Another Good But Busy Weekend

Here’s the highlight reel:

We completed another one of our baby classes – baby care. I am really glad we took the class because I feel a lot more confident that we won’t screw up too badly. I am sure we’ll constantly do things wrong but hopefully they will all be minor mistakes and we’ll be smart enough and observant enough to not mess up with the big things. Here is an interesting tidbit...did you know that babies knead? Yup, soon after they are born they start kneading very similar to cats to help get the milk going for breastfeeding. For the first week or so, not only will we need to monitor the baby’s milk consumption, we’ll also have to keep track of the pees and poos. The instructor passed around a chart with pictures of…well, you can imagine. They also taught us how to swaddle and soothe the baby. We saw part of The Happiest Baby on the Block and it was amazing to see a baby go from screaming to completely quiet and relaxed in a matter of seconds. The trick – swaddling and the reverse football hold (imagine carrying a football, except the baby’s face faces away from your body).

We also got the crib delivered this weekend. We inherited our friend’s crib and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Once we get the guest/baby room more organized, we’ll be sure to send out pictures. Surprisingly, the cats haven’t jumped in the crib yet. They probably associate the crib with my friend’s two little girls who gave the cats more attention than they wanted. But the cats were great. They tolerated all the petting, holding, and running around without a single scratch. Phew! I think they will be excellent with the baby.

Over the weekend we went to the Computer History Museum with our friend Leonard, who was visiting from NY. It was ok. Definitely not my thing, but there were a couple of great highlights. I enjoyed the demonstration of the Babbage Difference Engine No. 2. It’s really a remarkable machine made of over 8000 parts. Mr. Babbage came up with the design over 150 years ago but it was finally built in 2002. It takes a brilliant mind to design something so complicated (so many moving pieces!) without the help of computers. I also enjoyed some of the old computers they had on display such as the recipe organizer from the 70’s that cost $10,000 but you had to input/output everything in binary. Useful.