Have you noticed that, aside from babbling about writing projects, my web site has been relatively content-free lately? Are you wondering why I'm getting into this weird kick about "commitments?"

There are many reasons for that, but I guess it's time to 'fess up to the biggest reason of them all. I've been mum here on the website on pretty much the most important thing going on in my life, because I wasn't ready just yet to introduce this "new" factor into public discussion whilst I was in the middle of dealing with it. But it's hard to hide now:

Paulette and I are expecting our first baby this summer. In fact, the due date (I'm told that only four percent of births happen on the "due date") is July 4th.

Eight months into the pregnancy, and everything seems to be going smoothly (says the male portion of the team)... at least, as far as the baby's and mother's health are concerned.

Now, the fact that we're broke, and that one of our cars just died (permanently), and that my vertigo problems haven't gone away, and that working from home is about to get *much* more complicated, well... maybe "smooth" isn't the most appropriate term to describe the situation at Casa Rousselle.

Nonetheless, balancing baby, finances, "job" career, writing career, personal commitments, spiritual and intellectual health, and physical health -- not to mention the all-important Relationship between Paulette and me -- should make for interesting times.

I'm looking forward to being a Dad.

So, today I went to "Infant Care" class.

I learned how to bathe a baby and change a diaper.

I learned that toilet training is easier with cloth diapers than with disposables.

When I grabbed the nearest doll (they had these life-sized infant dolls for us to practice upon), it happened to be a black baby doll. When I got to my seat and saw all of the other parents, I noticed that the white parents all got white baby dolls, and the black parents all got black baby dolls. The parents of apparently Asian ethnicity got white baby dolls. Once again, I had mistakenly and inadvertently failed to conform with convention. Luckily, nobody arrested me. But I was a little uncomfortable at having bucked some convention that the room had adopted.

So, I guess I learned that I'm still uncomfortable when I don't conform, even when conformity is stupid.

I've been planning for months now to write a little essay about how much annoying advice I get whenever someone finds out that 1) I'm trying to get a book published, 2) I'm going to be a father soon, and/or 3) I vote.

As you can see, however, I haven't gotten around to it yet. And, while some people have been so passionate about their advice ("You have to do such and such...") that I'm inclined to tell them to buzz off, most of the advice has been well intentioned and not overly dogmatic.

Got a great piece of advice today, though, about the upcoming arrival. Said a good friend who recently became a mom: for the first couple of weeks after the baby is born, don't let anyone come over to visit unless they bring something. And most especially, grant no one baby-holding privileges if they didn't bring food. Since, for the first couple of weeks, the new parents will not have much opportunity to step out of the house, it is most helpful if others bring what you need to you.

I like it. Good advice that allows me to act in a silly and autocratic fashion and *justifies* it! :-)

The baby is past due.

The "due date" for the baby was July 4th, but "Dependence Day" came and went and there's been no change in status. Paulette is still pregnant.

In other news...

* My stories keep coming back rejected. Haven't written anything new in a couple weeks.

* My Passat is still broken, and is likely to take about a month before it can get back on the road again.

* I've been doing a lot of research lately on certain aspects of philosophy and religion in general, the Bible and Judeo-Christianity in particular, rhetoric, and history. Much of this research is for my next novel, and much of it is simple intellectual curiosity. Alas, research shouldn't take the place of actual writing. However, I've been enjoying the thinking that goes with the research....

* A friend from Clarion West had an excellent story recently published in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine. Another friend, from Cornell, had a novella recently published in Analog. Yet another friend, from my high school days (although she didn't go to my high school), was also published in Analog a few months ago. I think this is all great. And/but I'm ready to join their ranks, durnit!

The weather is beautiful. Wish you were here.

Ahem.

The title above does not refer to my constant rejections from magazines that are not inclined to publish my short stories. Rather, it refers to how every phone conversation must now begin.

You see, since just about everyone I talk to on a regular basis on the phone knows that my wife and I are expecting a baby -- were, in fact, expecting it this past "In"dependence Day -- they therefore assume at the beginning of every phone conversation that 1) if I called them, then I have news about the baby being born, or 2) if they called me, then I have news about the baby being born.

No! The Answer is No! There is no baby! The baby has not been born yet! There is no news!

And so every phone conversation must begin thusly.

Of all of the things that I had expected to happen as a result of impending parenthood, this never even made the list. Never even *occurred* to me.

The answer is no. No baby yet.

:-)

No baby yet. :-P

No baby, yet.

But I did make some spicy jamalaya tonight, just in case that might help. :-)

In writing news: everything that I have that is ready to go out there is currently out there. The novel and several short stories are making the rounds. When they come back, I send them back out. I have another short story I hope to send out by the end of this week. It's probably the only pre-Clarion West story that I'll end up sending out any time soon.

Stories being out there means I'm opening my writing up for more rejection. Stories kept safely at home means I'm not going to get published. So, out they go!

No baby yet.

Paulette and Allan Rousselle are proud to announce the birth of their son:

Mother and child are doing well and will be coming home from the hospital in a few days.

Pictures will be posted here in a day or two.

Thank you all for your support, kindness, and well wishes.

Well, there's lots to tell. And there have been lots of requests for photos. Please excuse any long delays in loading this page, but you asked, so here come the photos.

The short version of the first four or so days in Alexander's life go like this:

Friday morning, 7:30am. We load up and drive in to the hospital. The plan is to be induced, because we are two weeks plus one day past the due date, which makes getting that baby born as soon as possible Medically Necessary.

We show up at the hospital on time (8am), check into our room (it's like a hotel, fer crying out loud) and meet our nurse, who is amazing. Monitors are set up, vitals are taking, IV is begun, and the process gets rolling.

I won't describe all the gory details of how induction and labor work. The long and the short of it is, things are going great until, well, the baby refuses to come out. By around 11:30pm, the doctor decides that we may want to try some clever techniques (like vacuum extraction), so we move into the "delivery room."

"Delivery Room" is a euphemism for "Operating Room," by the way.

They try everything, realize that the baby isn't coming out that way, and decide to go for a cesarean section. The entire team is quick and professional, and they take care of the baby and Paulette with a minimum of fuss.

Alexander doesn't cry when he's born. I get to hold him, then bring him over to Paulette. His hands and feet are purple, but the rest of him looks mighty normal. He has some hair, and these big blue eyes. Here's what he looked like after he was two hours old. Notice that the hands have already pinked right up:

After we return to our room from the operating-- delivery room, the nurse suggests that I put on the first diaper, and she took a photo since I had the camera out. I think she was surprised that I had no problem with putting on the diaper.

Anyway, Paulette and the baby get to take in some sleep after the first feeding, and all is going well, but I can't sleep at all. The accommodations for the father are, uh, not so good. At least, in our room. I return the next day to find Paulette and her mother (who is visiting from out of town) have things well under control. Day one proceeds fairly smoothly, with the occasional feedings, sleep, and soiled diapers. I leave that night in the care of Paulette's mother, and we decide that I'll take the day shifts and she (Paulette's mother) will take the nights. So far, so good.

When I come back the next morning, I discover that one of the nurses has decided that the baby looks a little bit yellowish, so they check Alexander's blood tests. Turns out that he *may* be creeping into jaundice territory, so they take even more blood, which sets him to screaming for the first time. This (combined with an increasing case of jaundice, as it turns out) tuckers the poor kid out, so feeding becomes very difficult. However, feeding is very important to combat jaundice. Day Two was rough, with lots of crying and resisting the program. (And, no, I'm not just referring to myself.)

We had to keep Alexander wrapped up with an illuminated pad against his back which emitted ultraviolet light. This is supposed to help the jaundice.

I go home. Come back the next morning, and it turns out that the pad isn't working. So, they've put Alexander into an incubator that is bathed in ultraviolet light. They've attached Geordi LaForge-like fasteners on his temples to hold a cover over his eyes to protect them from the light.

While they look like "visor implants" from Star Trek: The Next Generation, they are really just velcro pads in the shape of a heart that are Crazy Glued to his temples. His "visor" is a little cushioned set of sunglasses with velcro fasteners at the ends. When he sits in his incubator, it's hard not to imagine all sorts of science fiction images.

In fact, I must digress for a second to point out just how science fiction-esque the whole birth process is. Let's see, there's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1974 version, with the hatching of the pod people. There's Alien with the c-section (and the hospital food, har, har). The Abyss, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Species also come to mind.

The writer's mind at work, I suppose.

Our Martian Baby had a much better Day Three than Day Two, as he got into a routine with the coming out of "The Box" (my term for the incubator) to feed, getting a chance to see the world for about half an hour or so, and then going back into blind-folded contemplation in his ultraviolet solitary cell. He slept better, fed better, and his mother was doing likewise. Everyone was happier.

Day four, and the routine hasn't changed much, except that we're tired of the routine and we're pretty much ready to all go home. The food at the hospital is actually not bad, but it's a limited menu. Paulette is ready to spend some quality time at home, and we'd really like the chance to let the kid enjoy his new home rather than spending time in the Box. The doctors are optimistic that we'll be able to bring him home tomorrow (Wednesday). Wish us luck.

As for me, I just want to hold the guy. Right now, all I get to do is change a diaper or two. It breaks my heart to keep blindfolding him and putting him into an incubator. :-(

And that's the one thing I'm really leaving out of this little description of events: the emotional ups and downs of labor, birth, and recovery. I'm as analytical as the next guy when it comes to solving a problem or pursuing a goal, but the emotions that go along with the events of the past few days are something else. They are hard to describe without sounding mushy to anyone who hasn't been there, or sounding woefully inadequate to someone who has.

I'm pleased to say that Paulette is recovering quite nicely from the operation, and she appears to be in excellent spirits (although, as I mentioned, she'd like to come home now). Her mother has been a wonderful help, and we're all glad that Alexander and his Grandma Dwen will get to spend some quality time before she heads back home. (Alexander's paternal grandparents will get to visit in a couple weeks.)

That's all for now. I need to get some rest before driving back to the hospital in the morning. There will certainly be more news to follow, and I'll bet there's even some non-baby-related news that awaits us all. In the meantime, Thanks again for reading, and don't be bashful about dropping me a line!

I'm going to the hospital to pick up Alexander and Paulette *right now*. The doctors say he's made wonderful improvement, so we get to bring him home. Happy day!

Paulette and Baby Alexander are safe at home now. We had a pretty good "Day Five." Highlights included: getting through our first night at home, discovering that pacifiers can pacify, even when baby is getting an immunization shot right in the thigh (he didn't cry, the little guy), having Alexander fall asleep while resting on my shoulder for the first time since he went into "the Box."

As we left the hospital with our baby yesterday, and none too soon, I had to take a snapshot of part of the sign that graces the entryway to the "birthing suites" (hospital rooms with baby stuff) because I had walked by and read it several times every day for the first four days of Alexander's life. It's a depressing thought, really, attributed to Charles Dickens. Something along the lines of "Each baby born is finer than the last."

Every time I walked by it, it seemed to me that by Chuck's account, our baby was getting less and less fine, relatively speaking, with every passing moment. I must disagree on that score.

Q: Will you post any more baby pictures?
A: Oh, okay.

Q: Will he go by Alex or Alexander?
A: The jury's still out on that one. But he seems to be nonresponsive to both, equally, at present. A friend of the family has noted that four syllables ain't likely to survive all that long. Neither Paulette nor I are particularly concerned one way or the other, so you may call him as you like. Paulette and I mostly call him "Pumpkin," "Pistachio," and other assorted terms of endearment. I wonder whether he'll ever actually learn what his real name is from us.

Q: When can we come over to see him?
A: When can you get here? Just please call first, as we might be napping.

Q: What did he weigh when he was born?
A: Just under eight pounds (7lbs 15oz). According to our doctor visit earlier today, he currently weights 7lbs 12oz, which is a remarkable recovery (since most babies lose weight at first and take a couple of weeks to get back to their birth weight.)

Q: How long was he?
A: 19in, I think. He measured 20in today. At this rate of growth, he'll be just over seven and a half feet tall by his first birthday. (Hey, if that kind of logic is good enough for Wall Street, as it has been until only recently....)

Q: Other than the jaundice, is he okay?
A: Yeppers. A very healthy baby

Q: Do you really plan to start taking him with you to events *this week*?
A: As some of you may be aware, we'd originally hoped to bring the baby to an event this past Saturday (this was before it became obvious he wasn't going to be born *until* Saturday.) Alas, the late birth and the c-section have slowed us down a little bit. But, yes, we are already taking him out for walks and have already started introducing him to friends and family. While Paulette's recovery from the c-section is astounding, she's still not going to be hiking up and down stairs much any time soon. Still, you are likely to see us at the next Clarion West party (that's this Friday. Tomorrow.), since all we have to do is drive there (we've already mastered the art of driving with the baby) and sit down... then get up and leave. BTW, that's not just some bravado talk from the dad. That's Paulette's way of putting it. Her words, and everything. I'd be okay with staying home, if that's what she wanted, but it isn't... and I'm okay with that, too.

That's all for now. I'm going to bed. :-)

Q: Is there anything that you guys need for Alexander?
A: Well, yeah, there are a few things here and there, so we set up a baby registry through Babies 'R' Us (That's "We B Babies 'N' Shit" in West Philadelphia), which in turn has an online store through Amazon.com. Kind of you to ask!

:-)

A friend of mine sent me the following. I didn't realize he was such a clever artist; I love the way he makes this look like a well known comic strip:

Sleep deprivation is nothing new to me (or Paulette), of course. I'm informed by my friends that the sleep deprivation that goes along with having kids usually tapers off after about, oh, twenty years or so.

:-)

This two-part essay about "Changes" is not, ultimately, about having a newborn in the house, but that *is* where the essay begins. I'm starting off with an illustration, as it were, of one kind of life changing event, but there will actually be some content here that is not baby-related.

Allow me to start off my illustration, however, with a few baby pictures, since visuals are always fun.

In addition to the pictures I posted here when Alexander was first born, I've been sending along photos to Alexander's paternal grandmother who has been posting these additional photos on her site. I particularly like the batch at the bottom of page three, which I had taken when Alexander was only one week old.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to scale the full versions of the photos I have down to a manageable size on the web, so I've been kind enough to allow Alexander's grandmother to take care of that. However, I *am* taking photos, and I simply *must* call attention to a couple that I'd taken yesterday, the day after he turned two weeks old.

It's amazing how much can change in a mere two weeks. The changes in Alexander's appearance only capture part of it; there are changes in how he vocalizes, changes in how he sleeps, changes in how he interacts. Naturally, we're still figuring things out. When he's awake, he's a very alert baby; when he is not happy with the world situation, he's very vocal about it. Each day is different in terms of how awake, how happy, how upset, and how hungry he is.

Alexander's mood, like anyone's, is prone to changing frequently and often. In a newborn, however, those mood changes do not appear to be terribly subtle or sophisticated. As adults, our emotions might shift several times within an hour, but the shift is rarely profound enough to be noticeable to outside observers... or even to ourselves. For example, in the mail, Paulette and I receive a gift for the little one from a friend, and I am happy. In the same pile of mail, there's the new car payment bill. I'm concerned. I drop the mail onto the kitchen counter and realize I'm hungry.

Little Alexander's shifts are a little more abrupt. He is set down on a favorite couch, as in the photo above, and he is happy. He remembers that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off by several hundred points, as in the action shot below, and he is concerned.

This change took place within about ten seconds, in a photo shoot that lasted about, oh, thirty seconds.

When Paulette and I first started telling people that we were expecting, the most frequent response was "this will change your life forever." And of course, my most frequent thought about this response was, "Well, duh." Getting a puppy changes your life. Getting a driver's license changes your life. Forever! Anything that shifts your responsibilities and your capabilities has some profound effect on the quality and shape of your life.

Has Alexander changed my life? Certainly. But the whole idea that "having a kid changes your life" is trivial. It's a tautology.

Try this one on for size: life is all about change. Change *is* life. Once you stop changing, your life is ostensibly over.

*That* will be the focus of the second part of this essay.

...to be continued...

Haven't written much lately, and I'm not just refering to ye olde web site. I haven't written an original scene for a story in a couple of weeks now... that's the horror story I'm writing about how sleep deprivation drives a father insane. I haven't been writing, but I guess I've been doing some, uh, field research.

Never fear, I'll resume posting pictures and writing more goofball essays soon enough. (I know this was a big worry of yours. :-)

In the meantime, Alexander has turned a month old (that was the 20th) and he doesn't look a day over four weeks. As I mentioned earlier, we've been making a point of bringing the little tyke with us to various events, and we have even had him baby-sat *twice* now so that Paulette and I could go do stuff out of the house. Okay, the first time was so that we could see a movie (Signs, which is about children in jeapordy. Ack!) and the second time was so that we could get our respective work done for a few hours in peace. But, the proof of concept is there.

The next big task for our little family is a road trip, which is coming up soon. We've already driven down half the state to meet up with good friends who flew in from across the country, but now we're talking about driving down half the country. Should be fun.

If I get around to it, I'll probably write to you tomorrow to tell you how/why I'm so morose about the prospects of building a successful writing career. Arrrrgh. In the meantime, I think I'll try to squeeze in my daily ration of four hours sleep.

Nighty night.

Okay, my *next* entry will be an entry either about religion or writing (or both), and not about the kid. I promise.

But, for now, let me just wax philosophical on the fact that Alexander had his one month check-up this past Friday. The doctor (well, the doctor's non-nurse practitioner assistant, actually) takes all kinds of measurements to make sure that the kid is growing correctly by comparing the kid to other kids the same age.

Alexander is in the 90-95% range of height (or length) for a baby his age. This means that 90 to 95 percent of the babies his age are shorter (or, uh, less long) than he is. Thus, he is growing well. Now, when he was born, he was in the 70th percentile or so. He is growing *fast*. In fact, he's still averaging about an inch per week, as I'd noted a few weeks ago, which means he is still on target to be seven and a half feet tall by his first birthday.

His weight is in the 75th percentile, which is good, because that means he's not as fat as other kids as tall as he is. As we all know, looks are everything, and fat babies are doomed.

His skull is now in the 75th percentile. When he was born, he was in the 90 to 95% range. Thus, his head isn't growing as quickly as his height. Don't know what that means, but if he's anything like his daddy, he'll have a bigger head than the rest of the kids before too long.

Oh, wait. Nevermind.

Other statistics:

* The volume of his screams is only at the 50th percentile, but the quality of harmonics (the "Piercing Factor") is closer to 70%.

* He is so white, they can't even measure it. All factors indicate he will eat Miracle Whip on white bread, watch Laverne and Shirley reruns, and listen to country music. He can't dance. If he plays sports, he'll either swim or play hockey.

* His flatulence is in the 45th percentile in quantity, but only 35% in quality.

* His cuteness is in the 95th percentile, but apparently so are the majority of other babies. Sounds statistically dubious to me.

Alexander Benjamin is healthy and happy, and doing okay for a one-month old. We hope his pleasant disposition will carry through for our road trip to ConJose, a science fiction writers' and fans' convention being held in San Jose this year.

...that's a long, long drive, even if the kid is in good spirits! :-)

It's going to happen sooner or later. The Kid is going to start crawling. Then, I am told, the trouble begins.

They say (you know... they) that you (meaning anyone with a kid) need to childproof your home by the time your child can move around. Cover up the electrical outlets. put gates at the top and the bottom of each staircase, at the entryway to your kitchen, etc. Move all chemicals up from the bottom cabinets. Likewise, the medicines in your bathroom drawers. Padding on furniture corners. Bolt the bookcases to the wall and similarly secure the television. Pick up any sharp objects. Pick up any objects small enough to fit into the kids mouth.

It's a lot of work. I don't think they are thinking this whole situation through. Think like an engineer. You can go through all this effort to childproof your house. Or...

You can houseproof your child.

After all, it's the child who is the single changed factor in the situation. Your house doesn't suddenly require all this attention; your *child* requires you to pay this attention to the house. But, wouldn't it be easier to cushion your kid than to cushion the house?

In the old days, they didn't childproof houses. No, sir. I remember quite clearly. They had big ol' splitters on the electrical outlets that turned two outlets into six, which then had extension cords or three-way splitters in each socket, with every new socket occupied by some lamp or other device with exposed wires, etc. We had roller chairs that the child in question could sit in and move around the house by psuedo-walking. These little death traps could take a kid right down the stairs, yes-indeedy, and a child only made that kind of mistake five or six times before learning to stop doing that.

Likewise, licking electrical wires was usually a self-correcting behavior. I remember quite distinctly one time when I touched an exposed plug that was only half-way inserted in the outlet. After I let out a yelp, one of the adults nearby -- back in those days, it took a village. I had both parents, half a dozen aunts and uncles, and then grandparents, extended family, and friends of the family -- said to me, "Betcha won't do that again." And he was right.

If the kid started playing with the TV or bookshelf or whatever, the standard mode of operations went like this:

1) yell "NO" at the kid

2) if that didn't work, slap the kid's hand

3) if that didn't work, spank

4) if that didn't work, use The Rack

5) if that didn't work, use the Mace

6) if that didn't work, burn at the stake

This method was usually quite effective, and most of my generation learned the lesson without having to go beyond step five. In this way, the house was duly protected from the child with minimal effort expended by the parents.

These days, we don't have a village of adults to watch over the kids. These days, it's extremely not in vogue to spank or yell or show disapproval of any sort. And yet, I'm reticent to spend all the time, money, and energy to child-proof my house.

So once the Kid starts crawling, here's my plan:

* You know those white plastic cones that vets put around the necks of cats or dogs when they don't want the animal to scratch its head? Put one of those on the Kid. That way, he can't put anything sharp or small anywhere near his face. This should also protect him from fiddling with electrical outlets.

* Wrap up the Kid in thick, padded clothes. A down-filled jumper and a thick, knit hat ought to do it (plus thick mittens, of course). Now, sharp corners are no longer a problem.

No muss, no fuss. The kid can still crawl around, but he will be safe. And so will the house. And there will be no beatings involved, no expressions of disapproval. Everybody wins. :-)

Alexander turned 11 weeks old last Saturday. He'll be 12 weeks old on the 12th of this month (that's tomorrow). I haven't been as good about posting pictures as I was a while ago. Part of that (admittedly, only a small part) has been not wanting for Alexander to take over my web site -- I know that not all of you come here just to hear his Daddy gush about what a great kid he is.

Then again, I haven't been posting regularly, anyway. But I *have* still been taking pictures. Every once in a while, I forward the full images to my mother, who then makes them suitable for the web and posts them on her site. Although, I notice the last batch or two still isn't up yet. Hint, Mom. Hint.

Still, some of you have asked to see something more recent, and I particularly like this photo of Alexander that Paulette took just a few days ago. As the budding photogs we are, we've been playing with lighting, backgrounds, etc., and I think that everything came together quite nicely on this one.

Alexander remains happy and healthy, and he'll be meeting his paternal grandfather for the first time in about a week. Every day, he makes more (as in different) sounds and offers more facial expressions. His smile is huuuuuge. He still can't change the fuel pump in the car but, fortunately, the fuel pump should last a little longer yet.

I'm told that once he's three months old (which isn't that far away at this point), he'll be even more interactive than he is now. I guess once he starts eating solid foods, he be even *more* interactive. (This is a sly reference to the fact that he doesn't produce anything that smells bad... yet.)

Ain't he a cutie? Sorry for the long download time, but I just had to share this picture.

Yesterday, October 20th, marked the three-month anniversary of Alexander Benjamin's arrival into the world. This evening, while I was out at a meeting, marked another milestone in Alexander's life: he turned from lying on his back onto his side.

He turned! And I wasn't here to see it!

The kid is going to be crawling around in no time!

Alexander's paternal grandfather was here for a visit this past weekend, leaving our fair city just this afternoon (and thus, like me, just missed seeing Alexander turning on his side for the first time). A fun visit was had by all. I'll post a picture or two, shortly. And this time, I mean it!

Every so often, I download the photos we've taken on the digital camera and select a few to send to Alexander's paternal grandmother, who then posts them on her site. I know I've mentioned this before.

Lately, when I do this, I try to come up with clever captions. Some of the recent photos have had a bit more liveliness to them... Alexander's coming up with all sorts of new facial expressions, etc. I love his expression in this one (for comedic purposes, of course... this isn't an expression I want to see on an everyday basis!):

My original caption for this one was "Cornell's going to cost how much?" But I'm not so sure that works. What do you think?

What would *you* suggest as a caption for this photo? Click on the comments link below and share! :-)

--Allan

Wayback (not "way back," but "wayback") when I was in college, a good friend and I enjoyed watching a television show called The Wonder Years, which focused on the coming-of-age of a fellow named Kevin and his friends and family during the 1960's. The story was told like one big flashback, narrated by actor Daniel Stern as the adult Kevin, even though we only saw the young Kevin (played by Fred Savage) on screen.

My friend pointed out on some rainy Tuesday many years after we'd started watching this show that every single episode seemed to involve the narrator saying something along the lines of, "I knew then that things would never be the same."

Kevin kissed his girlfriend Winnie for the first time, and he "knew then that things would never be the same." Winnie's brother was killed in Vietnam, and Kevin "knew then that things would never be the same." Kevin played hookey from Coach Cutlip's gym class, and he "knew then that things would never...."

Well, you get the picture.

It was sort of a funny formula, the kind that drinking games are made of. "Next time Kevin says he knew then that things would never be the same, everyone drinks a shot." Whatever. Despite this predictability, the show was fun to watch. Even as I type this, I realize that there may even be a little bit of "Wonder Years" that was lurking in the back of my mind as I began exploring the good and the bad of 1980's Buffalo in my recently completed novel.

But that's not why I bring this all up.

It seems that most days with Alexander are producing in me the same kind of "and I knew then that things would never be the same" response that seemed to fill up the ficitional Kevin's life. Ferinstance, Alexander (three and a half months old at this point) completely rolled over from lying on his back to resting on his tummy all by himself yesterday. More than once. After rolling over, he started trying to crawl. He moved around a bit, but didn't quite manage to get anywhere. But you could see he was figuring things out.

Once he rolled over the second time, I knew then that things... you know.

Allow me to point out that we don't currently have a television feed in our house. We rent movies, borrow DVDs, etc., to pickle our brains as necessary, but we don't have cable or satelite or anything like that. And yes, this is a little odd, given that my current project (near completion!) is a pilot for a television series being written on spec. It's also a little odd, given my role as some sort of pop culture consumer type guy. I'm catching up on my pop culture reading though. :-)

Anyway, this all means that Alexander hasn't been spending much time plopped down in front of the television. In fact, he hasn't been spending *any* time in front of the TV.

Until recently.

Now I must point also out here that there's this little device called a "pacifier" which is a pretty magical gizmo. You place the little rubbery thingy in his mouth when he's crying, and he stops crying. If he doesn't seem tired and you want him to sleep, you give him this wonderful invention, and he goes to sleep. I knew from the first time we gave him a pacifier and he took it that, well, things would never be the same.

Recently I was watching a video course (this is like an audio course, only it's... oh, you know) from the Teaching Company about detective fiction. I no longer get my pop culture the old fashioned way; now I watch videotaped college lectures about pop culture. (Actually, I'm learning more about the form of the detective novel because I think I can learn from these kind of thrillers as I put together my next novel.) As I was watching this very dry presentation by a rather high-pitched professor, I noticed that the previously-antsy Alexander had moved around on the floor where he was babbling so that he could see the screen. He was fascinated. Completely drawn in. The television was acting as uberpacifier. He watched until I was done with my lecture.

We are not using the television as a baby-sitter for Alexander, and we have no intentions of doing so. But now that I've seen the immense power of the television on our child, I can't unlearn that knowledge. Things will never be quite the same.

...I gotta say, though, that the television makes the pacifier look much less of a controversial choice than it once had seemed. :-)

Alexander Benjamin's paternal grandfather came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. One of my father's passions is flying. While he was in town, he bought the coolest little flyer outfit for Alexander, complete with leather airman's jacket and sharp khaki pants. We'll show a photo of that once Alexander is old enough to fit into the new ensemble. (There's also a body suit with airplanes on it that grandpa bought that fits Alexander now; I'll post a photo of that one soon. I guess I'm becoming a fashion photographer. Ack.)

As you can see, both of these Rousselles are fine looking fellows... and they're both looking funny at the Rousselle behind the camera. I have no idea what the I was doing at the time to earn these reactions.

We've been fortunate so far to have had a chance to introduce Alexander to both of his paternal grandparents, plus his maternal grandmother (who was here to help out during the week before and the week after little Alex was born), and most recently his Aunt Sandra and Uncle Michael. My own Aunt Ginny (my father's youngest sister) lives not too far away from us, and we get to visit more frequently. With any luck, Alexander will meet his other three uncles and his godmother before too long. Family is assuming a completely different kind of importance to me now that I am raising a family of my own. The connections run deeper -- with siblings as well as parents and grandparents. I don't have the words to describe it... yet. But I'll figure it out. And, no doubt, I'll put it down on paper. Writers are funny that way.

I'm looking forward to Alexander meeting his great grandparents. I'm looking forward to spending more time with them, myself. I'm older now than my father was when I was born. I hope Alexander nonetheless will grow up knowing his extended family, including his grandparents and great grandparents, aunts and uncles. They're all good people.

Now, his dad, on the other hand, could still stand some improvement....

We took Alexander in for his four month checkup yesterday morning. The doctor says he's healthy and growing at a healthy rate. He's ahead of the curve at "transferring" objects from one hand to the other, but he's not rolling over as much as other four-month-olds tend to do. In other words, he's developing fine motor control faster than course motor control.

He's also now in the 75th to 90th percentile range for height, weight, and skull size. He's a little over 16 pounds, which means we should be able to continue using his current car seat for a few more months. We were worried he'd outgrow it (the max is 20 pounds) before he turned a year old. That still seems likely, but at least we won't have to rush out to buy a new car seat *right this minute.*

You see, the law says that any child under one year old has to be in a rear-facing car seat. Most rear-facing car seats are only rated for children up to twenty pounds. If Alexander weighs more than twenty pounds before he turns a year old, we'll end up having to buy him one more car seat than we would have had to, otherwise. It's funny how many things like this you have to be aware of once you have a baby in the house.

Anyway, the big event at the doctor's office yesterday was another round of innoculation shots for the kid. He needed FOUR shots. Ouch! He was not happy about that.

Otherwise, life continues to move forward with our little one. He's not crawling yet, but he is starting to scoot around the room by pushing with his feet while he's lying on his back. So far, his favorite places to go are under the tables and chairs in the living room. A whole new world for him. :-)

I just wanted to post a quick note about Alexander, for those of you interested in how things are going with him.

He remains the Cutest Baby In The World, although he's quickly outgrowing that title... because he's growing so *big*. He's noticeably (sp?) taller than he was even at Christmas time, and we've just now moved him up to 9mo to 12mo clothes.

He's been turning over a lot lately. As of yesterday morning, he even sleeps on his tummy, despite the fact that we keep putting him down on his back. Did I just type "tummy?" Guess I'm becoming a parent.

He remains a happy, healthy, beautiful baby boy. And yes, I'll post more pictures soon. :-)

Alexander Benjamin turned six months old yesterday. To celebrate, we took him to the doctor's and had him shot.

Which is to say, he had his regular visit to the doctor, who gave him four different immunization shots. Ouch! Poor guy. (When I say "poor guy," I mean the kid, not the doctor. The doctor is a woman.) His next visit, in three months, will be his first visit to the doctor's office that won't involve shots. Hopefully, he won't have developed a negative association with doctors' offices by then.

Wait a minute... what am I saying? How can one *not* have a negative association with doctors' offices? I mean, when he gets older, he'll still only see a doctor when he's sick, right? The only reason *I* don't have a negative association with this particular doctor's office is because it's not my doctor! (Sorry, Adrien. Sorry, Frank. :-)

The doctor reports that Alexander is still gaining weight and height at an appropriate pace and that he seems to be adjusting well. He currently weighs just under 19 pounds, so he is almost out of the official range that his car seat is intended to support. Alas, he is also 28" long, which *is* out of the range that the car seat says it will support. Rats. We'll have to install a new car seat.

The doctor also gave us tips on feeding the little guy solid foods, a process that we had begun a mere few days before.

By solid foods, it turns out we're talking about "rice cereal", which is runnier than cream of wheat and hardly solid at all. In fact, it's pretty much just milk with a few tiny rice flakes in it. Solid food? Semantics.

Did you know that rice cereal can have a mildly constipating effect? Did you know that pears and prunes can have the opposite effect? Allow me to be the first to observe that pears and prunes both start with 'p' and end with 'poo.'

But anyway, I digress. As usual.

The doctor is under the impression that he's likely to retain his blue eyes, as opposed to his eyes turning green. Both of his parents have green eyes, but both of his grandfathers have blue eyes. Hence, the recessive trait had a one in four chance of making it to him. His eyes have varied in color, but have tended to remain a shade of blue, and the doctor thinks that is probably going to remain the case.

It's been a while since I've posted any pictures of Alex, but that doesn't mean he hasn't changed. Sure, he's taller (longer?) and his hair is looking fuller (and, I think there's still a chance he'll turn out blond like his dear old dad), but there are other changes, as well. He sits. He stands in his exersaucer and jumps up and down. He turns over from back to front to back again, and raises his head and flails his arms. Just like a turtle. Not that I'd know.

He still can't manage to get past the "Flood" level of Halo on our XBox game system, but he keeps trying. It's just a hand-eye coordination thing, I'm sure, and he's bound to figure it out sooner or later.

Not much else to report on the little guy. He keeps eating and growing, learning and laughing. I love his smile. Maybe, when he turns one year old, we'll be kind enough not to schedule four immunization shots on the same day as his birthday.

A kind reader recently e-mailed to ask how my recent gum surgery went. Rather than reply off-line, I thought I'd share the news with the world.

This second surgery was much quicker than the first. Of course, they didn't have to transplant any material, they only had to traumatize (sorry, "freshen") my gums and re-sew them this time. The recovery was also much less of an issue than it was the first time: I needed no painkillers at all (not even my favorite stand-by, Advil) after the surgery.

I did everything I was told to do -- I took it easy for a couple of days, I went to see a movie, I ate soft foods. I didn't pull my lip to look at the surgery site. I was a very good boy.

The results? Well, the jury is still out. I went back to the periodontist's office two weeks after the surgery. They removed the sutures and cleaned everything up. The clefts were all healed, which was very good news. However... the coverage didn't end up being as perfect as it had once looked like it would be. That is to say, there were early indications that the final results would be *perfect* coverage, and now it looks like there may end up being a recession of about 2 mm. Maybe. We'll check back in a couple weeks to see. Originally, there was a tear (less likely to happen now) and a 4mm recession, so the result appears to be progress, but just not perfection.

I'm told that in the next couple of weeks, because the gum tissue is still healing, it very well could end up rebounding and shrinking that recession. So the jury is still out. If we fall short of perfection though, my preference is to avoid further surgery. Perfection would be nice, but I can live with "better than it was." We'll see what the periodontist recommends.

Ah, but I had said this would be a tale of two teeth in the title of this missive, did I not? This isn't just about the gum surgery in front of one of my lower teeth. Oh, no. Someone else has a lower tooth of note, as well.

Baby Alexander, who turns seven months old in a week, is just now sporting his first tooth. It appears to have broken through the gums a day or two ago. Not quite visible enough to see unless you're up-close-and-personal, but I'll post pictures when there's something to see.

:-D

Is this baby stylin', or what?

Alexander's paternal grandfather is an avid pilot, and he picked up this flight jacket for the little guy during a recent visit to an aviation shop near Boeing field. The outfit says it's for 12 month olds, but Alexander is, as always, ahead of the curve.

He's got the outfit. Now all he needs is the plane.

Paulette recently took this photo of Alexander while I was trying to feed him. Clearly, his early influences include Messy Marvin and Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes).

It's kinda weird to note how his hair color changes from day to day. Here, it seems to me he's showing rather auburnish or reddish highlights. Some days, he's definitely got brown hair. Others, he's a blond. Go figure.

With all that's going on in the world today, my goal with this entry is not to get *too* heavy. Just a fun little pause to celebrate the ever continuing saga of "Alexander Grows Up." Alexander Benjamin has begun crawling, as of a couple days ago. And today, he turned eight months old.

He's not super fast at crawling (yet), but he can go a fair distance now without having to stop and think about what he's doing. This time last week, he'd go about one and a half paces forward, then get back into a sitting up position before moving ahead again. Made for slow progress.

We haven't child-proofed the house yet. Is that a bad thing?

Actually, Paulette has at least started to gather the chemicals from underneath the sinks and put them up on high shelves. And I make sure to unplug the phone wires before letting him play with them. So we're making *some* progress.

We've also started to watch what we say around the little guy. Paulette and I are keeping a running total of verboten words that the other says in daily conversation. This started when I suggested that Paulette uses colorful language more often than I do. She disagreed, and so the running tally began. She's winning so far. I think the score is something like 427 to 1. We started two days ago.

Another recent change as Alexander hits the two-thirds-of-a-year-old mark: his strong grip has become a vice grip. And his fingernails have become claws. My left arm is covered in short, deep scratches. When I change his diaper on the changing table, I always set him down so his head is to my left and his bottom to my right. As I undress him, etc., he likes to reach down and grab my left arm. Youch!

Alexander is generally a happy baby. He recently recovered from a cold, which wasn't necessarily his most favoritest experience, but he still spends more of the day smiling than complaining. That's just fine with me.

And while I want to keep the news in today's entry all about Alexander, there is something on my mind that keeps me from ending on a completely happy note. (Although, how could one look at that face and *not* be happy?)

We just received word a few days ago that little Alexander will soon have an even littler cousin. My brother-in-law phoned us with the news that he and his wife are expecting their first child to arrive later this year. The news is bittersweet, however. Lee phoned us from Ft.

A couple weeks ago, Alexander began taking swimming lessons. He seems to enjoy himself quite a bit at the pool, and it's cool that he gets to spend more structured quality time with his dad. In general, any structured parent/baby activities he's had have been with his mom.

Alexander is crawling around the house like a madman, and he is also frequently working himself up into a standing position. He'll stand for up to half a minute at a time, and his balance gets better every day. Even though he was a relatively late crawler (that is, relative to the other babies his age in the primary mommy/baby class that he goes to each week), all indications are that he could start walking very soon. Good thing we house-proofed the baby! Er, uh. Baby-proofed the house.

Well, at least part of the house.

We have gates at the top of the stairs to keep him from tumbling down. But we don't have gates at the bottom of the stairs to keep him from climbing up. And he does like to climb them stairs.

All in all, I'm proud of my kid who is growing up faster than we can anticipate. He'll be doing laps around his dad in the pool in no time. :-)

Alexander Benjamin turned nine months old recently. We took him to the doctor, who says he's still a healthy, healthy boy. There is *some* cause for concern, insofar as his weight has dropped relative to his height. He's gone from being a 90th percentile (or so) in height and weight compared with other kids his age to being 75th percentile in height and 55th in weight. I think this is because he tries to eat everything but food. Go figure.

Just a day or two ago, he became an expert at getting into everything that we'd rather he not. He's learned how to take my records off the shelf and out of their jackets and drool on them while we're not paying attention. He has figured out how to unspool a roll of toilet paper, how to flush a toilet (lots of fun! big noise!), how to unshelve books, how to press buttons on the CD carosel to make it spin around and around, and how to climb up the stairs. Oh, and another recent behavior change is that he no longer likes to lie still when we change his diapers. He gets quite upset about it, actually. He'd rather stand or crawl. Very frustrating for mom and dad.

We've been signing certain words to him for a couple months now, but he's not signing them back to us yet. He is, however, expanding his vocabulary of sounds. Taking a cue from his dad, he will now bounce his finger up and down between his lips and say, "Brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrb."

When we took him to the doctor, they ran through a series of routine questions:

"Is he pulling himself up to a standing position?"

"Yes."

"Does he work his way around the coffee table in a standing position?"

"Yes."

"Does he clap his hands or clap toys together?"

Uh-oh.

Is our child somehow defective? He hasn't clapped! "Well, no, Doctor, but he does splash in the pool with his hands, and none of the other kids at swimming class do that." (Okay, I'm kidding -- I didn't actually say that.)

Well, as it turns out, he started clapping just a couple of days ago. So I guess we can rest assured that, his bizarre eating habits aside, he's doing quite well. Yee-ha!

Because so many of you have asked, here is an update on Alexander. I haven't posted anything about him in a while. This isn't because nothing's been going on. No, no, no. This is because I feel the need to include photos when I post entries about him, and cropping down the photos so that they'll still look good at Web resolution (that's 72dpi to you) takes more effort than I have time for, these days.

And shrinking them down to fit... how far do I shrink 'em? I want them to be large enough for you to see, but small enough so that you don't have to resize your browser window just to take in the whole view.

And then, there's selecting which photos to post. For today's post, I narrowed two electronic rolls of 64 photos each down to thirteen representative (and relatively in-focus) shots. I put all thirteen into Photoshop, cropped 'em, shrunk 'em, and saved 'em. But, which ones should I choose to put up today?

Okay, okay. That's all a long-winded excuse for why I haven't shown you the little guy. Let's get on with the show.

A great deal has been going on since last I posted about him. Alexander's two lower teeth and several upper teeth have come in. A couple more upper teeth are on their way.

He has started walking. He doesn't walk around a lot, yet -- he'll tool around for six or eight steps and then sit back down. But he's doing that more and more often. He's been very articulate. We notice more inflection and variety in his speaking all the time, even if we can't understand a thing he's saying. More often then not, he'll explain to us that, "Bwah, bwah, bwah." Don't know what it means, but it's endearing.

As ever, he keeps going through growth spurts. At one point, his growth spurt seemed to be dealing exclusively with his head. His cranium started bulging out so much, we thought he looked a bit like a mad scientist. I've included a photo here showing the mad scientist at work on the most important tool for controlling the world: the remote control.

His appearance changes from day to day, especially eye and hair color. Most days, his eyes are a brilliant blue, but every once in a while they take on a greenish tinge. His mother's eyes alternated between blue and green for the first five years of her life before they settled on green, so it's anybody's guess what will happen with his eye color. (For the record, my eyes are green and my father's eyes are blue, which is also true for Paulette, so we know that we both carry both blue and green eye-color genes.)

On any given day, his hair will appear blond, reddish, or brownish.

Dear friends of mine across the country has a son who was born one week before Alexander, and we also have good friends here who have children just a few months younger. You can't help but compare your child to other children when certain things come up in conversation. Alexander was a late crawler compared to most of the babies we know here, but he started crawling early compared to Jack out on the other coast. But Jack, on the other hand, has been eating solid food without complaining for months. Months!

Not so, Alexander.

Alexander simply doesn't get into eating "solid" foods, like the Gerber pureed veggies and the like. For a while he'd tolerate them, but he's not even doing that any longer. There are very few things he'll put into his mouth, and food is not among them.

He will, however, chew on paper products. Napkins, envelopes, yellow legal paper. His favorite paper product, though, is playing cards. Just like his father, he has taken an early liking to playing with cards (someday I'll have to explain why I named my web site "House of Cards"...). Unlike his father, though, once he gets tired of playing with the cards, he'll put them into his mouth and gum them to oblivion.

Is the red dye in playing cards poisonous? I sure hope not.

For a kid who doesn't eat much food, though, Alexander is doing just fine. And in less than a month, he'll be celebrating his first birthday. Yee-ha! Or, in the words of Alexander, himself: Bwah, bwah, bwah!

Time for an update about the kid.

Alexander turned one year old this past Sunday. It's amazing how quickly this past year has flown by. My parents used to tell me that this time distortion zips things by even fast with each passing year, and that kids grow up faster than the national debt. Well, they didn't use those words exactly. But you get the idea.

One year down, seventeen to go until college (if he chooses to go to college). Ahhhh!

Alexander is doing alright for himself. Paulette picked out a local park where we claimed a picnic table and set out cake and watermelon and grapes (for adults only -- did you know that grapes are a choking hazard for kids under four years of age?) and soda and juice and the like. Friends dropped by to share in the birthday celebrations, and Alexander got to run around the park, swing on the swings, and play with some of his friends from the group of moms and babies that Paulette spends time with.

One of the highlights for me was watching how the tots played with one of the toys. A friend with a boy the same age as Alex had brought him a little "Elmo" piano toy that plays music and lights up lights when you hit the keys. Alexander and two of his buddies stood around the Elmo toy which was sitting on the cooler, and they kept hitting the keys and then bouncing up and down as the music played. I wished I had a video camera to capture it, it was so *cool* to see them dance like that.

Another highlight was, well, just seeing all the cool people who came by to wish Alexander well. We even had a dear friend come all the way down from Vancouver, BC to give him a stuff Canadian bear and a big ol' tonka-style truck. It was great to see so many good friends come by and share their time with us. Alexander had a fine time, got himself all exhausted, and finally zonked out just in time for the party to wind down.

By way of celebrating his new status as a toddler, I've taken to let him climb up and down the stairs whenever we are moving from one part of the house to the other (usually upstairs for diaper changes, main floor for most other activities, and downstairs to go out for a stroll). He is moving around with much more agility than in the past, and his upper body strength is surprising. He is also enjoying playing with new toys and reading new books that he receive for his birthday.

But he also surprised us with something very new today: he said his first word. Over and over and over again. You might think his first word would be "Mom" or "Dad" or some variation of one of those. But no. His first word was (drumroll please):

Up.

Several times today, he would simply point up and say, "Up!" And, of course, we encouraged him. It was distinct and it was deliberate. Now, whether "Up" means the same thing to him that it means to us, we aren't certain. He didn't say it like a command (as in, "Pick me UP!"). More like a general observation. As in, "Mother. Father. The direction I am pointing could be considered, in a word, 'up'."

I have photos from the birthday party as well as photos of him from today doing his "up" routine. I'll try to post these soon.

Hope you're having an "up" day, too.

I retroactively added a photo of Alexanders "Up" routine to the previous entry about his being a year old. Here's another photo, taken on his birthday, in which he unwraps his first toy truck. Coooool.

I love that shot. It looks like he's found the holy grail.

One of the other things I think I forgot to mention is how much Alexander is starting to imitate us, even when he doesn't understand what we're doing. For example, a couple of days ago I was playing a video game on our XBox console. I don't play very often (much too busy), but I had the opportunity and decided to take it. Alexander observed me playing, then decided that he had to have a controller, himself. Which means he kept grabbing mine. Cleverly, I pulled down one of the other controllers (unplugged) and gave it to him to play with. He then began pushing the buttons on it and generally acting as if *he* were playing a video game. Very funny. And very revealing, insofar as I don't know what I'm doing, either, when I'm playing video games. :-)

I'll leave you with one more photo before I go. Here's one of the little guy sleeping. Is he not a little angel? When he's asleep, I mean. Nothing spells trouble like Alexander when he's awake.

A month or two ago, a friend posted a note to a list we're both on saying that it's time for an Alexander update. Alas, alack, I've been woefully remiss in sharing the news about life with Alexander Benjamin.

So here's the news, so fresh that the pixels aren't even dry yet. In fact, I snapped the picture to the left earlier today, so now you know *exactly* what he looks like as of this writing.

At his fifteen month check-up a few weeks ago, where his measurements were taken and he received a number of shots (including a flu shot) and the like, the pediatrician said that his weight is not keeping up with the rest of him, growth-wise. While he's still around the fiftieth percentile in height, his weight is in the bottom five percent of children his age. In short: we have to fatten this kid up.

It's a completely different problem from the problem I've been having, weight-wise, and I hope it bodes well for his metabolism as he gets older. In the meantime, however, it *is* a problem.

Three days after the check-up, as we were starting to see some improvement in how much he was eating, he got sick with flu-like symptoms and threw up everything he'd eaten during the latter half of the day... and he kept throwing up. Roughly every fifteen minutes. The poor guy. The thing is, he was otherwise happy and having an excellent day.

The night was not so excellent, as I stayed up with him until he was finally able to go to sleep and not be awakened by the need to vomit. The next day, he was a little better, and he was able to drink by around noon without causing him to throw up anymore. However, he had zero appetite, and it was days before he started to eat anything other than milk. For about two weeks, he was eating *less* than he was before the doctor told us we had to fatten him up.

I'm pleased to report that his appetite is coming back, and he no longer looks like a poster child for a Sally Struthers Save-The-Children campaign, although he was definitely looking a bit scrawny during bath time for a little while there.

Aside from the fact that we need to fatten up the kid, the big news is his emerging personality.

One of the things that gets more prominent each passing day is how much he enjoys music. The other day, we gave Paulette's old stereo from college (which still has a working turntable) as a gift to a friend of the family who is in high school. He (the gift recipient) had never seen a record player in action before, so his father took out his old records (from *his* high school days) and showed him the proper care and feeding of vinyl records.

Now, our friend's old record collection consisted pretty much exclusively of old Rush albums with the occasional Bob Seger or Dire Straights album. So, the son put on the Bob Seger album, and Alexander started dancing up a storm to the music. Then it was time to try out a Rush album, and Alexander still kept dancing. It was quite a sight to see, little Alex bobbing up and down and trying to figure out the beat to a Rush song (which, of course, has no regular beat).

A few nights ago, Paulette and I rented the movie "A Mighty Wind" to watch at home. This movie is a "mockumentary" of the reunion of several fictitious folk bands from the 1960's. The movie was part parody, part homage to the great folk legends of the '60's (like Peter, Paul and Mary, and the Kingston Trio). Every time a song came on, Alexander would go into his little dance.

We're thinking of getting the soundtrack to the movie for Alexander, since we know he likes the music. :-)

Alexander still doesn't speak much, although he babbles incoherently all the time (much like his father). He's starting to show that he understands speech, however, and he is getting very good at responding physically even if not verbally. If we're getting ready to go out to the park, for example, I can ask him to find his shoes and he does -- and he brings them to me to put them on him. Then he brings me my shoes. You can ask him questions about whether he wants a particular thing, and he'll respond by shaking or nodding his head. (And then he'll act consistently with the response he gave.)

He can sign for "more," "done," "book," and "what noise does this make when I bang it against the glass table repeatedly?" He can say words that approximate "shoe," "bird," "cheese," and, alas, "no." (Plus, of course, the earlier mentioned "up," and "balloon".)

Speaking of speaking, he's signalling me right now that he's tired of my doing all this typing, and he wants me to read to him. So, I'm going to go.

Oh, one last thing. We've finally started a bedtime regimen, and he actually goes to bed *awake* and manages to fall asleep all by himself, without much protesting. It's been a long time, but Paulette and I are both happy to finally be at this point. :-)

No pictures today, sorry. I'm sick (my sinuses are so stuffed, a taxidermist consulted with me on what to do to preserve Willy the Orca), and I'm just not in the mood to do all that photo manipulation stuff so that you can download a picture of His Cuteness in less than a day. I'm tired, and I'm going to go to bed early. Nyeh.

Suffice it to say, Alexander at a year and a half is one amazingly good looking child, even if I do say so myself.

We took him in for his regularly scheduled doctor visit. The doctor says he's still too thin, but not dangerously so, and otherwise he's growing quite nicely. He's doing well "developmentally", which I reckon means his mental is developing well.

His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. This past week, he's been mimicking us with all kinds of words, esp. names of things. He's also started to say back to us things we've been teaching him for months. He'll poke us in the eye and say, "Eye!" He'll poke us in the nose and say, "Nose!" He'll ram his sticky hands into my mouth and say, "Teeth." What a guy.

After a set-back last week, when he and Paulette were sick and I was out of town, he's resumed sleeping through the night again. Alas, now that I've gotten whatever ailment they had, I'm not.

But I'm not bitter.

Alexander gets together a couple of times a week with friends his own age, as well as a babysitter who is great with him, and I'm glad to say that he plays well with others. Alexander, I mean, not the babysitter.

Paulette and I are still figuring out this parenting thing, but Alex has such a great disposition that it doesn't seem to be as hard as I know it can be. We are, to put it mildly, very fortunate that our little guy is so happy, healthy, smart, and pleasant to be around.

It's hard to believe that we're already a year and a half into this adventure. Oh, my.

Oh, and it's after eleven. Hard to believe I've managed to stay up so late, feeling as awful as I do. Here's to a better tomorrow!

"When are you going to put up some new pictures of Alex?"

I get this question almost as frequently as "When are you going to lose some weight?" and "When are those lobotomy scars going to stop scabbing up?"

But work and cleaning out the garage and work and cooking dinner and work and writing the great American novel and work all take up a bit of time, and the next thing you know... it's been over four months since the last Alexander update.

This past weekend, a friend of mine and Paulette's from our college days stopped by our house en route between vacation and home. She happened to have a spiffy camera with her, and shot a lot of photos. So here's your pictures of Alexander, already. :-)

Alex has become quite the articulate kid these days. He seems to be interspersing real words with a generous supply of creative babble, but the sentences he produces often seem to make sense. When he wants to be entertained, for example, his sentences will end with "Nemo?" or "Wanderin'!" or "Nuk."

"Nemo," of course, is his way of asking to see the DVD of "Finding Nemo".

Many months ago, Paulette and I rented the DVD of "A Mighty Wind", a Christopher Guest mockumentary about the folk groups of the 60's. While we were watching it, Alex would keep dancing whenever they played music, so we ended up getting the soundtrack. The word "Wanderin'" is the title of two tracks on the CD, plus it's featured prominantly in the first line of the CD, so Alex asks for the CD by asking for "Wanderin'".

As for "Nuk", that just seems to be Alexander's generic word for "music". Go figure.

I'm pleased to report that he remains a happy, healthy, intelligent, and beautiful child. Of course, good looks will get him farther than intelligence in this society, but that's no reason not to encourage him to think. You know... just in case his amazing good looks should someday leave him (as they did me).

Speaking of good looks... Remember how I lamented a few essays ago about my darkening hair and corresponding loss of identity? Well, everywhere we went this past weekend, people commented on how positively blond Alexander looked -- to which I would reply, "Just like his father," only to be greeted by totally blank stares.

Sheesh.

Anyway. Um. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the kid's got good looks. No doubt about it. The fact that he has this incredibly infectious smile makes him even more of a star when we go out for a walk. As we pass by, people look at him and can't help but smile. Then they look at me and their eyes say, "Isn't that nice? His grandfather is taking him out for a stroll."

As for the "healthy" part of that equation -- like any child, he gets sick from time to time, but not so often as to keep the household in a perpetual feedback loop of illness. We hope he's getting sick *just enough* for him to build up his immune system. The evidence suggests he's doing okay in that regard: just enough, and no more.

His favorite activities include: going to the park once or twice a day, and going for at least one vigorous walk; listening to music and singing along to "Wanderin'"; reading the Sunday comics and then shredding them to pieces; playing "Where's Elmo" with the monthly Sesame Street magazine we get as part of our Parenting magazine subscription; watching "Nemo", Baby Mozart, and the 6 o'clock news (and, sometimes, Wheel of Fortune afterward), although we are careful to limit his television viewing on a day by day basis; chasing soap bubbles; drawing with pens or with crayons (usually all over his mommy's crossword puzzle); pressing buttons wherever he can find them; and playing in the driver's seat of the car. He likes that last one so much, he broke the rear view mirror off the windshield of our Passat.

Let's see... what else can I tell you about the little guy?

He goes to bed without complaining. That doesn't mean he necessarily goes to *sleep* right away -- tonight, for example, I know he was awake and playing in his crib for at least an hour and a half after we put him in his crib -- but that's okay. If he wakes up in the middle of the night, he usually doesn't call for us. Instead, he turns on a Mozart music box we've attached to his crib, and he just lets the music carry him back to sleep. In the mornings, he's good about letting us know he's up without screaming for attention.

Which is all by way of saying that Paulette and I have absolutely as wonderful a kid as we could have ever asked for. Even if we have to make sure to read Dilbert or do the crossword puzzle before he does.

--Allan

PS: all of these photos were taken this past weekend.

A friend had sent me an e-mail a month or so asking when I was going to post new photos to my site, and I mentioned that request when I posted the previous batch of photos of Alexander. However, I was being disingenuous. My friend wanted to see pictures of *me*. He wanted to see how fat I'd gotten, I guess.

Or, more to the point, I've been feeling pretty glum about my weight, so I deliberately misunderstood what he was saying (er, typing).

So, a few days ago I updated the photo of me in the "navigation bar" to the right on my site. As a friend of mine has so gently pointed out, "Well, you have the 'before' picture. Now you just need the 'after' picture, and you can start selling weight loss books like that Jared guy."

With friends like these, who needs the upcoming presidential election?

But, while I'm at it, I may as well post a recent photo of Alexander, as well. He's getting taller every day, it seems, and his face is starting to take on more definition. It's amazing how fast he shifting from "baby" to "guy."

His language is taking on more nuances, as well. He's mastering "Please," for example, when he wants something, and he's starting to cleverly put together "more" with the name of whatever it is he wants. "More ice cubes... pwease." For him, a complex sentence!

He's also beginning to get the hang of "thank you", which has a very funny side effect. As whenever he begins mastering something new, he is prone to repeating it over and over again. However, his enunciation is not particularly exact, and so his "Thank you" doesn't sound like "Thank you" to people who don't know him. Oh sure, the "you" part comes out just fine. But, well, instead of a fully formed "th" sound, it comes out more like an "f" sound. And the "n" doesn't quite come through at all. Since all short vowels sound pretty much the same, the result sounds more like a jubilant expletive than polite appreciation.

Oh, and "ice cubes" doesn't sound like "ice cubes", either. The "i" doesn't come out long, so you end up with the short vowel sound in there, as well. More like, "ass cubes."

So we'll be out at a restaurant with friends, and he'll reach for our ice water. After he's scooped an ice cube and put it in his mouth, he'll start repeating over and over again: "Fuck you! Ass cubes! Fuck you! Ass cubes!"

We will have to put him into day care for a couple weeks next month, and we took him along to check out one of the facilities we're looking at. Toward the end of the tour, the nice lady there gave Alex a rubber ball. Now he's running around, shouting "Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you." And we have to expain to her that he's saying "Thank you."

I hope they let us come back.

A recent trip to Boston didn't go as planned.

This was the first time we'd flown across the country with Alexander. We were heading out to attend a conference, and then visit friends and family in the area before the return flight home.

At the same time, the third (or fourth?) hurricane this year was making its way toward Florida, once again threatening the home of my maternal grandparents. As my grandfather was evacuated with others to Miami, my grandmother found herself being brought along to my parents' homestead in Western New York.

And so came about a slight change in plans. My grandmother, who would never otherwise have found herself in the Northeast, took a little trip in my parent's airplane to a location halfway between Buffalo and Boston. We were able to meet them there, as were other members of our family.

Our visit was short, but we were happy to finally introduce Grandma to her great-grandchildren (Alexander the oldest among them). For the first time in my adult life, we had four generations under one roof.

It was a bittersweet reunion. While we were most happy to see Grandma and the little ones all together (not to mention the other family members who were there), we wished that Granddaddy could have joined us as well.

So while I try not to get all mushy on this site as a general rule, I hope you'll bear with me as I send out all my love to all of my family. I'm glad a slight change of plans was able to bring about an unexpected family reunion. And here's to Granddaddy: you weren't able to join us this time, but you were certainly in our hearts.

And how odd... four generations in one house, and this time I wasn't a part of the youngest generation. Another reminder that I'm getting older, for all the complex emotions that brings up.

I wonder if, in my lifetime, I'll ever get to be a part of five generations all under one roof.

It's a neat thought. But for now, I'll count my blessings and be grateful that these four have made it this far.

I merely offer a funny observation today.

I've noticed that other parents do this, but now I'm noticing Paulette and me doing it as well: communicating to the other parent by what you say to the child. Essentially, you say something to the child that might normally be a part of your conversation, but what you're really doing is conveying information to your partner who happens to be within earshot.

Example:

Parent #1: Well, Child, after we get you cleaned up, perhaps Parent #2 will take you out for a walk.

Translation: Honey? I know you're listening. Will you please take Child out for a walk? I need a break after we finish cleaning up, here.

I've seen this sort of nonsense on sitcoms (usually it's more malignant, like: "Child, if Parent #2 doesn't take you out for a walk, then I'm going to owe you a lot of money for therapy because of our resulting divorce..."), and then occasionally with friends of ours as they started to have kids (not quite so malignant). Now we've got a kid in the house, and we're doing it, too.

Was this learned? Did we pick this up from the sitcoms and our friends? Or is this actually a naturally programmed way for humans to interact? Yet one more means of indirect communication? Hmmmm.

Alexander is just past two-and-a-half years old now, and continues to be growing at a fast and furious pace, both physically and mentally (and, presumably, emotionally).

When he was first born, I posted photos and essays all of the time about how things were going. This was largely because 1) we have lots of family and friends who don't live in the area but who wanted to know all about him, and 2) he was just so *interesting*; having him was such a fresh experience.

Having him around these days is no less of a fresh experience, even after two and a half years. Every week, there's something new about him and how he interacts with the world. Every week, I learn something new about myself because of him.

But I also have a growing suspicion that not everything that I find interesting about having him around would be as interesting to everyone else, especially after two and a half years. For example: it seems like every day these days, people ask me how the new house is coming along. Hence I post updates regarding our house-in-progress on a frequent basis. But fewer people ask for daily updates on how Alex is doing.

And those questions aside, much of what is going on these days with Alex is nowhere near as... romantic? idyllic? cute?

There's a song by a Canadian band called The Arrogant Worms entitled "Baby Poo" in which the singer despairs: "I used to talk about politics, capitalism, socialism, I used to talk about all those -isms, but now I'm a dad and all I talk about is baby poo...." It's funny because it's TRUE. When new parents get together to talk, they not only talk about what their little tike is learning and doing, but also about the frequency and consistency of their children's bowel movements.

Dogs and new parents know something that most of the rest of the world doesn't: there's a great deal of information that is conveyed in bowel movements.

But egestion habits are not the topic of polite conversation, and so much of that kind of talk should be left out of one's updates on "How is the little one doing?" At two-and-a-half years old, however, Alexander's big events surround 1) sleeping (or, rather, resisting sleeping) in a "big boy bed", and 2) potty training.

Oh, sure, he's also learning how to speak in more complete sentences, and he's playing with his toys in more sophisticated ways. He's more emotive with each passing week, and is actually singing along more with his music. He has formed definite ideas of how he wants Mommy and Daddy to play with him or to leave him alone, and he is learning to handle cooperative play with his friends as well as possessiveness.

And it's always fascinating to see what Paulette and I obsess over and what we don't even give a second thought with regard to Alex and his growing abilities. I have taught Alex that he can use his step stool to turn on and off light switches, for example, but he has extended this knowledge to figure out how to get up on the kitchen counter and play with our set of knives. Clever kid, and not unexpected, but it just happened *sooner* than expected. With everything he learns, we learn that there are many more consequences that we have to deal with.

And even when we anticipate those consequences, it's not like we're not going to teach him how to solve problems.

But at the age of two-and-a-half, Alexander's big news tends to center around the same two things as when he was newborn: sleep and poop. He is teething again (back molars), which combined with being removed from the crib and given a bed, has made sleeping a bit of an issue lately. And, we've begun potty training.

Potty training is really not as much of an ordeal as the non-parent might think. But that doesn't make it fascinating dinner conversation for non-parents, either. Which is why I didn't post on New Year's Day: "Well, today marks quite a milestone. Today Alexander peed in the potty, all of his own volition." And why I didn't post on subsequent days when he tried and missed, or didn't try at all, or managed to poop in the potty, etc. It's the kind of thing that parents of similarly-aged kids will compare notes on, because they want to make sure they're managing the whole potty training thing correctly, but they are the kinds of updates that not everybody necessarily would be interested in.

Potty training and sleep issues aside, Alex remains remarkably happy and healthy. As is common with two-year-olds, he tends to resist his parents' will at the most awkward of times, but he's nonetheless just a treat to be around. He's so much joy, in fact, that we may eventually consider having another. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Bwahahahaha.

Let me begin by posting a photo of our much loved Nolan Theodore, taken just hours after he was born. I will point out that, in this photo, he looks an awful lot like Alexander did at the age of one or two months. Amazing what a couple of extra pounds will do:

Once we knew that Baby 2.0 would be a boy, we had to get serious about picking a name.

Paulette and I have a long list of names that we'd like to use for a daughter or daughters. But coming up with boys names, for some reason, has proven to be harder.

We did not know before our first was born whether he would turn out to be a boy or a girl, so we had to prepare for both contingencies. We knew that if we had a girl, our first choice was a family name from Paulette's side in the family that would, in effect, be naming the girl after her mother (and mother's mother, and mother's mother's mother). It was Paulette's idea that if we had a boy, we should name him after his father, in a similarly derivative fashion.

The story goes like this: while growing up, I'd look in various dictionaries to see what my name meant, and typically came across an entry that would say that Allan/Alan/Allen was derived from Alexander/Alexandra. My sister Sandra's name, likewise, is derived from Alexandra.

This was a coincidence that my parents neither knew of beforehand, nor expected, nor intended. But there it was, and I always thought that was an interesting coincidence.

On the basis of my telling Paulette this story, she suggested that we pick Alexander as the first name of our first born, if he should prove to be a boy (which he did). This way, Alex would be named after his father (and aunt) without having *exactly* the same name. In case you're wondering, his second name came down to a choice between Ivan and Benjamin. In the end, we decided to honor one of the more interesting thinkers and tinkerers involved with the American Revolution rather than paying homage to my interest and background in Russian studies.

(Names are to be picked at least as much on the basis of how they sound as by what they mean. "Alexander Ivan" would work well, and sounds very Russian, while "Alexander Benjamin" also sounds good and is decidedly American in tone. I'm interested in Russian history, but I am very much an American....)

With the second child on the way, we learned his gender before he was born and took quite a bit of the available time to come up with a name. We started by making a list of names we wouldn't use:

• first names of immediate family members
  
• names in the top 20 or so of the most commonly given boy names in the US in the past few years
  
• names of obvious religious significance
  
• and names that would be difficult to spell right the first time

Paulette has three brothers and we both have many male cousins. We wanted to avoid the problem of "Hey, why'd they name their kid after so-and-so instead of me?" I had, at one point, thought about naming our second child after my cousin who had died a few years ago in a car accident, which also happens to be the name of one of Paulette's brothers, but we eventually decided to defer that idea. Likewise, the recent death of my maternal grandfather almost made me ask to reopen the decision we had finally made, but I chose not to.

We've run into an odd situation where every group of toddlers where we take Alex, there is at least one other Alex. So, we decided to avoid super-common names. (Alexander was the 16th most common name the year he was born, but we didn't expect that to be the case at the time.)

As for religiously significant names... there are a dozen reasons for us to avoid them, many having to do with not wanting to saddle the child with too many loaded messages in his name.

Then there's the spelling issue. Paulette and I both grew up with having both our first and last names mercilessly mangled by anyone we needed to give our names to, and since we are giving my last name to the child, we may as well give him a first name that's easier to spell correctly on the first try.

Now then: with these stipulations (only four of them!), we found it nearly impossible to come up with a name.

For a while, Andrew was at the top of our list, until we discovered its religious significance. Theodore was also at the top of our list at one point, but we simply didn't like any of the common nicknames for Theodore.

Nolan is a family name on Paulette's side, particularly drawing from Irish family members. We both have Irish grandparents, so going with an Irish theme felt right to both of us. It's easy to spell right on the first try, even though it's not one of the most common names in the US. It's meaning, in Irish, is "noble; faithful." Those are virtues we can happily endorse. (Most other Irish names mean "stout warrior" or "brave warrior" or "fearless warrior" or "drinks too much".) We are unaware of any religious significance attached to the name. And neither of us have any immediate family members who share that first name (although, alas, one brother does have it as a middle name -- we let that slide).

His middle name? Well, since Abraham was out of the running this time (rule number three), we opted to pay homage to another stand-out American president: Theodore Roosevelt. In other words, a name synonymous with "bold warrior".

If there should be a Baby 3.0, we will use a different set of rules for picking the name, just as the rules for Name 2.0 were different from the previous time. But that's an if for another time. Right now, we are very happy and very blessed to welcome Nolan Theodore into our lives.

There is, however, a postscript to this naming story...

Between Nolan being on an inversed schedule -- sleep all day and stay up feeding (or, if not feeding, crying to be fed) all night -- and Alex's recurring homesick blues (he likes the new house, but is confused that we haven't returned "home", and so his insecurity at night has ratcheted up a bit), nobody's getting much sleep at Casa Rousselle.

That doesn't stop us from generally doing well during the day. I've been getting back to some level of productivity at work (although, when I tried to kick caffeine a few weeks ago, that was *definitely* the wrong week to try that).

Even Alex is getting into the "professional" act. We went to have our taxes prepared at a certain national chain a couple of weeks ago (just before Nolan arrived), and our appointment was late in the evening so that there were very few people there. Alex watched us working with the accountant, and then went to one of the vacant desks and played out what he saw. The guy was a total professional. And very, very cute about it.

I'll be posting more photos soon of Nolan, I promise. For logistical reasons, I've been unable to download any more photos to my computer just yet. But it will happen soon. Really!

In the meantime, I'm probably drinking twice as much caffeine during the day as I had immediately prior to quitting. This isn't about addiction... except so far as I'm hopelessly addicted to sleep, and the withdrawal symptoms are overwhelming. I may have to eventually go back to sleeping again. THEN, perhaps, I can kick the caffeine. It seems like I need one or the other.

Taken earlier this month when Paulette and kids treated me to a picnic lunch break:

July 20th marked Alex's third birthday, and we celebrated in much the same way as we did his previous two birthdays: a quiet outing with friends at a neighborhood park.

A dear friend who lives in Canada and who was among the first to meet Alex came down and presented him with a couple of "I Spy" books, which he absolutely loves. If you have any kids near the age of three, or are otherwise inclined to purchase a gift for a three-year-old-ish child, I heartily recommend I Spy. They are coffee table books with large photos of small items that make for wonderful pattern-recognition games. And anything that helps foster a love of books can't be bad.

In addition to inviting friends of ours and Alex that go back to early play groups and the like, we also invited neighborhood moms and dads and kids we have recently started to get to know. Most showed up, much to our delight, and there was plenty of cake and lemonade to go around. These are the kids Alex is likely to go to school with and grow up with for the foreseeable future, and I'm happy to report that they all seem like a great bunch, with parents who are like-minded with Paulette and me.

A couple of weeks after his birthday, Alexander went with Nolan for his three-year (and Nolan's four-month) checkup. The doctor reports that Alexander is no longer at the very lowest end for his age g