Nyan Thomas is learning to feed himself! Mommy reports: “I propped the bottle on his hands and he’s taken the initiative and just controlling his sucking etc. by himself…”
We’re looking forward to having him bring us breakfast in bed any day now. About time the kid started pulling his own weight, frankly…
That’s our working theory for why poor Nyan was extra fussy this evening, as Hurricane Irene has been inching her way up the coast toward New York.
Although, it may have just been his normal late afternoon/evening fussiness, as it seems to have (finally) passed around 9pm when he (finally) fell asleep.
(It’s his first hurricane, of course. Or tropical storm, depending on its strength when it hits with full force around 8am tomorrow…)
Nyan Thomas ponders the looming tropical storm, and wonders why New York City has to panic about every little storm or earthquake that comes down the pike.
The scene: the bedroom in the morning.
A new father, running late for work, nevertheless takes a few minutes to tenderly hold his four-week-old son. The boy is cradled in his father’s left arm, head against the bend of his elbow, bum on his forearm, pressing tight against his father’s body.
The father strokes his son’s hair, smiles at him as the boy gazes up with his big dark eyes. The father leans down and gives him a kiss on the forehead. Tells his son he loves him.
A slight smile crosses the son’s face. The boy, unable to speak as yet, surely feels the love and responds in the only way he can:
He lets rip a big juicy fart right on his father’s arm.
Precious.
We have more visitors this week: two of Nyan’s uncles –  Beatrice’s brothers Dominic and Sean –  arrived late Saturday night for a week’s stay. Dominic has two daughters, and Sean has done a lot of babysitting, so they know their way around a baby. They’re doing the tourist thing – the Brooklyn Bridge hike today, a Yankees game on Thursday, various other sightseeing and activities on the agenda as well – and also trying to teach Nyan’s hapless parents a thing or two.
And indeed, one thing we’ve learned is that, well, we’re a bit clueless so far. We’ll readily blame the lack of a solid night’s sleep, though that excuse will only take us so far. Not that we’ve made any major mistakes; if anything, we’re perhaps too doting. Dominic has pointed out that part of our problem is that, when we’re both home, we both tend to try to take care of Nyan at the same time. For instance, if he’s fussing or crying, one of us will head to the bedroom to soothe him, and the other will follow, even though it’s just a one person job. It comes from a good place – we want to help each other out, and we want to see our son, frankly. But having one person hovering while the other is soothing isn’t really accomplishing anything, and as Dominic pointed out, that’s a good way for both of us to get exhausted very quickly, if we’re not already there.
While Emerald was here, she and Beatrice worked up a daily schedule, a routine of sleeps and feeds and activity time for Nyan. I think the routine may be more for us than for him – it’s somewhat easier to deal with everything if we know what’s coming up, and when – but it’s surely somewhat good for Nyan as well. It worked well for a few days, although last week – with Emerald back in England and me off of work – that routine sort of went out the window, as we just sort of winged it. Things went well enough, but it was running us a bit ragged by the end of the week, and it may also have led to Nyan being extremely fussy and non-nappy for most of Saturday. So on Sunday, after we got a talking-to from Emerald over Skype, we renewed our commitment to the routine.
It worked pretty well on Sunday: Nyan had scheduled times for feeding, for a stroll around the neighborhood, for naptime (or at least laying in the dark bedroom time). He was still fussy on Sunday evening, but seemed less so. Same deal on Monday evening: a bit fussy, as usual for the evenings, but he calmed down and fell asleep quicker than he had been doing, it seemed. We’ll take what we can get at this point.
Speaking of Monday, I went back to work, and Beatrice kept pretty well to the routine. A cousin of Beatrice’s – not a blood cousin, just a close family friend – is a doctor doing her residency in New York, so she came over for lunch and to spend the afternoon. They took Nyan on a stroller ride mid-afternoon – the scheduled activity time – and also met up with the lads, who had gone to a nearby Irish pub to watch a football (soccer, for us Americans) match being broadcast live from England. It ended up being Nyan’s first visit to a pub. He didn’t seem to quite realize the significance of the moment.
We’ve got more family coming this week as well – my cousin Jeff is on a business trip in New Jersey and is coming over either Tuesday or Wednesday evening, or both. Living in New York is kind of like when I lived in St. Thomas: it’s pretty easy to convince friends and family to come visit. Hopefully they’d all feel the same if we lived in, say, Topkea, or Albany.
We took Nyan for a stroll down the mean streets of western Park Slope this afternoon, before the daily thunderstorms rolled through. He was thrilled.
On Wednesday afternoon, while Beatrice stood sentry over our napping son, I ran a couple of errands in the neighborhood. We’re a few blocks from where they’re building a new arena for the NBA’s New Jersey (soon to be Brooklyn) Nets, and it’s been an ugly process – shady eminent domain and tax breaks handed to the developer, blocks of homes leveled to put up the arena, dirty clangy construction trucks that have started rattling down our street, and the design of the arena itself. It was originally to be designed by Frank Gehry, of whom I am not a fan, but at least you can say, I suppose, that his buildings are usually interesting. Ugly, but interesting. But due to cost overruns (or bait-and-switch, if you’re a cynic, which I am), as soon as the project got all of its permits, Gehry was dropped, his design replaced with a mundane arena with a weird curved design that many critics said make the whole thing look like a giant toilet seat. (Given how woeful the Nets have been in recent years, there’s an easy metaphor in there somewhere.) Read the rest of this entry »
Nyan got strapped in to his carseat/stroller combo yesterday afternoon so Mommy and Auntie Maria could take him down the road for some bubble tea. (Well, bubble tea for them. Nyan, as you can see, wasn’t too fussed. In fact he slept the entire time.)
Nyan Thomas L's Blog 