Heh. Messing with perspective is fun.

• Name: Maxwell Edison
  
• From: Maxwell's Silver Hammer (The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
  
• About: Maxwell is the lead character in this catchy Beatles song about a murderous med student who kills his girlfriend, his teacher, and the judge sentencing him. Very hummable but clearly a real "don't be like this, kids" song. It was written by Paul McCartney and was apparently one of the all-time least favorite songs of the rest of the Beatles.
  
• Quote: "The worst session ever was 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer.' It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for f***ing weeks. I thought it was mad." -- Ringo Starr in a 2008 interview.
  
• Connection: Everyone of our parents' generation who meets Max starts humming this song. It is food for thought when the first thing that comes to someone's mind when they think of your son is a song about a happy serial killer. Oh well, at least we didn't name him Dexter.
  
• Meta: Steve Martin sang this song in the egregious 1978 movie Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Apparently this performance is so bad that even YouTube won't post it and all that is available are a few fairly traumatic-looking still images. So instead I will leave you with this clip from Let It Be of Paul teaching the song to the other Beatles. Thanks as always to YouTube:
  
  
  

Thanks to my brother Adam for this excellent onesie.

Max is clearly worried, but I don't know if he's concerned about Chrome's CSS compatibility, impatient to get his copy of Rock Band 2, or just anxious to know how Secret Invasion ends. Or maybe he's wondering whether his dad is going to try to indoctrinate him into all this stuff as he gets older, and wishing I would just force him to play sports, like all the other dads.

Anyway, Max is doomed. After looking at this photo, now I really wanna dress him up like Uatu the Watcher for Halloween and have him carry the Marvel Legends Galactus around with him.

So Max finally got his first real bath today!

Now that his umbilical stump is totally off, it was time to put Paige and Luke's old tub to good use and get this kid clean. Sadly, there are no pictures or videos of him screaming his little head off in the tub, as it was just me (Jonathan being at work and all), and I needed both hands on the slippery lil bugger.

The odd thing? Max loves getting his hair washed. Loves it. The rest of the tubby, not so much. But water on his head? He was ALL over that.

And because I can't not post a picture of the peanut, here's a shot of him in his froggy towel from his last tubby:

Max has been getting a lot of hiccups over the past week or so. As usual I am happy to convert infant travails into comedy.

On the left: just hanging out. On the right: mid-hiccup.




Also check out the supercool footie pajamas from Aunt Sharren. What more could a baby want than little monsters, big monsters, big trucks, and little monsters in big trucks?


Sharren is extra double-cool because she actually put these PJs into the chandelier/mobile at Jen's baby shower, which you can see here:

Our special guest stars in this photo are Paige and her + Paul's baby Luke, who has his own excellent blog, Luke the Boy, at http://lukethebaby.blogspot.com/. You should check it out.

Our upstairs bathroom has a heat lamp in it. We thought it was kind of pointless and kept meaning to have our electrician (the excellent Tosone Electric) take it out. But we have now discovered that the warmth of the heat lamp and the ticking of its timer, combined with running water in the sink and bouncing him back and forth, is one of the few things that can get Max to sleep at night. Because the little creature is not sleeping so hot.

What do you think of when you picture a baby? I always had images in my mind of something cute and asleep, like this:

Which in retrospect reflects an endearing naivete at best. All my friends warned me about the lack-of-sleep problem, but I don't think I quite realized how far it goes. The reality (at least for the past 4 or 5 days) has been Max waking up every 2 hours or so throughout the night, crying for any one of a number of reasons -- sometimes diaper, sometimes crazy hunger even though Jen just fed him for like 45 minutes just a little while before, and sometimes for no obvious reason.

So we end up bouncing him around, patting his butt, using the heat lamp, and eventually getting him to fall asleep. Now putting him *down* to sleep is a whole different matter and is not working so well -- Max is not a self-soother yet. Sometimes we co-sleep, but sometimes even that doesn't work and I end up sitting on the couch, holding him up to my chest talking or singing until the warmth/heartbeat/vocal cord vibrations/whatever put him to sleep in the early early morning. Imagine this kind of thing night after night:


Oops, sorry about that. I've been watching a lot of Venture Brothers on the DVR at 3 AM so that and the crying baby kind of run together after a while.

Anyway, hopefully this will pass soon. Max is a pain, but not nearly as bad as what we've heard about from our friends who have had colicky babies. Maybe he's having a growth spurt; maybe he's annoyed that it's 26 degrees outside and drafty in the house; maybe he's just a a stubborn little cuss like his parents. But I have faith that someday we'll get back to sleepytime Max:

• Name: Max
  
• From: Where the Wild Things Are (1964)
  
• About: In the famous children's book by Maurice Sendak, Max is sent to bed after a night of making mischief. From his room he sails to the place where the wild things are and is made king. When he returns home his supper is waiting for him and it is still hot.
  
• Quote: But the wild things cried, "Oh please don't go -- we'll eat you up -- we love you so!"
  
• Connection: The name of this blog comes from the book, which was one of Jen and Jonathan's (and their parents') favorites growing up. Jonathan's mom has a signed copy, and Jen's dad has already read it to Max once.
  
• Meta: When John Lasseter of Pixar fame was a young animator working at Disney, he did test work for a drawn/CGI hybrid movie of the book. Here is a clip, thanks to YouTube:
  
  
  

Max's boat:

Max is a hungry boy.

Max had his first office visit with Dr. Levy today. He's doing well -- he's already grown to 8 pounds 3 ounces and 21 inches. The nurse observed that he was very alert compared to what they usually see in newborns. That's our baby -- always watching, always judging.

It also turns out Max broke his clavicle while being born, but that is apparently nothing to worry about -- it is not uncommon, has already healed up, and will actually be stronger in the long run for it. No vaccinations this time but they'll start when he goes back for his six-week checkup in early January.

When we got home, he was still sacked out in the car seat, so we strapped him into the Graco stroller frame and went for our first walk, to the local Starbucks and back. He stayed asleep the whole walk, thankfully.

Also check out his cute outfit today, especially the awesome sneaker-patterned socks from Trumpette. Thanks to my brother Adam and his girlfriend Marisa for giving us 6 pairs of these in various colors, so he'll always be coordinated. These stay on his feet much better than others we have tried so far, highly recommended. Also this is Max's first dinosaur onesie (a Stegosaurus for those of you playing the home game). Babies can never have enough dinosaurs. Or monkeys.

And finally, your moment of zen:
Yo, baby gangsta. Big night at da club. That pacifier is hooked up to my bottle of Courvoisier, yo.

Jen gave Max his first bath a couple days ago. Babies can only get sponge baths until their umbilical stump falls off, so she did it by the kitchen sink. It went pretty smoothly. All of Max's best facial expressions were off-camera, but we got a few pics for the record.