One Small Step for Creeping Kid

Kiernan took his first official steps yesterday, Sunday, October 16, 2005, at about 6:00pm.

He has been cruising around the house quite comfortably for some time now. He pulls himself up on furniture and walks around holding onto it, or pulls himself up on us, grabs one of our hands, and leads us around the house. Or simply in circles. He likes walking in circles. Once he started doing this the general assumption was that he would start walking on his own shortly thereafter. He wasn't in a rush, however, and was content to maintain that level of mobility for awhile.

On Saturday I was following him as he crawled around the house and I looked away for a couple of seconds. I think this was the end of the USC/Notre Dame game. When I looked back, Kiernan was standing there playing with a cat toy. That's no big deal as he stands up all time--and Cali, our cat, has never said anything about the toy--except this time it occurred to me that there was nothing around him he could have used to help him stand. He had risen to his feet totally on his own.

By Sunday he was starting to rotate his standing postition without holding onto anything. When Wendy got home, late in the afternoon, I told her I had a feeling that today, Sunday, would be the day. We went inside to play with him, trying to get him to walk from one of us to the other. He's never gone for this. He gets too excited and his momentum gets the best of him and just drives him into the floor, or collapses him into our arms. So we kept playing. At one point he needed to get around Wendy, and that's when he did it, took his first steps. He wobbled around her, only falling down when he couldn't negotiate a maneuver around Ernie (a stuffed gift from NaNa that plays "Splish Splash" on a plastic electric guitar).

Later on, when Wendy was on the phone describing this to somebody, he did it again, this time in a straight line on the tile floor of the kitchen. He made it a few steps, then went down. I was there to catch him.

Sunday night is bath night. As I got the bath ready I called my dad to tell him the news of the walking. As I did this, Kiernan picked up the empty toilet roll holder (it's kind of like a decorative paper towel holder that sits on the bathroom floor) and proceeded to lead his mother on a march around the house. He was holding onto her with one hand, and holding the toilet roll holder with the other hand, brandishing it like he was a drum major and she was his marching band. He spent a good solid twenty minutes just walking his mother from room to room like this, nonstop.

As we got him ready for bed, Wendy looked about ready to collapse. She'd just gotten home from a tough week on the road, and we'd worked most of the weekend, and now she'd gone on a pre-bathtime forced march. I looked at her sprawled on the floor and thought of the coming day, Monday, which is one of my long days with Kiernan (and her long day away from him). I said, "I don't want hear it. What you just went through for twenty minutes, that's going to be my day tomorrow."

We both laughed, happy that our son is doing so well, and not a little nervous as, yet again, he's about to raise the bar.

Oh well, I can use the exercise.

"The bravest thing I have ever done."

Gammy and Kiernan were playing in the kitchen last week during Gammy and Grance's visit. Playing in the kitchen essentially involves four things:

1. Crawling around and picking up morsels of whatever from the tile floor and eating them. The terms "edible" and "non-edible" do not apply as, in our house and the surrounding environs, the latter term has ceased to exist. Everything goes in the mouth. Therefore, everything is now edible. Quad erat demonstrandum. The game for the adult is, of course, interception of said morsel.

2. Opening the special "Kiernan Drawer"--the lowest and deepest drawer, filled with baby-safe containers, measuring cups, and funnels--emptying all of the contents of said drawer, then sliding them across the tile floor and chasing after them.

3. Trying to open the non-baby-safe drawers and cabinets and getting angry when they won't open because they have locks on them or an adult is holding them shut.

4. Trying to eat the cat's food. Adult's role is, again, interception.

I think Gammy and Kiernan were playing Game #1 when all of a sudden Gammy put her bare foot down beside Kiernan and made a weird, oogy noise. I think it was something like, "Eeeewwwww!" I asked her what what wrong.

"That is the bravest thing I have ever done," she replied.

"What?"

"I just squished a spider with my bare foot. Kiernan was about to eat it."

Those of you who are far away, who are jealous of Gammy for getting to spend a week with Kiernan, take note. When you get your chance, this is what is expected. Spider squishing with bare feet. And other brave acts.

You have been warned.

The Faceoff. 

It Takes a Village...

...to eat a piece of bread.

I mentioned in the last post that Kiernan had started feeding us. He continued to improve this new talent by feeding his Gammy--Wendy's mom--all week long. Wendy was out of town for the week on a business trip, so her mother and her stepfather, Rance, were gracious enough to drive to California to help me out. Kiernan and I have had a couple of days without Mommy before, when she did overnight business trips, but we had never gone for a whole week without her. We were both a bit nervous. Fortunately Wendy sensed this and invited her parents to come and visit.

Lucky for us they took her up on it. Having them here made a world of difference.

Kiernan and I drove Wendy to the airport Monday morning. We arrived there in time for his breakfast feeding, which Wendy obligingly did sitting in an out of the way spot in the terminal. We waved bye-bye to her until she disappeared in the line for security screening, then we went back to the car for phase two of breakfast: cereal (incidentally, it's usually the other way around). After Kiernan finished his cereal we went for a little walk in the airport, just to give him a chance to stretch before what I anticipated would be a long car ride home. As there was a motorcycle wreck on the freeway, I'm glad I did that. Once we got back to the car, Kiernan immediately fell asleep and stayed napping all the way back to the house.

Shortly after we got home, Gammy and Grance arrived for their visit. That's right, I said "Grance". That's what he goes by with Kiernan, much to his chagrin. At some point several months ago I got tired of saying the words "Grandpa Rance" and just decided a contraction was in order. Thus was the name "Grance" born. And let me tell you, he just loves it. Absolutely loves it. Actually I think it is growing on him, but at first you could tell that he thought it was weird. To his credit, however, he has never overtly objected. At least not to us.

A word here, then, concerning the nicknames of grandparents.

Kiernan has eight grandparents. He has a Na-Na. A Pop. A Pap-Pap. A Sandi. An Omi. A Big Daddy Jake (I know, I know). A Gammy. And a Grance. Eight wonderful grandparents and not a Grandma or a Grandpa in the lot. The kid's gonna be a teenager before he gets their nicknames straight. Oh well. It's our fault. We let all of them come up with their own nicknames themselves, save poor Rance (who, it should be noted, offered to take the mantle of Grandpa until we shortened it, proving that we cannot be trusted, even when we complain). We should have just settled on two all-encompassing grandparent monikers, one for the girls and one for the guys, and left it at that. But we let them decide. I guess part of this was that I never got over the story of how my grandmother, my mom's mom, reacted when I came along as the first grandkid. I believe she said--God rest her soul--"What's he gonna call me? Can he call me Charlotte?"

At any rate, they're all fine individuals who have been great parents, so I suppose they've earned the right to be called whatever they want. In fact, I think I'm going to start brainstorming the name Kiernan's kids will call me, starting now. If you have ideas, feel free to chip in. As it stands I think I'll go with "Yo Dawg". It's got that hint of keepin-it-real without losing the essential classiness that embodies who I am. Yo Dawg. Yeah.

As for Big Daddy Jake...um...I think I'll cover that another time.

As soon as Gammy and Grance got here, they hit the ground running. Gammy demanded I hand over the baby and banished me to my office to get to writing. Rance procured a pair of clippers and went to work on the ridiculously overgrown ivy that lined--did I say lined? I meant engulfed--the driveway. He did a bang-up job on it too; by the end of the day you could actually get into the car without having the sensation that the hedge was trying to claim you as its own.

Gammy did a lot of the feeding during the week, which is why I mentioned that Kiernan was practicing so much of his new talent of feeding others on her. She was a good sport through it all, taking various bits of bread, half-chewed cheese--she tried Muenster on him, though right now he seems to prefer orange cheese and cheesefood--egg, turkey and capicola ham as Kiernan proffered them. She'd try every once and awhile to beg off, saying, "No no. I couldn't. Really you've given me enough. I'm full." Kiernan would have none of it, though, and would continue holding out the morsel until she took it.

At one point I was busying myself in the kitchen during a feeding and he held up a piece of bread for me to eat. I came over to his feeding table, bent down, and took the bread in my lips. We got the timing of the transaction wrong, however, and it sort of hung there, pinched between my lips. Before I could pull it into my mouth, he reclaimed it and popped it into his own. He smiled hugely and Gammy and I laughed. The game now has a new angle that has provided us a way out of eating half of his food. All we have to do is hold the food in our lips, and he takes it back and happily eats it, making us feel sort of like bird parents. This is especially good news for Wendy, for sooner or later he's going to offer cheese to her. The ultimate test will be to see whether she can stand to even hold it between her lips for a few seconds without freaking out. I'll keep you posted.

During one of our bread exchanges, a piece of bread fell to the floor. I beat the five-second rule and returned it to his table. He promptly held it out for me. I took it in my lips and he took it back, then he offered it to Gammy. She took it in her lips and he took it back. Satisfied that the tidbit had made sufficient rounds, Kiernan went ahead and ate it.

I can't wait until he starts using a spoon on his own. On days we have mashed peas, I plan to be out of the house. Or maybe I'll just have his Na-Na visit. I'm sure she loves peas.

Good for the Gosling, Good for the Goose

Kiernan feeds us now.

A couple posts back I did a rundown of what kinds of food he's eating now, telling about how we introduced Kiernan to solid foods and how well he's taken to them. Since that time we have tried a few other things that he is not so crazy about. Yet. We tried a bunch of steamed vegetables. He likes to arrange them on his table and plate, and tear apart the brocolli, but that's about it so far. We also tried some avocado. Wendy had heard from a couple other moms that their kids loved avocado. Not so with our little guy. Kiernan puts it in his mouth and it immediately comes back out. He does enjoy squeezing the bits of avocado in his little fists though, so there's that.

We will keep trying and I'll keep you posted. Experts say a kid may have to try a new food ten or fifteen times before he learns to like it. I was convinced those "experts" work for the baby food companies, so I was leery of this advice. I still went along with it, but I was leery. Then this week the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a bunch of new recommendations for parents, stuff about avoiding SIDS and giving kids pacifiers at night and what-not. In that announcement was this same advice about introducing new foods to babies. So I'm downgrading my "leery" attitude to "suspicious" and going from there. At least until Kiernan shows an interest in actually eating the brocolli and avocado.

And, most importantly, the pasta.

Yep, you read that right. The kid won't eat pasta. This is bad. My grandfather is Italian. My mom is very proud of this. So am I. My son not liking pasta is not an option. Not only is it a cultural imperative that he eat and love Italian food, but as the cook I demand the right to cook pasta on a regular basis. It's too easy a food to prepare--and too enjoyable to eat--not to have it in my arsenal. Also, I refuse to spend the next eighteen years not being able to placate my little boy--and, let's face it, myself--with macaroni-n-cheese.

Kiernan really, really likes bread though. Cantaloupe too. The other day Wendy was feeding him and I dropped a bunch of chunks of cantaloupe on his feeding table. He went right to work on it, munching away happily. After awhile he looked at Wendy thoughtfully, then held out a piece of the cantaloupe for her. She leaned forward, opened her mouth, and he popped it in for her to eat. He found this quite amusing and gave her another couple of pieces, doing this funny little squinty smile all the while. We found it just adorable.

The next day he was working on some pieces of bread and he did the same thing with me, only instead of a nice fat chunk of fresh cantaloupe, for me he held out a soggy piece of half-gummed bread. Nice. Well of course I couldn't refuse. I'm trying to get him to accept all this new food from me. It wouldn't do for me to reject the only piece of food he had ever offered me. So, I ate the soggy piece of bread. And he was delighted.

The only remaining question for Wendy, then, is how many Weight Watchers points you have to assign to the bits of food your baby feeds you. I think you get a pass on food your baby feeds you, personally, which is probably why Wendy is suggesting we introduce ice cream next.

I, for one, am all for it.

The Hundred Acre HollyWood

We took Kiernan to see "Disney Live! Winnie the Pooh" on Saturday. The show took place at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre, the venue that has hosted the Academy Awards since 2001. Actually, when I say "we" I don't just mean his mother and I. Née Née, Kiernan's godmother, was there too. She was the impetus for our going at all; she did a good amount of work on the show (she works for Disney) and called us a couple of months ago to suggest the three of us take Kiernan to see it. We in turn called his doctor to make sure Kiernan could go to a big show a few weeks after the surgery, and he gave us the green light.

I am constantly amazed at how becoming somebody's dad has changed me. A year ago I would have found attending a show like this to be nothing short of excruciating. As the title suggests, the show is pretty much a Winnie-the-Pooh story brought to life on stage, with actors in giant character costumes and huge happy-go-lucky musical numbers. Think Disney on Ice without the ice. Renee's excellent work aside, I would have sat there surrounded by gleefully screaming children rolling my eyes and clutching my head. Now...well...Now things are a bit different.

I loved the show.

Absolutely loved it. I thought it was fantastic and fun and hilarious. I had a great time. Thing is, I saw very little of the actual show because I was staring at Kiernan so much of the time. He was just flat out enthralled by the whole thing. He loves being around people, so just going to the Kodak Theatre was a thrill for him. Children running everywhere. Clowns hamming it up with the crowd. He was so excited. Then the show started and he was mesmerized. Just ten months old and he's such a good theatre goer. Far better than his dad.

This is the third show we've taken him to. First we went to see a new musical my friend Karen wrote, the excellent "Atalanta". I think Kiernan was six months old at the time, so I didn't know how he would react to being in a dark theatre for a full length show, but he was fantastic. Next Wendy took him to see "Legends of King Arthur"--another children's show written by Karen, only this time one of the actors was me. He was great at that show too. So I wasn't surprised that he was well behaved at the Pooh show; I was surprised, however, with how much he actually paid attention to the show, how much he got into it. He really watched the action on stage. He smiled some, and even danced along with many of the musical numbers while on Née Née's lap. By and large, however, he just watched the production unfold with wide-open eyes and a wide-open mouth, wonderment written all over his face.

I'm sure anyone looking at me, looking at him, would have seen the same thing.

Royale with Cheese

Well we can all rest easy now...Kiernan likes cheese.

The big developement in Kiernan's life this week has to do with food. We've been wanting to graduate him to more finger foods for some time now. He's been doing quite well with baby food, but we both felt it was time we exposed him to more of the foods we eat. To that end, this past weekend, Wendy gave him his first egg.

Egg yolk actually. His doctor said we could start him with egg yolk (cooked, of course), and if he took to that without any troubles we could try him on some scrambled eggs in a couple weeks. Apparently you're supposed to introduce yolks only at first because there is more chance a child will have an allergic reaction to egg whites. The doctor suggested we try a hard-boiled egg first, but as we didn't have any hard-boiled eggs lying around the house, we went ahead and just fried up an egg instead. Then we cut the yolk into little bite-sized pieces and let Kiernan go to work on it. He played with it for awhile, smearing it around on his table and dropping it to the floor. What he ate of it, that first time, he really seemed to like. He's liked it more with each successive trial.

A word here about hard-boiled eggs, then. I mentioned above that the doctor suggested we give him a hard-boiled egg first, then I said we fried one up instead. Since that day we've given him eggs every day. Fried every time. Fried is just easier. Also, there is the fact that I have this little thing about hard-boiled eggs. I fear them. I should clarify. I actually like eating hard-boiled eggs quite a bit. I'm nuts for egg salad sandwiches, and I go crazy for a good deviled egg. So I guess I'm not so much afraid of hard-boiled eggs as I am afraid of cooking them. Me, the fella who is generally in charge of the family cooking and who for the last few years has been responsible for cooking the turkey for holiday meals, has an egg boiling phobia.

I really don't know why this is. Maybe it's just the mystery of the package that is the egg. It's so intimidating. With most other foods there is a way to tell whether that food is done. You can poke it, or prod it, or stick a thermometer in it. But it has always seemed to me that with an egg you're flying blind. If you haven't cooked it enough, and you open it, you can't shove it back in the shell and boil it some more. You're stuck with a soft-boiled egg. Not so bad in and of itself, but not what you were looking for going in, and certainly no good for a baby. If you cook it too much, it turns all green and nasty. Frying is so much easier because you can see the whole process right there.

I suppose I have to get over this now that my son is such a fan of eggs. He's growing. I'm growing.

In addition to eggs, this week Kiernan has had bits of lunch meat, bits of fresh cantaloupe, bits of watermelon, bits of bread (wheat bread), some banana, and some cheese. He also shared an apple with his mom (pictured). Almost without fail he has tried everything and liked it okay at first, then really liked it more the second time, then liked it even more after it had been retrieved from the floor. Somehow everything tastes better if it comes off the floor. The kid can totally finish with a meal, knocking your hand away to insist that he is done eating, then when he gets down from his seat he'll still eat everything in sight, food or not. String. Pieces of straw tracked in from outside. The cat. I mean, I know that tasting is just another way he is exploring his world, but does everything have to go in the mouth?

The answer is yes. I'm vacuuming much more these days in an effort to keep the straw I find in his diaper to a minimum. The ironic thing is I have to vacuum far less, in reality, because he's picking the floor clean so effectively.

Anyway, so far the food thing is going along nicely. Mealtimes have started to become more pleasant now that he is feeding himself, even if a lot of that includes playing with his food. When we were just spooning baby food into him he was still a good eater, but had to be entertained a incessantly. He'd grow bored with the meal and we would have to parade a variety of things past him to entertain him. Spoons for him to play with and tupperware containers for him to hide behind as we smuggled green beans into his mouth. Now that he's got all this food to occupy his hands he seems to be enjoying mealtime. Watching him sample and explore his world through food makes feeding more fun for us, as well.

Plus, as I said before, he likes cheese. This is a big deal around here. Many people were nervous about this as his mother is something of a picky eater, and does not like cheese. She makes an exception where pizza is concerned, but sadly you'll never see extra cheese as a topping in our house. Now that I've got another cheese eater in the house, however, all this is going to change. It's going to be a nonstop cheese fest, with cheese and fruit after dinner and cheese fondue at every meal. Sure, I'll weigh five hundred pounds, but at least I'll have cheese back in my life again in a meaningful and legally binding way.

I can't wait to see if he likes tomatoes, peppers and sour cream. I haven't been inside a decent Mexican restaurant in twelve years.

First this apple...then the world!

Saturday was Overalls Appreciation Day (husband wearing overalls not pictured, thank goodness) 

March of the Godparents

Sunday was a pretty good day for Kiernan. He got to see all three of his godparents, which always makes him happy. He's just crazy about the three of them, and really lights up when they come over.

It was also Movie Swap Day for Kiernan's parents. We don't get out to the movies much these days. This is our fault, and not for want of babysitting offers. In the months leading up to Kiernan's surgery, both of us were loathe to leave him with anybody else for any length of time. Even though his trusted and beloved godparents offered to look after him, as did his grandparents when they visited, Wendy and I were too freaked out to take them up on the offer. Especially after he had his spell--an episode related to his heart condition in which it seemed he was going to pass out. Until this happened we'd never really seen any external indication that there could be anything wrong with Kiernan's heart. He was the very picture of health. The spell was quite sobering, and it just seemed unfair to put someone else in the postion of looking after him. But the real reason was overprotectiveness and paranoia. The idea that he might have another spell, or a related emergency, with neither of us there to see him through it, was unimaginable.

Understandable to be sure, but still frustrating for those who'd offered to babysit and wanted to spend quality time with him, and frustrating for us as well.

Since his surgery we've been far too focused on his recovery to consider going on many dates, but the time is approaching when we'll need to make that a more regular thing. In the meantime, there's Movie Swap Day, in which we stagger our film viewing, one of us going out to see something early on and the other one going out later. There is an added bonus to this method of moviegoing: I get to dodge the chick-flick bullet. I just cannot overstate the value of this aspect of Movie Swap Day. There's nothing worse than finally getting to go out and being stuck watching The Wedding Planner.

So imagine my surprise when I asked Wendy what she was going to see this Sunday afternoon and she answered, "Serenity." She was going to see a spaceship movie! And she was going with her chick-flick buddy, Renee! At first I thought the two of them were trying to pull a fast one, that they were actually planning to sneak back to Renee's apartment to watch a compilation video of Matthew McConaughey's shirtless scenes. Or else Renee had found out about a Scottish Highland Games festival and the two of them were going to crash it to try to find the personification of Jamie--the hero of these Scottish romance/time-travel books they both read--and try to swipe his kilt. Turns out they did go to see the spaceship movie, and really liked it.

For my part I went to see a penguin movie. Yes, that's right. Given the opportunity to finally get out to the movies, I choose a documentary about penguins. I cannot explain this. I can, however, report that March of the Penguins is a fantastic film. I expected it to be. What I did not expect was that the film would make me feel so good about being a parent. Not that I've ever felt otherwise, but this film just filled me with a sense of pride and happiness about this new role of father. Kind of a cool byproduct.

At any rate, later in the day--but before the penguins--Kiernan's two godfathers, Darren and Daniel stopped by to see him. As if getting to see Renee--who in her alter ego "Nee Nee" is his godmother--wasn't enough! He was in seventh heaven, crawling all over them and showing them some of his new tricks. A great ending to the day.

Of course then I had to walk seventy miles to get food for him, but that's another story for another post.