I'm so mad at my mother!

After weeks of effort and ups and downs, within inches of success, we won't be breastfeeding Sara anymore.

It looked like we had actually succeeded, despite many ups and downs. I spent a lot of energy encouraging Gan when times were hard.

But then when we were on the razor's edge, my mom, frustrated with trying to convince me to give up on breastfeeding, took matters into her own hands. Since Mom had failed to breastfeed, I guess she didn't want to see why anyone else might want to overcome the difficulties and succeed. So, she went for the jugular and sent this "caring" e-mail to Gan (not copying me, of course).

Dear Gan: Steve told me about the mastitis. I feel so sorry for you. You're having a hard time, with heavy bleeding and sore, inflamed breasts. My heart goes out to you. If you were my daughter (and therefore I had the right to give you advice whether you wanted it or not) I would say, "Put Sara on a bottle and enjoy her." Your overall health is more important than the small benefits to Sara's health. You gave breastfeeding a valiant try, which is all a parent can ever do.

I love you. Please don't be mad at me for meddling. When Sara is all grown up and on her own, you will still tell her how to live. Mothers are like that.

--
Regards,

And what do you know, it worked!

Kind of like saying to a recovering alcoholic "So sad about your wife leaving you. Come let me buy you a drink!".

Good job, Mom.

Welcome to the Machine

At the tender young age of 3 weeks, Sara has already been stamped and labeled. Actually, i think it's pretty cool that she received some mail in her name. It's her second official document, after her birth certificate.

Plus, i had fun figuring out how to smudge the secret information on the image.

One more recent photo

This one is just too cute to leave out. It captures Sara at her cutest. She must have just eaten, and not yet fallen asleep when i took this photo.

New Parents Photo update

Due to popular request, here are some more photos of us and the baby.
I think most of these were taken when Lauren came to visit.

isn't she lovely?

Here is some video of our new daughter set to the great Stevie Wonder song from "Songs in the Key of Life". I threw this together quickly, so i apoligize to the techofiles out there for the low quality...

On the 4th day...

We think that she's getting cuter with every passing day.

Sara with Mom and with Dad

Here's a couple of photos of the proud new parents, taken when Sara was about 2 or 3 days old.

Sara Mei Weighing in...

Here's the first photo of Sara, taken on her way from the delivery room to the nursery. She was screaming the entire time.






And here she is on the scale, weighing in at 8 lb, 7.9 oz. She was screaming and flailing her arm around for this photo too.

Isn't she Lovely?

Well, here she is! I fell in love with her at first sight.

This is a photo that i took on Sara Mei's birthday, Friday November 2, 2007. This picture was taken a few hours after she was born. I took the photo with my cellphone and e-mailed it to Rusty. I'm sure that more, higher resolution photos will be posted here soon, so keep your eyes on this site.

The cesarean delivery went smoothly with no complications. Gan is recovering wonderfully. She's up and walking around the maternity ward several times a day. She's the greatest.

Sara is a screamer, our little Jersey Girl, but she's easy to settle. She weighed 8 1/2 lb at birth, and in excellent health.

It's day 3, and finally the parents are learning from the hospital staff how to handle her. We're much more relaxed and we're really enjoying our sweet daughter. We're looking forward to seeing her grow.

Words that are easy to spell on your phone

When you're spelling words on your phone keypad, you have to press the same button multiple times to get most of the letters. Like you have to press the "1" button 3 times to get a "c".

When i lived in Matawan, i noticed that you could spell the word "Matawan" on your phone pressing each button only once, right up until the last letter, "n", which was the 6 button twice. I thought, "there's an interesting property of a word".

So, i ran a simple program to figure out all the words that have the property of being easy to spell on the phone keypad.

Here's the script, and the longest few words.

cat words | grep -i '^[a,d,g,j,m,p,t,w]*$' | awk '//{print length($0),$0}' | sort -rn

pawpaw Tampa papaw mamma magma madam gamma adapt Watt watt tamp papa Matt matt mama data damp Dada Adam

If i extend the criteria to include words that are good up until the last letter (like "Matawan"), i get

cat words | grep -i '^[a,d,g,j,m,p,t,w]*.$' | awk '//{print length($0),$0}' | sort -n

Matawan wattage pawpaws pajamas Tampax papaws pampas mammas mammal mammae madman madams madame Jamaal gammas damage Addams adapts

It's surprising to me that Matawan is one of the longest of such words. I really did stumble onto an interesting word.

Last Beach Trip this summer

We went to the beach about a month ago now with Sydney and Maria and Isaac, their 2 year old son. It was our last day at the beach for this summer. I took this picture with my cellphone camera of Gan with Syd and Isaac with the Atlantic Ocean in the background. I was pleased with the picture. It almost looks like one of those pictures they use to sell frames.

dilated to meet you

This music video captures our feelings as we wait for our baby girl to arrive.

New Tattoo

Well, it's only a temporary tattoo, but i think it looks pretty cool. It came as an ad in a magazine, so i gave it a shot. Man, temporary tattoo technology has really improved since i was a kid. I dampened my arm and put this thing on for 10 seconds with a wet paper towel behind it, and damn, it turned out pretty good. I remember always being disappointed by those things when i was a kid. I guess my daughter's going to have a lot to be thankful for being born in this day and age.

I thought i'd capture it before i have to take a shower. Gan thinks it looks stupid...i thought she'd have gone for it.

New Bicycle

I bought a new bike, made by a company called Breezer. It took me a while to find the bike i was looking for. I guess that most people want a bike that's good for riding on a nice day, but not worried about riding at night, or in the rain. So most bikes don't have a light, or fenders. This one's even got a bell and a rack, which i love.

It's called a "commuter bike", which is exactly what i use it for. I am fortunate to be able to ride to work, so i am taking advantage of that, while Gan can use the car.

Playing by ear

I've been trying to figure out how to play the piano by ear. I tried for years when i was a teenager, with absolutely no success.

But lately i have been poking around at it and surprisingly, without really trying too hard, i am improving. Normally what i do is play along with whatever's playing on the stereo. My goal is to figure out what key the song is in. If i can do that, i'm happy. Now i can usually figure that out before the song is over. (In the last couple of years, Bob Dylan in concert seems to be using all the black keys, maybe that's why he's playing the piano instead of the guitar).

Today, i was playing around with chords. Chords are hard for me to figure out. Too much going on. But as i was stumbling around, i figured out the main riff in Tom Petty's "Freefalling". Just like that..then i put it on and it was even in the right key. That could have been luck, i suppose. But it sounded perfect. That was a major breakthrough for me. Maybe i'll figure out more stuff one of these years.

Visiting Kerouac's Grave

I was visiting a friend near Lowell, Mass and i wanted to visit Kerouac's grave. I'd seen it in this movie with Dylan and Ginsberg.
Anyway, we went there. It took a while to find, even though we had a map. The place is HUGE. When we got there, it was like a shrine. There was a grass-worn-off area around it...That's a real honor. And there were all these little "offerings"...flowers, pens, shoes, and there was a little metal box (like an Altoids tin) with a note that read "The contents of this belong to whoever finds it" or something like that. I shook it and it sounded like something inside. i figured it was some weed or something. I opened it up and there was a poem and a brand new $100 bill! I knew that it wasnt intended for me, so i didn't take it though. It was meant for some kid desparate for busfare. So i added what i had in my pocket, about $20, and left it there. I hope whoever found it was as happy as i was when i found it.

Hi Speed train September 19, 2007, 02:22 PM

Here's a train that passed by the platform while i was filming with my phone. It was really moving pretty fast.

Gan at 7 months pregnant in the apartment

Gan climbing the stairs and sitting on the couch at 7 months pregnant.

Gan in the garden

Here's a view of Gan at 7 months pregnant in the garden outside our apartments, with me playing the role of the stupid interviewer.

Mike's Melbourne Metro Map

My friend Mike in Melbourne must have ridden every train and tram in the city, and carefully put together this map of the system. Every city he visits, he checks out the public transit system, and compares all the details (ticket machines, maps, and of course trains, trams...). This map seems to be the best of all the maps he's seen, and maybe some tricks of his own, applied to his home town. It looks pretty official, too.