So Hard to Choose

I couldn't decide which of these pictures I liked better, so I decided to include them both:


There's no real story here or anything, I just liked the pictures.

Halloween

When it came time to choose what costume Evan was going to wear for Halloween, we had a ridiculously easy "decision" to make. Our friends Dan & Michelle gave us the costume that their son Max wore last year a few weeks after Evan was born. The fact that we happen to have tubs full of teddy bears that Steph bought as source material for her teddy skull pieces is just a happy coincidence:

Because the neighborhood kids didn't start trick-or-treating until right around his bed time Evan didn't get to go around and collect candy this year, which is probably for the best -- Steph and I really don't need an excuse or opportunity to eat more candy. He did get to help greet people for a little bit, though, and he was ready to get out there if needed:

Of course Evan eventually had to get out of his costume so he could get ready for bed:

Steph wanted to make sure I mentioned this was a picture of Evan's "bear bottom" (I didn't think it was that funny, but she was quite tickled by the homophone).

My First Earthquake®

As a native Californian, it was important Evan get his first earthquake under his belt as soon as possible. Luckily providence provided for him tonight. Steph and I had just finished putting him to bed and were finally about to sit down for dinner when a series of large trucks ran into the house. Or at least that's kinda what it felt like. It turns out we'd been hit by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake, with an epicenter only 4½ miles away.

When the house started shaking, our first reaction was, "Huh, I wonder how long this is going to last," followed almost immediately thereafter by "Baby!" Evan was just fine, although he was a little startled by all the bright lights, noise, and parents grabbing him when he was supposed to be sleeping:

I can't speak to whether he thought the house moving around him was anything out of the ordinary. When almost all the motion you experience is your world acting upon you, who's to say that your house pushing you around is any different than a parent doing the same?

I can, however, speak to this mirror's opinion on the issue. I'm quite confident it would have preferred to have been moved by Steph or I instead of the house:

We were trying to figure out how to throw this mirror away, which is why it was resting against the wall in the soon-to-be-completed wine bar area of the kitchen instead of mounted somewhere. Past experience tells us that these thick glass mirrors are a royal pain in the butt to break into smaller pieces for disposal (we fractured a hammer trying to shatter one at our old condo). It turns out an earthquake does the job just fine, though. The next time I need to break up an old mirror I'm going to lean it just slightly against a wall and wait. Maybe I'll wrap it in a sheet or something first.

Fortunately that was the extent of the damage. Between chitchatting with the neighbors about the temblor, putting Evan to bed again, and cleaning up the mirror bits our dinner was delayed by an hour or so. You only get to experience this kind of geological excitement once every decade or two, though.

Chillin'

We started sleep training Evan today with the E.A.S.Y. method espoused by the Baby Whisperer (we seem to be suckers for professional Whisperers). We're expecting a painful couple of days ahead, but Evan at least is very relaxed, presumably expecting business as usual:

I'll report back on how it's going in a week or two.

Happy Baby

Evan is continually becoming more interactive. He's starting to reach for and pick up toys around him, he likes to look at whoever in the room is talking, and if he's in the mood he'll talk back. Best of all, the right combination of sounds and faces can make him just light up.

He's normally a pretty happy baby to begin with (as long as it's not around his bed time):

But if you make the right sounds (he really loves this kind of croaking sound Steph makes -- which is just imitating him in the first place -- that sounds like an old door opening slowly) he flashes his biggest would-be-toothy-if-he-had-teeth grin:

Now if we could just get him to laugh more consistently...

Collective Soul

I got an email Monday morning informing me that I'd won two passes to a KFOG Private Concert with Collective Soul. Even better, the show was in the PlaySpace, KFOG's little performance venue/recording studio, so there would only be 20 or 30 people there! After some exculpatory emailing to determine if babies were welcome (they were, mostly), we headed up to the city Wednesday for a long lunch and Evan's first studio show.

Here's the picture we got with the band after the show was over:

From left to right, that's me, Joel Kosche (lead guitarist), Evan, Steph, and Ed Roland (lead singer/guitarist).

It was just the two guys, their acoustic guitars, and 20 or so Fogheads (KFOG listeners), and that's it! It was a really neat experience. Unfortunately, since they record the shows for possible later release they didn't want Evan to be in the actual studio (that's what I meant when I said babies were "mostly" welcome), but he and Steph got to sit in the control room adjoining the studio and watch the show from there. As you can see in the photo, Evan liked the show so much that he fell asleep (which is really about the highest compliment a baby can pay -- the music was so harmonious he drifted off). Both Ed and Joel were very friendly (in addition to the photo we talked with Ed and his wife for a few minutes about kids and baby carriers), as was everyone involved... we had a great time.

== May 3rd, 2008 ==

KFOG posted videos of two of the songs Collective Soul performed on YouTube, "Hollywood" and "Shine".

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

We think Evan and Peekay are both starting to show signs of actually liking each other. Or at least, Peekay seems to care that we attend to Evan when he sounds upset, and Evan seems to want to be like Peekay:

We've always been mindful of the dog's behavior around the baby, especially since we've heard our share of horror stories about family dogs not adjusting to new additions very well. We've been very pleased with how well they've gotten along so far, but this caught us by surprise a bit. Is this the price of infant-canine harmony... infant-canine synergy? I'm not sure we're ready to deal with that.

Camouflage

With all that blue, it's almost as if Evan is floating in mid-air next to Steph's disembodied head, huh?

I Guess He Was Just Tired

I'm not a bad parent. Really. But Evan had been cycling between plaintive crying and full-throated screaming for over an hour, and I just needed to put him down for a few minutes. (For some reason screaming babies are much heavier than quiet babies. I haven't worked out the physics of this phenomenon yet - it must have something to do with the mass of moist, hot air - but it is indisputably true.) When I put him in his Bumbo seat for a few seconds to get his bottle ready earlier in the evening he seemed happy (until he started crying again), so I figured I'd give it another shot. You're really not supposed to put the chair on the counter, particularly not close to the edge, but I was standing right there next to him flipping through a magazine. Besides, Evan doesn't really have the leg strength and coordination to move the chair around yet.

Anyway, after a few minutes something magical happened... he ran out of gas:

This looked way too uncomfortable to leave him that way any longer than it took to take a picture, and as soon as I picked him up he started screaming again. It was worth it for the chance to get that photo, though.

The Iceman Cometh

The weather has turned "cold" in Northern California this past week -- this morning it was in the low 50s when Steph and Evan were getting ready to walk the dog. They're both native Californians, so weather like this calls for some serious bundling up: