Above, Addie and Piper sharing some chuckles at dinner last night.

Here's the next installment of our Piper Notes. Included in today's installment:

• A failed attempt to get a laugh out of her using bathroom humor, and our lamentations that she is not our trained monkey
• A review of her accomplishments in the last six weeks, interspersed with
• random coos, cries, and snorts, painstakingly hand-collected by Kate and me
• Some overly sentimental ramblings about the virtues of single-tasking and multi-tasking
• and a post script, recorded on the ferry coming back from Governors' Island some weeks ago.

There's less crying in this one, anyhow.

Our first, rough audio letter for Piper. It's long (7 minutes you will never get back from your life), and includes:

• Sir Paul McCartney,
• Piper wailing,
• and the sound of me being very, very wrong about our daughter's gender only seconds after she was born.

You've been warned.

We took too long recording and mixing it, but before I spent a month polishing it and wanted to record another, I figured we'd post it and be done. Behind the cut, the original notes we jotted down. (We found we sounded too scripted if we read from it, so we wrote the notes and ignored them as we spoke.)

- Greetings, intro, why we're doing this
- it's your mama
- and Abba
- We're recording this open letter to you so that you know what you
were like when you were growing up
- also, a little, what we were like when you were growing up
- and we're calling it an open letter because even now, when you're
small enough to fit in a shoebox, you've got a lot of people who
we think might like to know what you were like while you were
growing up.
- We promise that when we talk about the really embarrassing parts
of your babyhood, we'll feel just a little bit bad about it later.
- Birth Story, Naming, Lightning
- You came along pretty quickly, too, which meant that while we had
been bracing ourselves for you to be 16 days late and take 40
hours of labor, instead you showed up at 5:33 just one day after
your due date, and after about 7 hours of labor
- which is surprisingly prompt, considering your mother and I
cannot get anyplace without being 5-10 minutes late, ever.
- Our friend and orlop Marnie would have been there to help usher
you into the world, but you came along so promptly that she was
still on the bus from D.C. (You can ask us what an 'orlop' is
later)
- You were an entirely organic baby
- Your and your mom didn't have to use any drugs or forceps or
any interventions
- NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH BABIES WHO DO NEED
THOSE THINGS
- but you weren't one of them
- And you were born with a piece of amniotic sac over your face
- which is known as being "born with a caul"
- one of the nurses told us it means you'll be "gifted with
sight"
- so let us know if you see anything.
- Then we sat around the hospital with Marnie and your Nana and
Pop-Pop and made lots of phone calls and had pizza and avolemono
soup and tried to figure out what we were going to name you
- We've got the whole conversation to play you some other time
- but we settled on "Piper" pretty quickly, because that's a
family name from your Abba's side, and we thought it was a
beautiful name
- but we didn't know what to use as your middle name
- so the next morning we bought some books and read through
them
- and your aunt Marnie helped us talk through possibilities
- and after trying to find another family name, we just
decided that "Piper Rose" sounded nice
- So that was that
- then we went home that afternoon
- and getting home was a little odd, because our old lady cat,
Lightning, who had been very old and very sick for a long time,
had died that morning
- So maybe we'll call you Lightning, too, because of how fast
you showed up and for our old gray cat, who we loved very much
- Sounds: Birth, Hiccups, Crying
- the first one requires a little explanation:
- it's the moments right after you were born
- and we have to explain that we were pretty sure that you were
going to be a boy
- It wasn't really our fault -- when K had an amniocentesis
(ask one of us what that is) the counselor said:
- "Do you want to know the gender? No? Well, there are
two normal chromosomes on 13, 18, 21, and two sex
chromosomes, an X and a Y."
- I asked, "did you just tell me the gender of the baby?
and she said no, it could be an X and an X.
- But we thought she was covering up for having
accidentally told us that you were a boy for sure.
- So when you were born, I looked down quickly, thinking I knew
what I'd see
- and then I looked up at your mother to make sure she was
okay.
- and then ... well, here's the tape
- [tape plays]
- That was your Abba, about to correct the nurse about
whether you were a boy or a girl. Here's that reaction
again, in case you didn't hear it the first time.
- [tape plays]
- And here are a few more sounds --
- Sometimes you sound like this:
- [play snuffling, and yawn]
- and sometimes you sound like this:
- [play basic crying]
- And when you're really riled up, you sound like this:
- [play baby pter. crying]
- but actually, you don't really cry all that much. You're
a pretty easygoing kid.
- What have you done in your first 6 weeks? (must include Band on the
Run)
- The first few days you just slept a lot
- The pediatrician said we had to wake you up to feed you, even
though you didn't really want to be woken up
- So we had to wake you up by putting cold washcloths on your
stomach, which you hated
- and we hated doing it, too
- You love to look out the window at light, especially with the
plant in the window.
- I put some big black and white patterns up over your changing
table, and when you're not freaking out, you seem to like
looking at those
- You stretch a lot, by arching your back and raising your eyebrows
and putting your arms up over your head
- Your hands and arms usually orbit around you like little
animated dizzy birds
- and then they hit you in the face or the ear and you look
confused
- but when you stretch, your arms move like you're doing
something with them on purpose, and you look much more grown
up than you actually are
- you poop yourself, which is totally normal at your age.
- and your poop was, for a while, brilliant, glowing orange.
- you seem to like being swaddled, so most of the time when we're
putting you in your co-sleeper, we wrap you up in a little baby
straitjacket.
- Then, when you wriggle, you look like a little larva.
- You've earned a lot of nicknames, which we won't get into here
- The Larval Human
- Pipes, when you're crying, or Peeper, when you're just
opening one eye
- When I carry you around in the Moby, which you seem to really
like, you pull out my chest hair with your little hands
- I also sing to you when you're on the changing table (usually to
the tune of Band on the Run)
- When we were spending the weekend with your Nana and Pop-pop, we
left them taking care of you and went off to see District 9,
which was a really great movie to see in a movie theater.
- When we got back, it turned out you had slept the entire time
we were gone!
- we were very proud of you that night.
- You've crossed state lines New Hampshire to see John and Mike
- your other grandparents have also come to visit you: Danny and
DeetDa, and Kathleen and Gil, who you, my dear, will have the
privilege of naming someday. You're their very first grandkid!
- Adam's bit: So for me, at least, I'm just really curious about who
you're going to turn into.
- I'm back at work now, and when I'm not at home, I miss you and
wonder what you're doing.
- So far, of course, you're doing pretty much what most babies do,
- though of course, because you're our baby, we think you're great
- but they say that soon, you're going to start turning into a real
little person
- liking one position and not another, liking one sound and not
another
- so I'm excited to see what's going to make you, Piper Rose
Hirsch, totally unique in all the world
- I'm trying to keep your options open by insisting that no more
than half of your clothing be pink
- but I have no idea whether or not that's what you are going to
want
- (and someday, whether you really want all of your clothes to
be pink, or none of them, that'll be okay with me)
- Kates's bit: And for me, I'm watching the little ways you change from
day to day, and trying to capture them through memories or pictures
(although your Dad is better about taking pictures of you than I am,
but I'm working on it)
- We spend the day together and I try to find things that entertain
and engage you when you're awake, but aren't too over
stimulating, and put you down for naps when you're tired, and
feed you when you're hungry...
- And of course I have that new parent worry about whether I'm
doing too much or not enough
- But it's neat to have this time together - this mama/daughter time
- So we'll record something for you next month - we love you very much


First in what will no doubt soon be a burgeoning category of "data and snapshots certain to bore anyone interested in anything other than our kid": Piper gets hiccups rather a lot.

In which I am reminded that cooking onions and garlic smells good at a distance.

(The above picture is of the faded pen marks on my foot from my casting session earlier in the week: not an audition, but rather actual plaster casts from which Tom-the-cast-guy has made plastic casts to help me stand and walk. The pen marks highlight bones, point out good restaurants, and let the unwary cast maker know that "Here there be tygres." Or something.)

(Direct link: http://web.baz.org/~adam/dailies/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ai180-4.mp3)

Intro and outro music by an older gentleman who sat and played the french horn by the nurses' station for a bit tonight. I'll get his name and update anon.

In which Adam and Kate drive back into New York City, ignore the 180 second limit, and discover that slopes which people walking can ignore can stymie the weakened wheelchair driver… for now.

The direct link to the audio, for anyone having problems with the inline player: http://web.baz.org/~adam/dailies/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Ai180-3.mp3

Below, Adam-in-180, episode 2. Since the last episode: have grown more hair, finished reading Neal Stephenson's "Anathem," and have eaten everything in sight around me to very little change in weight.

Hit the big green Play button for my latest notes. Had to do it a few times to get it to exactly 180 seconds; maybe I'll relax the time stricture so I don't have to record it more than once. Loses that spontaneous feel a little, I fear.

(Direct link: http://web.baz.org/~adam/dailies/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ai180-2.mp3 )

Sunrise from my bed

Apparently I've caught a least a light case of the audioblogging. (It's something you catch? Who knew?)

We'll have to see whether the malady persists; comments or questions for any future editions welcome. (Hit the big play button below for Ai180 #1.)

(Direct link: http://web.baz.org/~adam/dailies/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ai180-1.mp3 )

Errata: Kate tells me the part of the hospital I was in is actually "New York-Presbyterian." Management regrets the error. Also, I've been informed that one does not "catch" audioblogging, one "contracts" it. LJ users having problems seeing the play button? That's an LJ erratum; visit the original post to get the clip.