Apparently nobody told David that prohibition is over

And that you can buy beer in a store.  So he got me a beer making kit for father’s day, and he helped me brew it on Monday evening.  It’s an interesting process, you basically make a wheat-tea, boil it, add some hops, then ferment.  

Wheat Tea - MMMM

It was bubbling like crazy on Tuesday morning (which I think is supposed to be a good thing).  While we were making it, the kitchen smelled just like the Coors factory, and then when I changed the exhaust valve yesterday, it smelled a lot like beer, so hopefully it will turn out well.  We had a good time, but David was kinda pissed when I informed him that he was too young to have any when it was done.

Bubbly

Unopened kit in all its glory

David doing QC on Wheat

In other news, David was stung by a wasp last week.  He was standing up, playing in a raised bed in our back yard that’s tailor made for a wasp nest.  We didn’t actually see it happen (didn’t realize he’d been stung until he started irrationally fussing a few minutes later), but our guess is that he saw the nest and decided to explore and/or taste it.  The domiciled wasp likely did not take kindly to this, so he defended his homestead against the aggressor by stinging his index finger.  I’m just glad David didn’t get it in his mouth before the wasp stung, that could have sucked.

Swollen baby hand

for comparison to the other hand

We have a 1 year checkup in Houston sometime in August.  Conveniently, it will be when my sister is due to have her baby.  I'm sure that will please everyone.  It's not really a medical checkup, it's part of a long-term study that David is participating in - they're doing research on how babies' brains can be affected by being on a heart/lung bypass machine at 3 days old.  Even so, they'll undoubtedly do a basic physical exam while we're there. I'll be sure to let everyone know the results when they are available.  I have little doubt that he will be the smartest baby that they've ever examined.  

Yes, that also means his birthday is coming up - July 27th.  And NO, that doesn't mean that you need to buy him anything - especially toys.  He's less than 1 year old and he already has an industrial toy box under construction to house the ones that he has.  All he needs is love and attention, and I'm sure he'll get plenty of that.  

Otherwise, life is pretty good.  Days are filled with crawling and exploring the house and yard.  He still doesn't like to go to sleep, but he seems to enjoy it once he's there.  He got over his illness from last month, which makes paranoid dad happy.  Mom and dad are still managing to stay one step ahead of him (for the most part), although I'm not sure how long that will last.  The consensus among everyone who meets him continues to be that he is the best baby evar.  Not surprising, considering his genetic stock.

Until next time...

David has an email address!

I got an email from my dad yesterday morning, informing me that he'd remembered a gmail address that he no longer uses and that David could have.  Since they have the same name, it worked out well.

Even though I don't watch TV, I occasionally run across a commercial while I'm browsing around on the internet.  A couple weeks ago, I saw one that Google has apparently been running wherein a dad sets up an email address for his newborn daughter and then sends her things while she's growing up.  She gets older, he gives her the email address, she cries, fade to black.  I thought it was a cool idea, the only problem was that you can't set up a gmail account for people who are younger than 13.  Now that problem is solved.

So, if you want to send David a message, you can email him at <firstname>.<lastname> at gmail dot com.  When David gets older and moves out, I'll give him the password and he can peruse all of the things people have told him throughout his life.  I have no plans to read any of this - your emails to David will be private.  I will occasionally open the account up to de-spam it and to make sure nobody has signed him up for daily porn or something.  But I will not be actually opening any of the messages.  This will basically be a write-only time capsule that will be opened when David is all growed up.  So enjoy.  I'm sure he will.

Well THIS isn't genetic.

When I was young, I freaking HATED needles.  I gave my mother untold amounts of hell about having to take shots or have blood taken.  Christy, to this day, is ghost-pale when she comes out of the blood-drawing lab.  So we were both a bit surprised this morning when David had to have some blood taken at the doctor and his reaction was this:

Nothing.

I'm not sure he even realized that he had been stuck.  We were all stunned.  I've never seen a baby completely not react to having his skin punctured.  Very odd indeed.  Well, I guess I can at least claim that the oddness is genetic.

Professional Photography

A few weeks ago we decided to have some "legit" pictures taken of David - i.e., not camera phone pictures.  We got them back this weekend, and they turned out really well.  They're all high-res, and like any picture in picasa you are welcome to click on the "Prints" menu at the top of the picasa album and order hard copies if you want something to put in a frame.  Just no using them in commercial applications without paying royalties!  I've added a permalink for them (in a separate album, not the regular monthly ones), so feel free to browse at your leisure.  And if you don't feel like navigating to the sidebar, just click on this: David's Photo Shoot

General David update

Well, it's been a while since I last did a generic update.  David had his three-month cardiologist checkup on Friday (yes we only see them once every three months now) so I figured this was as good a time as any.  

The cardiology appointment went well.  David's oxygen saturations were in the mid to high 90s (he was in the 70s before the second surgery; normal for a regular person is 98-100%), they didn't hear anything odd when they listened, his blood pressure was normal, and his weight gain was right on track.  In fact, he said that David is well ahead of  an average hypoplast on weight gain.  David weighed in at 7.32 kg (16 lbs 2 oz).  The doctor said that he had one hypoplast who was 18lbs on his second birthday and still had a GI tube.  Needless to say, we're well ahead of that.  Everything was so good, in fact, that they didn’t even feel the need to do an EKG or an echo.  Yay!

In non-cardio news, David has been reaching lots of new development milestones in the last couple of months.  If you've been reading the blog, you know that he's started crawling, pulling himself up into a standing position, and teething.  Well, he now has 2 teeth (the bottom front 2), he is well into eating non-milk foods, is using his hands rather proficiently (feeding himself a little bit, holding his sippy cup, grabbing toys, switching hands with toys, stuff like that), is pulling himself up from laying down into a sitting position (when I get him in the mornings now he is sitting up when I get there) and is working on baby signing (he understands them, can’t always do them).  He love bananas (we mix that with quinoa so that he can get some protein), peas, avocados, and sweet potatoes.  He could do without beets and Lima beans.  I'm not sure that I blame him.  We've started doing a little bit of cutting up softer foods and letting him pick up the pieces and eat them.  He's not a huge fan, but he can definitely do it.  He has learned how to wave goodbye and make a "pphhhhhhhht" sound.  We got him a baby potty seat that we sometimes put him on when he's obviously trying to poop or when he wakes up from a nap.  So far in 3 days he has pooped three times (that I know of) and peed a bunch of times on the potty.  I have no expectation that he will be potty trained any time soon, but hopefully he'll at least get accustomed to sitting on it and getting encouragement when he does it right.  He is learning the difference between an inside voice and an outside voice (seriously, I can say, "David is that your inside voice?" and he immediately starts squealing in a quieter voice), and he has also learned to use a computer.  He twitters now (@babybabelfish - see button on sidebar).  He is pretty funny, if I do say so myself.

The crawling thing has been fun.  As I'm sure is normal, if it can be gotten into, he gets into it.  His current favorite thing to play with and to chew on is string.  Any kind of string.  The problem is, he doesn't distinguish between a shoe string and an electric cord.  So we have lots of fun keeping him away from those.  He also tries to pull himself up on anything that looks stationary, so we have to be careful that he doesn't try to pull up on the wrong thing and fall and break himself.  Standing up continues to be his favorite pastime.  He will even walk if you hold his hand while he does it.

I have never really been around babies, so I have nothing to which I can compare him.  Lots of people have told me that he is unusually smart, but I figure that's just them appealing to my own sense of inherent genetic superiority.  He is pretty awesome though.  I'm not sure there's anything better than him laughing at something that I do to him (he really seems to love it when he sticks his hands in my mouth and I bite his fingers).  Christy thinks that he likes her best, but I'm pretty sure I'm the favorite parent.  He only likes her for the milk, I think.  

Anyway, he has been doing quite well overall.  I still hold out hope that they'll do an echo one if these days and be shocked to find 4 normal chambers and no evidence of surgery.  Right now, though, he still has a scar but is doing awesomely despite it.

I'll continue updating when anything of note happens.  Christy an I keep our phones (with still and video cameras) on hand at all times, so we’re usually able to get some record of first happenings.  And, of course, we continue to keep the picasa albums and youtube channel updated.  I'm working on getting a good video of him feeding himself or doing his baby signs, but I haven't captured them yet.  Never fear, though, David news will always be posted here as soon as it happens.