It's the teeth

Seriously. It's Gabriel's teeth that prevented me from posting. With a baby that is not sleeping well, I just get home from work, eat, play with the baby, talk to Michelle, and sleep. Last night, Gabriel finally slept without waking up (or Michelle and I were just so tired that we didn't hear him), so tonight I am sufficiently awake to write. There is so much to look back to!

Three weeks ago, Gabriel participated in his first Palm Sunday celebration. For this occasion, he went to the cathedral of Montreal, where he joined the choir to sing at the mass for those members of the diocese that were traveling to the World Youth Day in Australia.

There were full-size, triple-size and way-too-big t-shirts for Gabriel, so he took a full-size, of course.

Finally, Gabriel proudly posed with the other choir members.

For easter, Gabriel did not sing. Instead, he went to join his godfather David...

... on a trip to New Orleans. Gabriel demonstrated his travel experience at Chicago O'Hare when he pushed the baggage cart all by himself.

He enjoyed the trip so much, that he had to find a new way of expressing himself: He started babbling.

Gabriel visited the French Quarter in New Orleans,...

... he saw nice manors in the city,...

... he enjoyed visiting a plantation, ...

... that was also impressive for us,...

... and he visited the aquarium, where he fortunately didn't manage to catch any fish.

So many new impressions get even the hardiest traveler tired!

Gabriel was not too sad when we had to leave, because he got to ride the bus again!

A few days after we returned, Gabriel celebrated his 8th month birthday with the usual state of the baby address. He was standing on my belly, and he tried to help me digest by jumping up and down on my stomach.

With this, I leave you for now. In my next post I will link to an online album with more pictures by David, Michelle and myself of New Orleans, and there will be two new videos of Gabriel: Gabriel vs. the water, and Gabriel vs. the bear!

Forward!

Since Friday, Gabriel is mobile, and he is getting faster by the day. Goodbye peaceful days! Gone is the time when we could put Gabriel somewhere and be sure that he would not move. Nevertheless, Michelle and I are very proud.
Sometimes Gabriel still gets stuck, of course ...

... but I still have to learn to live with the fact that it is no longer easy to build a tower out of Gabriel's reach.

Of course, there are solutions to limit Gabriel's mobility. Here's a low-cost version.

We are also happy that Gabriel is eating well again. He had refused all solids except banana while he had a cold. Now he devours again everything we feed him.

Note that it was Michelle who had been feeding him. I usually put the food in Gabriel's mouth. At any rate, Gabriel is growing well. At 7 1/2 months, he is ~72 cm tall and weighs 9 kg.



He also likes taking baths as well, after he had grown terrified of the water, possibly after water had run into his eyes once.

By the way: Guess the two other letters that Gabriel gets to play with in his bath. Michelle claims she chose the letters randomly.


Sunday, Gabriel was at his first Montreal St.Patrick's day parade.

He heard bagpipes,...

... and he saw many elderly men march and drive down the street.

Oh, and camels.

Every place has their own flavor of St.Patrick's day, I guess.



For easter, Gabriel is going on vacation where he'll meet his godfather. Gabriel can't wait.

Even though we've enjoyed the snow a lot (and it was a lot of snow: after the big snowstorm ten days ago this winter has become the one with the second strongest snowfall since they started recording), we're glad to get a preview of early summer in New Orleans.

We're just glad we won't have to go to the airport by car.

Playing

Gabriel is learning to play more actively, and he is able to keep himself entertained for 15-20 minutes at a time (for comparison: His dad can play on the computer all by himself for hours on end). One good time for playing is in the morning.

Although he pretends to be a poor little prisoner, he actually enjoys himself quite a bit in the morning, doing gymnastics...

... or playing with the stuffed animals.

We can often hear him "talk" to the animals after he wakes up. Whenever we come into the room, he turns to us with a big smile.

Playing has more nuances now. When he gets a new toy, Gabriel first studies it carefully.

Then, he eats it.

Beware, you who take away his toys. You make a baby cry.

Playing is also more varied. Gabriel likes playing with the same toys as his parents. He loves books, for example. I have to give him a baby book if I want to be sure that Gabriel won't try to eat what I'm reading.

Thus, when I read, Gabriel reads. When I work on the computer, Gabriel... ah, well.

Gabriel has started spending more time in his room, which we have intended as a place where he can leave his toys, and where there is little risk of him breaking or pulling down things.

As I mentioned in my last post, Gabriel has become much better at sitting without assistance.

Therefore, Michelle had the great idea to put a few toys in a bowl and to sit Gabriel next to it. Gabriel enjoys taking out the toys (we hope that in a few months, he will start enjoying putting them back in!), and playing with them and the bowl.

Of course, this much playing takes its toll.

Seven months!

Fortunately, Gabriel gets older, so that I am forced to update the blog at least once a month.

He does not only get older, but he keeps growing. This brings the inconvenience that he keeps outgrowing beautiful clothes. However, it does tell us that something happens with all the food and care Gabriel is getting.

At seven months, Gabriel does not have any teeth yet, and he does not say "dada" or "gaga" yet. But as you will hopefully understand from his State of the Baby address, he is quite happy and active.

He is still very fond of standing up (with help, of course). What is new is that he is able to sit without help for quite some time. At least until he's distracted, or until a parent wants to play with him.

In that video, I coughed on purpose, because I knew that would make Gabriel happy. I am not sure why that would be. Gabriel had a cold this past week, so maybe he feels happy that he is not alone. Anyway, here's the footage of when we found out that coughing is funny according to some.

While some things change, others stay the same. Gabriel still likes to discover new things by putting them in his mouth, such as this new toy.

Other things to put in his mouth include electrical cords, paper, or anything else he can get his hands on. We have to be careful, because he is able to get his hands on more and more things. When Michelle checked on Gabriel a few minutes after taking the picture, he had already managed to get three diapers out of the bag.

His favorite objects to suck that don't provide food are of course his fingers.

In the last few days, we have seen him suck his thumb, but he has not done it when we had the camera at the ready. Something else he has been doing more often is bite his lower lip.

I don't think it has anything to do with teething. Gabriel has probably noticed that this face pleases the crowds, and since he is a nice guy, he tries to please the crowds.

The daily routines have not changed much, Gabriel still has a healthy appetite, even though he has scaled back a bit on the solids for an unknown reason.

We also have to still dress him up warmly before we go outside. Fortunately, he doesn't protest as much anymore as before when we dress him.

But once we get outside, he is usually fast asleep within moments. Even on a stunningly beautiful day.

Finally, he still enjoys taking his bath, ...

... and the lobster remains one of his favorite toys. This is, by the way a picture taken by my brother during Christmas break. Click the link below for a few more.

From Christmas2007

6 months!

It is amazing how quickly Gabriel is growing. So much change, and he has only just been around for six months. It's not so much that he is getting longer (70.5 cm) and heavier (8.4 kg) by the day, but he is starting to become a person with his own will.
For example when I am feeding him, he now grabs the bottle and puts it into his mouth by himself, so that he can drink at his own pace. He also wants to set the pace by himself when he's eating solids, which he started two weeks ago. He loves the rice cereal that is the first non-milk food given to babies in Canada, and he could not get enough of carrots and apples. Today, we tried pumpkin for the first time.

Needless to say that he liked it.

The food container is not the only thing he tries to grab. For quite a while, he has been fascinated by liquid containers, such as bottles, glasses, cups. He wants to hold them and he wants to drink from them. This is mostly funny, but sometimes, all I want to do is to drink in peace!

To finish for tonight (yes, I haven't forgotten about the Christmas pictures), here's Gabriel's state of the baby address on the occasion of his 6 months' birthday.

By the way: In case you have to rotate the videos you made with your digital camera, I can very much recommend the free program VirtualDub.

Happy 2008!

Many things have happened in the weeks since I last posted. For one, Gabriel is now 5 1/2 months old, and, fittingly for the new year, he has passed the 8 kg mark. Also, I try to feed him non-liquids since Sunday (and it's not the reason all my hair is falling out).

I am getting ahead of myself, though.

Early December, we put Gabriel's machine-readable passport to use for the first time: We went to the US. They weren't actually able to read from the chip yet at immigration, of course. Still, we wanted to make sure that we use the 150$ passport required for entry into the US a few times before it expires in less than three years.
Thus, Michelle and Gabriel accompanied me to the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in Washington DC.

The flight was no problem whatsoever, and we were very happy with the Bed&Breakfast we stayed at, the Meridian Manor. We had been promised a baby bed, so we were a bit surprised when the owner had prepared an adult's bed for Gabriel. He apologized, saying he didn't actually know how to put the baby bed together. Gabriel slept like an angel, so fortunately I didn't need to show off my talents as an engineer.

While I was at the conference, Michelle and Gabriel visited the city, enjoying many of the amazing sights and museums.

Then, they would come and pick me up at the conference and tell me all about their great day.

After a dinner in one of the excellent restaurants in the area, either only the three of us, or together with our good friends Dinah and Raffi, whose great idea it was to try out the B&B, we would spend the evening in our room, relaxing...

...or playing.

This was not a bad arrangement. Normally, I would have spent all night meeting people, which one of the reasons ASCB is so draining. Now that I actually slept at the hotel instead of napping during a boring talk, I only had to survive the several thousand posters.
Fortunately, I could spend one more day in Washington to relax and cool down - it even snowed! The entrance to the B&B was pretty when we came home the night of the snowstorm, and we were glad we hadn't tried to fly back that night.

Fortunately, Montreal had us well-prepared for the chilly temperatures, so Michelle, Gabriel and I tremendously enjoyed the day off (Gabriel is actually inside the stroller, not in the net below).

Then, we had to go back to Montreal and prepare for the arrival of our Christmas guests. But that is a story for another day.

4 months

Yesterday, Gabriel was four months old. It's bizarre - it feels like he has been with us for an incredibly long time, but when you actually count, it hasn't even been 125 days. So it may be true indeed: Babies grow fast. In the last two weeks, Gabriel grew by 0.5 cm to 66.5 cm, and he got heavier by 300 g, so that he weighs now 7.3 kg.
One moment last week that made me realize just how much he has changed was when I looked for a desktop wallpaper for my new laptop (which I recieved after long wait; the University of Montreal is not the most efficient place when it comes to ordering. I was very much reminded of the process by this comic). On my old laptop, I still have the picture of little Gabriel asleep on Michelle's shoulder that I posted a while ago.

For the new laptop, I chose this picture:

It's not only his looks that have changed, but also the way he interacts with the world. Here's a video from when he was one day old:

And here's Gabriel's speech on the occasion of his 4-month "anniversary" (featuring Michelle):

Learning

This week, I've had two more opportunities to try and be only parent for Gabriel. I'm learning quickly. For example, the milk has to be thawed before Gabriel gets really hungry. Once he's been crying for ten minutes or more, he has a very hard time calming down. The milk has to be around 37°C, or Gabriel will keep complaining while he eats. And there are all kinds of fun way to carry a baby (at least in my and Gabriel's opinion) that I best explore when Michelle is somewhere else.

Gabriel is learning, too. He is gradually getting better at interacting with objects: He grabs them with one or both hand and puts them in his mouth. Or at least he tries.

The above is a toy Michelle has borrowed from the Joujouthèque, a "library" that loans toys. What an excellent idea for parents who don't really need heaps of toys all over the place. Below, he is trying to eat one of Michelle's own creations: A rattle made from two sieves that enclose two bells and that are held together by multi-colored yarn. Both Gabriel and I like to play with it a lot.

Another activity Gabriel likes is touching the wall. He can spend several minutes pushing against a wall. That is good because it leaves sufficient time to call Michelle, admire Gabriel's activity, and get the camera to take pictures. He also does that with my face, which is kind of neat, except that I have to clean my glasses afterwards. I believe that he is starting to get a feel for the length of his arms, and for distance in general, rather than to explore the wall. For example, he didn't ever try to touch the light switch. Apparently, it is going to take a moment before he realizes that this is something unusual that can be manipulated.

Feeding the baby

I have been giving Gabriel the bottle almost every evening for the last two weeks. It is wonderful that I am finally able to feed my boy, too. In retrospect it was fairly easy go get Gabriel to drink from a plastic nipple, though I did worry for a while that he would refuse it. Walking around with the crying baby to calm him down, teasing his lips with the nipple, and not giving in finally did the trick.

Now, Gabriel starts making sucking motions when he sees the bottle, which is nice. However, he is tired in the evening which dramatically shortens his attention span and his ability to endure discomfort. Thus, if he's not extremely hungry, he keeps looking around while trying to drink, or he cries because of hunger and tiredness instead of drinking, so that I have to walk around with him to keep him sufficiently calm.
At any rate, feeding Gabriel seems to have quite an effect. At 3.5 months, Gabriel weighs between 6.9 and 7 kilograms and is about 66 cm tall, which puts him into the 75th percentile for weight, and 95th percentile for height (US statistics). I'm glad his weight isn't in the 95th percentile, too.

Wednesday, I have spent my first evening alone with Gabriel, since Michelle went to take a class on autism. I am glad she is able to start making contacts. While having a baby with you tends to make start talking to you, their questions are most often limited to age ("Il n'est pas vieux, non?"), sex, and name, and in a place where parties seem to mostly start around 9pm, it's hard for young parents to hang out. Fortunately, there are also local associations for young parents, where Michelle can meet people other than me and Gabriel.
Wednesday night taught me that I will be able to take care of Gabriel next week, too, when Michelle is going to be absent for two evenings - Gabriel did everything a baby his age can do to make a parent's life difficult except peeing all over me. Not on purpose, though, and when he was lying on the changing table for the second time (he usually poos about once every 2-3 days, not twice on a single evening) with a diaper so full of abysmally stinking poo that it had overflown, soiling his entire back, he was so happy and cute that I couldn't feel bad about the mess. Just a bit tired, maybe.
Michelle told me that I wasn't allowed to share a picture of a full diaper with you. All of you who don't know, or don't remember what it is like, I therefore have to invite to come here and experience the other side of feeding the baby for yourself.

Halloween

For Halloween, Gabriel decided to wear a pumpkin-bib in order to honor North American customs while staying true to his Swiss roots where Halloween is not (yet) widely celebrated.

He could easily go out to scare people. After all, he does a good impression of scary crying baby. Look at how my hair stands out!

One more novelty is that he started to like sticking his tongue out. Michelle wonders whether he's training to be a snake.

Michelle wouldn't like that too much, so she is happy that Gabriel for now rather looks like an angel than a scaly creature.

1/4th birthday!

Gabriel is three months old today.

Much has happened in the meantime. For example, on September 2, Gabriel was baptized in my hometown, Dielsdorf. We were a group of 12 people (+1 baby): The families of Michelle and me, my grandfather, Michelle's cousin Laurence, who is Gabriel's godmother, with her husband, and Peter, my best friend, who happened to be able to visit us from Berlin only on this weekend during the entire summer. He wasn't the one with the longest way home, though: My brother, Gabriel's godfather, came from Boston, where he is currently doing research at the economics department at MIT (click on the link below the photo to see the album).

From Gabriel's Baptism

There were two baptisms at the same time; the other child, Orell von Arx, was already 8 months old, and looked a bit like a teletubby in his whole-body white knitted dress. Gabriel was wearing a somewhat more stylish outfit. We carried him on a pillow on which already my dad got baptized.
After the service, we went for lunch to Regensberg, a pretty medieval town overlooking the Zürcher Unterland. It was a beautiful day.

Since then, Gabriel has been busy, mostly with eating and sleeping, though now he also coos, smiles, drools (unfortunately), fights rabbits, and he even starts trying to grab things. Not with reliable success yet, because he lacks hand-eye coordination, and overall control over the movement of his extremities.
It isn't because Gabriel has been busy that I didn't update, though. Two days after the baptism, I left for Montreal, to start my research at IRIC (which, initially, consisted of trying to figure out how to deal with the administration), and, more importantly, to find a place to live. Finally, I came upon a beautiful apartment that I almost didn't visit because I didn't think we would be able to afford it.

There are four apartments in the house; the upper left one is ours (car not included). It is a three bedroom place, though since we converted what originally was the dining room into Gabriel's room, we have now an office and a dedicated guest room, in case anyone plans a visit to Montreal. September and October were gorgeous, and there were no fires.

Our new address:
Jonas, Michelle & Gabriel Dorn
4966 Rue Jean-Brillant
Montreal, QC H3W 1T7
Canada
+1 514 227 4140

Don't call us on that number right away, it will only be valid starting November 2.

Fortunately, I'm no longer alone. Three weeks ago, I went to Switzerland to pick up Michelle and Gabriel, and on October 2, the three of us flew from Lyons to Montreal with Air Transat, the only company selling affordable one-way tickets.

There is not much to tell about the flight: Gabriel slept a lot, and since Michelle nursed him during take-off and landing, he didn't have any problems with the pressure. Because we reserved seats in the front row of economy, Gabriel had a cot in which he could spend most of the flight. His place was probably more spacious than ours: Air Transat is inexpensive partly because they stuff a lot of people into the planes. Still, we arrived without problems, and even Gabriel hardly felt any jet lag. Within two days, he was back to his schedule of eating about every 2-3 hours during the day, and then sleeping from 10pm till 6am. Good boy!

While I had found an apartment, I wanted to go buy furniture together with Michelle. Thus, we initially had to change Gabriel on a borrowed camping table, that also served as our dinner table (we cleaned it in between, of course).

Now, after a few trips to IKEA, our place is starting to look and feel much more habitable. And we have an actual changing table and a bed for Gabriel. And now that we have put all the furniture together, we finally start to have time to go and see Montreal - or to post on the blog again.

One month checkup

One day after he turned one month old, Gabriel went to the pediatrician for the first time. All went fine, even though Gabriel does not like to be naked at all, so he screamed all the way through the exam.

It turns out that he has grow very well:
Length: 55.5 cm (+4.5 cm)
Weight: 4.605 kg (+1.385 kg)
Head: 38.4 cm (+4.4 cm)

The pediatrician was very nice. She gave us a lot of information, and then patiently answered all our questions. I learned, for example, that vaccination for tuberculosis has been stopped, because it was not providing 100% protection, and made people always test positive for tuberculosis, whether they had it or not. Thus, many people have undergone unnecessary treatment (for example, when you want to get a green card, you are very likely going to have to take tuberculosis medication for 6 months most often simply because you have been vaccinated).

4 weeks

Yesterday, we applied for a passport for Gabriel. After all, in little more than a month he'll be traveling abroad for the first time. We looked at the requirements for passport photos, and we realized that we might have a hard time making pictures with the required characteristics.

None of these would be accepted, for example.

Thus, we drove to Sion and and went to a professional photo studio. We left right after Gabriel had eaten in the morning, because he usually is highly awake for quite a while after that. He was intently looking at everything while we were driving - and he fell asleep right before we parked the car. Ah, happy parents. We spent about ten minutes at the photo studio trying to wake him up so that he would open both eyes at the same time long enough so that a picture could be taken. Finally, we succeeded.

Naturally, he was wide awake by the time we left the store.

We aren't complaining, though. Aside from providing blog-material from time to time, Gabriel is really a very nice kid. And when he's slightly cranky, I am still fairly successful at singing him to sleep. Even when he isn't crying, I like to hold him - he is great entertainment, and he is a cute little oven.

Of course, when he's really hungry, there's not much daddy can do. Except to make sure Michelle is comfortable, especially when she goes through ten feedings of 30-45 minutes as has happened on Wednesday.

3 weeks

It makes quite a difference when you know in advance what your baby is going to do. On Thursday, when Gabriel was three weeks old, Gabriel had eaten normally around eight, for about 30 minutes. Instead of being content and just looking around and listening to us, as he would normally do, he started crying soon after, and it looked like he was already hungry again. That was unusual, because normally during the day, he had been eating every 3-4 hours, taking a break of ~6 hours during the night.

Fortunately, all the midwifes who had talked with Michelle about breastfeeding had told her that after 3, 6, and 12 weeks, the baby was going to have a growth spurt, for which it would need to eat more than usual. So Michelle had him feed again after less than two hours, and he was indeed hungry: He ate for another 30 minutes. Friday and Saturday, he kept up a mostly 2-hour rhythm for the entire day, though fortunately, he kept sleeping during the night. Now we're curious what he's going to do with all that food.

In the meantime, we have started to put him on his belly from time to time. Not during the night (there is too much uncertainty about the sudden infant death syndrome, SIDS), of course. Gabriel, who had almost exclusively lived on his back so far, did not enjoy the first few tries - he was just lying there with his knees pulled up and his face on the floor, totally confused that gravity was pulling in the other direction. Now he has learned that with a lot of effort and concentration he is able to turn his head, although he still gets stuck at times to his frustration.

2 weeks

Yesterday, Gabriel was two weeks old. Comparing pictures, it does look like he has changed a bit:

It's not only the way he looks, though. He is much more awake, has recently started to make noises other than crying, and has added to his repertoire of expressions.

Michelle and Gabriel have figured out breastfeeding very well by now, whether Gabriel is in front of Michelle, on her side, or lying next to her. Only when he's really hungry he sometimes doesn't have the patience to latch on properly.
He also sleeps regularly for 5-6 hours during the night, followed by another 4, so that we are not too tired. The one thing I could do without is the fear of being peed on when I change him, but as I still remember from my cousin who peed over his dad's tie right before we left for the baptism, I know that I have to be patient. At least I've always some tissue at hand, and I'm getting much faster at moving out of the wet zone.
All in all, though, my former coworker was right when he told me that kids get cuter by the day, even when they start off at a very high level.

That picture on the card

By now, many of you who are reading this blog should have received a card with this picture (we didn't send one to all our friends in the US, but sent you the link to the blog instead):

I would like to take the opportunity to credit my brother David for this cute photo. In May, my brother, who is currently doing research at the University of Chicago, was joined by my dad for a tour of Lake Michigan. Among the many sights they visited was the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, with the Au Sable Lighthouse on the southern coast of Lake Superior.

On the way there, they stumbed upon a curious rock

David quickly found two pebbles to turn the stone into a face:

Then, while my dad continued toward the lighthouse, David created the masterwork above. Fortunately for my dad, he was waiting in a magnificent area until the artist had finally caught up with him.

Happy baby - happy parents

On Thursday, Gabriel was one week old. On Saturday, he still looked cute.

Yet, he hasn't changed that much, despite the claims of some that I had to enjoy every minute with Gabriel because he would change every day. Granted, there are gradual changes, but those would actually be much more obvious if I didn't spend so much time close to him. I'm not complaining, though, to have the privilege of working an arm's length away from Gabriel.

Gabriel still spends most of his time eating and sleeping, though he is awake for longer, and he does open his eyes much more than before. He is crying when he's hungry, uncomfortable (e.g. cold), and very tired. Fortunately, it's quite easy to figure out when he's hungry: That's when he tries to suck on anything that comes close to his mouth: My finger, my shirt and the nose of people who aren't careful when they're giving him a kiss (or who don't get away from me fast enough when I'm holding a hungry baby).

One thing that has changed, though, is his weight. The midwife was very impressed when she found out that he was gaining 60 g per day, reaching his birth weight in less than a week. The normal range for weight gains is 25-50 g. This is good news for us, because it means that Gabriel is getting enough food so that we can let him sleep when he doesn't want to wake up for almost 6 hours during the night. Unfortunately, we don't get this amount of sleep every day yet. For example, when he's too tired during his 11pm/12am meal to eat sufficiently, he wakes up after 4 hours already.

The midwife who came to check on Gabriel has been visiting us at home. For both Michelle and me it was great to have someone come, have a look at Gabriel and at how we handle him, and listen to our questions and concerns. All her three visits were paid for in full by the Swiss maternity insurance. In fact, she would have come as many times as necessary during the first 10 days since birth to make sure the three of us are doing fine. I can only shake m