well, statistically speaking...

I've been meaning to write down some thoughts on behavioral economics and the adventure that is motherhood.  I think the phrase that I have to keep repeating to myself while learning how to raise M is that there are 'lies, damned lies, and statistics.'  Or, more crassly (which is really much easier to remember), is that statistically, every person on the planet has one testicle (half of the population are women who have 0 testicles, the other half have 2 testicles, so (1/2*0+1/2*2)/2=1).  So figuring out which statistics really make sense for the situation is difficult because, clearly, sampling the wrong population will get a useless statistical answer.  As a corollary, every child is a point in a population and it's difficult to say where along the continuum that child falls.  So it makes it even more difficult to decide whether the correct statistic is relevant to M or if he's outside the 95%.  If there's a 'fog of war', there should also be a 'fog of parenthood.'  Sigh.

toothless no more!

So this morning, Mr. Ray of Sunshine woke up at 5:40am after a 3:30am feeding.  Bleary-eyed, we started the day with just sitting in the dark so that he wouldn't get used to having activity that early.  I can't complain because the four nights prior, he SLEPT THRU THE NIGHT!  And the day before that, he cut his FIRST TOOTH!  OMGZORZ!  

It's been a really full two weeks for M.  He got his 6 month shots, had his first cold, cut his first tooth, and started 'solids.'  After a couple days of rejecting rice cereal, we moved on to sweet potato puree.  Which he'll eat about a teaspoon of per meal.  I'm thinking that this will be one of our few purees.  Bananas are up next and these I'll just cut into small pieces for him to gum to death.  More of a baby-led weaning approach so that he can learn to chew as well as swallow solid foods.  And, though the puree portion of his food adventures will be short, I'm glad we started with them.  I now know that 1) he'll eat stuff on his little spoon because he likes to chew on his little spoon; 2) if I want him to eat one teaspoon of food, I need to prepare two teaspoons because most of it will be wiped away from his face or dropped onto the bib; 3) having a food-oriented dog is a must so that you don't have to clean up the floor after ever meal.  The pug is loving all the dripped sweet potato.  He'll even eat the rejected rice cereal.  Yay!