Grossman family west

Just posted some new pictures and a video of the Little Guy! Check out the photo gallery.

Day 4 brought some successes and struggles for Dad…

Success
We’re proud to report that Dad successfully changed his first diaper today! Mom stood by, coaching, but was not allowed to provide any physical help. Now that dad has proven that he can do it, he doesn’t feel the need to show off and so probably won’t make a regular habit out of it.

Mission Accomplished!

Struggles
Dad also went grocery shopping, solo, with a bit less success. Mom gave him a list consisting of roughly 15 items. He only had to call home once for clarification but he was in the store for about an hour and twenty minutes (mom plows through such a list in about 12 min). Dad spent a fair bit of time searching for “Detergent-free laundry detergent” (mom’s description), which he finally decided does not exist (and opted instead for a no-dye, no fragrance, biodegradable product with a picture of the earth on the front of it, which seemed to be in the same spirit of what mom was expecting). Also, he got some donut holes, so that’s a Win.

We'll have to practice this one some more...

Since we firmly believe that all career paths are open to our young son in this Land of Opportunity, we decided to introduce him to music this morning (he may become a Rock Star!). What better role model than one of the most prolific bands of all time? Thanks to our dear friend Ellen, we have a fantastic Lullabye album of famous U2 songs (see below). Since Avi has never heard Bono (this album has no lyrics), he thought Joel did a great job singing.

Dad singing U2, Lullabye-style

Tonight, we were lucky enough to have dinner brought in by Meredith and Debbie, who seemed to think that there was an unspoken quid-pro-quo: dinner for Avi (just for pictures!). Seemed fair to us–thanks for dinner, Mer and Debbie!

You get dinner, we get Avi!

Today we headed to the Dr. to get our first Pediatrician Checkup. Topics covered:

• Avi’s poops
• Avi’s peeing
• Avi’s eating
• Avi’s weight
• Visitor Rules
• Questions?
• Next appointment

The visit was great and uneventful. Great because the office and examining room were large, clean, and friendly. Although they ran a few minutes late, the Pediatrician must have spent 20+ minutes with us answering all of our questions. Then, at the end, it was feeding time (again) for Avi, so they let us stay in the room until he was done. Overall, great experience.

As for the “results,” yet another adult was delighted at our Little Man’s pooping and peeing. He is breastfeeding properly and the milk is coming in. His weight continues to fall (6 lbs 1 oz today), though, which is not unusual but is something to watch. He sleeps a ton and often falls asleep while nursing. The goal is to get him eating more aggressively to get him back to his fighting weight by later this week.

We also got a few new visitor rules from the pediatrician, published here so nobody takes any personal offense to our enforcement:

1. No sick visitors
2. All visitors must wash hands
3. Joel and Holly should stay in PJs all day so that we sleep when Avi sleeps

That’s all for now. As promised, the Rules list may grow… The peditrician’s office will call us to schedule the next appointment, which will likely be later this week.

Proud mama after a good checkup

For the millions of fans who have asked for more blog tools (where Joel’s dad counts as a “millions of fans”), we’ve added a few new features. On the right column, towards the bottom, under “Useful Stuff,” there are two, well, useful links:

1) A way to subscribe to get email updates. This will send you an email once a day (early morning) reporting changes to the blog in the past day.

2) A way to add the feed to the blog reader of your choice.

Many thanks to the good folks at Feedburner!

Avi was doing well–apparently the hospital was as delighted with Avi’s black tarry poop as we were–so they let us go home today! Initially, Avi was really excited to see the Super Bowl, but seems to have forgotten, as he’s now asleep in Debbie’s arms.

For those of you who are local, we’d love to have people visit, though please call first so we can space out the visits. Also, there’s one rule: you must wash your hands before holding Avi. There will probably be more rules later… 🙂

Avi arrives home for the first time

Avi’s Bris will be on Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 10 AM at our home in Noe Valley.

For those readers who are still pre-child, one of the “healthy baby” signs that the hospital looks for in the first 24 hours is a healthy poop (which is black and tarry). So you can imagine our unreasonably jubilant delight, which would look strange to the uninitiated, when Avi produced a gallon of the black tarry stuff at about 6 pm tonight. Apparently, Avi got excited too, for he nearly shot out Holly’s eye with an equally impressive stream of pee. Holly dodged it as expertly as Bush dodges shoes, but the geyser of pee shot two full body lengths over Avi’s head and onto some hospital forms that, we’ve now decided, weren’t important. Our boy has mad flow.

No picture on this one, all. You’re welcome.

Why is Holly so surprised?

Question: What makes Holly this surprised and excited 24 hours AFTER meeting Avi? Answer: A surprise visit by Holly’s mom, Dee, whom the grandkids call “Gigi!”

A surprise visit by Gigi from San Diego!