Tycho very aptly describes the wide range of emotions that one feels when welcoming a new human into your life.

I particularly enjoyed this:

"Your son, " [the doctor] says, hesitant, "is a Snugglebug."

I sit down in a chair, which I assume is his own chair, and he sits in the chair that I probably should have sat in if I gave a fuck about the medical hierarchy.

I ask him what it means.

"It means that he is the cutest, the wutest little Snugglebug in the whole wide world," he recites, robotic, a white-clad bipedal dictionary.

Are there treatments? I mean, is there some kind of, I dont know, cream?

"No," he says, piercing my heart. "You will need to cuddle him daily."

Sometimes I disagree with what the PA boys say (not often mind you) but the skill in which they say it is nothing short of astounding.

I don't blog about Harmony enough. So I am going to break the silence.

Shell and I got a toddler bed for Harmony the other day (Actually, we traded up, our wonderful friends Chris and Karen hooked us up with the bed, by trading them Harmonys crib). So she took the step of moving from a crib to a bed. This has been a completely painless step. She took to it like a fish to water. We made sure that she was around when we took down the crib, and put the bed together, and involved her in the whole thing. However, when she tried to play with the half-disassembled crib and the tools, it was a little too involved!

So when it is time to go to bed, we stick to the same bedtime routine, but the only difference is in the height of the bed. She loves it. After storytime, she trundles over to the closet to put the book away and/or grab her favorite book, and then crawled into bed by her own volition, and pulls the covers up by herself.

She makes her daddy proud.

Welcome to the world baby Ivan Edward Strukoff!

This entry has been a long time in coming. Too long. (In fact, sorry it is a little late). 8 lbs. 7 oz of pure little-hoo-man-cuteness. I am so glad that I have been invited to be a part of this little ones life. Craig and Jen are two of the most wonderful people I know, and I know that they are going to make wonderful parents.

Edit: Michael... Michael? Where the fuck did I get Michael? Ivan Edward Strukoff. Not Michael. Man, I whould write a serendipity_proofread_your_entry_dumbass_plugin.

This is an interesting slate article about Food Aversions

Researchers have found that eating moderate amounts of a novel or hated food at moderate intervals is nearly guaranteed to work [to remove a food aversion]. The reason is that omnivores are born with neophobia, a fear of new foods that accompanies our biological need to explore for them—an ambivalence that protects us from unbridled banqueting. Most parents give up trying out novel foods on their weanlings after two or three attempts, and then complain to the pediatrician; this may be the most frequent cause of finicky eaters, of omnivores manqués. Most babies will accept nearly anything after eight or 10 tries.

I was watching Sesame Street with Harmony today, and on Elmo's world, they were talking about the weather. Well, Mr Big Scary Tornado with Huge Evil Eyes Visited Elmo. It was very weird. I (who when he was 4, drew a picture of himself trying to smile but I died instead...) would have been strangely afraid and compelled at the same time. Harmony though, she just took it in stride, and giggled a little.

It's good to know that Sesame Street hasn't lost their Edge. Do you remember that Ernie and Bert segment with the Broken TV that repeated the message "I... I... I... I..." In that strange voice, repeated over and over with the weird bass synth?

I haven't been writing much about Harmony in this blog, because she has her very own site for that. Well, I finally started actually writing in that one, so Here is my first entry. Whute!

We're back. It's been a long trip (felt like months) and Harmony barely remembers the place.

Now I have to run and take care of her.