castle #1!

Our dinner avec Calvin. A touristy plan is hatched.

The weather this weekend was really great. No clouds, wildly pleasant temperatures, lots of shirtless Scottish people getting burned- we thought maybe this was like the normal start to summer but people on the radio were talking about how crazily nice it was, so this is probably an UnScottish anomaly. Whatever's in the future, this weekend we decided to try a touristy trip out with Calvin. Our target was Glamis castle, which is only twenty minutes or so from Dundee.

Our destination: Glamis castle.

People still live here, and the castle grounds are the kind of thing that makes you think it might have been nice to have been idle, rich and British at the turn of the last century. The late Queen Mother spent her childhood here, they tell you all about it on the tour. Before seeing the castle we wandered the grounds, were surprised to see a Giant Redwood this far from California, and took in the Italian gardens.

Wandering around the gardens.

Taking shelter from the famously harsh and unrelenting Scottish sun in a gazebo.

The tour had us a little worried- there's no option to walk by yourself, so you're stuck on a 50 minute guided deal. Calvin made a few noises but he pretty much slept through the whole thing, so he earned all the 'Future Champion' and 'Little Star' onesies that he's been wearing. Anyway, his first castle is in the books, succesfully, and now he's tuckered out.

Calvin thinks that castles that ban photography are stupid.

wormit walk

Calvin has reached a level of robustness that lets us take him out on some excursions now. He went to St Andrews for the first time yesterday, where he was showed-off at the knitting shop. (If you're ever in St Andrews and need what I'm told is amazing wool, go here.) Today was pretty nice, so we went across the Tay to the town of Wormit, which lies on the other side of the rail bridge. Thanks to Scotland's amazingly liberal attitude toward public access, there's a foot/bike/whatever you want path along the edge of a bunch of farms starting from there that has nice views of Dundee and the Tay, so we took him for a mini-walk.

Heading out from Wormit. The sky was once again Scottish.We walked for ten minutes to this spot, had some well-earned(?) chocolate and gossiped for a while, then headed back.Calvin fails to appreciate the view of Dundee (the Shining Jewel of the Silvery Tay).

The yellow shrub (gorse) is really spiky and is probably why I got a flat tire (tyre) last weekend.Heading back to Wormit after his first off-road mosey. The seed of adventure has been planted.

calvin in motion

The checkup on Tuesday went well, once we got the health visitor to tell the doctor what's what. Calvin was on the verge of 6 lbs, so he's certainly over that by now. The rest of the week went pretty well. Quite well for me, I got to sleep all night since Grandma is here and helping us out. I'm the only one who gets to sleep, so I probably shouldn't wax too enthusiastic about that. We even got to get out to see a movie last night (Star Trek), leaving Cal with Rose. Since he's a bit more robust now, we might head to St Andrews tomorrow if the weather's good.

Here's an experimental movie.

The several moods of Mr Calvin, 2009 (Scotland) 0:0:45

zero

Today is Calvin's due date! He's been around for almost eleven weeks, you were probably thinking that it's about time for him to pull on his big-boy pants and start riding bicycles. Not so fast! The clock is now at zero for most developmental milestones, like sitting up, eating solids, skiing moguls proficiently etc. He's been amusingly trying to lift his head for a week or two, if I were him I'd work on that a little more before moving on to more advanced techniques.

Snoozing after being force-fed by dad.

He's looking a bit bigger. I'll probably weigh him on the kitchen scale at some point today just for fun, but he's getting a checkup at the hospital on Tuesday where they'll make sure things are going ok. Since he's been seen at home twice a week by health visitors since being discharged, we're not worried about anything, but it will mean a chance to try the coffee at the hospital again. They'd just finished remodeling when we left, so obviously I'm pretty excited for that.

When he hits his fighting weight (2.75 kg), Calvin will clean your clock like a Swiss clock inspector.

Calvin's big day- the Consulate!

Today was Calvin's big day- a trip to the Consulate in Edinburgh to apply for a passport and register his birth. The highlight was probably holding him up against a tape measure that was glued to the wall to estimate his height (17 inches. That's going in the passport I guess.) Hopefully soon Calvin will be a man with a country. This was his biggest excursion, 5 hours and a whopping 70 miles. He did fine with it, but since we got home he's been screaming and screaming. Here are some pictures of today and some more peaceful times in the past few days.

A walk through the neighborhood:


Bath time; he's still not totally convinced that baths are fun:
A gorgeous day in Edinburgh, after Calvin tried to become a US citizen.Dinner!

family resemblance?

Rick and Rose scanned some baby pictures of me. They're pretty amusing- check this comparison out:
When you digitally take care of the haircut and nearly 30 years of evolution in the cut of a man's collar, it's like looking in stereo:
While it's not like we're twins or anything, we do think it looks like there's some sort of genetic connection.

it's a good thing he's cute.

Because the screaming and the not-sleeping aren't quite charming. He gets some immunizations tomorrow- that should put him in a good mood, right?

contains simeticone

The Infacol elephant is like the Absinthe Fairy for babies. Could this be the answer to all the questions we've been asking ourselves in the hours leading up to dawn? From the product website: "Colic is usually recognised by bouts of inconsolable crying, often for hours at a time, for no specific reason - i.e. your baby is not hungry, overtired, needs a nappy change or has a raised temperature." Inconsolable- that's the word I was probably looking for last night. Inconsolable, incessant, senseless screaming.

"Colic most commonly occurs in the late afternoon and evening when your baby may cry out in pain, draw her knees up to her chest and go red in the face. Her tummy may be swollen or bloated as if she's swallowed a lot of air, and she might pass wind more than usual."
Yes! Exactly. Well, almost exactly. More like straining to pass wind to the point of nearly passing out, but just about right. I haven't been this enthused about a health product since the two weeks between starting to take Airborne and looking into what it actually was. The NICU staff recommended this for him... If this works... wow. We'll be happy. Other than the standard screaming baby stuff, the week has been good. Grandparents visiting have been invaluable, we got him out for a walk when it wasn't raining, and he cracked the elusive 5 lb barrier (we weighed him with a kitchen scale and a cutting board, which was kind of funny).


I'm not quite done recalibrating my Team Moeckel Self Portrait Aim.