part Three

(Ok, a bit blurred - I brought the OLD camera.)

Guessing Game, Part Two

Guessing Game, Part One

Where's Adam this week?

Squirrel Poem 2

Jolly's excited, 

and even delighted - 

but I cannot see.

Where can it be?

Ah, up in that tree.

We're back from a great time in Brooklyn.  Jolly saw squirrels there - and was also hyper about many other less reasonable things - but this particular poem is from this morning at home.

Thanksgiving Teaser

OK folks - I know everyone's out there in turkey-hangover, and probably surfin' over to see what's been put online lately . . . well, we're down in Brooklyn at Christi's Mom's place, and having lots of fun. The big surprise is, we're taking lots of pictures! So, until we get them a bit organized later, here are a couple teasers so that you don't have to wait so long...

I love my 50mm

Once again, I've determined that this is the year to become a better photographer or, as I say it, finally figure that photo thing out. And, once again, I've turned to The Internet to be my teacher. Finally, I think it's starting to work. This post got me playing with my 50mm lens to get that nice blurry background effect among other things. I'm pretty happy with the results. Now I just need to compose shots as nice as this one that Adam took of our dessert last night.

And a huge thank you to Jim for giving me this lens a few birthdays ago!

Happy Birthday to Mommy!

What You Really Want ...

Let's be honest. We know why you really come here and it isn't just to "hear about what we're doing". You're here for the pictures of the cutest non-furry family member. Since we're new parents and camera addicts, here are some more shots for you to enjoy.

Last weekend, Margot met her friend Lisa for the first time.











I love this face. It's like she can't believe that you just said/did that.









This artistic shot was taken with Adam's LensBaby. It has a small area of focus and blurs outwards from there. It's a fun and not-super-useful lens. Great for mixing things up when you're taking the ten-millionth picture of your baby. :)

Correction

Lets chalk it up to lack of sleep and the cold he's fighting, but Adam is wrong about when the Grandparents Andersen last saw Margot.

Since some cute pictures came out of our family adventure to The Head Of The Charles, here is the photographic evidence. Sadly, we didn't get any pictures from when he met Monica and Jack later on that day.




It was a true family outing involving all of the dogs. This was Jolly's first extended exposure to Sophie and Nanook. He's not so sure about other dogs in general, but it went pretty well. He was even tired enough by the end of the day to let me wrangle the three of them at once!

Two-Month Checkup

So, Tuesday we took Margot for her two-month checkup. For those of you keeping score:
- Tuesday was 9 weeks after her birthday
- She's 12 lbs 6 oz, up from just under 8 lbs birthweight and something under 7 lbs minimum weight around five days
- She's 22.5 in long, which is up a couple of inches (call it 10-12%) although I'm less sure of those numbers, and think they're a little less accurate anyway
- Her head is now 38 cm around - just about 15 inches. I don't remember any previous measurements.

She's in good health and the doctor was happy with everything. The less fun part of the visit was getting a couple of early vaccinations - although a tag-team of two nurses made a very quick process of the shots. She seemed to have a rough afternoon and evening after that, but a day later she's none the worse for wear.

She's making a lot more noises now, I think, than even a few days ago. She can also look at you, if she's in the right mood, when you talk to her. And, we think we can make her smile and even kind of laugh, although an attempt at video documentation of such an effect failed this evening. We'll keep trying - it's like magic when her face lights up.

Friday her Grandparents Andersen are coming for the night, to visit, which will be great as they haven't seen her since she was a week old. How things change!
[Edit - as Christi points out, they HAVE seen Margot, a few weeks ago in Cambridge. I guess I was up too late - I was just thinking that they hadn't been at our house again!]

OK - Blogger's not cooperating on letting me post a picture tonight, so you'll have to wait. Sorry!

Margot Meets The Whoozit

Up until now, Margot has had one word: "errah". While that hasn't been recorded for posterity yet, we did find that Margot has been holding out on us. When she finally found someone who could really understand her (in this case, the Whoozit toy from her Great-Grandma McKernan), we heard a whole bunch of new sounds.

Notice all of the arm motion punching the Whoozit around. (We'll teach her not to do that to her friends when she gets older!) My favorite is when one of its rings gets close to her mouth and she tries to suck on it. Our little girl is a developmental barrel of fun while she explores the world around her.

(Special thanks to Soren for the loan of the play mat. She loves it!)

Oh, Yeah!

Looks like the Sox are wrapping things up, and if it's any indication, Margot was confident from the first inning:



OK, so actually that picture is from Saturday night, but she looked about the same after the top of the first tonight.

To prove that we haven't kept her in the Sox onesie for the duration of the series: 


And, to show that we haven't kept her drugged and sleeping:


That last one also shows a big passtime of late: trying to get her hands to and into her mouth.  I haven't posted recently about development etc - this has been going on and gathering momentum for a couple of weeks.  She's now pretty good at getting one hand or the other up near her mouth, although she hasn't figured out that unballing the fist would make it easier to keep a finger or thumb in there.  She does occasionally loosen a finger up enough to poke herself in the nostril or eye, though that doesn't seem to bother her much.  As it is she's pretty happy (though also pretty noisy) sucking and slobbering on her index-finger knuckle.  Now all the has to learn, really, is to do it on-demand, and she'll have a real tool for self-pacification.

Hmmm, I think it's been a long enough drought here, that I'll give you one more.  Or two. OK, three more. Here she is still asleep this morning. . .

Go Sox!

Squirrel Poem 1

'Tis Autumn, and the squirrels abound
Not just "about", but all around
What Paradise has Jolly found!

(stupid squirrels)

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers

Bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!

Up until this week, Margot has hated her bouncy chair. Now that she can see all the way to the toys and focus on them (two developmental feats that we're very proud of!), she's content to sit in the chair. I wouldn't say that she loves it, but it provides something interesting to stare at apart from the perennial favorites: light bulbs and windows.


Here she is being very focused. Obvious next steps are:

a) reaching out and playing with the toy
b) moving the toy with the power of her mind

While B would be cool, it might be too spooky to have a telekinetic child. Only time will tell.

More Famouser Than Me

Guess who's on the front page of the Boston Herald's Business section today? (And a blurb on the front page, no less.)

Christi and Derek have done fantastic work on Zyrra over the past couple of years. They've also both had first babies this year, just to make things easier (Derek's little boy Miles is a few months ahead of Margot).

I won't put a lot on here, but I know a lot of you know a bit about what Christi's trying to do, and have been great supporters. (If the Herald can make puns, I can make mine.) It's not always easy to keep people up to date with what's going on, but there's a lot of great activity for Zyrra and exciting things happening, so hopefully this is just the beginning of the drumroll....

Congrats to Christi and Derek for pulling so much together. Good luck!

Bjorn Again

So, normally when we've taken walks with the family over the past few weeks, it's looked like this:
However, while we had tried it out before, today we had our first really good walk with the Baby Bjorn:
This is pretty nice 'cause we don't have to have the stroller out, and you're more flexible about where you can go. It was a really nice day today, so it was good to get out for a reasonable walk . . . and after a couple of days of low movement, Jolly was happy to get out for a bit.
And, yes, Margot's wearing the hat the Christi knitted for her (even if she's not quite wearing the expression it might deserve):

Some Quick Pics

Hi all - I figure I better keep the pics coming. We don't always get a chance to shoot a lot, but here are a few recent ones. We've had a good few days including a mostly relaxed weekend, very nice.







































Flailing robot shirt courtesy of Sam. Thanks!

Yarrr Mateys

Marrrgot was wantin' me for to send all y'arrr lubbers a greetin'. Avast there, and we hope yarrr International Talk Like a Pirate Day shiverred y'errr timbers!

Two Weeks and All's Well

Hi all -

We went to the pediatrician for Margot's two-week checkup, and all's well. She's gained a pound since last Monday, and is up to 8lbs 15oz (although I think she'd had a recent feeding). She's much more active with her hands now, and spends long times (relatively speaking) during the day with her eyes open and "looking around" (although I know she still can't focus on anything very far away from her face). She's also differentiating her daytime and nighttime schedule - feeding more oftenduring the day and sleeping for longer periods (again, relatively speaking) at night. A couple nights ago she fed at 10PM, 2AM, and 6AM - which means something not too short of 4-hour sleeps for me, and three-plus hour spells for Christi which was (relatively speaking) grand for a couple of nights.

What else? I've been working since last Wednesday, although I'm able to do some of it from home, which is good since I can mostly get work done, but occasionally watch or handle Margot when Christi needs a break.

I don't have any new pics on this computer, so you'll have to hold out for a bit. Maybe tomorrow I can add more. Margot has tried on many more of her clothes now, and has a repertoire now including pants & shirts, onesies, sleep gowns, hats, mittens, and socks - not to mention the cutest little jacket with lamb-ears you've ever seen (softest, too).

That's all for now - time to get Margot's furry brother out for his evening eliminations! Ooh, maybe I have a picture of him I can add . . . nope, dang.

Well, then, here is the finest photograph of Margot 'n' Mooo that 45 seconds with the Mac's built-in camera can produce:


(You don't want to know what Margot was doing while I took this.)

G'nite!

You Asked For It

OK, so I finally got some more photos online. They're over at my gallery, under "Margot's First Days". I tried to use mostly things I hadn't put up before, but you'll recognize some of them. These are most of the best of our pictures from Margot's first five days, and the best representation I can give (in photos) of a fraction of what went on.



Since those first sets of days, things have quieted down a bit and we've settled towards something resembling a routine . . . and naturally the camera doesn't come out quite as much. I will try to keep taking shots and get some documentation of what's going on, since as anyone will tell you, Margot is changing amazingly quickly. Meanwhile, I'll also try to do a couple of posts on the first couple weeks, and get down in writing what we've been up to and how it's gone.

But for now, you've been asking for it, go look at those pics!

Thanks Again

It just occurred to me that I've sent news of Margot's birth to friends and family across the country and on four continents. I've gotten responses within minutes to messages, and shared pictures with people all over the place. I already commented that we had wireless internet access in the hospital room. I've uploaded photos to a web service and had them send film-quality prints to relatives within days, basically for the cost of shipping. Not to mention all of the baby information and even, yes, consumer product information that I've gotten from the 'net.

We've heard over and over in the past nine-plus months that being pregnant, giving birth, and raising children just isn't the same as it used to be. The breakdown of the physical proximity of most families, of the connected spirit of local communities, supposedly has interrupted our connection to the knowledge, experience, and love of our elders and peers.

Well, lemme tell ya - it has been absolutely incredible to feel the outpouring of spirit from everyone who's been connected here or in email or otherwise. The gifts and advice and just plain help we've received from all quarters - the closest family members, to folks who really don't need to go out of their way but do - all of this just really adds up to a deep feeling of gratitude and connection. So, hopefully again, THANKS! It really matters, perhaps especially when we're on the tired end of the day. Hopefully soon we'll have a bit more external energy to share some more detailed responses and news with more of you directly . . . we can't wait for Margot to meet you all!

Now, who knows someone I can email on those other three continents? (South America, Africa, Antarctica)

It's Official

Margot just spit up on me.  I think I'm officially a Dad.  Snif.

Counting the first real diaper-escaping poopsplosion this afternoon, which Grandma Smith was holding her for but Christi discovered (how'd THAT get on her SHOULDER?), I think we're both in.

Milestones.  Snif.

Home and Busy

All -

Time is relative, and the few days since we came home Thursday morning have been simultaneously a quick blur, and amazingly full and long. Briefly (something I find myself saying a lot these days, but frequently not achieving):

• we are home
  
• we are healthy (in Margot's case, this is the pediatrician's opinion, as well as ours)
  
• we are happy (beyond words, most of the time)
• we are settling in to figuring out how this might actually work
• yes I'll post some more dang pictures soon

We have had great visits with many of our family and friends, and tremendous amounts of help from (among others) Christi's mom and stepdad (now, "Pop-Pop") who are staying with us. Margot is being sweet beyond hope, not fussing overmuch, and even letting us sleep a marginally acceptable amount as we figure out some things about managing her. (Yes, you should ignore the fact that I'm apparently insomniac after the last feeding, 'cause it's working in your favor.) Christi is a tremendous trooper, dealing with her own physical recovery, more changes in her body, and the schedule demands of breastfeeding (meaning that her sleep will always be less than mine, until Margot is firmly established on breastfeeding in a month or so). It's been said before, but I don't know how I'd handle half of it, if it were me (nor how moms who've had a c-section etc can manage). Even Jolly's being amazingly well-behaved, considering (and he seems to be mystified by Margot, especially when she's at face-level).

So stick with us, and we'll try to surface soon. Be well.