Simon expresses himself

First off, I'd like to say that the faux hawk is NOT going out of style
And if anyone thinks otherwise they should put up their dukes.
Then there's my leather look courtesy of my Unk Skeeter. Maroon is the new black.
Wait, I'm not ready for pictures yet...my hair isn't quite right.
C'mon baby, let's do the twist!!

More Simon Lev to love

Jaime, Simon, and Grandpa Bruce out for Grandfathers day lookin' good.



Grandpa Bruce is in solidarity with Simon Lev
Simon says "Hey GB, pull my finger, no wait, let me pull yours." Instead of tooting, Simon lets out a big Yawn. Aaaah babyhood, we'll see how long that lasts.

Simon's Master Plan

Mostly I'm growing into a happy go-lucky kinda guy. I'm spacing out my meals more and every once in a while I even throw my mommies a bone by sleeping 5 hours in a row (that was a couple of nights ago- now I'm back to 2-3 in a chunk. I like to keep those punks on their toes).
But sometimes Mommy Laura catches it on digital film that I am in fact hatching an evil plan to take over the world. No, not the world..the universe...yes, the whole universe shall be mine. Mwaa haa haaaa.
Peas out to all my fans.
SLFJ

New Pictures of Simon Lev- Lookin' Goood

Look at me Folks!! I'm learning, growing and getting my smile on.

Losing it just a little

Here's a funny little story about how sleep deprivation affects your powers of perception.

Last night Laura and I were in the living room, watching American Idol on DVR while she nursed Simon for the last time before he went to sleep. We're about halfway through the show when she said, "pause it for a minute" and cocked her head like a dog. I paused it and said, "what? What are you listening for?". She didn't answer me, kept listening intently, and then whispered, "I thought I heard Simon". I thought she meant she heard him making some weird, scary, trying-to-die noise from her lap. I looked at her, quite concerned, and the realized she thought she heard him from the bedroom.

Trying not to laugh at her, I said, "um, Babe...he's in your LAP. On your BOOB".

She looked down and then, shaking her head said, "Shut up. Shut up. Don't even say it".

We burst into our old familiar hysterical laughter and finished watching the Davids duke it out.

Welcome Hysteria, Sweet Sister of Sleep Deprivation

Last week Laura and I met Hysteria.

It was about 8:30 pm and we were just trying to settle down to go to bed. I was so tired I was literally almost drooling. I was exceptionally desperate to sleep because I needed to wake up at 10:40pm to go pick up my dear friend Abby from the airport.

Laura had just gotten Simon to sleep and put him down in his co-sleeper. I was sliding down the delicious off ramp to sleep when Laura's voice brought a halt to my journey.

"Do you want to sing to him?", she asked so sweetly.

Let me explain. Many a well meaning infant care book and website has talked about the critical need to develop a "bedtime ritual". Give a bath, sing the same lullaby, have a little catch phrase- whatever you do, do the same thing every night. Makes sense, right?

This is all well and good unless bathing your child makes him scream so hard he turns into a purple faced creature that looks like something Pixar developed for Monsters, Inc. We DO always manage to get our phrases in. Mine is "Sleepy time, little boy" and Laura's is "Lila Tov, Simon. Sweet Dreams". Super easy to squeeze in as you're losing the capacity to speak English/Hebrew due to exhaustion.

But the singing. Last week the singing prompted hysteria.

Laura says, "Do you want to sing to him?" I respond, "Isn't he already asleep? which probably sounded like "mrflegurfl". Then I fast forwarded to Simon in therapy at 20 saying, "I remember Mommy singing to me every night, but where was Mama?". Fine.

Laura takes a breath to start singing and suddenly my mind is a complete blank. You could have offered me $1 million dollars at that moment and I couldn't have told you what our lullaby song was (James Taylor's "Close Your Eyes") nor sung you the first line. The song finally starts to sound familiar and I chime in after a verse. Then I whisper to Laura, "I forgot what the song is!". Mind you, we've sung this song every single night for almost a month at this point.

Laura starts to chuckle. I start to chuckle. Suddenly I am hysterically laughing. Laura tries to soldier on with the song. I am gone, now laughing so hard I am silent. Despite what they say, losing one's mind IS contagious. Laura's delightful song collapses into more hysterical laughter. I try to pull it together and start over. I fail. Laura tries. She fails. I start to feel like my head might explode as we try not to wake up Simon with our hilarity. I'm having flashbacks to moments of the uncontrollable laughter in church with my cousins in Texas. Is God going to strike us down for failing to sing a lullaby to this sleeping baby?

We finally stopped laughing, ditched the song (he was asleep already, OKAY?) and slept like the dead. For 2 hours.

Our Trick Pony

So our little Shimmy (his new nickname) has some really fun tricks up his sleeve these days.

Trick #1 (Our current favorite) being full of gas, both burps and farts, that won't come out so he's up all night (I got 3 hours and Laura got 2 hours of sleep last night- took turns sleeping in the living room). Not sure if it's sensitivity to dairy that Laura's eating or just typical gassy baby. It sucks a little but so satisfying when he lets one rip. Sometimes we cheer. Must be the sleep deprivation.

Trick #2 Waiting just until you're about to fasten the diaper and then peeing everywhere. Bonus trick- after you clean that up, have changed clothes and are about to fasten diaper #2, repeat pee trick.

Trick # 3 Burping so loudly that Laura thinks it was Jaime burping.

Trick #4 Sleeping with hands up by head, most often in a "oh the world is so cruel, I just can't take it anymore" position. (See photo for example)

Trick #5 Losing his baby hair so he now REALLY looks like a little old man with a receeding hairline. (See photo for example) Sometimes, when he's sleepy and his eyes are rolling around in his head his movements are slow and uncoordinated looks like a drunk old man. His little old man name is Irving.

A little field trip to CHO

We had to take Simon to Children's Hospital Oakland today for a follow up blood test (nothing major-just following up on a slightly high reading on one of the standard newborn metabolic panels). It was such a great experience in some ways- I had none of the usual anxiety I usually feel in hospitals. It's so well designed to be kid friendly and not feel super clinical.

On the other hand, it was very painful to be surrounded by sick and disabled kids. It is almost unfathomable to me that every day people deal with the combined stress of having a newborn and dealing with it/them being critically ill. I honestly don't know how parents of multiples (or anyone!) that have one or all kids in the hospital ever make it through that experience. I was so grateful today to have a healthy baby...

Simon is getting little leg creases and a belly but he still sort of looks like a grumpy old man named Irving. But sometimes he looks like a sweet little baby named Simon :-) More photos coming soon...

What's The Return Policy on This Thing?

Those were my exact words last night, *mostly* kidding, after Simon was still fussing at 3 am. He's developed this cheeky little pattern of being inconsolably unhappy for about a 3 hour block sometime in the night. Used to be from 2-4:30, last night it was from 10:30 to 3:30. I guess he's trying to make sure we're paying attention.

Methinks the honeymoon is wearing off and sleep deprivation is setting in :-) He sure is cute when he's sleeping, though. And he's gained over a pound (he was 6 pounds 7 ounces 2 days ago which is a great weight gain), so his waking up to eat every hour and a half is at least yielding results.

Sometimes I can't believe the human race has been perpetuated for thousands of years. This whole thing is insanity. Although, people say once they smile at you for real you forget all the sleepless nights...he better have one hell of a grin!

All kvetching aside, we're still having fun and are so glad he's here. I mean seriously, how cute is this?

Ha ha, Universe, very funny

As many of you know, after much debate and hard talks, Laura and I decided to have a bris (circumcision) for Simon on Thursday night. It was more intense and less traumatic than I thought it would be. I'm sure I'll write more about it later. However, something happened this morning that is so ironic, I can really only laugh.

When then Mohyl (Rabbi who does the circumcision) came and was explaining the process, he kept using his left pointer finger to show us how the procedure would be done and what it would look like after. He kept using his first knuckle as the marker for where the cut would be, etc.

I took Roxie for our morning walk with the baby in the sling. Roxie, after about 5 minutes of walking, found a delicious chicken carcass to eat on the street. As I was trying to get it out of her mouth (thinking, "this is a really bad idea") she accidentally chomped my left pointer finger. Hard. Like, all the way through my nail and the whole top half of the nail came off and munched on the bottom.

Needless to say, I rushed home, a bit in shock and had poor Laura rush out of the shower to help me cut off the dangling nail, get me neosporin and Arnica to help deal with the shock. I have to go to urgent care this afternoon so they can look at it. I don't think there are stitches to be had, just a really ugly finger for a while.

So now I'm missing the top half of my nail and my finger looks...kind of like it got circumcised. Seriously.

Simon, I have one thing to say...touche

Update: Almost had to get 5 stitches but it stopped bleeding so they just put steri-strips and bandaged the hell out of it. Have to take antibiotics for 10 days and go back tomorrow. Crazy freak accident that probably was no accident at all.

Simon's Fan Club

Grandma Nola


Auntie Cathy

Auntie Molly

Uncle Skeeter

Auntie Saun-Toy

Auntie Abby

Cousin Talia

Auntie Leah

Auntie Sej and cousin Trevor

Auntie Anna

Auntie Alicia

Auntie Anne

Grandpa Bruce (Jaime's dad) holding the Little Man

Grandpappy Eddie (Jaime's stepdad) and Mamaw (Jaime's Mom)

Great Aunt Ellie (Laura's Father's Sister)

Amy, resident Fitch-Jenett photographer

Auntie Sonya

Auntie Dre

Mamaw (Jaime's Mom) and cousin Diego (Jessica's son whom Jaime accidentally caught at home about 7 years ago).

Jessica (Jaime's friend)

Auntie Karen

Auntie Jen (Laura's sister)

Uncle Reid

Auntie Leah

Grandpa Bernie (Laura's Dad)

Auntie Amanda

M.M. (Mom's Mom aka Laura's Mom)

What Happens When Politics Meets Biological Necessity aka It Takes a Village

So Simon is a tiny little peanut, 6 pounds 2 ounces at birth, and it's been hot. The result is that as of yesterday, he'd lost about 12% of his body weight, (down to 5 pounds, 6 ounces) and both the pediatrician and our midwife wanted us to supplement and give him some water with a dropper.

We met with our pediatrician first (she whizzes in for a 5 minute meeting when she comes), and she suggested formula to help get him through until Laura's milk came in. It would just be for about 24 hours and only 1/2 an ounce after he feeds, she said, and added, "I know you think I'm Satan, but it's just a little bit, it won't hurt him and he'll be totally on breastmilk in a day or so". I laughed because I do, for the most part, think formula is evil, but I also knew that biology was dictating that we do something, quickly and our doctor was telling us she really wanted us to do this!

We had some friends bring some organic formula and, with some caution, fed him a bit after he was on the breast. He did okay, but we both felt a little funny about it. A few hours later, we talked to our midwife and she was such a great voice of reason. She came over and spent 2 hours with us, weighing him on the scale he was weighed on when he was born, reassuring us that he was not steps away from death and coming up with a plan to feed him 7 minutes on the breast (he was burning too many calories with the 45 minutes spent getting skinny colostrum) with a supplement chaser every 2 hours. She suggested what at the time felt like the most radical, brilliant ideas I think I've ever heard. Using breastmilk from one of her clients or one of our friends to supplement instead of formula. DUH! Of course!

We called a lesbian family we know who consists of 2 breastfeeding moms and 2 babies, 3 months apart. They were out of town so we called one of Laura's friends from college who has a 1 year old. We did a feeding with formula, with the blessing of our midwife and then the friend brought milk over later that night. Tonight she brought over frozen milk from her downstairs neighbor who had even more than she had.

The whole concept makes me tear up...this is what women have been doing for centuries. We, especially Laura, I think, were feeling we weren't doing something right, that this wasn't natural, etc and then I thought...babies losing too much weight just after birth is NOT a new issue. What must women have done 300 years ago? Use a wet nurse to tide them over, of course. We just happen to have a phenominal community of wet nurses. We're thinking of working the college friend story into Laura's submission to her alumni quarterly :-)

It helps me remember that the most obvious solution to a problem is rarely the only solution...

p.s he looks a lot less like a starved little chicken and more like a cute little boy, as you can see

Yesteday with Auntie Jen

Today, looking very laid back and 4 ounces heavier

Photos the day after his birth

Amrit checking his "walking" reflex about an hour after birth

Mamaw meeting her grandson

Mommy snuggling with the little guy

Mama snuggling with Simon Lev