Giggling pear candy lover

Last night Ixa giggled for the first time while awake (she has done it in her sleep for a long time)- she has been making a sort of fricative-type laugh for a while, but these were real giggles! Thanks to the visit from her grandparents from Halifax. Her baba is just so funny, she cracks up every time she looks at him, and he makes really funny noises at her. She also ate frozen pear, through a mesh device that is supposed to reduce the risk of choking. We gave it to her because we thought she might be teething, and she loved it so much, she cried every time we took it away! she didn't eat too much, though, since it was her first solid food, and actually we are going to hold off on that for a couple more months. Good trick for car rides or restaurants, though.

insomniac mom who rose early for pedi appointment

It seems we need a little more text in this blog, so I've found a moment while Ixa is sleeping off her vaccine fussiness- the fussiness turned into a need for very much sleep, with breaks for comfort while she drifts back off. I haven't had this much free time since before she was born, but it still doesn't make up for how sad it is to see her cry harder than when she had the lumbar puncture because of her distressed reaction to vaccines today. We do think it is a good idea to do the vaccines for the serious diseases, because we don't want her to suffer worse (or worse)! She got DPT last month (the tetanus part really scares me- I wish they could make one just for pertussis) and today, HiB (homo-something influenza) and Pneumoccal virus. These are diseases that can kill or cause permament brain damage or hearing loss in babies, that are not rare enough! The shot nurse today said she had seen kids die of Hib. so there went our resolve to only give her one shot per visit. She gave them both so close together that there wasn't a break in the crying, and I had to ask, "that was both?"
So this month Ixa has begun to play with toys, on her own more, too! she reaches and grabs things and brings them to her mouth to suck. We managed to have just the right sorts of toys for this stage just from donations and hand-me-downs! But we did buy some bells to hang when she discovered a toy like that at her friend Ezra's house.
Today was 70 degrees here- no freezes yet like for our sibs in Ithaca! My nanny friend Joanna took us for ice cream, it was a moment of summer revisited. Her charge Adam now recognizes us, smiles and waves (he's one) and today when Ixa got fussy and was crying at the ice cream/burrito place, he tried to gently stroke her foot as if to comfort her... it's great to be around other babies and people who spend their days with them, Joanna gives me lots of feedback and perspective on the world of children.

This foto was actually taken today!

Now that it is Fall, iXa is wearing (baby) leg warmers!

iXa receives some wise advice from Dr. Diane!

Just after bath-time!

iXa wearing her butterfly kimono! In the park! On a sunny day!

On the way to the coffee shop in JP (Veloria)!

At the park near our house!

the last days of summer in the park!

our savior!

um, I mean the sling. 7 pm, baby inconsolable. what're you going to do? turns out the only thing that works is for papi to put her in this, and walk sloowly around the park for an hour.

interestingly, everyone there has the same story to tell

Bano-La!

my aunt Bano-La visits!

she says iXa looks like Chubbo!

Also, she tells that her babies were potty-trained to her whistle. Lucky-mamu would tease her that he would go to the school, whistle from outside, and all her kids inside would pee!

(this is parent humor)

and it's velvet!

this was iXa's (um, ours) favorite dress. she wore it 4 times, now she's outgrown it! anyone?

4 generation of Baron Women!

!!!!

Vera meets great-granddaughter iXa!

you can see that iXa is a very lucky (and comfortable!) girl!

Maiyim meets granddaughter iXa!

Maiyim was here for 3 weeks!

hot lunches all around!

iXa and Auntie Saab

Max, Frank, Sabeena visited, on their way to Dice's wedding! Here you can see that iXa immediately recognized her aunt as a warm place to snuggle up!

2 moons old

So sorry about the delay in updates... please be patient and we will eventually have photos of Ix with lots of her recent visitors holding her! we went to vermont this past weekend and found chanterelles in the woods. Isha is getting fussy in the evenings so the country visit wasn't as relaxing for her mama as it used to be. she also had a hard time on the 2.5 hour car ride now that she isn't a newborn. She can no longer sleep that much. so we are reconsidering our ability to take trips away from home for this phase. We are happy to welcome Ixa's peer Phinneas into the world as of a week ago! Congratulations Ollie and Felicia! more converts to the moses basket. Now we are waiting for Aviva and (Cyrus' brother) to join the bunch in september.

Ixa goes to Naushon Island...

We didn't take any pictures of this, but last week we went on our first big adventure, to the private island of Naushon, next to Martha's vineyard! Thanks to Ixa's granDinny, a Forbes, part of the family whose trust the island is in. We drove 2 hours to Woodshole, then scouted out the unmarked, free ferry for family and guests only... Kami barely made it as he had to park the car in the coast guard lot. We were both very nervous about cutting it so close, but Ixa slept the whole time in the car and then in her snugli until we arrived at Stonehouse. There are no cars on the island, except a tractor and truck or two, but there are lots of horses, sheep, donkeys and a lama.
The house was the biggest house we have ever stayed at- it must have almost 15 bedrooms, all filled with antique furniture! Our room had a chaise lounge that was the gift of Ralph Waldo Emerson (also in the family). Ixa was held by lots of people and is the special favorite of 90- year-old Faith, Dinny's mom who hosts everyone on the island. Kami went swimming at night with Pan and Dinny to enjoy the bioluminescence, and he saw a shooting star named Ixa.

Welcome Kimani!

Here's a "retrospective" picture... Ixa's first play date haha. That's Magnets and Kimani there on the left. Now that Kimani is out in the Whirld (arriving July 3rd) we look forward to more!

the marsupial theory of babies

my dad calls me a kangaroo, because I still need to be in my mom's pouch for a few months yet. other times he calls me a frog, mainly because of the way I sleep alot (artistically rendered here)

my personal documentarian

our friend Serra is a fabulous fotographer (she has a real camera - that serious!) here's a link
http://www.flickr.com/serravision
to photos she took of iXa last week (you can compare prof fotos to ours)

and, Boston, if you want her to take fotos of your baby, your SOL - Serra's moving back to Oregon in August. We miss her already!

iXa 2.0

... that's because she's now 2... 2 weeks old

our first major trips (non-ER) this week - a little walk down the street to KooKoo cafe for a Terrifying Tuna Sandwich, coffee, and a rooibos latte (rooibas is this year's bottled water). today, a visit to starbucks in the other direction.

iXa says "support local businesses! KooKoo rocks! I pee at starbucks!" (actually my dad said that)

Nine-South, Room 9117...

Saturday morning: "hmm, what's with this rash?" "hmm, how does the
carseat go in the Zipcar?"
At the pediatrician: "what, we should go to ER?"
At ER: "what, we should get an IV/LP/vancomycin/xy-something-cillin/etc etc?"

Ixa's first words (if she could speak by this weekend): "wtf?"

along the way we met some very nice people: "the IV Team" (one guy named Rocco), the nicest nurses ever (including Lorinda, Ericka, and Lauren), and a "special delivery" of scones and OJ (from Flea). Because down the hall was the "Patient Nutritional Center", with lots of free soda pop (!), and in the cafeteria everything tastes like spagettiOs... but without the spagettiO... (this is not a bad thing)

sleep was not included

the nipper napper

Isha sleeps alot. But! today we have pictures of her in both states - eyes closed/eyes open

star child born drawn out by the full moon

yesterday at 2 am Isha Sol Akhtar Baron emerged in our dark bedroom and scored 11 out of 10 on the Apgar Scale (shades of Spinal Tap!). Active labor, starting at 8 pm, then we progressed like gang-busters.The midwife Deborah arrived at 12:30 - the second arrived at 1:55 am, and Isha met all of us 6 minutes later. The head pops out first, you know, and Isha was ready to breathe right then, even before her chest had cleared and her lungs could expand. Kami watched it all! Deborah said 'your baby wants to breathe - push the rest of her out!" 1 second later it was so. So Isha's birthday is June 18th - mark your calendars!

Today was her second checkup, her first bath, and her first moment in the sun (through a window, but still). Oh, and she likes being in her sling.

She is doing great!

waiting for solstice

I will be 40 weeks pregnant this coming week! Isha is in the same position she has been in for many weeks, but maybe even a little better. Her back is out toward the right side of my body, explaining the stretch marks on that side and the stronger back muscles also on that side. It looks to me like she is starting to "drop", although since it is already possible to feel her head from inside the birth canal, how much further down can her head drop in advance?? All of this is so mysterious. One foot or knee kicks out in front on the left. Sometimes she gets the hiccups and we feel the rhythmic vibrations. We have everything we need for the birth, including frozen cubes of electrolyte snapple and bendable straws.

Moving again

We are moving again, this time with a baby moving inside of me. Not back to the West coast, but to Brookline village. We've accumulated way too much more stuff- Kami's new pottery, my art pieces that I only began making here, and all their supplies- plus the things you just buy because you once in a while do buy things: like kitchen things, rugs, whatever, all of it useful here, but maybe not anymore. The baby is a girl, perhaps named Isha. Since we discovered facebook, I've realized blogs are really more interesting in some ways. You get to say more than what your current mood is, and there's a little more room to give it your own feeling. But I think in order for people to see it, they have to be invited. I still have to work on that one. But anyway I came back, we'll see if it goes somewhere.