Branford - visit #3

Not enough time to write about what a wonderful trip, what a wonderful place, what a wonderful family.

Cinco – quotes from loved ones.

Before Makili was born I told my friend Cara that I didn’t expect myself to like a baby too much. I could imagine myself with kids, even young ones, but the baby stage didn’t seem like that much fun. “Wait till he’s five months old,” she said. I guess I can see her point. He suddenly is awfully cute. And what a performer. When it’s just us, he cries and wants a lot, but when other people are around, he is so well behaved…smiling, sitting calmly on laps, and I think to myself “what is going on here, he isn’t like this when it’s just me.”

When Makili was a week old, his cousin Gabrielle came to visit and she was five a half months old. Raph would play with her, she would smile, and I would watch, tormented by those post-partum hormones that cursed through my veins. When we were alone, I cried to him, “you like Gabrielle more than Makili.” (I know I sound like a sniveling crazy woman here, but that’s pretty much what you are right after you have a baby.) His response. “No. I really do like Makili better. It seems like everything there is to know about Gabrielle is known. We barely know anything about Makili.”

And now that Makili is five months old, Raph was right. I know him SO much better. I know when he’s hungry, tired, cranky, playful, when he wants to be left alone on his back, when he wants to touch anything and everything in sight, when he wants to nurse, when he just wants to suck, etc. We’ve come a long way in five months.

And when Gabrielle and Laura showed up for that visit in Hawaii, Laura would say, “Yep she’s all grown up.” Makili is grown up too. He’s not an infant anymore, as Cindy, Raph’s aunt says, not just “a lump that poops and cries and sleeps.” He has personality. He is engaging, spontaneous, and resilient. He’s athletic, social, and expressive. I like him. Most of the time. I tell him all the time that I like him more when he sleeps through the night and doesn’t cry, and that tactic works sometimes. I like it a lot when I can get him to laugh, but that isn’t all the time. I like it when he smiles for me, and he has started reaching for me, which is really warm in its infancy, like it is, but might get old in the coming months. His reaching can be dangerous at times. When we walk through a store, he grabs at every hanger, every tag within reach. Sometimes it feels like he has clotheslined me, having hung on and arrested our momentum. He also is working on pulling my hair out of my head. He can be quite a menace at times. He sits up on his own now, in silent focus, investigating the whisk, or measuring spoons, or a coaster, whatever his favorite toy of the moment happens to be.

My mom called me a “nervous mother” this week, because Makili had his first fever and I freaked out. For a little while. I read all the books I had, to determine how high a fever warranted calling a doctor, if the ear thermometers are accurate, etc. But he took a nap and woke up less cranky, with temperature lower, and a fountain of snot coming out his nose. The happy disposition reassured me and he’s been okay, although still snotty, every since.

My mom said this morning, “they don’t make em any cuter.” I know everybody thinks that about their baby, but I can honestly, objectively say, he’s the cutest.

We have this much stuff

We're pretty much moved into our house now, but this was when the cube was packed. I highly recommend the "relocube" for anyone moving. UPack...so convenient and I have to say it is fun to stuff every corner of the 8x7x6 foot cube.

The Best Thanksgiving in America, underphotographed

Too many pictures of Makili, and not enough pictures of the glorious vegetarian food which allows Larry to confidently declare that the best Thanksgiving in America happens at their house, but it was wonderful. More pies than I can count. I have decided that in fact the purpose of Thanksgiving at the MAtty's is to cook enough food so that noone has to go to the grocery store for a week. I know we don't need to. Makili took a well-timed nap, and we didn't even have to eat in shifts. We played some Thai card games that involved gambling. Ny got a bit fired up over the pot. Don't try to avoid the ante with her! Good times.

Scooters, steelers, substituting

Grammy and Grandpa came to visit Makili and check out our new house this weekend. We wanted to take them to Fort Foster, a really fantastic park near our house. In the winter, there they shut the gate and you have to walk in and we discussed ahead of time how we could get my dad in since it was too far from him to walk. This is the sort of problem that Raph really latches onto. So he set out to find a way to roll my father into Fort Foster, though we also did briefly consider a kayak, like those hand-made by our friend Shipp that you can see on the 4-month blog. Anyway, he shared the problem with Larry, and next thing we knew, Larry showed up with a zippy scooter he found at a deal on Craig's List. It would have been really awesome if the tire hadn't gone flat half way through the adventure. Dad survived, the wheel got slimed, so it all turned out alright, but I think my dad might be more careful about how far he goes next time.



We also got to watch the Steelers in my parents' hotel room (can you believe that they refused to stay with us!) OOOOhhhhh...TV, such a luxury when you don't have one. TV, despite his appropriate bib, slept through the game while we played bridge and hung out. The weather was wet and cloudy and cold, and so eating, playing cards, and shopping for house stuff was how we entertained ourselves. My parents did watch Makili for the day on Monday and everybody had a good time, despite some questionable phone messages left for me... We're so lucky.

Snow on the windshield.

There was snow on the windshield yesterday morning. And my mom was still at my house at 6:00am so that I could be a substitute for the day. And this was after Makili's first fever on Sunday morning, which appears to be connected to a little cold. I sort of freaked out at first and had to read the books to see what to do with a fever and whether our ear thermometer was accurate. I didn't really get any answers but when he went back to sleep for an hour and a half and woke up and was happy, my concern faded. He is fine, though he really doesn't like it when I suck the junk out his nostrils with the blue bulb. Grammy and Grandpa had a great day yesterday and I earned another 87 dollars. Whew. Some pictures to come.

Terrifying

So I just finished a terrifying book - Collapse by Jared Diamond, which explores societies that have collapsed. In every case of collapse, environmental degradation is a huge causitive factor. The book ends by exploring the environmental situation of the current world. I have never read anything so grim, bleak, and dire and it really scared the shit out of me. We should be spending all of our energy learning to farm and live sustainably. We might be screwed as a race. I highly recommend this book despite the horrifying picture it presents.

Some other recent pics...

It gets this cold.

Seapoint Beach, a few miles from our house, is a favorite walk of ours. In fact we used to live right on this beach five years ago before we were married. We thought it might be a bit warmer by the ocean than over at our house. That was a very wrong assumption. The wind chill was fierce, but it was beautiful.

Hooray for Sleep

After months of bad sleep, Makili's sleep took a big turn for the better this week with three consecutive nights of 7+ hours of straight sleep, a little snack, and three more hours of blissful rest. His mother is very thankful.

He is changing rapidly, wanting things out of his reach all the time. He loves to climb all over us, gently supporting him so he doesn't fall.

I went to work twice this week, which seemed like a lot though the money will be welcomed in the bank account. It's expensive to buy a new house. We're finally settling in though, which is a relief, since it's been getting pretty dammned cold and I don't always want to go outside. We did discover some fabulous trails in the woods behind our house which made up feel even better about our big purchase. Larry hooked us up with a propane heater which is awesome and gives the illusion of a fire place. It heats the house up in jiffy, something else for which I'm very thankful. I'm pretty luckY!

New friends, new tricks

New house, first frost, great light. Autumn leaves, so bright and beautiful they're unbelievable. New friends, Mark, Kayden and Lauren (unpictured). And new tricks. Frist, the big reach. He learned the big lunge reach. Walk throught the grocery store and he dives for the canned goods. He loves shiny objects. He didn't used to do that. It's all new. And three days ago I said, "he can almost sit up on his own." And now he can. It is amazing how fast they learn. I really can't get over it. I probably sound like I'm boasting but really I just can't keep up with his changes and they astound me!

Sally saves Halloween

So we have a new house and bought candy and were all excited about handing out treats to Trick-or-Treaters. So I went out to the mailbox on Halloween afternoon to inquire from a neighbor about when the festivites would begin and how many kids we should expect. I didn't want to be the new neighbor without enough candy for all the kids. Boy was it a let down when he told me "trick-or-treating was yesterday. the kids don't do it around here." I thought that was the end of Halloween and I was sure bummed cause Makili wasn't going to get to wear his frog costume and Raph would gain ten pounds from eating all the candy.

Sally called and came to the rescue. "Come to the parade with me," she said. "The Halloween parade in Portsmouth." I'll tell you in all honety that it was the best parade I've ever seen. Exactly what a parade should be. No organization. Anyone who wanted to be in the parade could. Fabulous costume - a real halloween dedication. Ninja Raph and frog Makili were a hit. Lots of random strangers asking for their photo. Makili is that cute.

Llama luau

Makili's first trip to the llama farm coupled with a fabulous trip into the Maine woods with Terry and Philippa. What a lucky kiddo!

Four months

The places we’ve been! It seems hard to imagine that Makili was born four short months ago. It seems like forever! I can’t even remember the person I used to be. I can’t imagine jumping in the car without a second thought to go to the store. Partly because I have a baby, and partly because we’re a one income family and have our first mortgage payment due in a week. We are relearning to live frugally.



Makili hardly resembles the baby that we met four months ago. Sometimes I doubt the baby he is now and the infant he was really housed the same little soul. We have definitely left infancy however, as Makili has learned that crying gets him what he wants (can you believe that they learn that this young!), and the need to explore the world expands every day. I read somewhere that for the first three months, babies only cry because something is wrong and you need to be as responsive as possible in that time.
Because we were surrounded by so many loving people in that first three months I really felt able to respond to Makili whenever he needed something.


Now we’re into month four. Makili cries because he wants the boob – not necessarily because he’s hungry. He cries because he wants out of the car seat. He cries because he doesn’t want to go to sleep even though he’s incredibly tired. He cries when his little hands won’t grab things the way he wants. And incredibly he cries a whole lot less than he used to. Thank god. Slowly I am learning to tell when he needs something verses when he’s bored and has decided another snack at the boob is a good idea. You might think, “what does it matter if he nurses extra?” I have the answer to this question. He doesn’t sleep. Makili’s debut into the world included awesome sleeping – 4-5 hours from the start and a solid 8 hours at about 7-8 weeks. I don’t know what happened but somewhere along the line he decided to give that up. He started waking earlier and earlier. And then more and more frequently. Nursing hourly during the day meant he wanted to nurse hourly at night, which really sucked (excuse the pun), especially when we didn’t have any furniture but a bed and so there was nowhere to escape to so Raph could get some much-needed sleep before work.

Now things seem to be getting better. We’re still not as good as before but waking only twice a night is infinitely better than hourly. And I’m typing this update as Makili goes onto wrap up a 3 hour nap. His naps have been getting progressively longer and less frequent, but this is a new record.


Makili can’t get enough of the world around him. It’s like Christmas every day around here as the catalogues just keep coming and coming. There is nothing he likes more than to crumple paper and rip leaves off of plants. He would rather be outside any day, which works out for me as I like to walk and we’ve been doing some regular exploring of our new neighborhood. We’ll see how that goes as it gets colder! Smiling is a big part of every day. A smile is guaranteed if you stick him in front of the mirror, even if he is in the middle of a meltdown. Sometimes he gets so caught up in smiling that he can’t do other things. Like nurse, for instance. He has to stop every minute or so and look at me and smile. I don’t mind that too much. Sometimes he’ll be lying on the floor playing and I’ll be doing something else and I’ll realize suddenly that he’s just laying there smiling at me. Heart-melting.



We’re getting settled into our tiny new house. We set up the beautiful crib that my uncle made for Makili, though he hasn’t slept in it yet because we haven’t bought a mattress yet. Anyway, he likes to sleep with us in our tiny full-size bed. Soon though he’ll be on his own for at least part of the night. We are pretty excited to be able to afford a house on one income and to be able to spend as much time together as we are. We feel pretty lucky. The beach pictures are from Fort Foster, which is three miles from our house. The three of us had a picnic dinner there at sunset the other day. It was pretty great.
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