Out of the Fog

Owing to both a welcome batch of pre-SXSW writing assignments and an unwelcome kid sickness, I've been mired in blog silence all week. There's plenty to write about, but no time to write.

Alex's 1st birthday weekend was a lot of fun until his bronchitis morphed into a feverish ear infection. Most of my undershirts are now specked with tell-tale pink amoxicillin stains. The boy hasn't been himself all week, but I think he's slowly emerging from the fog.

As long as the supermarket grocery circulars go out on time, Fave Five Food Deals will return next week.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

A year ago at this time, Kate and I were slowly walking up and down our street in the chilly drizzle as contractions were becoming more and more frequent. The baby boy we'd nicknamed "Nubbin" wouldn't emerge until close to midnight, but he did manage to be born on February 19th, which puts him one day closer to 21.

Alex is a strapping 1-year-old today. The baby features are slowly but surely giving way to those of a little boy. Even so, he'll always be our baby.

Baby's First Blizzard

Just in time for 2011, the family and I are back in Austin from a two-week holiday trip to New England to visit Kate's family. Alex and I had the added pleasure of experiencing our first blizzard together. The well-insulated residents of Worcester, Mass. don't consider 12 inches to be a lot of snow, but it was far more than I've ever seen in a 24-hour period. Although we didn't have a proper sledding device, Kate improvised nicely with string and a plastic bin so Alex could have an approximated sleigh ride. I don't think he knew quite what to make of it.

I'm Gonna Ferberize You, Baby

Alex has really come into his own over the last several weeks. At nine and a half months, he's crawling all over the house, his smile now includes four top front teeth and his expressions are increasingly those of a little boy rather than an infant.

The one problem we've run into is sleep. For months, Alex would wake up a couple of times a night and we'd go into his room to rock him back to sleep. Each wake-up took about 10 minutes. This wasn't ideal, but it was manageable between two people.

Then he started cutting teeth. The resulting soreness dramatically increased the amount of time Kate and I had to spend walking and rocking him. Even if he appeared to be sound asleep after 45 minutes, he would often start crying again within a minute after we placed him back in the crib.

We figured this would only happen when he had new teeth coming in. We were wrong. In spending such a long time getting him to sleep in our arms, we unintentionally created a new sleep habit that wasn't serving any of us well.

The prolonged sleep deprivation took a toll. My back was killing me and it became more difficult for me to fight off background anxieties. Even after Alex got to sleep, I'd lay awake in bed, playing worst-case scenarios of all sorts on an endless loop in my head. My waking attitude toward life in general became more dour and cynical.

Both Kate and I started forgetting things. Until I read Kate's blog post from yesterday, I'd totally forgotten the following episode of extreme forgetfulness even happened:

One afternoon this fall, Greg and I took Alex out somewhere. I think it was the Farmer's Market. We had a lovely time, and congratulated ourselves on making it out of the house and participating in one of the many, many activities that Austin has to offer. That self-satisfaction wore right off when we returned home to find that we'd left the door open. By "open" I don't mean unlocked - I mean we'd left the front door wide open. Luckily, everything in our house was intact and where we'd left it. But wow, did we feel stupid.

Visiting my family in Houston for Thanksgiving was a blast, but the change of scenery only compounded Alex's inability to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. We arrived back in Austin last Sunday hoping against our better judgment that being back home would help get Alex back on his pre-teething sleep schedule. It did not.

Around 4am on Wednesday morning, Kate and I came to an agreement that the current situation was no longer sustainable. I'd mentioned the idea of using the Ferber Method of sleep training to Kate before, but the idea of walking away from a crying baby - even for a few minutes - was completely counter-intuitive to her maternal instincts.

However, the more we learned about the Ferber Method, the more it made sense to us. In holding Alex in our arms until he was completely asleep, we made it inevitable that he would be completely confused and disoriented any time he woke up in the crib. Who could blame him? I'd freak out too if I woke up someplace other than where I went to sleep.

While putting him down in his crib right before he went to sleep as Ferber recommends would definitely involve a crying jag of unknown length, we would be checking on him and reassuring him at gradually increasing intervals. This was not just letting him "cry it out."

Once we decided to try the Ferber Method, we decided to delay implementation for one more day so we could mentally prepare and be totally sure about it. Alex responded with another night of frequent wake-ups. Nevertheless, as Kate and I took turns trying to get him back to sleep, I felt a slight twinge of sadness knowing this phase of Alex's life was about to be phased out.

On Thursday, Kate put Alex to bed just as his eyelids got heavy and left the room. He immediately started crying. The crying intensified once he realized Kate wasn't coming right back in. Three minutes passed. Kate went in to comfort him without picking him up. The crying subsided momentarily, then picked up as she left the room. Six minutes passed. I went into the room, stroked his chest and told him everything was going to be all right. Then I left and the crying picked up again.

We girded ourselves for another 10 minutes of listening to Alex cry, but then his sobs started losing steam. Then they stopped altogether. After a minute or two, Kate peeked into his room. He was sound asleep. He woke up a couple of times during the night, but even without being rocked, neither wake-up was drawn out more than 10 minutes. This was bliss.

Alex hasn't woken up at all during the past two nights, which I believe is only the second or third time we've had two consecutive no-wake nights since his birth. When you consider all the crying Alex did by waking up every two hours, the total amount of sleep-related crying is a fraction of what it was.

The Ferber Method isn't for everyone. Some parents have strong philosophical objections to it and some babies don't respond to it. Moreover, we're going to have to re-Ferberize Alex every time something funky happens to his sleep schedule, but that's a small price to pay compared to what we were facing. As far as we're concerned, the good Dr. Ferber is a real American hero.

My Elvis Year

As I enter my 42nd year on the planet today, I’ve thought a lot about the day in August of 1977 when I walked to the Circle K down the street from my grandparents’ house in Victoria, Tex. and scanned a slew of “Elvis Presley Dead at 42” headlines while waiting to pay for a grape-flavored Slush Puppy.

I realized Presley’s death was undeniably tragic, but I also remember thinking, “Well, 42 is pretty old.”

And I guess it was if you were an 8-year-old kid whose parents were still in their early thirties and not cocked up on pills.

42 doesn’t seem so old anymore, though.

I’m vaguely aware of being well beyond the vaunted 18-34 demographic, but I never felt like I was at the zeitgeist to begin with. One part of getting older that I’ve always sort of looked forward to is the prospect of “aging into” the curmudgeonly nostalgia that was part of my personality even as a child.

Becoming a father has definitely made me feel older, but that’s more a function of parenthood than age. I still don’t feel the sociocultural gravitas I thought I’d feel at 42. I have a family and an accidental career in civil service, but I haven’t put away childish things and have no intention of doing it voluntarily.

I’m glad that spending most of my days garbed in jeans and a T-shirt just like my infant son makes me a thorn in the side of sphincter-lipped scolds like George Will. Let them choke on their dull, grey notions of maturity and propriety – plum-dumb commode humor has sustained me through far too much to give up on it now.

Do the Crawl

Kate shot this iPhone video of Alex crawling today. He's been making tentative crawling movements for about a week now, but today he just took off.



Seeing Alex start crawling in earnest is really something. As Kate aptly noted, "It's like he's a whole new baby." It reminds me of the essential human instinct for exploration. It also reminds me that our house just got a whole lot more fraught with danger.

The Big 6-M

Alex hit the 6-month mark today. He celebrated this morning by tipping the pediatric scales at 20 pounds, 6 ounces. That was followed by a series of shots, which quelled the celebration somewhat.

The boy has started supplementing his heroic breastmilk intake with mushed-up solid foods such as brown rice cereal, bananas and avocados. I don't think he dug the latter too much, but he hasn't quite figured out how to refuse the spoon yet. I'm sure that will come soon enough.

As a dad, the best thing about this age is that he's starting to reciprocate my goofing with him by making funny noises and wet raspberries you'd swear were the work of an 18-month-old. Sometimes he'll even get right up in my face and go, "AAAGGH!" with a wide, two-toothed smile. Even when I'm dead-tired at 6 a.m., you just can't beat that.

Alex: The First 5 Months (A Slideshow)

Alex is hitting the big 5-month mark on Monday. Like all parents, Kate and I can't believe how fast time flies. After successfully transitioning the boy to the crib a couple of weeks back, we wistfully folded up the trusty sidecar co-sleeper this weekend. Even though we're all sleeping better now, I miss having Alex right there next to us. And I absolutely don't want to forget anything about what he was like as a newborn.

Accordingly, I decided to compile a whole mess of Alex photos into a slideshow-style retrospective. I'm posting it here so all the people who've asked me for photos when I haven't had any on my person can have a look-see. The music is "Cool Strut" by Bernie Hayes from The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971. I like to think Alex would appreciate the funky soundtrack.

Mother's Day at the Capitol

Kate, Alex and I celebrated Mother's Day yesterday with an altogether pleasant afternoon jaunt downtown.

At two and a half months, Alex's demonstrative repertoire has progressed well beyond crying and sleeping. We're having lots of fun responding to his proto-babble as though he was a Sunday talk show pundit. He still doesn't like car rides all that much, but Kate's friend Jen loaned us a terrycloth cover for the car seat, which seemed to make him more comfortable on the ride down Mopac.

We - well, Kate and I - ate at Little City and traipsed around the Capitol grounds. It was Alex's first excursion to the Capitol and he showed his displeasure for Texas politics by filling a diaper, forcing his mother and I to expose his bits in the shadow of the Pink Dome.

One Month Old

Yes, we're celebrating our child's one-month birthday. I bought Alex a little treat from Hey Cupcake! this afternoon, but he's going to have to get it via breastmilk. After what his mom went through bringing him into the world, it's only fair for her to get dibbs on his birthday treats for awhile.

It's hard to believe it's already been a month. Life is very different than before he made the scene, but now I can't imagine life without him. Every time I look into those big blue eyes of his, I fall deeper in love.

Alexander Harrington Beets

Alexander Harrington Beets was born Friday, Feb. 19 at 11:34pm. He weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces at birth and Kate labored for about 17 hours to bring him into the world. Mother and son were released from the hospital yesterday. My dad took our first family photo (above) shortly before they were sprung.

Now we're all back home and learning to live as a three-piece. Everything looks just like it did when Kate and I left for the hospital, but we might as well be on another planet for how much everything has changed. It still hasn't completely sunk in that this beautiful, blond-headed boy who just turned 72 hours old a few minutes ago is really ours.

Before he was born, I had no way of knowing if the bond all my parent friends kept telling me about would happen. But there I was, gently rocking him in the hospital nursery at 2am while the radio played "Dance With Me" by Orleans, knowing there was no place else I'd rather be than right there at that moment.

More Beets Please

No, that isn't an entreaty to the Great Beyond to expedite birthing. It's actually the title of my Uncle Mark's latest EP, which just nabbed him a nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year in the Academy of Texas Music's 8th annual Texas Music Awards. Past TMA winners include Lone Star stalwarts like Michael Martin Murphey, Shake Russell, Lloyd Maines and Johnny Gimble.

This year's winners will be announced May 15 at the 2010 awards show in Marshall, which will be hosted by B.J. Thomas. Public voting accounts for 10% of the award, so check out Mark's music here and cast a vote here before March 5 if you're so inclined.

Congratulations, Uncle Mark!

"No Baby Yet!"

If I had a dollar for every time I uttered the above phrase today, I'd have the belated little buckaroo's college tuition locked up by now.

It's weird how a "due date" goes to work on your expectations even when you know it's not perfectly predictive. Although Kate and I weren't counting on him arriving today, I was using it as a benchmark date to make sure certain tasks were either completed or at least well in hand.

I'm not quite sure what to do with myself now. I don't feel like diving into anything I can't finish quickly because I might have to abandon it before getting any real work done. Of course, there's never a "good" time to do your taxes.

A Weekend in Waiting

Our baby boy's Feb. 16 due date is fast approaching. More than a few friends have said they have a feeling he will be born early. That could very well be the case if he takes after Kate. If he takes after me, he'll probably arrive late, but not too late.

Regardless, I've been treating the last few days as though he'll show up this weekend just to make sure the critical tasks are well in hand if Kate suddenly says it's time to go to the hospital. Some part of me thinks the thing to do in the final days of pre-fatherhood is to gorge on garbage food, see a lot of violent and/or sexually gratuitous movies and cram in as many domestic beer-drenched rock shows as I can.

But then I look at the yard or the shower stall and realize our soon-to-be harried home life will be marginally less harried if I get those things into some semblance of shape before the baby comes. I've never been much for housekeeping, but when I think about not being able to readily devote a large chunk of time to it for months and months, it makes me want to try and start off with as clean a slate as possible.

Greenberg Turkeys at Central Market

I’m a big fan of Greenberg Smoked Turkeys. My family has been ordering these Tyler-based birds for generations, but recent years have found everyone from Oprah to The New York Times climbing on the Greenberg hosanna wagon.

Not everyone digs the ultra-smoky flavor of a Greenberg turkey. You give up some moisture to achieve that degree of smokiness, too. Nevertheless, I can’t imagine a better Thanksgiving weekend activity that pilaging a dilapidated Greenberg for oversized smoked turkey sandwiches.

After years of being available only via mail order, Central Market is selling a limited number of Greenberg turkeys in stores this year. They’re charging $49.95, which is steep, but worth it unless you have the gear and gumption to smoke your own in the backyard.

In memory of Steve Harrington

We got some very sad news yesterday. Kate’s cousin Steve died in a skydiving accident in California late Wednesday. He was a longtime skydiving enthusiast who had just completed a charity jump with 68 others to set the U.S. record for parachutists in formation wearing wingsuits. Today’s Boston Globe has a nice obituary.

I first met Steve and his husband Adam on Christmas in 2007 at Kate’s Aunt Charlotte’s house in Wellesley. Several months later, Kate and I would follow Steve and Adam’s lead by having our wedding in the backyard.

We’d just gotten engaged and it was my first holiday gathering with the Harrington family. I immediately took note of the tight, quick-witted rapport between Steve and his brothers. It reminded me of my dad and his brothers when they’re together. They heartily welcomed me into their family and I felt privileged to be there.

My heart goes out to Steve’s husband, parents, brothers and everyone else who loved him.

It's a boy!

Kate and I found out the gender of our baby at last week's ultrasound. Having notified immediate family and friends, I can now say we are having a boy.

At our previous ultrasound, the technician said, "I think this might be a boy...no, wait, that's a finger." Kinda gave a whole new meaning to the term "prick-tease."

I would've been surprised - though not disappointed - if the baby was a girl, but I'm quite elated about the prospect of fathering a son. Although I know it won't necessarily make me a better dad, having some vague recollection of what it was like to be a boy can't hurt. I still act like a 12-year-old boy much of the time, too.

The other marriage penalty

The Oct. 2 New York Times ran an illuminating analysis that attempts to quantify the lifetime financial costs incurred by same-sex couples for living in a country that doesn't recognize their right to marry. Reporters Tara Siegel Bernard and Ron Lieber estimate gay couples could be paying anywhere from $28,595 to $211,993 more than financially similar straight couples.

Few will be surprised to learn that access to affordable health insurance is a big driver of this disparity. Most U.S. companies and governments - including the State of Texas - do not allow their employees to cover same-sex spouses as dependents under their group health plans. Even if a company offers domestic partner coverage, the federal tax code treats a same-sex partner's coverage as taxable income, so you can't use pretax dollars to pay the premiums.

Same-sex couples also get screwed on Social Security benefits, estate taxes, adoption costs, and pension plans that pay a survivor benefit to a heterosexual spouse but not a same-sex one. They cannot fund a non-working spouse's portion of a joint IRA and they wind up paying higher legal fees to codify rights that straight couples take for granted.

The one area where heterosexual couples might pay more is if both of them earn roughly the same amount, which could trigger the so-called "marriage penalty." However, this doesn't even come close to making up for all the ways our system cheats same-sex couples. Equal protection, anyone?

No love, no gloves

Think long and hard before buying Isotoner gloves or Totes umbrellas this holiday season. I used to think Isotoners made a nice stocking stuffer gift, but after reading this story from CNN's Campbell Brown about how Totes/Isotoner fired a temp worker/new mother at their Cincinnati warehouse for taking “unauthorized” breaks to pump breast milk in the crapper, they can eat the bird.

She's having a baby

Now that we've made it past the three-month mark, I guess it's high time Kate and I went wide with the news that we are expecting a child.

The above ultrasound was taken last week. Although we were able to see the baby moving around, the technician had a hard time coaxing it into all the necessary positions at 8am. We still don't know if we are having a boy or girl, but I'm pretty sure he or she won't be a morning person.

Kate is grateful to be done with the first trimester. Morning sickness and fatigue are never pleasant, especially in extreme drought conditions. Fortunately, these symptoms seem to be abating as she moves into the second trimester. I find it amazing that she didn't stay in bed for the entire month of July.

This baby of ours is due sometime in the latter half of February. Impending parenthood has us both vacillating between excitement, anticipation and anxiety, but one thing is certain: I couldn't be happier to be embarking on this ride alongside Kate.