Ericka Updates: November 2006

Raspberries

Because of his low birth weight, M is being monitored by the school system. Once a month a representative stops in to check on his developments. They track the major milestones:

Tracking moving objects
Spotting Mom from across the room
Rolling over
Doing raspberries

Yes, the latest observed real milestone in his life is the raspberry (sometimes erroneously referred to as a ZRBTT or a Zerbert. The ZRBTT, labeled by Bill Cosby, is a more involved maneuver). It is unclear why children of that age do raspberries. But they predictably come between transferring a toy from one hand to another and sitting without support.

Here is the layman's guide to the raspberry:

Close your mouth
Press your upper and lower lips together making them pout
Blow air out of your mouth causing a somewhat bubbling sound. If you don't produce at least a mild spray of saliva, you're doing it wrong. Wet your lips and blow harder.
Laugh and repeat

Extra points if you have milk in your mouth when you do it!

Swedish 102

Quick recap of Swedish 101:

Mor = Mother
Far = Father
The two can be combined as needed across generation (e.g. the title Morfar for maternal grandfather)

New words:

Syster = Sister
Bror = Brother

Syster can be combined with Mor and Far as well.

For the past week my sister, Anna, has been visiting. Using the pattern previously estab-lished, she would be M's Faster (It should be FarsSyster, but you lose a few letters for pronounceability). Had I had a brother and had he been visiting, M would have greeted his Farbror with a toothless grin. When Ericka's siblings visit, the same logic applies: Moster and Morbror.

Although technically incorrect, this can also be applied to the significant others of your blood relatives.

So, pictured below are Faster Anna, Farbror Tommy, and Superboy:

Anna and Tommy were our patient travel companions up to Lake Superior. They also sacrificed the opportunity to participate in the Black Friday madness to go with us to chop down the Christmas tree pictured in the background.

A season of firsts

I suppose it is superfluous to point out all the firsts that M encounters as just about everything he does outside of eating and sleeping qualifies. Anyway... yesterday he encountered his first Thanksgiving turkey. He was clearly intrigued!

Next year at this time he may encounter his first eating of Thanks-giving turkey....

We were blessed enough to be able to spend the holiday with friends and family (who all traveled to us!).

Just in time for the time of year when large meals are consumed, M recently upgraded his arrangement to literally have a seat at the table. No more sitting in some kind of baby seat while grown-ups eat! He's still on a liquid diet though...

Gobble Gobble!

Vacation!!

Vacation-wise, 2006 has been - shall we say - ultra-thin...

Going into the homestretch of the year, we actually made it out of town for an overnight trip. We went to the frozen north by Lake Superior, which may, or may not, be the world's largest lake (depending on where you end up in the somewhat academic discussion of what exactly is a lake and the meaning of the word 'large'. The Caspian Sea is larger but it has salt. Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika have more volume but smaller surface). It holds for many things in life that your chances of success are greater if you get to design the yard stick...

Anyway, it's a big lake - about two and a half times the region of Dalarna - and during the spring, summer and and early fall it is quite lovely. During the bottom half of November it is still pretty to look at (presuming you're viewing from a window). It gets a bit chilly this time of year. Well.. it was cold for everyone but M. I'm sure people have climbed Mt Everest wearing less clothing than he did on the lakeshore...

10x

Fifty year ago, BMW made a vehicle called Isetta.
It looked like an egg and probably had about the same safety characteristics. For civilian use it had 12 horsepower while the police version was boosted to 13.
http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/bmwisetta250.html

Fifty years later, another anomaly of automotive engineering is being discontinued. 2006 was the last model year of the HUMMER H1. In addition to the governor of California, Neil Young has one. Neil's runs on vegetable oil.
http://autos.yahoo.com/hummer_h1_alpha_open_top_4_door/;_ylt=AptQua2NQFX4BUEnmslrMCze0MYF

The point (and I do have one)? An H1 is exactly ten times heavier than an Isetta. We have now reached the milestone of a similar transformation for Baby M! On Tuesday, when he turns 8 months, we'll tack on a zero at the end of his birth weight - turning 635g to 6350g. It is not quite as convenient with pounds but he'll be 14 big ones.

If you're keeping track, that's a compound daily growth rate of almost exactly 1% per day over 245 days. Most adults don't even gain 1% of their body weight on Thanksgiving!

Below are a couple of illustrations of what has been achieved with time and 500 calories a day:

Happy Birthday to Daddy's little Terminator!

Visitors - Part IV

Ericka's niece stopped by last weekend on break from going to School.
Megan even was first person to witness the reverse roll-over (rolling from back to stomach and back again). Ericka and I have yet to see it! In the meantime, we get up in the middle of the night to flip him back when he gets tired of sleeping on his stomach...

Injection season...

M has received two flu shots an RSV shot in the past month (with a string of additional RSVs to come). Needless to say, he doesn't enjoy it but he springs back very quickly. It also helps that the nurses somehow are able to administer a shot in literally a second. It is almost comical that the shot is already finished by the time he starts howling...