Consoled

Last night, we eventually decided just to bring him upstairs to initiate his bedtime routine a little earlier than usual (in the past, he has refused to go to sleep any earlier than 9:40 -- he'll do his whole bedtime routine and be nice and calm, then we'll put him down and he'll start crying again right away and won't stop until we come get him and rock him until he's actually ready for bed). At the end of his routine, he went right to sleep (albeit in the swing -- we had been working on getting him to sleep in his crib, but he kept waking up coughing and/or screaming. He finally decided on Monday that he just wouldn't sleep there at all, so we'll wait another week or so and try again. Tonight he's back in the carseat, which seems less problematic than the swing and is where he had been sleeping for a while now). He then slept for seven hours, which is about the most he ever sleeps in a stretch (and he'd only done it twice before). We'll see how he does tonight after another day without enough naps (one 2 hour nap in the afternoon plus two short -- 30 minutes or less -- ones in the morning, which for him isn't a lot since he doesn't sleep a ton at night, usually only giving us 2 or so hours more after a 5-7 hour stretch).

Okay, that's enough parentheses for one post.

Inconsolable

Harry has been completely inconsolable for hours. I think he's just really tired but he won't go to sleep. He's nursed multiple times; he's had his diaper changed; we've changed his clothes. The swing doesn't help. The glider doesn't either. He doesn't like swaddling. It's so incredibly difficult to listen to him cry and cry and cry and feel like there's nothing I can do to make it better.

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To answer Jen's question, Buddy and Harry get along pretty well. Buddy is convinced that Harry does not smell nearly enough like a dog, so he spends much of his time trying to locate some exposed skin to lick. So Harry gets kissed on the face, the hands, and the feet a ton. Harry, for his part, vacillates between being thoroughly amused -- smiling away -- and pursing his lips and furrowing his brow, showing what I can only guess is his "enough already!" face.

There are a ton of baby toys on the floor, but Buddy leaves them alone. Over the course of his six years, Buddy somehow learned the command "not for dogs," so when a new toy enters the house for Harry that Buddy thinks might be for him, we let Buddy sniff it first while telling him that it isn't for him, and he tends to keep away. Thus far, there's only been one toy that he has really wanted (this one, which Harry doesn't have any interest in yet anyway), so we keep it off the floor. (When our friend's two year old came over after Harry's baptism, she didn't understand the notion of toys that weren't for dogs, so she saw Buddy begging for it and picked it up and held it out to him saying "here, doggie." It was hysterical.)

I wish I could manage to capture a decent photo of the two of them, but someone is always moving :) Aside from the Halloween one, this is about the best I've got:

Generations

Friday was my grandmother's 90th birthday (this was the third year in a row that P and I celebrated a grandparent's 90th birthday). We went down to her place (45 minutes away) yesterday for a surprise party to celebrate. We thought it was going to be the three of us, my brother and SIL, my mom and stepmom, and my stepmom's dad. We were thrilled to arrive and see that my uncle had flown his entire family up from South Carolina to celebrate -- him, my aunt, their two sons (my cousins), my cousins' wives, and their five boys, ranging from ten months to ten years in age. We never get to see them. So instead of having seven people from four generations, we had the same four generations but eighteen people -- all of my grandmother's descendants. It was awesome. My grandma cried.

Of course, because it's my family and nothing ever goes as it should, my grandma barely got to see my cousins and their families. My mom and stepmom had planned the party, and they planned it expecting only seven people. When my uncle called on Thursday to say that he was flying the family up, they claimed it was too late, that they didn't have sufficient notice to change the number of people on the reservation with the dining hall at my grandma's old folks home, so they would have to wait around and see her later in the day, after the party which was to be at lunch.

Seriously? They flew here from SC. I get that there are issues (many, many issues). I get that the dining hall may have said they couldn't make it work. But there had to have been a better option than proceeding with only half the family. If it hadn't been sprung on P, my brother, my SIL, and I by my mother at the last minute (i.e. when we arrived), we could have come up with a better plan, even if it meant doing takeout Chinese or sandwiches from the grocery store in my grandmother's apartment (my grandma won't leave the home anymore). I'm sure having us all together would have meant much more to my grandmother than getting to eat a hamburger and pick at a piece of cake at the dining hall ever could.

By the time we were back from lunch, the ten month old needed a nap, as did my grandma (Harry, on the other hand, slept the whole way there, in heavy traffic, and slept through much of lunch). They kept the baby up as long as they could, but eventually had to bring him back to the hotel -- 45 minutes away -- for his nap. And so my cousins and their families barely saw my grandmother. Ugh. Thankfully, we (me, P, my brother, and my SIL) got to hang out with all of them while my grandmother napped (my mom and stepmom left right after lunch). And my aunt and uncle got to have dinner with my grandma.

The situation makes me incredibly sad. I hope my uncle knows that it had nothing to do with my generation, that we felt truly terrible about it all. I didn't want to say anything in front of my grandmother but will probably give him a call this week to let him know how good it was to see him and how bad we felt about the whole thing. Why does there always have to be drama?

Lest He Think We Forgot Him

He's still the best dog ever.

And that toy (he knows it as "red toy") is still gross.

Summing Up What's Key

My ten year college reunion is coming up next year. For a few months now, I have been receiving increasingly-urgent reminders to submit my entry for the class reports, updating my classmates on the goings-on in my life since our last reunion. I found that I had very little to say. My first pass read: "Since our last reunion, I bought a house, finished law school, got married, and started [my current job]. Most importantly, [P] and I welcomed the birth of our son, [Harry], on September 13, 2008." Finally, in an effort to ensure that my narrative was longer than my address, I added a few additional factoids, but the essence remains the same.

How would you sum up your past five years to a mixture of friends, acquaintances, and strangers?

Lessons Learned Today

A few things I learned today:

1. Apparently, I cannot look at or talk to Harry while he's nursing, as doing either one causes him to get a big grin on his face that doesn't go away until I stop looking/talking, and this causes milk to dribble everywhere and keeps him from eating.
2. I cannot unhook my nursing bra and remove the nursing pads before having the pump set up and ready to go, as apparently the unhooking alone triggers my letdown, resulting in a big, wet mess. I hate wasting milk.
3. Maybe having a cold really does affect infant weight gain. He had a cold for about ten days, starting around the 16th and ending around when I got the 9 lb 3 oz weight. I weighed him again Monday using the aforementioned method, and he weighed 10 lbs 3 oz. I did so again today -- 10 lbs 6 oz. That is 25 ounces in 28 days, which is perfectly acceptable. If I find somewhere that has an infant scale I can use, I'll probably do as Nicky suggested, though (thanks Nicky!), as I remain curious as to how much he takes in at each feeding.
   

What's in a Name

Harrison was my great-grandmother's maiden name. Though I haven't focused as much on it in the past year as I did previously, I am a fairly avid genealogist. My Harrison line was one of the first that got me hooked. At the time of the Civil War, my Harrison family lived in West Virginia (Virginia initially -- my great-great-great-grandfather was a delegate to the Wheeling Convention, which ultimately resulted in the formation of West Virginia); their friends and neighbors were divided, some fighting for each side.

My great-great-grandfather was too young to enlist, so he worked as a civilian clerk under his older brother, who was a Union captain. In an act of retribution for the capture of the (soldier) brother of a confederate officer, confederate soldiers captured my great-great-grandfather and imprisoned him at Andersonville under atrocious conditions. His pension file is quite interesting, in part because he was repeatedly denied a pension since he wasn't an enlisted soldier and repeatedly had to appeal through his state representatives to receive one, as they would pass a private bill granting him a pension under the then-current pension act, which would become void when a new pension act was passed. (Sadly, this process continued even after his death as my great-great-grandmother tried to collect her widow's benefits.) He eventually became a lawyer, serving as his area's justice of the peace for many years. The house he built in the late 19th century for his family is still standing and remained in the family for 75 years. I visited it last year.

Harry is not just the most common nickname for Harrison; it was also my great-grandfather's first name (in a different branch of my family). This great-grandfather was the one my grandmother says I take after. His story is also interesting, but I'll save it for another day.

Finally, John was my father-in-law's first name.

Settling into Fall

When I went into the hospital to have Harry, it still felt like summer. Even though only a few days had passed, it felt a lot more like fall when we left. I hated that there were leaves on the ground already even though it was only mid-September. Then a month passed with us living moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day, and I certainly didn't notice the weather or the air or the season. And then it was mid-October. And it was still fall, but even more so.

Now it's November, and fall has settled into its fall-ish groove. The leaves have all changed color, and with each passing week fewer and fewer remain on the trees they began the week tethered to tenuously.

Last Monday:


Yesterday:


And as fall passes on its way, winter works its way in. And when winter ends, I have to go back to work. I've never been more committed to living in the moment than I am right now.

**(Of course, today was a beautiful day. And I spent very little of it outside. I hate that it gets dark so early.)