NSJ

We have been extremely well taken care of in our first couple weeks as parents. Jul’s Mom spent the week here while we were down in San Diego and stocked our frig and freezer with food. She makes the best eggplant parmesan on the planet. Then my parents arrived and provided an endless stream of carry out goodness. After my parents left Tippy brought us a bunch of supplies that were easy to prepare like salads, pizzas, and wine. (Wine is really easy to prepare and it makes holding a screaming baby much more tolerable. It should be a major food group.) JJ and Sam brought us key muchies for the football game. Cara came down with yummy fresh bread. Brian, Brigid, and Tobin (a.k.a. DJ Danger Tobin) came with bagels, cream cheese, locks, and goat cheese. Sai cooked us an amazing mushroom risotto. Cathy (in from Hawaii) and Suzanne brought us a stack of sandwiches. Suzanne (a.k.a. Mother in Chief) and Riley dropped by an amazing home cooked dinner just the other night. Mandy bought us a fantastic dinner from Amber India while she was in town. It was enough Indian food to feed, well, India (you can never have too much nan). Antonio and Sejal are bringing by dinner next week after they return from Disneyland. Jul’s Mom is back in town and continues to cook us amazing food.

So I think I’ve put on about 18 pounds in the last three weeks. Eight pounds of baby and ten pounds of weight.

Different soothing tactics seem to work for Nicholas at different times. Sometimes rocking quiets him down, sometimes singing, sometimes walking, sometimes the bouncy chair or swing, sometimes crying with him. The one technique that seems to work without fail is the human swing. I can’t tell if he is just so surprised to find himself flying through the air that he forgets to cry or if the motion genuinely calms him. As I start to swing him he usually has a look on his face that says, “Dear god man! Are you crazy?” Then 50 swings later he is asleep. Now if only I can find a soothing technique that works on my abs.

Everybody in the Johnston household is a sleepy. Especially the boys.

Sadly, rarely at night.

Chris, Sai, and Roan came by and brought us an amazing mushroom risotto dinner on Thursday. Yum.

Cara (a.k.a. amazing artist friend) came down from the city to see the boy.

Lynn, Steven, Niel, and Conner came by. He calls us Auntie Jujie and Auntie Cott. At some point I’m going to graduate to Uncle Cott but I’ll take Auntie for now. Here he is eating his 10th “last” chip. I mean it this time. This is the last one. OK. One more. But this one is the last one.

Bryan, Brigid, and Tobin also headed down from SF. Bryan recently won the Wall Street Journal’s gold award for innovation for his work on DTRACE. Here you can see him giving Niko a lecture on efficient kernal memory management. Nicholas told me later he didn’t feel Bry had a real deep understanding of the fundamental concepts but he didn’t want to say anything. He is very considerate of other’s feelings.

You can see here that Tobin is very San Francisco. He is already in intense training to be a DJ.

Sam, JJ, and Figgy hung out with us on Saturday as well. They live up in San Francisco. Apparently everybody lives in San Francisco. Here is Sam lounging in the backyard with Figgy and Sumo…

My sis is out visiting from D.C. hang with the Niko this weekend. She got here in time to watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State game. We decked out the little man in blue and yellow and cheered on the team. Overall Nicholas was happy with how Michigan played. He was a little disappointed in the defensive secondary’s level of play in the third quarter but was comforted by the ample lead. Apparently comfortable enough to crash out for the rest of the second half.

I found the photo below on my camera tonight as I went to upload new pictures. It appears as if Nicholas learned to write this weekend. Either that or he had Sumo write the note for him. Genius that kid.

Jul had an oncology appointment on Thursday during the day (she passed with flying colors) and had to leave Niko home alone with me (gasp!). Here is what I learned:

• It is possible to have a conference call while holding a screaming baby with judicious use of the mute button and regularly insertion of statements like, “can somebody turn down that radio?” and “Does somebody hear a baby screaming?”
• When Nicholas is strapped to me in the bjorn thingy he can tell the difference between when I am paying attention to him and when I’m paying attention to my laptop even with his eyes closed. This secret power allows him to protest loudly when I’m paying attention to the latter.
• I can successfully have an IM conversation with Rus while feeding a baby by typing using a combination of my nose and an elbow.
• Bouncy chairs are genius.
• Nicholas appears to enjoy 50 cent (more so Get Rich or Die Tryin’ than The Massacre)

I came home Wednesday to huge boxes from the Mark & Mandy, Matt & Rach, Susan, and Carol & Bunk. We are going to have one crazy stylin’ baby. At first I wondered what the heck we were going to do with all the clothing. Then I remembered he went through about three outfits a day. I think they should make baby outfits out of the same material they use to make rain jackets.

Sumo tried to get into the pumpkin Susan got us, but forgot he wasn’t a tiny puppy anymore.

Thanks everybody!

Like spittle on the shirt.

Ick.