Baby Maeve at Ten Weeks: First Hike

Carrie, Maeve and Joe on the Bearfort Ridge Trail yesterday

Another brief late entry… mostly to get some photographs posted to share with friends and family.

Baby Maeve passed the ten-week mark on Tuesday, a couple days ago. She’s doing well. Sleeping a lot, nursing, pooping, crying, smiling, potato-chip-ping on her tummy, and more.

We’ve been going into NYC a few times, including a trip to the Whitney Museum last Friday, but the big new activity was Maeve’s first hike. We’re car-sitting for Maeve’s uncle Bob, so we took a drive (Maeve’s second time ever in a car) out to Bearfort Mountain, located in Abram S. Hewitt State Forest – in northern New Jersey, near the New York State border.

Baby Maeve at Nine Weeks: Two-Month Check-Up, Photos

My sweet wife Carrie and my great 2-month-old daughter Maeve yesterday

I’ve been a bit under the weather this week – nothing serious – but getting The Weekly Maeve out a whole day late. I am working on a longer entry about a lot of things that we’re not doing… but that’s not ready, so I am just going to post the results of Maeve’s latest visit to the pediatrician… and, of course, photos!

Baby Maeve at Eight Weeks: Trips, Tummy Time, and More

All aboard! Maeve’s first trips on the NY/NJ subway systems

I am continuing my weekly dadblog series, with posts roughly every Tuesday whether there’s really news to report or not. Mostly it’s about posting the latest photos of Maeve to share with friends and family.

Maeve is still sleeping a lot. It may be her favorite activity these days.

As usual, she had been spending time growing, sleeping, eliminating, crying, staring. 

Maeve at Seven Weeks, Time Passing Quickly

In the last few days Maeve’s face seems more expressive, distinctly more articulate than even just last week

Tomorrow is seven weeks since Maeve’s arrival.  It feels like time is passing so quickly. I think its because becoming a parent just overtakes you in a way that not much else in life does.

Last night I dreamt that I was crying the way Maeve cries when she is really upset and in my mind I heard that what I was saying in baby talk was the word Mom, just Mom over and over. Maybe I was remembering how purely I felt when I was Maeve’s age – being around her is reminding me.  Its sad that many people in our culture are around infants as little as they are. It says a lot about our society.

I got connected with a holistic parents group in the last couple of days and feel a great sense of relief.  There are lots of other people who are cloth diapering and not vaccinating their young ones. Turns out I was going to a new moms support group that was just too mainstream.  I don’t think of myself as super alternative (always hoping/wishing I guess that my values aren’t the exception) but keep running into the fact that I am, even in a dense urban place like Jersey City.

She’s still pretty unpredictable. No discernable schedule. I get worried when she sleeps for long stretches during the day and worried/overwhelmed on other days when she doesn’t take a nap of any length.

When she is deeply asleep I get worried because her breathing is so shallow and her body gets so limp.

I think about writing about becoming a parent often but have a hard time getting myself to do it – partly because time seems to be flying by and I want to just be in the experience. From everything I hear, I’m going to be so busy for the couple of decades I won’t have a chance to read this again.

Baby Maeve at 6 Weeks: First Bottle and More

Maeve this week – sometimes pretty focused!

Another week under her belt (though she’s actually not wearing belts yet), Maeve is now six weeks old. She was born July 30th 2013, and I’ve been doing weekly dad-blog posts to share her with family on the West Coast, and the world at large.

A photo to show that the weather is cooling off and we do actually dress Maeve up sometimes.

Again, no earth-shattering developments this week, but plenty of photos and a few updates to post. Maeve has been mainly breast-feeding, pooping, peeing. 

Baby Maeve’s Fourth Week: Joe Goes Back to Work

Maeve, in a somewhat typical state for this week: kind-of-alert and kind-of-sleepy

I don’t have too much to report this week, in part because last Monday I went back to my work at the Bronx River Alliance. It’s not for long, though, because I gave notice., In a few weeks, will be a stay-at-home dad, at least for a while.

Though I really like the work at the Alliance, the commute really eats up my week. I live in Jersey City, and take two trains to get to the Bronx. It takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes each way. I guess it could be worse – on the train I get a lot of reading and sketching done – but my wife Carrie and I discussed it and we decided that, for now, it makes sense for me to wrap things up there, and stay home. It wasn’t crazy bad this week (I was tired at work), but it just felt like I had very little time to spend with Maeve and Carrie.

I’ll post a few thoughts, and some photos – so I can keep up my weekly Maeve gallery. It’s easier to post photos here on the interwebs than to try to sort through them all and keep them well-organized on my phone and laptop.

Baby Maeve at Two Weeks: Sleeping, Breastfeeding, and Being Wonderful

Maeve relaxing somewhat during a diaper change. She’s glorious!

I am trying to get in the habit of posting weekly with the progress of our precious young daughter Maeve, born July 30th 2013 – entering her 14th day as I write this. My wife Carrie and I each posted our accounts of her birth, here and here, respectively. I did an update at one week, here.

I am not going to guarantee any great parenting guru insights in these weekly posts. There are perhaps a few interesting thoughts, but it’s mostly a sort of electronic scrapbook that we can look through and share with others (especially our family and friends on the west coast.) I hope to keep posting a lot of photos of her – all the photos here are from this past week (click on images to enlarge.) Perhaps if Carrie and I post frequently enough, we’ll be able to see some of the arc of Maeve’s growth. Perhaps I will get too busy to keep posting as long or as frequently. I may to try to shift to a shorter format – getting short pieces out sooner. Maybe Carrie and I will write some stuff together. We’ll see.

Week two wasn’t radically different than week one. The new normal felt a tiny bit more routine… but Maeve is still doing lots and lots of sleeping and breastfeeding. In between these major pursuits, she takes time out to look around the room a lot. It seems like she’s just a bit more squirmy. During a lot of week one, she was sleepy and content in seemingly any position; now she wants to sit up when she’s laying down, or lie down when she’s sitting. She doesn’t like to be face down on my chest any more (awwww) because when I do this she goes into feeding mode: she smacks her lips, sometime bops around trying to find my non-existent milk-filled breast, then looks around for her mom. Week two she’s looking to her mom for comfort – maybe I just didn’t notice this in the whirlwind of week one. 

Some Musings Seven Days into the Baby Maeve Era

Maeve sleeping – which she does a lot (see below), with Carrie’s hand to help show size

Our beautiful baby girl Maeve turned 7 yesterday. 7 days that is.

She’s a newborn. I wrote my take on her birth story here. She’s doing fine. Her primary purposes in life are: breast feeding, pooping, peeing, and sleeping. Frequently she tosses in a bit of hiccuping, arm/leg flailing, grunting and looking – all for good measure.

I am not sure what format is going to work to blog about Maeve… I figure I will start with a couple paragraphs as a sort of status report, then write some not-all-that-deep thoughts about some things I’ve been noticing.

The Birth Story: Extended Prelude

Cristina, Rich and Carrie at Liberty State Park yesterday

My wife Carrie Lincourt and I are due to have a baby on July 25th 2013!

That’s yesterday.

Apparently first time moms do tend to run about a week late. We thought that we might be the exception, but it’s Friday, a day “late” and there’s no baby here yet. I thought I would write down some of the story of the last couple days… and how we thought maybe we’d deliver right on our due date.

On Wednesday night, July 24th, Carrie’s dad and stepmom arrived in town. We went out to dinner at Rustique, and during the meal, Carrie started having contractions. We knew it was early and this early labor could last days… could come and go… but I, at least, got excited that things were moving and the baby would arrive any minute… or at least in a day or two.