Counterfactuals

Today is the anniversary of the theft of "Katia," our Honda Civic, which is kind of hard to believe. If you don't know the story, and don't feel like clicking through the links, the car was stolen from its spot near the Hopkins campus on May 12, 2009, just ten days before Peanut's due date. We went out and in three days bought a new car, then learned just as Sarah was going into labor that the Baltimore Police Department had found someone found the Civic and told the police about it. And then we learned that it was fixable.

It's occurred to me every now and again, and especially this week since it's the time of year that it happened, just how much that crazy series of events changed our lives. Until that afternoon, we had planned to have the Civic as our family car, with the dilapidated (and that's being very generous) Subaru Impreza (aka "the purple car" and other more colorful nicknames) as a backup. The Impreza was a car that neither of us wanted Nicholas to be in on any kind of regular basis. At the time he was born the car was sixteen years old. It only had about 108,000 miles on it, but it showed its age. Plastic pieces were falling apart. The air conditioning and heating only sort of worked. It did not do well on highways. Oh, and it was missing its radio because that got stolen in Baltimore too (about a year before the Civic, but on the exact same block ... needless to say we haven't parked there since).

It's kind of odd to think about what our lives would be like if the Civic hadn't been stolen, or to put it another way, how different things are given that it happened. We had planned to replace the Impreza shortly after Nicholas's birth, so I don't think we'd still have it. (It ended up with Uncle Patrick, and was donated to charity after his high school graduation in June 2010.) But who knows what our commutes would look like. Sarah relies on having the Accord, which has a CD player, to make it through the 55-mile drive to College Park. We're comfortable putting Nicholas in the Civic, of course. But I don't know how we would fit all of his stuff when we travel anywhere, given how small the Civic's storage space is (and seems, in comparison to the Accord). And would we have been comfortable taking so many long road trips in a smaller car with a manual transmission?  Who knows, of course, but I think about these things.

Most interesting, though, is that "Katia" is now widely known as "Daddy's car." That one I totally didn't see coming.

Friday Notes

Nothing that deserves a full post, so you get bullet points!

• Sometimes I wonder whether he's well-trained or just came pre-programmed this way. We decided to go outside to play ball after dinner tonight (by the way, totally his new favorite after-school activity). I said that I needed to get my sneakers on, and then we would go, so I went into the bedroom. When I came back out into the living room, he was sitting on the floor putting his Legos back in their bag singing, "Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share." Sheesh. He's making me look bad.

• Nicholas has thus far not shown much irritation at the regular thunderstorms we get in the Chesapeake region (in the summer, it seriously is 3-4 times a week that we get at least one in the evening). Tonight we had one that didn't register very much on the radar, but it went right overhead. The first roll of thunder was so strong that I not only heard it, I felt it (the building shook a little), and I saw it on the baby monitor. Needless to say a few moments later I heard a feeble, "Daddy, open the door!" coming from the monitor. He was rattled, but I was proud of him for not completely melting down. It obviously woke him up and disturbed him, but he held it together. We read books for a little while until there was a decent interval between lightning flashes. He wasn't all that excited about being left alone, but since he listens to reason, I was able to explain that he was safe, and that he could call me if he needed me.

• Speaking of pride, he's doing fabulously with the idea that Mommy is away for a few days. He knows where Mommy is—if you ask, he'll say "with Aunt Stacy!" And he has thoroughly enjoyed talking with her on the phone each evening. Sarah's a little upset that he's not despondent at her absence, but mostly is also glad that he can manage without being codependent for a few days. I, on the other hand ... (just kidding!)

• He doesn't know this yet, but tomorrow morning he gets to go to the zoo ... with Alice! How much cooler does it get?

Painful

I told the daycare center this morning that we're taking Nicholas out as of June 1, a necessary step in our moving process. Shaming disciplinary practices aside, we really like the center, and Nicholas absolutely adores his teachers and classmates.

He's going to be very sad when he can't go back there. I predict several weeks of heartbreaking questions about when we're going to see Elliot, Peyton, Meghan, Miss Hilary, and Miss Hannah.

Update: It's Sarah. I just wanted to add that the news has apparently spread through the daycare center that Nicholas is leaving. When I picked him up everyone was coming up to tell me how sad they were. A few of the teachers (and the owner) seemed genuinely distraught. They have shown us over and over again how much they really do love our little boy, who we are now cruelly taking away. Also, Joe is right on what Nicholas' response will be. Every day Nicholas names every single person in his class. And always in the same order. "Elliot and Peyton. Meghan and Clara. Miss Hilary and Miss Su. Miss Lita. Ameeniah! Madeline. Eric." He sometimes doesn't get to the last couple, but he is just so excited to go to school and see them all. I have a serious case of Mommy guilt right now.

Game One

Today was an important day in Nicholas's young life, even if he will not remember it.  Today he attended his very first Major League Baseball game, at Camden Yards in Baltimore, between the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays.  We all had an awesome time.

We've been looking for an opening to take Nicholas to a game all season, but since most games start at 7pm, it meant Sunday or bust, and until a few weeks ago he was napping for a decent chunk of the late afternoon, which made it difficult to make a 1:30 Sunday game.  But this morning he took a two-hour nap, and seemed refreshed and beaming enough that we decided today was our day.  We put him into his Orioles shirt (a Nick Markakis "jersey"), grabbed our Orioles hats, and headed downtown.

Because the weather is beautiful this weekend, we ended up having to wait on line to buy tickets, which Nicholas tolerated (just barely), mostly because he and Sarah sat in the shade while I worked my way through the line.

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

There were almost 29,000 people in attendance at today's game (most games I attend these days average about 15,000 or so, so we had a big crowd by Baltimore standards).  And the game lived up to our hopes.  The Orioles played terrific offense, if a slightly porous defense.  The ball was flying—the Rays had four home runs, plus one for the O's—and there were several plays at the plate (all in one inning in a row as the Orioles stormed back to re-take the lead).

From 2010 September

Now, we didn't quite see all of the action.  Nicholas did very well, and sat still for about three innings. He even discovered that he could sit on his own, which entertained him for a solid inning or so:

From 2010 September

Then he wanted to get up and walk about, so we walked out to the concourse, attached his backpack/leash (yes, they make those), and he was off and running:

From 2010 September

He did a few circles, and then realized that the game was still going on and charged through the tunnel to get back to the field.

From 2010 September

We ended up wandering out to the center field area and Eutaw Street, which is closed off and part of the stadium, and so has a concourse with food, shops, and wide open areas for new walkers to roam. Within about 20 minutes we figured we had exhausted him, so we ambled back to our seats along the third-base line and got Nicholas his first stadium treat. What else but a pretzel? Classic, edible, and a food he can eat anyway! He sat very carefully eating it and watching the game, as you can see:

From 2010 September

After that the game got really exciting. In the top of the 6th the Rays hit two home runs to go ahead 5-4, but the O's scored four in the bottom of the inning to go back up 8-5, including three consecutive plays at the plate. Nicholas enjoyed all the excitement around him, and joined in the applause:

From 2010 September

By that point he was pretty tired. We ended up leaving at the middle of the 7th inning so that we could be in the car to listen to the end of the game. And as it turns out, Nicholas is a bit of a good-luck charm. I've been to maybe 25 or 30 games in the six years I've lived in Baltimore, and I think I've seen the Orioles win maybe (maybe) twice. Nicholas goes to his first game and they win an exciting close game. Go figure.

While wandering, one of the ushers asked us if it was his first game, to which we enthusiastically responded, "yes!" He kindly pointed us to the fan assistance center, where Nicholas got a certificate for his first game!

From 2010 September

The only thing we didn't get to do was sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." On Sundays, apparently, the O's play "God Bless America" at the 7th inning stretch instead, and still play the John Denver song "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." This was truly disappointing, not least because I've been singing "Take Me Out" to Nicholas since back when he was Peanut (i.e., before he was born). It also violates my sense of propriety. "Take Me Out the Ballgame" has been part of baseball for nearly a century. Not to sing it at a major league stadium seems to me so blatantly un-American that it undoes any good karma that comes from singing "God Bless America." But the Orioles have made their decision.

Anyway, I don't want that to ruin a good, exciting post. We had a great time, and Nicholas spent the hours between our departure and bedtime shouting "bay-baw!" every few minutes, so I think we may try to get him to another game soon. And if not before the end of this season, we definitely are going to be making plans for next season as soon as the schedule comes out.

Labor and Delivery, Part II

Okay.  So it's 2:30 a.m., we've each slept about an hour, and we're watching Friends.  Oh, and the contractions have basically stopped.

We decided we would go ahead and go back outside for a few more laps around the parking lot.  The contractions came back, at least a little bit, and then would subside, and then came back again.  It was now nearly 5 a.m., and no longer dark out.  We decided that it was time to go to the hospital and find out what was going on, because we're just not good at waiting and not knowing things.

It was a drive I'd visualized a number of times in the previous few months.  I thought about it during the trip to each of the last several doctor's appointments, since the practice's office was part of the hospital complex.  And I thought about it on the way to and from work, since the routes overlapped a bit.  And oddly, I'd always assumed a middle-of-the-night drive: no traffic, dark out.  I'm not sure whether I absorbed too much culture, or that I remember my parents leaving for the hospital at 2 a.m. when my baby brother was born (I was 12 at the time).  In any event, that five minutes was about the only period of any length during the entire process that went about how I imagined it.

Alright, so we're at the hospital.  We're calm.  We're nervous.  We're freaking out because the labor can't decide whether it wants to proceed or not.  When we got upstairs to the evaluation room, the midwife on duty examined Sarah and determined that she was just shy of the threshold where they keep you, but thought we were close enough.  She called our doctor, who asked that we stay there and wait for her to arrive.  So we ended up sitting in the evaluation room for several hours.  We were exhausted at this point, we both were hungry, Sarah was getting a little dehydrated, Peanut was all sorts of discombobulated and not behaving properly for the montiors.  And then the doctor came in and told us to go home.  She cautioned us before she examined Sarah that this particular midwife is known for being overenthusiastic in her estimates of labor progression.  Then she sent us home to rest and wait, and to come back when "you can't stand it anymore."

So at 9:30, in the midst of a bright, sunny day, we headed home.  It was a very odd experience.  We thought we'd be leaving with a baby.  We'd been there through sunrise, so all of a sudden the day had started (though it was Memorial Day, so everything was rather quiet).

Most of that day (Monday, May 25) was quiet.  Sarah had some contractions, but nothing particularly intense.  We tried to sleep for a few hours in the morning.  We played some games.

While we were napping, we missed the only phone call that could possibly distract us that day.  Two weeks earlier, some of you may recall, our car had been stolen while parked near campus.  We had assumed it was gone for good (Civics are the most stolen car in America, and it's because they have very interchangeable parts), and went out and bought a new (to us) car.  But during our nap, the Baltimore police called to let us know that they'd found our car!  [ed.: "Found" may imply that the police were "looking" for the car, when we suspect that someone saw the car parked in front of their house with no license plates and informed the police of a suspicious vehicle.]  Because it was Memorial Day, I could not get anyone on the phone back to confirm what was going on, and it would take an awful lot of work to actually get the car back (another story for another time), and we didn't know if it was drivable, but it was good news about the car!

Maybe Peanut sensed our happiness, because it was not long thereafter that Sarah's contractions picked up in intensity.  Now, as I mentioned yesterday, her labor had not been textbook.  Instead of the contractions starting at 15 minutes apart and getting progressively closer, they'd been about 2-3 minutes apart for over 24 hours.  So with the increase in intensity the contractions actually slowed down, but now they were real.  By 6pm, after another round of prep and the first half-hour of Back to the Future, we were back on our way to the hospital.

From here things seemed to go really fast.  They took us upstairs.  The nurses didn't believe that Sarah would stay, because she looked too calm.  Then the midwife did an exam and they were amazed that she wasn't screaming bloody murder based on how far along things were.  They checked Sarah in.  The anesthesiologist did the epidural, after which Sarah wasn't in much pain.  At about 9 p.m., the doctor came in and said she would check in again at midnight.  We tried to rest with the lights down.  Because of the medicine, we were both able to a little bit.  Finally, we realized we couldn't sleep, and put on bad television.  As I recall, we ended up watching part of Leno's last week on the Tonight Show, with Mel Gibson trying to do a redemption interview after his divorce.

At 12:30 the doctor came back, took one look and said, "time to push!"

[ed.: Gory details here.]

Then, at 1:31 a.m., Nicholas arrived, screaming his little head off.  I don't think he stopped until they wheeled him out of the room an hour later for his bath.

From Nicholas Is Born

The Labor and Delivery Story, Part I

With Nicholas's birthday coming up, I've been reading over our posts from last year around the time he was born.  In doing so, I realized that we never told The Story, or, What Happened the Day (and Two Days Before) Nicholas Was Born.

So, to set some context.  The due date for Peanut was May 22, a Friday, which came and went with no excitement whatsoever (so little, in fact, that we managed not to mention it on the blog).  That Sunday, Sarah woke up and thought her stomach felt funny, but couldn't quite place why.  So we went to church, then to our friend Eddie's for an already planned brunch.  Towards mid-afternoon, Sarah noticed while resting her hand on her belly that it was tensing up in rhythmic waves at relatively predictable intervals.  Hmmm, we thought.  So we timed it, to see if it might be real.  And sure enough, the tensing up lasted about 30 seconds, and occurred every two to three minutes.  Holy cow, we thought, Peanut might actually be on his way!  (Though of course publicly we still referred to "its way.")  On the other hand, this was not "textbook" early labor, which involves contractions every fifteen minutes or so.  But we just hoped that would speed things up; this was back in our naïve pre-parenting stage, you see.

We had already arranged to play games and have dinner with Sarah's parents, and we went ahead and told them to come up.  Every book, every mother, every class instructed us that early labor is characterized by three things: pain, anxiety, and boredom at the slow passage of time.  Might as well play Ticket to Ride, right?  Sarah at this point was uncomfortable but not in pain, and the social time made life move a little quicker through the evening hours.

Once Sarah's parents left, we figured we should get things set to go for the hospital for when the time came, so we did our final preparations of bags and snacks (for me), the kinds of things we couldn't have packed earlier because we used them frequently.  It was a nice evening, so we headed outside to walk, both because it helped Sarah feel better as things progressed, and because walking is supposed to help things progress.  We were very grateful that we'd decided to leave the city, because we felt no worries wandering our complex's parking lot at 10pm (or 11pm, or midnight ...), or the parking lot of the small office park next door.  I have no idea how far we walked that night (May 24 to 25), but we spent hours doing laps, then coming back inside.  As the night went on, the contractions got more intense.  At some point (maybe 9pm or so?) we called the doctor to check in, and she told us to come in "when you're starting to have to really work through" the contractions.  She also said she thought she would see us that night, in large part because the contraction timing was already at a place where you'd normally go to the hospital.

At some point we decided to try to sleep a little while, maybe at like 11:30, but I don't think either of us fell asleep for more than a few minutes at a time between then and 1am.  Sarah woke up with somewhat more intense contractions, we went walking again, and then decided it was time to think about heading to the hospital.  We went back inside and took showers (not knowing when we'd get the chance again).  I had something to eat, since I was allowed and am generally a pansy about these things (Sarah acquiesced because she'd rather be jealous of watching me eat than have to deal with a cranky father-to-be).  We put on an episode of Friends as we did our final final prep (using the counter on the DVD player to track contractions) and steeled ourselves for what was about to happen.

Sometime around the ten-minute mark the contractions began to subside.

[Stay tuned for the rest of the story tomorrow, including the surprise ending!]

Tourney Time

Last year at this time, according to the blog, Peanut greatly enjoyed watching the NCAA tournament with Mommy and Daddy.  In addition, because of Peanut I will always associate the tournament with putting together baby gear, such as Peanut's rocking chair:

From Peanut's Blog

It was fun, and at the time, I resolved that the next year (i.e., this year) I would take a day off from working on either Thursday or Friday, hang out with the baby, and watch basketball with him.  (I knew at the time it would be a him, you only suspected it, but I would have wanted to do the same thing if Peanut had been a daughter.)  In other words, I've been looking forward to the opportunity for a while.

Anyway, I'm super-excited because today is our day.  I'm in charge of Fridays based on our daycare schedule, and so I have quite the schedule planned.  First, a morning trip to a nearby historic site I've been meaning to get to, the Hampton plantation in Towson.  Mostly it's a place to walk around on a beautiful morning.  Then naptime, of course, for Nicholas.

And then the fun begins!  Lunch will be served as a treat in the living room, so that Nicholas and I can enjoy (in HD!) the early game.  Here in Baltimore we get local team Morgan State as it goes up against West Virginia.  It may not turn out to be the most interesting game (we'll see), but who cares?  It's basketball!  It's father-son bonding time!

Thoughts for a Snowy Afternoon

Every time I look out the window, the snow seems like it's really intense.  Then I look again an hour later, and it's even more intense.  This storm, apparently, is the real deal.  Forecasts call for somewhere in the range of 15-20" by the time we're done, which would make the top ten snowfalls in Baltimore history.  And it has me thinking about various things snow-related.  This year, snow has taken on a different valance, because we just don't know where we'll be living this time next year.  Our map of possible jobs is beginning to narrow as we move into interview season, but it still spans a rather broad geography. Some jobs are in particularly snowy areas of the country, such as Upstate New York, interior Pennsylvania, or Maine.  Others are in the Southeast, where there's little snow at all.  Because it's hard to gauge right now how interested in us any individual school is, that leaves us random factors to think about when considering where we might move.

Like whether it snows.

Snow is beautiful, and makes the Christmas tree and Christmas music seem all the more appropriate (though I only remember one time that it actually snowed on Christmas Day ... thank God Santa Claus decided to re-stock the game shelf that year!).  When I was in college, I loved it.  Our campus looked picturesque, there were hired staff who cleaned all the walks, and I didn't own a car that needed to be cleaned.  Now, from our window, we have a good view of much of the parking lot at our complex, and for a while this morning a whole bunch of kids were out playing.  I hope Nicholas gets to experience that, because when you're a kid (if you let yourself be one), snow is just plain fun.  Even just looking outside at the snow gets him excited, so I'm looking forward to the chance that next winter he'll get to go out and play.  (There's over a foot of snow on the ground here, and he can't walk, so if we went out to "play," it would involve mostly putting him in the snow and watching him slowly vanish).

But when I look outside, I can see across the parking lot as our cars slowly disappear, and remember that at some point they need to be cleaned off, and the areas around them shoveled out.  That makes me hope we get a garage if we live in the north, even though I don't relish the thought of having to shovel a front walk and a driveway.  We'll just have to make sure we train Nicholas (and Cashew and Macadamia) to be more helpful than my brothers and I were when we were kids.  And having our own house looks positively wonderful when I realized this morning that the person parked next to us was cleaning out the parking space by moving the snow in front of our tires rather than putting it on the grass just a few feet away.  It didn't seem malicious, just unthinking, but it still rankles, and it's not usually a problem you'd have in your driveway.

Besides, not having snow means we've probably landed somewhere with a miserably hot and humid summer.  And I'd probably take the snow, even though I might get outvoted one to one by Sarah.

The Battle of the Sexes Begins

We went over to our friend Katie and Wes's house last night for some holiday cheer, latkes for the seventh night of Chanukah (Y. U. M. !), and to hang out with friends. And to see what sort of fun we could have taking videos of Nicholas and Alice (Katie and Wes's daughter) playing.

From Nicholas - Month 7

Can you say jackpot? (click above for hilarious video)

I'll also post one other photo (there are more in the galleries, Grandmas of the world!), since Sarah has been trying for months to get both babies to (a) look at the camera and (b) smile while doing so. We finally have success!

From Nicholas - Month 7

Germbusters

We really didn't mean to turn this blog into one of those "Look how wonderful our child is!" blogs.

But today he was pretty impressive.

After his check-up on Monday, we looked around to see if any agencies or other entities had the H1N1 vaccine so that he could get the first dose.  (Apparently, for children under 10 years of age, they give a half-dose, followed by a booster half-dose at least 28 days later.  We obviously wanted to get him started so we could get the calendar moving on the second shot.)  As it turns out, the Baltimore County Department of Health was having a clinic today, by appointment, at their offices.  And since I'm on duty today, I got to take him.

I did not anticipate the crowds, which is my fault.  But Nicholas handled himself marvelously through the whole process.  He didn't notice that there was no parking (as long as we're moving, he can't really tell that we're just circling the parking lot, and circling, and circling ...).  The DOH did a good job, considering that this is probably a more massive public outreach than they're used to, and the fact that they had to reconceptualize all of their office space to do it.  There was a logjam at the door, because they weren't letting people upstairs to the offices unless they'd made an appointment.  Then there was a logjam in the elevator lobby upstairs because that's where they set up the paperwork.  Then we had to stand on line to wait to be admitted to the waiting area.

Notice how I haven't mentioned Nicholas's behavior once yet, because he was totally fine through all of this.  When I sat down to fill out the form, he tried to grab the form and the pen from me, but otherwise he was perfectly content.  He watched the older kids (meaning 2-5 years old) moving around.  Actually, now that I mention it, all of the kids were well-behaved.  Almost none were crying on the way out, after having gotten the shot.  The only one my part of the line noticed was one who only got upset when his father tried to put his jacket on.  These kids definitely earned their "I'm a Germ Buster!" stickers today.

Once in the waiting area, I finally got to sit down (by the way, he is getting heavy).  As an aside, they had an episode of Sesame Street on for the kids, and the only thing I noticed was how young Bob looked compared to seeing him on the Thanksgiving Day parade last week (he has his own website ... who knew?)  Turns out the episode was from 1985, which explains it.

Anyway, things moved pretty well.  They even handled our detour to get an OK from a physician pretty well.  Nicholas got flagged because of one of his shots from Monday, but it turns out that it's fine for the shot rather than the nasal spray.  He cried for about 30 seconds after the shot, and then was happy again, at least until I tried to put him in the car.  All told, it only took about 40 minutes, which is not bad considering how many people (and especially kids) they were moving through.  But it involved sitting and waiting patiently, which are not often traits associated with six-month-olds, so Nicholas has earned a gold star for the day, and the admiration of his father.

TRAINS!

As you know, Nicholas the Rambunctious needs outings like whales need minnows.  And today was a free day at the B&O Railroad Museum, so it was the perfect opportunity to make the trip.  Plus, Grandpa Dan was in the mood to play hooky from work, so he joined us for a little guys' trip to the train museum.

It's a small museum, with only a few small exhibits, but it has a large number of old train locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, railway post office cars, basically anything associated with railroading in the first 150 years of train travel in the U.S.  In that respect, it will probably be more thrilling for Nicholas in a year or so.  Right now, he doesn't find the motionless hulks very interesting in the way that he does the moving fish in tanks at the aquarium (to take one example).  But we had a good time, and it definitely merits another trip, especially since he got cranky before we could look at everything.  Plus, they sometimes offer train rides!  And, next spring, there's a Thomas the Tank Engine Day, which should come right on [railroad standard] time for Nicholas to be thrilled by such things.

Finally, as a rule I am required to take photos whenever Nicholas and I go somewhere without Sarah, so I present one from today, with others available to the right in the Peanut Gallery.

From Nicholas - Month 5

Nicholas' Baptism

We had a busy weekend, with family and friends in town for Nicholas' baptism. Between the level of activity, the shortage of naps, and the colds we're all still fighting, we're worn out, but it was a wonderful weekend and great to spend time with everyone. Thank you to everyone who came in to help us celebrate this special day in Nicholas' life.

We were so busy spending time with all our visitors, organizing for his party, and trying to sneak in enough power naps for Nicholas to avoid code red meltdowns that I didn't really have time this weekend to reflect on the significance of the event. Thinking about it now it feels sort of anticlimactic. I guess because it doesn't seem like much has changed.

The best definition I have ever heard of sacraments is that they are the recognition of something that has already taken place internally rather than a tranformative procedure. I like this definition a lot because they point to the process of transformation that we as humans have a role in, in connection with God. We can't do it on our own, but neither are we completely passive objects. And so, in that sense, Nicholas' baptism was the official welcoming ceremony even though he has been a member of the church family from birth (or at least when we started taking him to church at 5 weeks old).

Just as importantly, as a welcoming ceremony, his baptism was just the beginning. It is important to us to give him a strong foundation in a religion. He may change which religion he practices later in life or decide he does not want to practice any religion at all, but we hope to provide him with a foundation he can turn to. The baptism was the easy part.

And now I'll stop reflecting and get to the real reason you check this blog . . . pictures.

Here is our beautiful little boy in the baptism outfit my mom made for him:

From Baptism Weekend

And here he is playing and happy before the baptism started:

From Baptism Weekend

Then Deacon Ed poured the water on his head and Nicholas decided the day had gotten a lot less fun:

From Baptism Weekend

Outside of the church with his parents and godparents:

From Baptism Weekend

At the church with Grandma Kathleen and Grandpa Dan:

From Baptism Weekend

Joe's entire family came in for the baptism!

From Baptism Weekend

Believe it or not, these are only a small fraction of the great pictures from the weekend. You can see the rest of them (and a couple hilarious videos) here.

Parish Picnic

We just got back from our parish picnic, where Nicholas was remarkably well behaved considering that it was during his normal naptime. Our parish picnic really is just a picnic, rather than the festivals some churches hold under that name. But we have a strong affection for it because that is where we met our church friends 2 years ago, weeks after we joined the parish.

We were planning to wait until after Nicholas took a short nap before we went to the picnic, but he refused to go to sleep, so we figured we would just go for a little bit. But he was so wonderful that a little bit turned into 3 hours of fun!

Here he is, quite content to hang out with our church friends:

From Nicholas - Month 4

After about an hour of hanging out and being agreeable, he got fussy and we decided to head home for him to nap. As we left, I said, "unless he falls asleep before we get to the car, in which case we'll be back." We took the long route to the car and put the shade over the stroller and sure enough, 10 minutes later we were back at the picnic.

Nicholas only stayed asleep about half an hour, but it was long enough for us to get our hats handed to us in a game of bocce ball. It was also long enough, apparently, to recharge his batteries and buy us another hour or so at the picnic. This made Joe particularly happy because it meant we stayed long enough for him to judge the dessert contest, something he has been wanting to do since our first picnic.

Nicholas didn't get to eat the desserts, but he apparently knew something cool was going on because he watched Joe taste them in rapt attention:

From Nicholas - Month 4

And since other people were holding him a lot, I got a chance to play with the camera some. I've started playing with the great zoom function on our camera recently. I'm not a good photographer, but every once in awhile I get a shot I like a lot.

This is my favorite one from today:

From Nicholas - Month 4

Even though he isn't smiling, I like this picture a lot, I guess because of the natural light.

One of the couples we are friends with has a grandson almost exactly Nicholas' age and talking with them today reminded me of how lucky we are with Nicholas. Their grandson still has a lot of the sleep patterns and quirks that Nicholas had as a newborn but that he grew out of months ago (because, yes, he is now old enough that "months ago" is possible). Thank you, my darling boy, for sleeping in your crib, going to bed at a reasonable (and downright glorious) hour, and learning to suck your thumb to fall asleep. And thank you for giving us some time today to chat with adults and even play a little.

On another note, happy birthday Uncle Andrew! We're sorry we couldn't see you today, but feel better soon and we'll celebrate when we see you next.

Nicholas' Busy Day

Nicholas had quite the active and exhausting day. So exhausting in fact that he put himself to sleep (and deep sleep at that) twice today in loud places and is in bed for the night already (knock on wood). He was awake all through church, looking at all the people and then the stained glass windows. He was so good that we made it until after the homily in the main part of church before going up to the cry room. And even then he was pretty good because of the change of scenery. We then went over to fellowship, where he proceeded to fall asleep in Joe's arms when we gave him a pacifier.

After some fun play time and another little cat nap in the afternoon, Joe discovered on facebook that some friends of mine from camp were on their way to the state fair, which is less than two miles from our apartment, so off we went to meet them at the fair. And it was great fun! Here is the fair in pictures:

Looking at the cows:

From Nicholas - Month 4

So much to see, but really Nicholas was most interested in chewing on the Baby Bjorn! But he was quiet and didn't need a pacifier, so I won't complain.

From Nicholas - Month 4

After all the excitement and stimulation, Nicholas was so zonked that all it took was putting him in the stroller and closing both shades so he couldn't see out and the next time I looked, he was out. And our child who usually can't stay asleep if you walk through a room or dare to open the fridge slept through music blaring from speakers and fair rides.

From Nicholas - Month 4

But after a nap, he woke up as we were leaving the fair and bestowed smiles on our friends and their sweetheart of a daughter as they said goodbye.

From Nicholas - Month 4

All in all, a wonderfully fun day, but I didn't get the work done that I needed to, so I'm off to work for a couple hours now even though I think Nicholas has the right idea with bedtime.

Bawlmer

We are back! We got in at 1am last night (see below, under "insane"), and are using today to do laundry, grocery shop, and make sure things are generally cleaned up.

Sometime later today, and over the next few days, we will post photos and lots of stories from our trip.

Meanwhile, back at the car saga ...

The arrival of Nicholas did nothing to stem the tide of news about Katia, our stolen Honda Civic.

Last Monday, as Sarah's contractions began to intensify, we got a voice mail from a detective at the Baltimore City impound lot that the police had found the car! It was exhilirating to hear that there might be hope, but of course it was Memorial Day and I couldn't get anyone on the phone to get more information. On Tuesday afternoon, though, while at the hospital with Nicholas but a few hours old, I got another phone call from the Baltimore PD. It appeared, they reported, that there was some pretty bad damage to the ignition (for obvious reasons), and that the license plates had been removed, but that otherwise the car appeared in good shape. I tried not to get my hopes up, because the city has absolutely no track record of inspiring confidence. All I had to do was fax a release form (notarized) to the impound lot so that GEICO could tow the car to our mechanic, and start the process of assessing and repairing the damage.

Easier said than done.

I planned to leave the hospital on Wednesday morning for a few hours to take care of getting everything set up. I went home and printed out the form letter, and drove it over to get it notarized. Then I tried to get that place to fax it. Failure. So I drove to a second store, which put the fax through at about noon. I went home and called GEICO, and told the agent I had released the car. Great, all taken care of. I made myself a quick bag lunch to bring back to the hospital.

As I was ready to leave, I got a call from GEICO. The impound lot had not received the fax, and the agent was trying to get someone on the phone to help. After two or three minutes, she came back on the line and said she was having trouble getting through, but would keep trying. Finally, we got a detective at the unit, who said that it wasn't in my paperwork, but she would check the fax machine. A solid five minutes later she came back and reported it wasn't there. We checked the fax number I'd used, and I assured her that I had a confirmation page in front of me. "I'm a detective, I don't do faxes," was her reply. Grrr. Back out to fax the letter over again. Back to GEICO. Again difficulty getting someone on the line, but the agent this time said she would simply call back if she had trouble.

I returned to the hospital four hours after leaving for a two-hour project—by this point I had missed a visit from Nicholas's pediatrician, and Sarah's obstetrician—and assumed that all was going well because I hadn't heard anything for about two hours.

You probably know where this is going.

Apparently I was supposed to fax a copy of my driver's license over, which of course the impound lot hadn't mentioned ever, and which seemed odd since a tow truck driver was showing up with a letter I had had notarized to get the car. So now I begged the mercy of the nurses at the nurses station, who let me use the photocopier and the fax machine to send the letter and my license.

No good. So GEICO had me fax the materials to them, and would try in the morning, which somehow finally worked.

But on Thursday the car was towed to our mechanic, and I went over the look at it. The ignition is a mess, though the thieves left the plastic intact when they pulled it off. The car aesthetically looks fine otherwise, save for the plates. But—and here's where things could get messy—the right front window was down, which meant that the right front seat was soggy. The mechanic said he could fix the ignition (yay!), but we couldn't get the window up. So the battery is dead, but until they try to power up the battery, we won't know whether there was other damage to the electrical system (or, for that matter, the window). The adjuster looked at it today, and repairs are underway.

So progress. And the possibility we may get the Civic back is somewhat higher than it was a week ago. And, most importantly, the City of Baltimore no longer has any control over the car. Hallelujah!