2/26/2009

Alton's Four Months Old

The 24th of February was sunny, so I put Alton in the front window and took a bunch of pictures. I need your help to decide which of the following three I should enter in a cute baby photo contest.

HAPPY BABY



SERIOUS BABY



or DROOLING BABY



Please tell me which one you think a panel of five women would like enough to give me $500. Also, do you think we should photoshop out the tattoos or do they make the pictures? Thank you for your help.

2/08/2009

New Haircut and Other Updates

I got my hair cut two weeks ago. I really like it. It's fun. And now, when the baby pukes on my shoulder, my hair stays milk-free.



Alton is three and a half months old now. He started to laugh a few weeks ago. He makes these little squeals and my heart just overflows. He's also grabbing his feet and curling up into a little smiling bundle. He rolls himself onto his side this way. He's putting everything in his mouth now — especially his fingers. He chomps, too. I haven't felt any teeth, but he's working on changing that.



Over Martin Luther King Jr Day weekend, husband and baby and I went to Brooklyn for a fly-off-to-Rome-on-a-moment's-notice type of weekend. I bought tickets on Friday at 6 p.m. and was on a plane that same night at 10:55. Alton slept the whole way out. No red eyes for this baby.

It was 11 degrees in Brooklyn and it snowed. It was great to have a little winter this winter. I loved walking around in the cold with the baby, in his fuzzy coat, strapped to the front of me.

It was really great to see all our friends in New York. With a few hours' notice, they pulled together a party with 30 or so people. It makes you feel loved when something like that can come together so fast. Alton was a big hit. He smiled and cooed and made everybody love him. He's good at that. It's one of his best tricks.

Back on the West Coast the weather is the same (surprise, surprise). And I keep banging my elbow on door frames. I've hit the same elbow in the same place in different doorways at least ten times now — probably more like 15 -- over the past few weeks. It really hurts and I don't know why it's happening. I have always thought that I had a pretty good understanding of where my body starts and stops. But lately, man, it hurts to use my whole right arm. And I'm right-handed.

Did you know that you can't sell breast milk in California? It's against the law. It was just a fleeting get-rich-quick idea I had, but illegality makes it too tough. You can donate your milk to a milk bank and they will in turn sell it to hospitals and wherever, but I can't sell directly to milk banks or directly to people (moms and non-moms) who want it. I'm not sure what I think of that. If I really want to get rich off my surplus, there is (of course) a thriving online black market for breast milk. It's pretty easy to find. What you do is go to google and type "breast milk".

I will leave you for now with this: