Who ARE you?!? And what have you done with my baby?

Ruby has entered a new phase. For the sake of everyone involved, I hope it's a short one. Now when she gets upset, she doesn't just cry. To say that she wails is even an understatement. Now she screams as if someone or something is ripping off one of her limbs. It doesn't even take her long to wind up to this hysterical state. Within a split second, she goes from the cute and cuddly baby pictured above to inconsolable wrath pudge. The only positive in all of this is that she can just as quickly wind back down to the pleasant and happy baby we know and love. However, it takes her parents a little longer to recover from her spells. After she finally went down to bed tonight (after midnight), I was absolutely incredulous as I stared at her peaceful sleeping face. All I could think of was that line from When Harry Met Sally (one of my favorite movies): "It's absolutely amazing. You look like a normal person but actually you're the Angel of Death."

On a brighter note, Levi is doing well with the potty training. Knock on wood. From the scoreboard in the previous post, you can see that he's catching the vision. I'm glad that all along we've been pretty restrained with his intake of sweets and candy (he had his very first taste of chocolate this last Halloween), because it's proven to be a very powerful incentive in getting him to use the potty. It turns out that he loves chocolate (duh), and now he likes to use the potty because he gets a piece of chocolate for doing so. Our next step is to venture outside the house with him and see how well he can hold it in. It's a brave new world indeed.

Potty 101 Status

12/30/07 Update: It looks like our incentive program (chocolate) is working a little too well. Tonight we found Levi on the potty at least 3 times within the space of 2 hours just squeezing himself dry in order to get yet another Hershey Kiss (or "chocolate cone" according to the boy). Clearly, Jeff and I need to make a few strategic revisions.


Levi loves walking around the house half naked (not a big surprise). If it weren't the middle of winter, we'd let him take it all off. You can check his progress on the scoreboard below, which I'll try to update daily.

Hooray Levi: 20

TGF Nature's Miracle Stain Remover: 8

Tis the Season

Merry Christmas everyone! The stress of braving the hordes at shopping malls aside, I relish the little things that seem to happen only around this time of year. We've really enjoyed reading all the Christmas cards and letters. Jeff even made one for us, although I'm not sure how successful he was at sending them out. We've also really enjoyed the generous exchange of treats that happens during the holidays. In fact, on Thursday morning, I opened the front door to find that a friend had left us an assortment of beautiful Christmas cookies at our doorstep. The first thought that came to my mind was, "I love this time of year!" We've got a mission/agenda for Christmas 2007: potty train The Boy. All the requisite gear arrived from Babycenter this last week (books, potty seats, travel potty seat, big kid pants, carpet cleaner, etc.), so starting tomorrow Levi will go commando around the house. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will work, but realize that Levi holds all the cards this time. It'll happen only if he's ready for it. Anyway, wish us luck and have a wonderful holiday. Here are some pictures, of course.

Note the bib. The good thing about naming your kid like a clothing brand is that you don't have to pay for monogramming.

A father-daughter moment: Jeff loves giving Rubytoons what we call "scruffies", where he combs her scalp with the stubble on his chin. I think she likes it too. It's like watching some strange dance as they move their heads back and forth in complementary directions.

Ruby makes her debut at Levi's playgroup to a captive audience of 2.5 year-old girls and a teddy bear.

Ruby enjoying some tummy time on the wedge pillow. Front view.

Back view. Note the basketball-shaped head with elf ears sticking out at the sides. Thanks to Jeff for passing that onto our children.

playing dress-up

It looks like we have a break from sore throats and dripping noses this week (knock of wood). Ruby is chugging the milk and well on her way to fitting into Levi's wardrobe. I'm only half joking. Levi is a petite 25 pounds at this point and still fitting comfortably in his 2T clothes while Ruby weighs in at 15 pounds and already filling out her 3-6 month outfits. This past week I've been having a great time dressing her up in all the cute girl clothes we've inherited from generous friends. Jeff got jealous of all the fun I was having with Ruby and dressed Levi up in his Halloween costume again. At least now we have some decent pictures of Levi as a funky chicken.

Just a little something to go with my favorite socks.

The latest in Dubai baby fashion. Pink camels are all the rage this season.

Phew! Modeling is tough work. I need a break.

Bock bock!

Germapalooza 2007. We rock.

Not much to report this week except that we're all sick. This is the second time since Ruby's birth that we've shared a family cold. I'm not going to name any names, but we have a certain squeaky little boy to thank for this. During Levi's first year (oops there I go dropping names), he didn't get sick at all. I thought it was due the magic of breast milk, nature's panacea to all infant illness. But now I realize it's just because we didn't have any other young kids around. Ruby's a trouper and continues to coo and smile in spite of the snot. Levi's also taking it pretty well and really enjoys talking about the snot. I'm doing alright so far. But, as usual, Jeff is taking it the hardest. He walks around the house in his wool beanie (which he seems to only wear when sick) with Kleenex in hand and a vapid look on his face. Poor Jeff. Poor poor Jeff. We're bummed we couldn't see Grandma Joan while she was in town, but so it goes. Here are more pix.

Levi loved the SF Auto Show. He pretty much said, "This car is great, Jeff!" with every car he saw.

Beautiful sleeping baby

Thanks to Aunt Heather, everyone can see how much Ruby loves NY.

Same goes for Levi.

Ruby's going green

First things first: here are a few pix of the kids, because that's what you're really here for.

Second: Happy T-Day! This is my favorite holiday. I'm such a comfort seeker that I find the good grub and warm fuzzies that this holiday evokes completely irresistable. We are going to start out the day at the SF Auto Show (a long-standing Hayes tradition) and then eat ourselves silly with Jeff's sibs in Oakland in the evening. I'm actually excited to go to the Auto Show. How strange. I'm eager to see what the automakers will be selling in the way of hybrids and the like.

Of all people, I have Ruby to thank for my push to be more green. More specifically, I have to thank her terribly active GI tract. She poos almost more than she eats so she goes through a lot of diapers each day. It also doesn't help that we haven't managed to potty train Levi yet. In any given week, we generate such a large amount of garbage that I can't help but feel embarrassed about it. This embarrassment increased tenfold when I read about the UN's latest report on global warming. So now we've set a few things in motion in an effort to decrease our carbon footprint. Ruby is leading the way by wearing gDiapers. Things are a little messy right now because she's between sizes and I'm still trying to get the hang of it, but this will mean such a dramatic decrease in the amount of garbage we're sending off to the landfill. These diapers are biodegradeable, and you can either flush 'em or compost 'em. Sooooo cooooool! Speaking of composting, that's the next thing we're going to try. Any day now, the County of San Mateo is supposed to deliver our compost bin for yard waste (and wet gDiapers!) and worm bin for food scraps.

Stay tuned because you can definitely expect a blog post regarding the worm bin and Levi's new creepy crawly pets.

New sofa, stem cells, and check-ups

Today I managed to get out of the house, but only because I had to. Such is life with two young children and a severe deficit of sleep. We started the morning by packing up the family and driving down to the good ol' REI clinic. No, we weren't looking for sporting gear. (Unfortunately, I don't see myself sporting anytime soon.) Rather, we were taking care of unfinished business at Stanford's Reproductive Endocrinology Infertility Clinic. As most of you know, Levi is our little test tube wonder. After going through IVF to get pregnant with him, we had just one embryo remaining that they froze for us at the nifty price of $1 per day. Highway robbery if you ask me, but couples struggling with infertility will pay a premium for the possiblity of babies. We've paid Stanford $1 a day since Summer 2004 to freeze our little blastocyst, and it made sense until Ruby was born of a more conventional (and cheaper!) method. So with a couple signatures in front of a witnessing REI staff member, we donated our little blastocyst to the good of medical science and stem cell research. I hope it survives the thaw and that those very smart people at Stanford can put it to good use. No thanks to Bush of course, but who needs federal funding when you've got Larry Page and Sergey Brin for alumni?

Anyway, back to my abnormally productive day. After Stanford, I took the kids to the doctor for Ruby's 2-month check-up. She's a trooper and took her 4 vaccinations as well as any baby could. The doc says she looks great (she's up to 11 lbs and is at the 75th percentile in weight and height). He especially liked her haircut. Just kidding. He didn't say anything about her shorn dome. Then we came home to anxiously await the arrival of our Eugene Sofa from Room & Board. It's taken 6 weeks for this baby to arrive. It always mystifies me why it takes so long to build and deliver "custom" furniture like this, but it's finally in our living room and apparently has Levi's approval.

Ruby gets a shave

After she begged us in tears, we shaved Ruby's hair off (she said she wanted to be like Britney Spears). Now she doesn't look like a little old man anymore!

Its fun to see how the rube looks compared to Levi at about the same age

yet more stuff

Levi likes to think he's still a baby sometimes.

One of the benefits of bottle feeding. Dad can get in on the action too!

Mommy and the rubinator.

This is Levi's old bink. Still works like a charm.

Curious George is a powerful sedative.

Ruby loses her hair

It only took a couple of baths before Rubes lost nearly all the hair on top of her head.

We tried to make her feel loved despite her hideous hairdo, but it was difficult.

more exciting pictures of life at home

More pictures of life at home with Ruby & Levi...

Ruby's probably passing gas here.

Zzzzzzz

Poke, poke, poke. It's fun to poke the baby!

Like father, like daughter. Ruby's a chip off the old block.

daily life

Levi loves to play in his laundry hamper. In fact, he gets upset when we put any laundry in it. Anyway, he calls it his "egg".

Just a few days old, here's Ruby Dooby sucking down a bottle.

my first blog!

Now i'm like everybody else. People won't tease me anymore, because I have a blog!

Here's Ruby, our new baby girl. Note that she is much more beautiful than her parents. Its a miracle of nature. Here are her stats:

• Name: Ruby Nora Hayes


• Birthdate: September 12, 2007 at 1:43 pm


• Weight: 6# 5 oz


• Length: 17 1/2"

Intently studying mom's face minutes after being born.