1 Year: First Birthday

Today marks August's first birthday. I'm so proud of him, he's an amazing kid, and it's been an amazing year. I'm learning so much about myself, about life, about being a father. It's cliche, but I'm sad to see that first year go. He's already taken his first few uncertain steps, he crawls around like crazy, he's even has his first word—"dog!" (with the exclamation point). He's got a long way to go but he's come so far. I feel very fortunate.

11 Months: Perfect First Christmas

Today was August's first Christmas, and it couldn't have been more perfect. We're snowed under here in Idaho... snow has intensified dramatically since this footage was taken a couple of hours ago.

His big gift was this awesome sled Santa got for him. Here's some video:



And here's Santa herself, providing the locomotion:



The faster he goes, the happier he gets.



Perfect first Christmas. In 5 days he turns 1. What a great kid.

11 Months: A Tutu Retrospective

A few photos from when August's grandmother visited for Hawaii, about a month ago. "Tutu" is the Hawaiian word from grandmother.

11 Months: Bench Seating

What to do when you're tired after a long session at your new activity table? Why, just have a seat, of course. What are dogs for, after all?

10 Months: New Development

A few nights ago he crawled for the first time. He hasn't done it much since... it all comes down to motiviation. He wanted the extension cord wire. So now we have to baby-proof in earnest.

10 Months

10 Months: Tiger!

Halloween... tiger costume! Photos below.

9 Months: At Home with Fun Daddy

Having a great time with Augsmonster.

Here he is in my boots, this evening:


Here's video of us last night, hanging out in the jumpy chair and laughing it up:


And here's video of us earlier tonight, experimenting with some sound effects:

9 Months: Drivin' Down the Hall

Drivin' down the hall in his very cool auto.

9 Months: Doctor Appointment

August returned to visit his pediatrician after a several month hiatus. Weight and length were, of course measured and so it must therefore be charted.



He's now 21 lbs, 11 ozs, which is lighter than we thought but still in the 75th percentile. He's 30.5 inches long, which is long - 90th+ percentile. It makes sense... he seems really huge in Mary's arms when I step back with some perspective and take a look.

Poor kid got jabbed with a flu shot, and then they took his blood, the vampires. Poor kid. Really made him mad. And this was the first trip to the doctor where I wasn't there with him to help him out. When I heard how traumatic it was, I felt very guilty not to have been there to support the little guy.

9 Months: Monthiversary Today

Today our little August Bear turns 9 months old!

To celebrate, here is the promised better picture of him in his new car... still have to affix the decals, but that will happen soon enough.



Also, here are two pictures of August & Mary up in Maine, weekend before last. Yes, this does change his personal earth map, but that'll have to be updated later.

8 Months: Cold & Car

August has his first ever cold, and he's been upset all last night and all day today. Poor kid. He's been quite sad. But his new car from his grandma in Hawaii is cheering him up nicely. It suits him quite well, I hope you'll agree, as do his blue PJs.



Sorry for the photo quality... better shots to come soon.

8 Months: Weekend Getaway

We went on a little getaway up to Maine this weekend. Whole family. Here's a photo from my phone:



August is crashed out in his fancy new baby backpack. It's cool.

8 Months: Photos

We couldn't resist the opportunity to be photographed with August in his fancy blue overalls. Very cute.







One thing we've noticed recently: he seems to have learned object permanence. Something tells me he learned it long ago and we're just now noticing, but it's kind of cool. If Mary disappears by stepping through a door into another room, August watches and waits excitedly for her return.

8 Months: Footage

Here's some August footage we've captured over the past few weeks, but haven't had time to post to the blog.

This footage is about a month old, but he's such a cute smiler I couldn't resist:



Here's some more footage Mary got. She left August on the playmat, came back few minutes later to find him moving furniture around the apartment:


And then there's this: the baby and the mom and the dog:

7 Months: Superstar revisited

We haven't been following-up on the superstar baby model opportunity. Unsurprisingly, tons of people think their babies are cute enough to be photographed and plastered onto billboards (including us). This conviction, however misguided it might be in some cases, leads to competition. Thus, people are willing to put themselves and their babies through rather a lot of time and effortfor not a lot of money. In short... it's competitive, even for the less than desirable jobs.

We'd have been interested in a "you've been discovered" type moment which allowed us and our beautiful baby to bypass the paying-your-dues phase of babies' modeling careers; but we're not willing to become part of the system... it's not worth the money, for one thing. Leave it at that.

So don't look for August in the Gap stores this holiday season, folks... it'll be some other kid instead. Besides, what he really wanted to do was act.

7 Months: Photo

Here's one from a few weeks ago.

7 Months: A Matter of Time

It's only a matter of time before he's off to the races:

7 Months: The Taste of Avocado

Close-up

7 Months: Photo

His verbal skills may not yet be developed, but his ability to communicate is advanced. In this photo, for example, August demonstrates his understanding of the connection between the Y chromosome and his own "maleness". He's a smart one.

7 Months: Hanging Out

Hanging out at home with August. Nice rasperry. Patient dog.

7 Months: Superstar

Today, on his 7-monthiversary, August prepares for a new life as a superstar celebrity public figure. Star of screen, stage, print and other various media (including this blog). A few weekends ago he was "discovered" in the middle of the crosswalk of S. Charles and Boylston by a woman claiming to be a casting director for Baby Gap, and oh my god, isn't he beautiful? We should get in touch with her at the following email address, etc.

Well, we've lived in New York, where this technique has been used for years by skeevy guys to approach beautiful, naive-looking women ("hey, have you ever thought of being a model? I'm a talent scout!").

Well, we took the woman's card but walked away skeptical. But Mary followed-up and, though I'm sure it's a long-shot that anything will come of it, she's got some kind of appointment tomorrow at the modeling agency.

So let the exploitation begin!! Worst case scenario, we get confirmation that our baby is far more beautiful to us than the rest of the world (which I've suspected anyway!), and there's a chance Mary and Augs can earn a few bucks toward college education.

Photo shoot today in the park:

6 Months: Summer Vacation

We had a great first trip with August, went all the way down to the Chesapeake Bay to visit with some family. Here's a picture of us in Maryland:



I know the frequency of blog posts has diminished somewhat. That's a result of my being gainfully employed now, and therefore not at my leisure to build pie charts and sophisticated mathematical models to analyze baby names, and such things. I'll try to post pictures and videos as frequently as I can, but there's no use denying that volume of new posts is bound to suffer under this new arrangement.

For those of you already tracking my RSS feed, no problem. For those of you who check the site every so often, it might be less frustrating to sign-up to receive email when there's a new post. You can do that in the "Subscribe" section of the right column of the blog page.

6 Months: Traveling Man

For every individual there exists an area on the globe that encloses every place the person has ever traveled. I've always tried to imagine a polygon where all inside angles are less than 180°, stretched over the surface of the earth. Thanks to Google Earth, I'm able to recreate that very map for myself. It looks like this:





For you conspiracy theorists, that's Jamaica, not Cuba, marking the southern extent of my North American travels!

Mary's map is far more impressive, although the area would probably have been much smaller if Google Earth let us create a polygon that crosses the dateline. This version stretches across all of Asia although she hasn't traveled into the Asian interior. The southern line stretches from Maui to Bali, but across Asia, Africa, and Central America, not directly across the Pacific.







Up until our recent vacation, poor August's map was puny indeed:



And I thought that this trip would dramatically reshape his map. But take a look at what happened. Here's the map before the trip, in red up at Boston:



And here it is, now including everywhere we traveled last week:



Who knew there was such a straight line between Boston, New York, Philly, Baltimore, and DC?? We drove nearly 1,200 miles and stayed within this narrow little strip. Very weird.

6 Months: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

How I Spent My Summer Vacation - by August

1. Swinging



2. Swimming



3. Conversation

6 Months: Discoveries

Several revelations from August's doctor visit yesterday. First, the kid has put on weight like a champ, which was our "assignment" from the last appointment. Also, after hearing us tell her that August had been fussy for the past few days, our doctor started poking around inside his mouth and discovered the very tips of two little teeth just breaking through his lower gum! Poor kid had been cuttin' teeth for the past couple of days, and it hurt. But instead of crying and crying and shrieking in pain, he was simply a little fussier than usual.

He's a strong baby. A great kid. Now with teeth!

6 Months: Grumpiversary

Surprise! It's my half-birthday!


Click the photo for larger version.


August turned six months old at exactly 3:23 AM, this morning. He was awake at the time, celebrating the milestone by continuing an ongoing griping/whining/grumping session which started around 2:00, and kept one or both of his parents awake for the balance of the night.

We haven't had an evening this "busy" in months. He was clearly not feeling 100%, poor guy.

But August makes sure, almost by instinct, that there are material compensations to balance these difficulties... not least of which is the fact that he's so damn cute (witness photo, above). But today, after the toughest night in many weeks, he made sure the compensations were manifest. Mary was holding him close to her, and he kept putting his face up next to hers. I thought maybe he was trying to give her a little kiss, so I gave him a little kiss on the cheek, by way of example. Sure enough, he put is little mouth right up against Mary's cheek and gave her a genuine kiss, complete with kissing sound. This was clearly an intentional action on his part. You can imagine the effect this had on Mary! All the trials of his long, long night evaporated immediately!

So happy halfiversary to August, however grumpy he may be today, with great appreciation for the gift he bestowed on us today.

Here are photos from our afternoon lunch of delicious rice cereal. Not grumpy at all!

5 Months: New Cousin

New Cousin, Winthrop Avery Newman:



Little "Win", for short. Big win for my sister & her husband.

5 Months: How-To

How to mix-up a delicious bottle for baby.

Step One: I pour the water

Step Two: I add the powdered formula

Step Three:

5 Months: Fatherhood Guidelines

An article in the NYTimes today outlines how to be a father. Paraphrasing the bullets:

• Spend time with your kids
• Be there throughout their childhoods and beyond
• Balance discipline with fun
• As a role model, be a grown-up man

This is all pretty much common sense (I guess most parenting is), but it's still interesting. The thing I'm hoping will stick with me as I raise August day to day: reaching that right balance between fun and discipline. I could see myself veering too far in both directions, but I think I'm especially at risk for overemphasizing the "fun" part of being a dad. That's just as dangerous as being overly strict. Must keep perspective.

5 Months: Mary's Baby Pictures

Fresh from a scanner in Idaho:

5 Months: Photos From Today

One from the morning, hanging with his good friend Neve:



And one showing off his "My Grandma Rocks" T shirt before enjoying rice cereal (and not enjoying mashed-up bananas) in his fancy new high chair.