After such a long period not writing, I’m finding it difficult to get back into it again. That’s unfortunate, as there’s been a lot to write about. Mathias in particular has been going through a lot of changes as of late: He’s standing with assistance, is showing signs of (finally) getting ready to crawl, and has become quite proficient at feeding himself. His mom and I have gotten some (supposedly) expert feedback that we may be going too easy on him in trying to get him to sleep through the night, but we both run into philosophical issues in that area. After all, each of us gets up once or twice a night to get a drink of water or visit the bathroom… Is it unreasonable for our child to want to do the same?

Ah, the complicated trials of parenthood. If we spend all this time trying to figure out how to best handle his sleeping habits, I can’t wait to see what we do as we encounter other issues that are more complicated.

Beyond that, Lisa and I went on a date Saturday night. It was fun, if a bit expensive for our cash-constrained household. We didn’t do much: We started with a tasty but overpriced dinner at Duplex, following that with an hour or so wandering around Uptown and desert at Cafe Latte. None of those things would’ve been unusual 15 months ago, but now they’re rare moments to be enjoyed and savored.

~ ~ ~

No news on my grades yet. Then there’s that immunization hold on my account… Had I started school two years earlier, it wouldn’t be a problem, but because of some apparent discarding of records, I may have to get a whole mess of shots before I can take another class. It would’ve been nice if this became clear a bit earlier in the year so I could have more time to respond to it, but I guess that’s how the U runs things.

Well, I’m finally getting back to normal after SXSW.  There’s still a stack of people to contact, photos to upload, and a report out to do at work, but other than that, the concerns are the familiar:   Baby, schoolwork and workwork.

In other news, I missed my baby’s first two teeth.  They arrived while I was in Austin.

In other baby news, he apparently loves techno.  Or, at least, he loved techno at Urban Outfitters today.

Yes, we still shop at Urban Outfitters.  No, we’re not 12.

Not much else to report.   I’m still coughing.

Kind of a rough couple days. Lisa’s feeling better, but Mathias has come down with a cold. All things considered, he’s handling it pretty well, but he’s making his dad paranoid. The occasional hacking from his room is actually kind of comforting in a way. It’s a signal that his little body is working through whatever he’s dealing with… And that he’s still breathing.

Note to any prospective parents out there: This is the kind of stuff you’ll end up worrying about. You may even be able to tell that you’re overreacting, but you’ll still do it.

Stories like this in the paper don’t help. Of course, that’s not even remotely comparable to what we have in the Danielson household–Mathias has gotten his shots, has health care and, more than anything else, has a cold, not the flu–but it’s still a bad thing for a parent to read just as his or her son is coming down with something.

~ ~ ~

Back to studying.

I got a call from Lisa that Mathias rolled over on his own this morning.  While he’d managed to roll over a number of times before, those cases had all been on soft surfaces or inclines, both asterisk-producing qualifiers worthy of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.  This morning was on a hard surface, his play mat, meaning he finally found a way to not get stuck on the arm he was trying to cross over.

Typical of Danielson, he decided to do it by himself with no one else around.  I of course was at work, but Lisa didn’t see it happen, either.  She’d walked out of the living room for a few moments to take care of something, and when she returned Mathias was laying on his stomach with his head up in observation.

I came home tonight all ready to study, but instead found myself confronted with a sick baby and an equivalently stressed mom. I’ve gotten some studying done, and am feeling slightly better about the test on Wednesday–slightly–but still wish the little one had picked a different time to get sick.

Ah, parenthood. Lisa occasionally mentions that she sometimes feels she’s going insane when staying at home with the baby all day, but from my point of view she’s doing a remarkably good job. I’m sure if I was the one staying home I would’ve gone coo coo for cocoa puffs a few months ago. It’s kind of weird: She often suffers from a lack of adult interaction, I often suffer from too much of it, and we’ve found no great way to bridge the gap. There have been a number of days where I’ve come home completely wiped out from work and school wanting nothing more than to have an hour or so of down time, only to find her in a position 180 degrees from mine. Long term, this will get better as Lisa and I start going on trips again, or even start finding the time to go out on a few dates. Until then, though, there will probably be a few more nights like this one.

~ ~ ~

A few hours after going to sleep, Mathias awoke agitated and cranky. Lisa and I both took turns trying to put him back to sleep, but both of us failed. I came close at one point, but he caught a coughing fit a moment after I put him in his crib, and we were back to square one.

Eventually Lisa and I ended up together in his room with a few of the lights on, with both of us taking turns holding him. He calmed down, started sucking on his fingers, and quietly stared back and forth at the two of us, apparently comforted by the fact these two people he’d grown very familiar with were sitting there keeping him company. And in that way, while it wasn’t a good evening, it wasn’t a completely bad one, either.

In addition to the regular studying and errands handled this weekend, our family headed off to the SuperTarget in Roseville to get some portraits made of Mathias. (I’m kind of old school and wanted to go to Sears, but Lisa had heard good things about the Target studios.) Mathias actually seemed to enjoy the photo shoot, although the end results were kind of disappointing, with the overall quality somewhat akin to what you’d see on a ProLife Across America billboard.

Next time we decide to do a portrait, I’ll probably just buy a fancy set of sheets and do it myself. When we get the prints I’ll see what I can do to scan them in and get them up on Flickr.

~ ~ ~

In other Mathias news, I wouldn’t be surprised if our little guy starts talking in the next few weeks or so. He’s been making various baby sounds for quite some time now, but sometime over the past few days he’s started enunciating in such a way that his sounds seem less like baby babble and more like some unknown foreign language. This is just another one of those things I never thought I’d find exciting, but, let me tell you, it is.

A quick Mathias note:  Our little man is standing!  Okay, so he still completely lacks the entire balance thing, requiring mom or dad to actively steady him, but as of today he seems able to counter gravity for two to three seconds at a time.  He’s still working on effectively grabbing larger objects (i.e., the kind he could steady himself with), too, but seems to be getting closer to success there as well.

I’m amazed at how quickly our little baby is growing.  At this rate he could very well be running around the place by the time he’s one.

Now that Mathias has been sleeping through the night more often than not, and has been getting very close to outgrowing his co-sleeper, we finally decided to move him to his crib in his own room tonight.  It’ll be the first time since his arrival that he won’t be sleeping in the same room as us.  It’s kind of weird…  We finished off the nursery a few weeks before he was born, but aside from the changing table, it’s pretty much been laying dormant since then.  Our preparations over the past few days to move him in there have been a reminder of all the planning and work we did in the first place.

This photo seems like a very long time ago.

I’ll miss waking up to his morning calisthenics and vocal exercises, but it’ll be nice to get a few extra minutes of sleep, too.

For the record, the post immediately preceding this one was brought to you courtesy of Mathias banging on the keyboard.

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