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.