Felix Sloo |
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Felix was born just after one o'clock on Tuesday morning, March 7, 2000, at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital. He was slightly blue when we first shook his hand. He spent about an hour looking around at the strange world and his highly interested parents. This is what he said. Alaina said to Felix on his fourth afternoon that he is the most adorable baby in the universe. Then she said to me, 'The frightening thing is that it's true.' I told her that I agreed: it is a little disconcerting.
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In the labor- and delivery room at the
hospital, they hook the laboring-and-delivering person up to a monitor
that second-guesses her contractions. It also lets everyone keep an eye on
the baby's pulse. The monitoring software has, in an obstetrician's word, an 'absurd' user interface.
Its different actions and
operations are represented by wordless icons.
Many first-time mothers come to the hospital thinking that labor might be starting when it isn't. The software has an icon for this condition: |
When contractions started in earnest, Alaina said, 'I liked the practice contractions better.' She called the obstetrician. Then she had me mail off the document she had been writing under contract. That done, we drove to the hospital.
Driving to the hospital to have a baby is much better late at night than at rush hour. This is presumably the reason that labor often starts in the middle of the night. En route, Alaina made some surprising noises.
| Alaina: | It can't be fun trying to drive while I'm making these moaning sounds. |
| David: | It's a lot better to be driving than doing what you're doing. |
| Alaina: | It's a lot better that you are driving while I'm doing this. If I were driving, we would be crashing. |
The books and the classes all say that every birth is different. The obstetrician said, 'every birth hurts'. Everyone I've talked to repeats the mantra the anaesthesiologist is your friend.
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Felix wore a toque soon after he was
born. He has since demonstrated that although he doesn't mind wearing hats
or socks, he rarely wears them for very long. We'll see what happens when
his head is actually big enough to fit into one of the hats that ties
underneath his chin.
Before his first bath, Felix spent a little time under a baby warmer, which is a contraption very much like you will find on a restaurant patio, only he wore a sensor on his skin. The sensor tells the baby warmer when to turn on. I hope this sensor idea catches on with the restaurants.
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| When he was a few hours old, Felix
presented selections from his ample repetoire of sleeping-faces.
This is a consternated-like face that he still makes from time to time. We
realize that his motor control is not yet up to making an actual consternated
face or an actual smile of gladness, but that doesn't stop us from being aghast or pleased. We
realize it is only a simulation.
However, we did get to play a game with Felix at about this time. We learned the game from the enthralling How babies talk, which makes up for execrable writing with gems like this:
The first time we tried this with Felix, he got his tongue slightly out of his mouth. Then, when he was about 15 hours old, both his mother and father tried it, and he stuck his tongue out completely. |
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Felix's second morning was sunny. After sunrise, he lay for a while on the bed by the window, looking at the shadows the sun made through venetian blinds. As usual, he moved his jaw plenty. It wasn't till the next day that he actually yawned. |
| Felix took his hearing test when he was two days old. The test involved brain sensors on his head and a giant pair of cushy headphones. Evidently, his ears and brain are connected well enough that he got through the test. He was not permitted to keep the cushy headphones. |  |
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While not eating, taking hearing tests, or
changing his clothing, Felix often sleeps. He is even willing to be
swaddled. Swaddling is a technique of infant care that involves wrapping
one or more pieces of cloth fairly tightly around the baby. Long standing
debates between makers of burritos and mu shi technicians surround the art
of swaddling. We are mere amateurs and aim for a kind of lopsided Breton
crêpe.
After several months with his legs crossed, Felix usually prefers to have his legs straight out. But he sleeps more soundly when swaddled with his legs crossed. He and his parents have disagreements on this subject at swaddling time. |
If you read baby books, you know that newborns change rapidly. At five days old, Felix is radically different in his abilities from the boy we met on Tuesday. He is starting to get control of his neck, which lets him turn toward things he wants to see or suck on. He is also practicing controlling his hands and feet. They still flail, but he notices them when they flail in front of his eyes. And he can get his hand into his mouth increasingly often. When he has grabbed something he wants with his hands or mouth, he holds on.
| On March 9 at about noon, Felix came
home. He's still there. The cats' attitudes range from mildly
unimpressed to fairly disgusted. The parents are learning about living
with another person. Felix is putting together his daily schedule and
figuring out the things he likes and the things he doesn't.
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At our house, the schedule used to involve one long sleep while the sun was down. Occasional naps on the weekends had to suffice.
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But Felix has a more sensible routine. Like
his father, he prefers a day of occasional waking periods to punctuate the
main business of napping and lolling in bed.
Lolling is at its best just before sunrise.
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Please send any comments you have about Felix's site to him: felix@sloo.com.
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