Ok, so there's a slight wedding-related change from before. Well, several. Well, actually, none, since we didn't really have much of a wedding plan before. Anywaaay. We have a firm date. July 10. We couldn't do July 4th weekend because the church is not available. There will be a Lutheran ceremony at Triumphant Love Lutheran Church (off Great Hills Trail near the Arboretum). There will be a Hindu ceremony... somewhere. And there will be an informal reception chez nous in the evening. Both ceremonies will take place sometime during the day, probably in the afternoon. Close friends and family only. The "informal reception" itself will be a relatively open invite for everyone excluded by the previous sentence. Clear? Coo'.

¶ 664 Posted at 10.44 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

As of last night, I have started having dreams about screwing up the wedding. Last night, I dreamt that I forgot my fancy clothes and just before the wedding, had to borrow shoes (size 11 vs. my size 12-13) from someone else and get married in jeans and a chamois shirt (oddly the same one I actually wore yesterday) while J got impatient and was dialing me on her cell phone from the altar. This'll be a nice change of pace from the "Oh crap, I'm not going to graduate!" dreams that I still have a couple of times a year.

¶ 668 Posted at 09.05 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

A long time ago, shortly before his wedding, a wise friend of mine and I had a conversation. I was asking him if he had any concerns about getting married since half of all marriages ended in divorce. He brushed it off, saying that he couldn't think that. If you didn't know that it wasn't going to happen to you, you had no business marrying. Half of marriages fail, sure, but he was in the other half. He knew it and was unshakeable. At the time I thought him naive. Now, slowly coming up on my own wedding, I finally understand. You have to know that all of that applies to other people and not you. Not hope. Not think. Not believe. Know. I know that we're going to be fine. None of the stuff that breaks up marriages is going to happen to us, or if it does, we'll recover.

Now, the obvious counter-argument is that everybody thinks that when they get married. I disagree. I think a lot of people don't have that level of certainty; they get married without knowing that it's the right thing. Furthermore, of the ones that do have that certainty, many shouldn't. They're not self-aware enough. They don't understand the work that goes into a meaningful relationship. They don't know how to balance two wills. They don't know how to disagree productively. They don't know how to be fair. They don't know, well, they don't know a lot of things. Their certainty is wishful thinking. Hope masquerading as knowledge. I, on the other hand, am nothing if not self-aware. I know my faults, and I am determined to overcome them. Jessica is much the same way, although she's much more sane about it. The idea that our marriage could be sunk is just preposterous. On July 10th, when we say "Till death do us part," I know that's what it will take.

¶ 684 Posted at 03.16 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

With guests coming in from out of town looking for free beds, I wonder if there's any market for a co-op. i.e., anyone who has a large event such as a wedding or reunion can ask other members of the co-op to put up their guests. People who do get credits for asking others to do the same. Just a thought.

¶ 698 Posted at 11.58 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | ideas )

Two months from today will be the wedding. At 2pm, there will be a Lutheran ceremony at Triumphant Love Lutheran Church on Great Hills Trail. At 4pm, there will be a Hindu ceremony at the Jewish Community Association of Austin, followed by a mini-reception in the same place with refreshments and drinks. Invitations are pending. America, lock in your vote.

¶ 732 Posted at 11.00 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We've been going back and forth on the idea of a wedding registry. The idea just makes us uncomfortable; we don't feel right asking people for things, especially since in our combined household we have basically all of our needs covered. But a friend of mine clarified it for me this weekend. Take it as a given that people will buy gifts. A registry isn't asking for gifts, it's giving guidance to people who have no idea what to get, who might get you something terrible if you don't help. I'm still not fully comfortable with the idea, but he made a lot of sense. Right now we have a very short one set up at Amazon, but the selection of certain things seems to be insufficient, so we're looking at somewhere else as well, possibly Target. It will also be helpful for people who aren't as enthusiastic about online shopping as we are.

¶ 753 Posted at 01.21 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Ok, so we're all registered now at Amazon and Foley's/Filene's/May Companies. There's not a lot on the lists; we don't need a lot of things, and we just can't get comfortable with this whole registry thing. It just feels crass.

¶ 778 Posted at 09.00 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We looked at a lot of wedding bands. Eventually, we decided that plain and simple was best for me. I was pretty concerned by the prices that the jewelry stores were charging, though; most were in the $200+ range, with the cheapest being about $190. Since the ring that I wanted was basically a commodity, I took a look at Amazon; lo and behold, they had it and cheap. But not that cheap, as I just discovered. I should have checked eBay first. So if you're looking for a plain, simple ring, check eBay. Then Amazon. But don't buy retail.

¶ 786 Posted at 07.58 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We have our marriage license. 17 days.

¶ 795 Posted at 11.24 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

In retrospect, I think we should have registered at Sears instead of Foley's. They have all of the things that we wanted from Foley's plus lots of lawn equipment and tools and such. Oh well.

¶ 803 Posted at 06.58 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

So I'm getting married tomorrow. Neat, huh?

¶ 808 Posted at 10.39 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Want something classier than "sparkling wine" but without the French tax? Try cava, prosecco, or spumante. Cava is Spanish and the others Italian. There are slight flavor differences, I'm told, but since my palate is limited to distinguishing red wine from white, it's just hearsay. We served a prosecco at the reception; it was so good we still have 13 bottles left! Hmm. This is why I am a programmer, not a salesman.

¶ 814 Posted at 02.01 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

I'm married. No, seriously. Tied the knot. Got hitched. Etc. I bring this up because, well, I don't feel any different, so I figured I didn't seem any different, so I thought I ought to verify that it did in fact happen. That is all.

¶ 823 Posted at 06.03 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

It's a lot easier to say "wife" than it is to think of myself as husband. One is a change in terminology but the other is a change in identity.

¶ 825 Posted at 07.23 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

It has been a month since the wedding. And it feels good. Not being married didn't feel bad, but being married feels better. I can already feel the various small things that concerned me at the time fading away into insignificance. I could have done them better, but they don't matter. I remember the important things, and we did all of those right. We got married when we wanted to, in the way we wanted. We could have made the wedding fancier if we wanted, but, more than just saving the money, we didn't want that level of stress. We weren't hurried or pushed into getting married; we did it when we did because that felt right and came naturally. I felt little nervousness before the wedding, which I think reflects that. Every time I think about it, I feel a strong sense of satisfaction and contentment. I chose a wonderful wife and our life together is wonderful.

¶ 841 Posted at 11.23 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Jessica may actually get a wedding band today. To make a long story short, Samuel's Diamond took our money in June and gave us nothing in return. We didn't have her ring for the wedding ceremony; that one was a loaner. The salesman evaded, dissembled, and flat out lied for over 2 months before we finally demanded our money back. He promised delivery dates he couldn't make, failed to inform us when the order stalled, and never returned our phone calls. We had to show up repeatedly in person at the store to get any information, but even then all he wanted to do was get us out of the store. Finally, when we got our refund, he claimed that the ring we wanted was no longer sold by Samuel's. Last Friday, we got a Samuel's catalogue in the mail with that exact ring featured in it. I could go on and on (and in fact did before I decided it was too boring and deleted it), but suffice it to say, we were seriously pissed off. I've already sent in a letter of complaint to the corporate management and may also send one to the Better Business Bureau (though they're not members). If you want to buy a ring, try Amazon instead. That's where I got mine, and it came in 3 days.

¶ 877 Posted at 06.20 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

On April 28, 2005, life changes forever (that's the due date, since it's apparently been unclear).

¶ 914 Posted at 11.01 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

People often ask whether you want a boy or a girl. The classic answer is, "It doesn't matter as long as the baby is healthy." I've heard that hundreds of times, but I've never felt it until now. You don't care. That's the furthest thing from your mind.

¶ 916 Posted at 09.18 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

The baby update is basically that there is no new news. We've done a few tests that have all been good. Mom is steadily expanding, though it's only obvious if you knew what she looked like before. We'll probably do the "boy or girl" ultrasound in early December. We've batted around a few ideas for names, but it's early yet. I'm a little surprised that I've been so calm about it; I guess that means I'm ready.

¶ 929 Posted at 02.48 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We were bad people on Halloween. People came to our door looking for candy and we ignored them. We had no candy. But we have an excuse! Jessica's grandmother's birthday was last week, so we trooped out to Kerrville, TX, a sleepy town about an hour north of San Antonio. We took her to a Thai restaurant in San Antonio (with a quick stop at Gap Maternity) and generally lazed around the house before coming back last night. It was a pleasant, slow weekend.

¶ 931 Posted at 11.10 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

After watching the AKC's 2003 national championship this weekend, I decided that our dog Sadie was part Canaan dog. I had never been satisfied with the animal shelter's classification of "border collie mix."

I immediately noticed the physical resemblance: Sadie shares the black-and-white coloration; short coat; curly, bushy tail; small-to-medium size; ears; and overall shape of the head and body. Have a look for yourself and then look at some Canaan dogs for reference. More? 1 (at bottom), 2 (on the right), and 3 (lower middle). This one sits just like Sadie. A purposeful trot, much like Sadie patrolling the yard. Sadie does like to dig (alas).

There is also the similar behavior. Sadie is friendly, but uninterested in most people. She likes to bark when outside. She's also very energetic, having outlasted a couple of border collies a few times at play. Then there are all the odd noises she makes when excited. The only flaw in the theory is that Canaan dogs are relatively rare in the United States. Then I came across this bit about mixed-breed dogs resembling Canaan dogs. I think it's still a tossup, though.

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Sadie is a sweet, good dog. The writers of that page have a clear breed snobbery which was also in evidence in the two or three dog shows I have seen on television 1 . The animals are evaluated on either purely physical criteria or (apparently) entirely subjective judgments of "personality." I know they're just dogs, but all this talk of "pure-bred" and "pedigree" offends me on a deep level. I can't respect anyone who cares about those things because they're completely arbitrary (maybe even harmful). Our dogs are mutts and we're all better for it. If you're looking for a dog, skip the snobs and go straight for the mongrels.

¶ 950 Posted at 04.26 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

When we were waiting for the first ultrasound, I read an article stating that babies whose mothers ate chocolate were happier (here's a similar article). My baby mama has never been one of the cliché chocolate ladies, but she's very enthusiastic about doing things to make the baby healthy. I, of course, as a dutiful expectant father, shoulder some of the burden. Lately, we've been eating some Lindor Truffles from Lindt. They are sublime. Just put one in your mouth and let it melt. No chewing required. To my baby's health and happiness.

¶ 954 Posted at 10.09 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

The prospect of having a child has triggered all kinds of odd worries. There are tons of mosquitoes around my house, and I got bitten several times while talking to the workers from the City on Wednesday. In my 26 years, I have just barely acquired the self control to keep from scratching bug bites most of the time. Now, though, I'm going to have to deal with a child that's going to want to scratch and scratch and scratch and I'm completely powerless to protect her/him from him/herself 1 . There is a ridiculous number of small things that I've learned like that and I'm fearful that somehow my child won't learn them and I worry what will happen if she/he doesn't. I need to relax, which is a futile hope even in normal circumstances, but more and more is sounding like something that will be impossible for the remainder of my life. Phew. It's a load, and we're still 5 months out.

¶ 962 Posted at 11.49 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

I've mentioned that I have started worrying about little things now that I have a child on the way. Some of the things I worry about are a little more justifiable, though. It's standard for parents to say to their kids once they reach a certain age, "If you're in trouble, no matter what, call me," with the implication that any consequences will be suspended. That strikes me as being a little unreliable, though. As a parent, you don't want to promise that there will be no consequences, but not having that promise can be enough to dissuade your child from asking for help. What I intend to do, then, is to make an agreement with a close friend with children of a similar age. I'll tell my kids, "If you're in trouble, no matter what, call Mr(s). Whoever, and they'll help you." They'll tell their kids to do the same with me. I'll tell my kids that I won't be involved unless Mr(s). Whoever feels I have to be. It puts the situation at a distance from me and my fearsome temper while still inserting a responsible, trusted adult. It gives them a lifeline in case they need it without fear of consequences making them dig the hole deeper.

¶ 978 Posted at 12.12 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

On Thursday, we're having the sonogram that tells us whether we're getting a girl or a boy. That is all.

¶ 983 Posted at 09.10 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Everything looked normal; they looked at kidneys, heart, spine, brain, legs, arms, hands, feet, face, etc. Our baby is a she. Time to come up with names...

¶ 986 Posted at 10.26 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Today is our 5/12 wedding anniversary.

¶ 988 Posted at 08.16 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Man, we're totally getting shown up in the Christmas card arena. Didn't even occur to us until we started getting them last year. To make up for it, next year's will be signed by three people instead of two.

¶ 995 Posted at 11.14 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We are not going to name the baby Kenzlie.

¶ 1000 Posted at 08.12 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | names )

We are almost definitely feeling the baby.

¶ 1006 Posted at 10.54 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We're definitely feeling the baby. She's clearly pregnant now, but not huge. Everything is sailing along nicely. Still no name, though.

¶ 1011 Posted at 08.19 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

As of today, we have been married for 6 months. Things change and stay the same. Although 6 months from now will be pretty different...

¶ 1012 Posted at 11.32 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We attended our first birthing class last night. We're doing The Bradley Method® because... well, I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm sure "we" have a really good reason. I do what I'm told. It's 12 weeks of 2-hour classes every Tuesday way out in the middle of nowhere (Oak Hill or thereabouts). It's an interesting mix of people in our class. We have very hippie types on one end and an (apparent) evangelical Christian couple on the other end (assuming you align people to a single axis). They all seemed like nice people. I got the sense that most of them were older than us, not that it matters. They're all due at the end of May or June, which makes us look like terrible slackers, but you try to find a class that starts around Christmas...

¶ 1023 Posted at 05.25 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Our favorite pregnant woman:

Exponential growth is a quite a thing to see.

¶ 1031 Posted at 07.27 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

I mentioned previously that we are taking a Bradley Method class. Now, I'm not going to try to tell you that I'm objective, but you should know there are options if and when you are expecting. The way that we think of pregnancy and birth comes to us from society at large and from the particular mix of people we know. Those ideas don't necessarily reflect what is actually best. If and when you find yourself expecting a baby, just know that what is presented to you as the way is not the only way. Know that things that are presented as unambiguously good things aren't.

Birth and delivery in the United States are viewed as a medical event. This mindset tends to think of mothers as patients and pregnancy as a condition to be cured. I exaggerate, of course, but only a little. The hospital forms we filled out have an area where you check off either "Disease" or "Injury" as the reason for being admitted. In most cases, nature will take its course and do fine. This isn't some kind of Luddite thing but rather the recognition that evolution has been operating for a very, very long time. I also recognize that birth has historically been very dangerous, which is why we don't eschew modern medicine. However, many women in the United States give birth outside of hospitals, either in birth centers or in their homes. Globally, that is also the reality. The infant mortality rate in the United States is not the lowest such in the world. There are countries with lower rates that don't have quite as extreme a perspective as the American one.

You should know that nurses and doctors don't necessarily know better. Their interests are not going to be perfectly aligned with yours. That's not because they're bad people, but because they have established ways of doing things. They are afraid of malpractice claims, claims which result far more from injuries to the child than they do from an "unpleasant birth experience." All else being equal, medical practitioners will look for things to do and might not be so comfortable with not doing anything.

One standard intervention is the epidural. The mother is injected with an anesthetic directly into the lower spine to numb her lower body and thus the pain of delivery. However, the numbness is complete, which results in the mother being unable to control her muscles as well. As a result, epidurals can prolong labor. Additionally, the baby isn't as protected from the anesthetic as was previously believed, making them less alert and responsive at birth, and thus making it harder to tell if the baby is healthy.

Another common intervention is the use of pitocin. Pitocin is a synthetic form of the hormone oxytocin. It is used to stimulate or accelerate labor. It's used fairly often as part of normal procedure. Usually, though, you're just better off waiting. A downside of pitocin is that it can make labor more forceful, which will make it more painful for the mother and more distressing for the baby.

Circumcision is a stupid practice and there is no legitimate reason for doing it.

Like I said, I'm not objective. Every woman is different, and every pregnancy is different. Furthermore, everything above reflects only what we plan to happen given that Jessica has had a smooth and problem-free pregnancy so far (*knock wood*). It also has a lot to do with our comfort levels and preferences. I'm not saying that any of our choices are unambiguously better or right (except circumcision). Just be aware that many of these things are in fact choices. Be aware that they are your choices. Your doctor may advise you, but it is your decision, just like everything else.

¶ 1035 Posted at 12.17 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | fyi )

Uma [Something] Gangatirkar, born 2.11am on April 13, 2005. 20.5 inches, 6 lb. 9.6 oz. More pictures to come.

Update: Uma Davey Gangatirkar, and 19.5 inches, not 20.5.

¶ 1051 Posted at 11.55 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

I put up some baby pictures.

¶ 1052 Posted at 01.49 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | pictures )

Even more baby pictures

¶ 1056 Posted at 01.42 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | pictures )

We filled out the paperwork to officially name her Uma Davey Gangatirkar. We had various Western names that we liked, but there was something a little... remote about them; we didn't really feel it. Davey, obviously, has a real connection and real significance. You may hear it pronounced "Devi" by Indian people (there's a difference in the D). In at least a couple of Indian languages, "devi" means goddess. So that's nice, too, but I don't want to diminish its significance as Jessica's name.

We spent a lot of time looking at names. We rejected lots of them. Uma won because it has a lot of nice qualities, besides being agreeable to us both:

1. It's relatively known, thanks to Uma Thurman, but not at all common.
2. It's Indian, so it reflects her real (as opposed to imagined, like with Celtic names) heritage.
3. It's short and really, really easy to say, which goes a little way to balance out the Gangatirkar at the end, and should shield her from the trauma I suffered growing up.
4. She'll be able to say her own name at an early age because it's short and the sounds are easy for a small child.
5. She has an automatic animal mascot in the puma.

On the subject of names, Slate has two interesting excerpts from the new book Freakonomics.

¶ 1058 Posted at 12.02 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | names )

My sister, my mom, and my two cousins visited today. Here are a few more pictures.

¶ 1062 Posted at 11.12 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | pictures )

I have spun off Uma-related things to her own web site. I'm using Blogger + Picasa + Hello, which is working well enough. There's even an Atom feed. Like you weren't expecting this...

¶ 1064 Posted at 12.22 AM ⇒ No Comments ( site | us )

Jessica has submitted her resignation to PRG. We decided long ago that we both wanted to have one of us parenting full-time. Given the economic landscape and our differing levels of satisfaction with our careers, we decided that she should be the one to stay home and I should be the one holding a full-time job. We hope that she will be able to do freelance work to earn some extra money, keep her resume current, and just allow her some adult interaction. The field of textbook publishing employs many freelance writers and editors, so it shouldn't be hard to find work. We're not against day care, we just didn't want to put our child in day care permanently and full-time, especially when she was very young. We certainly expect to use day care either full-time for a short period, or part-time for a longer period, depending on the publishing cycle, my job's flexibility, and availability of friends and family (ahem). It's hard enough for me to leave her at home, and that's when she's with Jessica. I can't imagine how hard it would be for us both to leave her.

¶ 1070 Posted at 06.24 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | (un)employment )

We have found the following to be very useful over the last few weeks/months:

• My Brest Friend nursing pillow.
• HEB (grocery) store brand diapers. They fit Uma better than the Huggies the hospital started us on.
• Kiddopotamus SwaddleMe infant wrap. It's a lot easier and more secure than with a receiving blanket.
• The Happiest Baby on the Block (book and/or DVD). We watched the video. It's not magic, but it still works really well to calm Uma when she's unhappy for no apparent reason. It's still helpful, though less so, when she's hungry or gassy or uncomfortable, but then, in those cases, we should be feeding, burping, or moving her as appropriate.
• The Baby Book by Sears and Sears. Comprehensive, well-researched, and sensible information and advice.
• Not a product, but a person: Lanell Coultas, our doula, who was invaluable for helping Jessica deliver and keeping me sane.
• Not a product, but a class/service: Bridget Brown's Bradley Method® class. The Bradley Method tends to look at modern birth and delivery practices negatively. That is understandable, but it's also off-putting to be brow-beaten. Bridget is a lot mellower and tolerant than (what I gather to be) the Bradley Method norm, so there was no issue with that. There was a lot of useful information and preparation in a relaxed, friendly environment. It helped also to be around other expecting, first-time parents, especially ones as likable as the ones in our class.

Even if you don't take this class, or any Bradley class, I highly recommend you take some sort of comprehensive class (or combination of classes) that teaches you about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and baby basics. I have no opinion on the quality of Lamaze, but it does not seem to be as comprehensive. Books and videos and talking to people you know will only go so far. This is not something for which you want to be un(der)-prepared. I hope this helps.

¶ 1083 Posted at 01.06 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | consuming | babies )

Patience is soothing a baby to sleep at 4:30am. If you try to rush it, you will fail.

¶ 1104 Posted at 12.02 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | babies )

Uma is 50 days old today. It feels like a lot longer. I don't mean that in a bad way. Time has just been stretched since she was born. There's a weird time warp in effect. The weekend before she was born seems more recent than the weekend after she was born. I could attribute at least part of that to being awake more hours in those 50 days than I might normally have been ;-). It's not just that, though. It's not just that life has slowed down. Maybe I'm wasting less time. Maybe I'm spending less time on mindless things that made time fly. Who knows. It's weird.

¶ 1107 Posted at 11.24 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

If Jessica hadn't quit her job, today would be her first day back under FMLA. Uma would have to be in day care. That's insane. We're not ready to leave Uma with strangers; we can barely leave her with family. With her current sleep schedule, I see her for a half hour in the morning and an hour at night. It's tolerable because I know she's with Jessica all day. We're lucky enough that I can support us on my salary alone. It's not an option that everybody has, but, if you do, I highly recommend it. It's not just for your kids, it's also for you.

I knew that having one of us stay home was a luxury, but watching the first episode of "30 Days" really slammed that home. "30 Days" is a show on FX by Morgan Spurlock, who brought us Super Size Me. The premise is that you see what it's like for someone to switch lives for a month. The first episode had Morgan and his fiancée Alex living on minimum wage. They let themselves start with their clothes and $200. No credit cards. No car. No insurance. No place to live. They had to live the month just on what they earned working low-opaying jobs. Morgan got a job at a temp agency, which sent him out to hang drywall, landscape, make pizzas, and more. Alex got to wash dishes and bus tables at a cafe. Along the way, they have to struggle with rent, deposits, unforeseen medical problems, and other challenges. They lived in a seedy part of town, in an apartment infested by ants. Alex walked in freezing weather to work, while Morgan spent hours waiting for and on the bus. It's agonizing to watch. I knew it was hard to live on minimum wage, but seeing it like that made it even harder, and that was as a 1-hour television program. I can't imagine what it must be like to live that way for real. I don't want to find out.

I have the luxury of a job that doesn't demand much of me physically. I don't have to sacrifice my health to eat. I have co-workers I like and respect in a positive environment. Jessica and I agree on money, and our choices are driven by what is practical, not by what is possible. She can stay home to take care of Uma, rather than us paying someone else to do it worse. My job provides us with pretty good health insurance. We can afford good cars to take us places, and we have lots of creature comforts. We don't have external forces pulling us apart. We're well-rested and healthy, so it's easier to be patient and understanding. We have a beautiful child who brings us joy. We get to see each other. We get to relax. All of these things make it possible to have a strong, healthy relationship.

I'd like to think that my appreciation for what I have will motivate me to do something to address the problem. I'd like to, but I know myself too well. I have a wife, a baby, and a house. I'm lazy and selfish. Maybe, at some point, I'll volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, but even wouldn't be completely altruistic. Nevertheless, there is value in not taking things for granted, in understanding that my family life rests on a bedrock of economic stability. Most people are worse off, economically, and that has an effect on their family lives. Poverty tugs at the ties that bind. If you believe in the importance of marriage, in the importance of people raising their own children, and of parents being active in their children's lives, then the best way to bring about the changes you seek is not by oppressing homosexuals, or condemning single mothers, or eliminating social safety nets. The best way to support family values is to fight poverty. Put it on a bumper sticker:

Support Family Values: Raise the minimum wage.

¶ 1128 Posted at 06.52 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Today is the first anniversary of the best thing I ever did.

¶ 1134 Posted at 09.47 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

With the end of the year upon us, I thought it might be worth looking back on the important events and milestones in my life that happened in 2005:

1. April 13, 2005: Uma Davey Gangatirkar.
.

Well, that wraps up the round-up for 2005. Join me again next year when we recap 2006.

¶ 1196 Posted at 02.38 PM ⇒ No Comments ( site | us )

In 1961, the psychologist Stanley Milgram performed a simple experiment. Take an ordinary man (they were all men), and see what happens when he is induced to inflict pain on another. The setup was simple. The subject was told that he was participating in an experiment testing learning methods. He was to be the "teacher," while another man was the "learner." If the learner, believed by the teacher to be a subject but secretly an actor, failed to give the correct answers, the teacher was told to administer an electric shock of increasing severity. The learner would give all the external indications of being in severe pain, to the point of pounding on the window separating him from the teacher. If the teacher hesitated, the person running the experiment would goad him on. Fully two thirds of the teachers proceeded to increase the voltage until the maximum level (supposedly fatal) was reached. Of course, they were the real subjects of the experiment, whose purpose was to test obedience to authority. Besides being a disturbing and valuable bit of insight into human nature, it has a bit more immediate relevance.

I can't help but see parallels between the Milgram experiment and the "cry it out" schools of thought on training babies to sleep. Both require ignoring a person who, by all indications, is in great distress. More than ignoring the distress, you are in fact an active participant in causing that distress because you have the power to relieve it. There is also the element of authority in asserting that you are doing the right thing. In the Milgram experiment, the authority was the psychologist running the experiment. In the world of baby care, it comes in the form of pundits and "experts" such as (but not only) Richard Ferber. I use the word authority intentionally, because the appearance of authority is really all it rests on. Ferber may be a pediatrician, and he is the director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders, but there have been no scientific studies on the comparative effectiveness of any of the various methods for teaching infants and toddlers to sleep (with the exception of co-sleeping, which isn't quite the same kind of thing). As a result, there is a huge jumble of assumptions, myths, and actually effective techniques that can very difficult to untangle. You end up with lots of people loudly proclaiming the superiority of their chosen path, with little beyond anecdotal evidence to support it. "Cry it out" methods can be very appealing to desperate parents (and you do get desperate) because they remove responsibility and can (partially) eliminate the problem by defining it out of existence. It also appeals to parents of certain philosophies by attempting to avoid pampering and coddling children, as though those concepts make any sense whatsoever with a baby.

I don't say any of this out of sanctimonious judgment (for once), but instead out of guilt. You see, we have taken a small step down the path to the dark side. We have made a conscious effort to be less responsive when Uma is upset at bed time (nap or night). The sleep situation in our house has degraded over the last few months, to the point where we had to expend considerable effort to get her to fall asleep at least twice and sometimes all three times in a day. This involved rocking, patting, and singing until she was calm or asleep, then trying to put her down gently, running out of the room, and hoping. Usually, she woke up as she was getting put down, and it was a roll of the dice as to whether she would accept it or start crying. Getting out of the room quickly helped, as it seemed like seeing us leave caused more unhappiness than us being absent. For a while, I was spending 20 or more minutes on her morning nap and up to an hour at night trying to soothe her to sleep. Sleep times became something that we approached with fear and foreboding, because we knew it would be hard. That was not a situation we wished to see last indefinitely. Certainly, she would sometimes go down without a fuss, but that was a distinct minority of cases. However, on numerous occasions, we haven't been able to respond to Uma's cries as quickly as we wanted. To our surprise, in many of those cases, she quieted down and fell back asleep without intervention.

As a result of our accumulated exhaustion and this faint light of hope, last week we decided to make the conscious choice of holding back. Our rationale is simple. Uma is aware of us and the world around her to a much greater degree than she was a few months ago. She is very good at letting us know when she doesn't want something, be it more peas, a diaper change, or to have her face cleaned. There's a difference between that and the confused, scared desperation that sometimes afflicts her. The former is just complaining, while the latter is real agony. She's also much more clued-in to what's happening around her and can often predict what is going to happen. Sometimes, she starts complaining as soon as she's picked up from play time or finished nursing because she doesn't want to go to bed. Our new choice is to ignore the complaining and respond to the real anguish. We're not exactly happy about this. Most obviously that is because there will always be some crying, but it's also because there's a lot of error in the process. We often think she'll quiet down and then endure awful, painful minutes as she doesn't. Or we'll intervene when we don't need to, which is certainly not painful, but has a wearing effect. We're slowly getting better at distinguishing between the two, but there are still those terrible moments. Ideally, she wouldn't cry at all, but we are far away from that. One thing is for certain, though; we will not let her cry indefinitely. We listen very closely to the quality of her cry. Some cries are clearly fishing to see if she can get Mommy or Daddy back, while others are red alert and get us in there faster than a blink.

I feel like we're doing the right thing for us and for her, but it's very easy to convince yourself of that no matter how bad a thing you are doing. In spite of the problems we've had with her sleeping, I'm also glad we didn't try this before. For this to work in a way we're comfortable with, it's essential that Uma be aware and self-reliant enough that she can quiet down, play for a while, and then fall asleep. It's certainly not something to do with a newborn 1 , who is so bewildered and confused that any disturbance is terrible and frightening. We certainly don't want to teach her that crying gets no response, because sometimes, something truly is wrong. Nor do we want her to believe that we won't respond to her distress; even if she isn't capable of thinking those thoughts today, she will be someday, and sooner than we think. We just want her to learn that sleep isn't as distressing as she thinks. So far, it's been helping. When she's genuinely upset, we fall back on our standard playbook of soothing tactics. We still try to leave with her awake, but sometimes we just have to go in for the long haul. That's fine. We didn't expect that things would be immediately perfect; we just wanted to reduce what had become a frequent ordeal. It doesn't seem to have affected her in any great way. She complains a little more when we bundle her off to bed, but it also seems like she complains less once she's actually in her crib and we're gone.

Teaching an infant to sleep is a hard, hard thing. It could be the hardest thing to deal with as the parent of an infant. Uma isn't the angel baby you occasionally hear about; my personal opinion is that she's slightly (but only slightly) more difficult than the average. Of course, it's not really fair of me to blame her, since it could very well be that we do things that sabotage our efforts (as we have in the past). Still, it could be worse. We have friends with a son a couple months younger than Uma who almost never sleeps more than two hours at a time, even at night. Uma does fall asleep without any crying at least some of the time, and she rarely wakes up more than once per night. She's generally a happy baby, and when she isn't, most of the time it's our fault (hunger, thirst, taking away a toy for no good reason). She's been healthy (knock wood), developmentally normal, and just a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time thinking about what to do. We have to strike a balance between her needs and ours, between what's good now and what's good for the future. Decisions like this aren't easy, nor should they be.

¶ 1248 Posted at 03.54 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | babies )

I type this in a bewilderingly tranquil house. Jessica put Uma down about 10 minutes ago. She is quietly playing by herself, occasionally babbling something. She made no unhappy noises as we prepared her for bed or after she was put down. Nothing. Zip. Zero.

This is the fourth day in a row where this has happened. It isn't just at night; her morning and afternoon naps have been just as smooth and pain-free. What changed? Exactly what I described on Monday. It worked far better and less painfully than I could have hoped. Uma cried without us intervening less than ten times. At no time did she cry more than a few minutes without us coming in when she genuinely needed it; as I said before, we won't do the "cry it out" unto exhaustion thing, because that's terrible. We just decided to ignore her complaining about going to bed. The rest of the time, she stopped grumbling after a few minutes. I'm sure that at least once we went in when we didn't need to, but I'd rather that than the opposite.

The point is, our plan to be mildly unresponsive has been wildly successful. It's been so successful that it feels eerie. I have had 11 months training me that sleep was usually a fight, that it was something to be dreaded. Having had 12 consecutive unqualified successes is incomprehensible. I hope it never becomes fully comprehensible because this is something to be cherished, and I don't want to take it for granted.

¶ 1253 Posted at 07.44 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | babies )

I asked Uma this morning what made her so awesome, but she coyly held her tongue. A little lady never tells.

¶ 1300 Posted at 11.05 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Today marks two years that we've been married. Yowza. Jessica is no longer a World Cup widow just in time.

¶ 1316 Posted at 09.07 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Ugh. Yesterday was not fun. Uma woke up Friday night at 10pm, which is unusual. Then she woke up again at 2am, which is still unusual, but less so. Then we couldn't fall asleep until around 4:30 or 4:45. Uma then woke up at 5:00 am for the day. She had a short nap on her walk, but categorically refused to take her regular nap around noon thirty. Then she slept a while in the car. We got home a little late, and she was unhappy, but eventually fell asleep around 8:10. Then she woke up again at 8:40. No amount of persuasion could get her to fall asleep again, so we let her up and about while we ate our dinner. We went back into the trenches at around 10:30 and finally got her to sleep at 12:15am. She woke up exactly an hour later. Luckily, she went back to sleep after nursing. She woke up at 3:20am, but fell asleep without issue, and then again at 4-something, 6-something, and finally a little after 7 for the day.

Note that anytime I say "Uma woke up" or "Uma wouldn't go to sleep," I mean that she was very, very unhappy. To summarize, Uma was basically up from 5am to after midnight, with about 80 minutes of sleep in between. Usually, she wakes up around 7am and goes to bed around 7pm, with a 2 hour nap in the middle. We didn't get much rest, either, which only makes things harder. Things were sort of like this when she was a newborn, but she was more consolable then. Right now, when she's upset, she has to have Mommy and only Mommy.

It was a long, long day, and I hope we've gotten through the worst of it. We think that she's having some massive teething, since she has a runny nose and mild fever, is reluctant to eat, and is roughly due for some canines. Ibuprofen had no apparent effect, though maybe what it did was keep things from getting even worse. She gets so confused and upset, and she thinks we can help her, but at times like that, we are out of ideas. We all just end up feeling miserable. I hate to think it's something we can't fix, that we just have to bear it until it's over, but I hate even more the idea that it might be something more serious. That's almost hypochondria-by-proxy, which is very, very easy to slip into as a parent.

Having a small child is hard.

¶ 1321 Posted at 09.14 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Uma's on the mend. It looks like it was the teething. It's funny how a couple of days of mayhem can really throw things off. Last night, even as she was clearly feeling better, I was still walking on eggshells after she went to bed. She woke up hungry in the night twice, but those are easy wakings: she wakes up, nurses, and goes back to sleep. The memories of harder nights are too fresh, though, and it takes a little while for me to relax again. Every little noise sends me into a panic, I fret about us making too much noise, etc. But this round is over now.

For my reward, I have a scratchy throat, a runny nose, and a mild fever, no doubt the beginning of a cold that found my immune system asleep at the gate. Now I have to figure out how to keep my distance from Little Miss. Getting sick for most adults in isolation is a minor inconvenience, but worrying about infecting a toddler makes it much more stressful. Bad enough that we just had this unhappy weekend; following it up with Uma getting sick would just be terrible. My hope is that maybe she had a minor cold and was teething this weekend, so that she's already fought off whatever I have. An irrational straw to clutch, no doubt, but she needs to have a stretch of happy time. So do we.

¶ 1322 Posted at 07.57 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

One thing we haven't done much as parents is stretch Uma's limits. We've gotten burned too much when we've done it inadvertently that it makes us hesitant to test them. Of course, if we don't test them, they'll hardly grow, which is something we're slowly learning. It's mostly with regards to where she sleeps, where she goes, whether/when we leave her, and other basic logistical concerns. We don't actively avoid as many things as we used to, and we're not shut-ins, but we are still skittish, and we certainly don't seek out potentially challenging situations. That's not fair to her, nor is it really fair to us. A 15-month old is much different from a 5-month old (though we could have been more ambitious then, too). I guess we're falling into the standard parent trap.

¶ 1332 Posted at 08.10 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | deep thoughts )

Soothing Uma to sleep gets a lot harder when she insists on dancing to her lullaby.

¶ 1340 Posted at 07.46 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | funny )

We managed to get Uma to take her nap away from home today, if only briefly. It was a big step. One mistake we made was that we didn't introduce her to different sleep environments back when she was barely conscious of her environment. Our reasons at the time seemed good: it was hard enough at the time without introducing additional variables. Nevertheless, it made things much more difficult for her to try to get her to adapt once she became aware of and accustomed to her room.

We have a couple of events coming up in the not-too-distant future, and since things have been going so well, we thought we'd ruin it all and try this. She complained for something like 35 minutes before quieting and, presumably, falling asleep. She never got really upset, but she wasn't particularly happy about getting dumped away like that.

When she's unhappy by herself, I always imagine her standing up and staring at the door, focusing on it all her considerable will as though sheer stubbornness could make it open and pull Mommy (or Daddy) through. Obviously, we're never happy when she's unhappy, but it seems like we're more sensitive than nearly all the other parents we know. I don't think that's a bad thing; Uma's a pretty happy kid and very well-behaved, though of course we can't assume that's because of anything we've done 1 . I can imagine this sounding rather odd to many other parents, though, and also to many non-parents, that we've been so careful.

Still, it was time to, if not cut, at least loosen the cord a bit more. She's old enough that she can sleep away from home and give us a break. We're hoping to be able to take a week-long vacation next summer, just the two of us. I'm sure she'll be ready by then, but I'm not so sure we'll be able to get to those weddings this fall. Oh well.

¶ 1360 Posted at 10.23 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

It's no fun denying water to your child when she hasn't had anything to drink (that she's kept down) for 6 hours. She doesn't understand pacing yourself; she just knows that she's thirsty and Daddy won't let her have any water.

To the list of reasons why you shouldn't let your young child watch television, add that it gives you something to break out when you get absolutely desperate, and, since it's completely novel to her, it doesn't really matter what you watch. Uma does know how to identify the important parts of Mystery: the baby ("baow"), the dog ("woof woof"), and the car ("vroom").

¶ 1381 Posted at 07.34 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Max Barry has a daughter about the same age as Uma, but he's funnier than I am.

¶ 1412 Posted at 09.27 PM ⇒ No Comments ( funny | us )

I guess March is Entropy Month. The things that broke this month include Tivo, my computer (twice), our dishwasher, some other plumbing, our cable modem, the water pump in the car, and each one of us (and Uma twice). Blech.

¶ 1413 Posted at 10.44 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Another article on praise, or rather, not praising, to follow up on the one I linked in February. The short of it is, be stingy in your conditional support, and generous in your unconditional support.

¶ 1435 Posted at 12.35 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | articles )

Uma's been learning about things that are Mommy's or Daddy's or her own. She'll point at one of her toys and say, "Uma's!" I feel vaguely uneasy about teaching possessiveness, like I'm raising some little materialist. I feel a little like I'm teaching her something bad.

¶ 1497 Posted at 10.17 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

We're going to LA later this week. One of the things we're going to see is Griffith Park, which burned a few months ago. If deer had final words, I think I can guess what this one's were.

¶ 1504 Posted at 02.13 PM ⇒ No Comments ( pictures | us | travel )

It seems like both more and less.

¶ 1505 Posted at 02.32 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

I don't understand how this keeps happening.

¶ 1562 Posted at 09.09 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us | fyi )

The current plan is for baby number 2 to be born at home. We've selected a midwife that Jessica has seen several times. She's also a medical nurse, which is a qualification that I needed. She has a professional relationship with several OB/GYNs at North Austin Medical Center, where Uma was born, in case we need medical backup.

¶ 1566 Posted at 08.52 AM ⇒ No Comments ( us | fyi )

Kid 2 is a boy.

¶ 1585 Posted at 08.21 PM ⇒ No Comments ( us )

Jessica's just hit week 30. Maybe it's a little early, but I want to hear predictions: sex, weight, date of birth. As a reference point, Uma was a girl, 6 lbs 9.6 ounces, born 15 days before the precisely useless due date. Whoever guesses