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He’s two weeks shy of six total months, and the little guy is on the cusp of a new phase. He rolls over now, but only if he begins tummy side down. He now grabs whatever is in arm’s reach, and if he can’t grab it, he’ll be satisfied to swat it with an open hand. He eats a little solid food now, even though he treats sweet potatoes as you might treat complimentary bread from the basket at a restaurant — you eat it for the sole reason that you need to suppress your appetite until the main course (breast milk) is served.
He’s a happy baby; I’d come up with something less clichéd, but I don’t know of a more succinct way to describe him. It’s easy to get a smile out of the kid, but only his mother can elicit his trademark ear-to-ear grin.
The video features McLain playing with his mother. The pictures are a few of the better shots from the past month.
About a month ago, we packed up the Ellie and drove south on I-85. The trip to Watkinsville, Georgia, was overdue anyway, but we were carrying out an important mission — Katie, Judy Hall, and Ben organized a surprise birthday shindig for Janet’s 60th birthday.
Everything went according to plan. The Halls hosted the surprise party, and friends of the Burns family brought delicious food, party mentalities, and a lot of interesting/comical birthday gifts for the guest of honor. Even more surprising than the party itself was the fact that everyone kept the secret so that the birthday girl was caught totally off-guard.
The video below shows Janet’s moment of shock, Jackie playing with beads her way, and Jackie riding on Papa’s back. McLain gets the short shrift yet again, but I promise to make it up to him in the next few weeks.
Here are pictures and video of a white Christmas with the Joneses in Boone:
Pictures and video of our Thanksgiving holiday with the Burnses in Maggie Valley:
Here’s Jackie, forced by her father into a conversation about team loyalty after Carolina’s victory over NCSU.
Sorry about the sideways orientation — it’s due to a limitation of my phone.
Even though our family is now well beyond the transition from only two dogs to two kids and two demoted dogs, the title of this blog remains the same. When I started this little thing, that transition was on my mind.
The adage that says one picture equals a thousand words doesn’t need validation, but it if did, I think this photo by Jessica Lobdell would do the trick. This image is a visual equivalent of this blog’s title.
The holiday buzz has us busy lately, but I will post Burns Thanksgiving and Jones Christmas content soon. Oh, and I’m already plotting my impressions of the best music of 2010.
Content from Halloween is still in post-production and not yet bloggable, so I thought I would post a comparative video study of McLain.
The first video features footage from mid-October, a phase of McLain’s development that I classify as the end of being a newborn. His eyes are usually closed and eyelids swollen, his range of movement is limited to the space he was used to in the womb, and the only sounds he can make are frail cries. The video shows one of his first horse baths (and a large wet spot on my shirt), lunch with his mother, floor time with his sister and canine brothers, and his first real bath (no one was peed on during that one).
Note: The large wet spot on my shirt in the beginning clip is not water. Katie wouldn’t be laughing so hard if it were.
The second video shows him about a week ago, as an infant. He spends a few hours a day alert, soaking in the sights and sounds of home life with his family. I used to think that new humans developed so slowly compared to other animals, but now I know that what’s going on in the human brain is complex beyond comparison to, for example, Robah’s cognitive growth during his puppyhood.
Allow me to show appreciation for the nursing mother — particularly the one at my house. Katie is the absolute best. Throughout every day and night, she makes sure McLain is happy and sated. She balances many delicate variables, and she invariably adapts as McLain’s needs change. When McLain isn’t happy, she takes it personally. Then she finds the solution.
Katie has only a couple more weeks at home before she goes back to work, and I know she is already preparing for her return to environmental engineering. Getting back into the world of DAF units, activated sludge, and flocculation will be easy for her. The hard part will be leaving that little guy at Ms. Rose’s house for his first day away from home.
McLain isn’t the only one eating well around here. We’ve all benefited from Katie’s time at home. During those scarce quiet hours of the day, when she isn’t nursing or otherwise engaged with McLain, she cooks. The kitchen here has been putting out five-star fare while Katie has been home.
I already covered Katie’s reasons for dreading her return to work, so now let me explain one of mine. I worry that the high culinary bar might be compromised when she is working 50+ hours a week, traveling on occasion, and spending all her other available time with her family.
Katie doing work with her deluxe shrimp and grits
Our family has had it really good lately. Here are some of the highlights from last week:
- Grilled ribeyes, finished with truffle butter
- Phanaeng curry chicken and potatoes (fresh cilantro and lime on the side)
- Shrimp, pancetta, scallops and creamy grits
- Roasted garlicky brussel sprouts and tomatoes
- Grilled mushrooms, tossed in sherry vinegar
- Spicy okra (one of Jackie’s favorites)
- Banana-walnut-chocolate muffins
- Cream cheese pound cake
- Sweet potato pie
I can imagine McLain, a decade or more from now, looking back at the antiquated blog his father maintained so infrequently. Because he inherited a penchant for keen observation from his mother, he’ll quickly notice that Jackie was the subject of weekly updates during her first five weeks and that he was the focus of only two updates (with his father’s ramblings about a novel in between). He’ll think to himself:
Wow…unbelievable…it’s true that the first child gets all the attention and the second child plays second fiddle his whole life. This is the proverbial straw. I’m NOT doing my chores, especially dog poop patrol in the back yard, anytime soon.
He’ll read this post and decide to go punch his sister, tell Baxter to “get outta here” even though he’s 16 years old, ridicule Robah for slobbering, or do something else to vent his second-child frustration.
Well, I want to set the record straight. His mother and I love him just as much as we love his sister. And if that isn’t enough to placate him, he hasn’t worn any pink hand-me-down clothes at any time. Maybe there was a gently-used toile nightgown in his wardrobe once or twice, but nothing overtly pink and Jackiesque.
McLain has gained significant weight, and is now a thriving baby instead of a shriveled newborn; Katie deserves all the credit. His diapers are printed with the numbers 1-2, rather than the N for newborn. His blue eyes are open for an hour at a time now. He has settled into his schedule, even though he hasn’t yet totally settled into ours. Like his sister before him, he sleeps for long stretches at night and spends his daylight hours squirming, alert, and sometimes screaming. He’s also earned his first nickname, Lil’ Main (Main instead of Man, like the Memphis-area pronunciation in Hustle & Flow).
Bob Pollard of the band Guided by Voices wrote a song called My Son Cool for his little guy. You can listen to it here. I expect hear it live Friday night at their show in Carrboro. When I do, I will think of that little guy and how daggone cool he is.
Here are some of our favorite pictures from the weeks after his birth.
McLain is now two weeks old and doing just great. Two weeks might not be quite enough time to really get to know someone who doesn’t talk or even open his eyes very often, but I will attempt to describe what I know about him so far in the form of a bulleted list:
- I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a “Tar Heel born,” but McLain definitely shares one characteristic with Rameses. He bleats. What I mean is that he makes a staccato sound similar to that of a baby sheep. You know, something like baa-aa-aa-aa-aa-ha-aa. So, his first nickname is hereby McLamb.
- His newborn temperament is relaxed, and he’s fairly quiet when he isn’t bleating or crying for a nursing session.
- His eyes are bluish and greenish, although that is subject to change in the next several months.
- The little guy has George Gershwin/Jelly Roll Morton-type fingers. His phalanges seem to be more mature than the rest of him. I remember Jackie having similar fingers.
- Just as Jackie seemed to favor a particular electronic album, The Field’s From Here We Go Sublime, McLain is fond of Black Noise by Pantha du Prince. I only have two data points, but my theory is that infants enjoy contemporary minimalist European techno.
Overall, Katie and I feel like the addition of McLain to the family has gone very well. Katie continues to manage McLain’s nursing schedule, and he continues to gain weight. Jackie has been completely accepting of her new brother; I haven’t yet seen her show any sign of jealousy toward him. She amazes me with her ability to accept dramatic changes and put her best Ked forward (she gets this from her mother).
The only really rough patch was when I contracted a stomach bug on an outing with Jackie to the Museum of Natural Sciences downtown. I was incapacitated and quarantined in the guest bedroom for about 30 hours. Katie could have handled everything on her own, but we were lucky to get a visit from Steve Saville the second night of my illness. He was finishing a project in Fayetteville and made the drive to Raleigh last Thursday evening. Steve bought dinner, helped with the kids, and made us all feel better about things when we needed it most — just the kind of thing a good friend does when you really need the assistance.
Last and also least, Robah and Baxter are looking to each to each other for entertainment now more than ever before. But, with all the time they’ve spent hanging around with a newborn and a toddler, there hasn’t been the slightest problem. I expect this kind of cooperation from Robah. With Baxter, you just can’t know what to expect, but he’s been really good as well.
Here’s a video with footage from the first hour after McLain’s birth, his first real meeting with his mother, and the introduction of his big sister.
We had a photo session with Jessica Lobdell the Sunday before last. She and Simon are good people, and they were really patient with us. If you live in the Triangle, and need a professional with an excellent eye, call Jessica. She posted several pics of our family on her blog: http://jmbentonphoto.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-baby-boy.html. The next-to-last image on her blog speaks volumes (from Baxter’s perspective, at least). More on that later.
Finally, here are a slew of pictures that Katie and I took, mostly from McLain’s first several days.
Thanks again to my parents and Katie’s parents. My mom and dad held down the fort during those first couple of hectic days. Katie’s mom has made a couple of trips from Georgia to help for extended periods, and her dad entertained Jackie during her second trip to Kenan Stadium the weekend before last.
I think I spent the dog food money 