Following the grand tradition of the majority of parenting/daddy blogs, PatataMonkey will only last about two years. Yes, this will be my last post here. I will leave the blog online as a resource for new parents (I know a few people who count on it, which is flattering), and you will be able to follow The Guid's growth and adventures through pictures at guidojack.com.

So why do all these parenting blogs end when the baby is about a year old? Hard to tell, but I can give you my reasons: the baby is quickly becoming a toddler -- he almost walks, he understand a lot of what we say, in either language, he signs (as of today: eat, milk, sleep, more, up, down, train, cat, dog, thank-you, please, bird, airplane, hurt, ball, book, horse, fish and blows kisses. Oh, and "ceiling fan"), he only nurses twice a day (and tomorrow we introduce cow's milk!), he is a once-a-day napper, he is a sweetie-pie, a little clown, a heartbreaker...in short, he's our bug.

So anyways, the rate of change is incredible. Every day he learns something new or does something new. Little, hart-melting actions/gestures/skills, which make us incredibly proud. Tracking all of it in the blog would be both boastful and very time-consuming. With the little time I have every day to spend with him, I'd much rather BE with him than to write about it.

Then there's the fact that I don't need the blog any more. Blogging about the pregnancy and our baby's first months was extremely therapeutic for me. It was a way for me to vent and to share what have been some of the most challenging times of my life, both in hope that someone could sympathize and to feel good about sharing some tips about what worked for us.

About a month ago, after we came back from our Italian vacation (GJ was about 10-months old then), Mariah and I definitely felt like, all of a sudden, we had come "out of the tunnel" that started at the beginning of the pregnancy. Guido is big enough to be easier to tend to, he spends two days a week with a sitter, we do baby-sitting swaps almost every week (sometimes twice a week), our schedule allows for more human interaction with our old friends...in short, we're back! Things are under control again.

So the need for blogging sort-of evaporated. As did the need for reading other parenting blogs. I have a whole lot of them saved up in my Google RSS reader, but I barely every look at them any more. I made another list of Guido's little friends' blogs or Flickr picture feeds, and that's enough.

So here we are, one last post, at least for now. I would like to thank all of you who posted comments (really, thank you so much), and all the daddy blogs out there, especially Greg of daddytypes.com and Jan Garcia, Lucas' dad: you've been great companions, whether you know it or not.

So...are you thinking of having kids? Let me squeeze in some last-minute, annoyingly unrequested advice, while I still have a blog:

* Work on that solid foundation of love with your partner before you start thinking of having babies. I heard that most marriages end when the first child is between 8 and 18 months of age, and I can see why (though ours is going super-strong, don't you worry about us!)

* Have family nearby: our families are very far away, and it's been VERY hard without them. Both for the free baby-sitting and support that comes with it, and for the enormous amount of love that your baby will receive and give back to them (we really hate that we're depriving our kid and our parents of it by living out here. Sure we use Skype every day, but it's not quite the same).

* Do it while you're young, it takes a lot of energy

* Fathers: don't be jerks. Do more around the house. Come home early. Recognize that being a mother is an incredible amount of hard work. Yes, harder than your job. And it's 24/7. Think about it for a second. At 3:00am it's easy to hide behind the "but I gotta go to work in the morning" excuse, but guess what? If your partner COULD go to work instead of you, she'd do it in a heartbeat. So be there for your hormones-filled wife. Listen to her and try to put yourself in her shoes for a second.

* Build a support group: moms groups, playground friends, library lap-sits, you name it. Keep looking until you find some people you really like, and who happen to have a kid about the same age as yours. This is invaluable, and we feel terribly lucky to have met a few such people (hi Maggie, hi Elias, hi Riley!)

* Do baby-sitting swaps (it's so easy, the kids are sleeping anyways)

* Do sign language, it's magic (if you can stomach the songs, Signing Time is really good)

* Blog about it all! ;)

So, much love from the three of us, and goodbye.

We are back from a 6-weeks trip to Italy. Head over to guidojack.com for pictures.

The trip was great, and there's too much to tell.

We came back with a different baby that the one we left with. This one:
- has 2 more teeth (6 total now)
- eats just about everything we eat (he likes to feed himself)
- crawls really fast
- is close to walking, pulling himself up everywhere and taking small steps sideways while holding on to things
- waves bye-bye
- clearly says MAMMA, just not at Mariah yet (though he knows what mamma means)
- signs "dog" and "airplane" and "eat" and "drink" (more on that in a later post)
- is a social animal, demanding attention and fully interacting with other babies
- is LOUD
- has put us in a childproofing emergency when we got back

Some of the lessons we learned during this trip:
- adjust expectations. A vacation WITH a baby is much different than one PRE-baby. Vacationing with a baby means that instead of having NO time for youself, you get an hour a day or so.
- having family around should be a pre-requisite to having a child (more on that another day).
- italians have never seen a baby feed himself (and overall think it's a great thing)
- italians feed very weird things to their babies:

- italians have a long way to go towards ratial integration (I'm talkking 200+ years). The Guids was about the most exotic thing to hit southern Italy in a long time. Oh, and they like to STARE at people, especially us.

I also added a bunch of pictures to guidojack.com

It turns out he just needed enough motivation to do it...and the webcam / laptop / granparents combo was just the ticket.

Watch Guido Jack's first crawl

And his second one to get Cheerios

After the videos above were shot, I took GJ to the playground to do some more crawling practice. He was like a completely different baby. A few videos: here, here and here.

And here's one on the swing

So anyways, once again we feel like we're back at square one in terms of parenting. I'm watching a movie right now but I'll write more tomorrow.

Confusing, heh? You can imagine how confusing it was for me (you can see me slipping and addressing Guido Jack in english at some point).

I realize that at this stage (they are both around 8 months old) it probably doesn't make a big difference for them what language they hear...still, this is just the beginning!

How do you deal with multiple kids, when you're trying to speak one language to one and a different one to the other? Do you translate everything you say or most of it or however much you can handle before your head explodes? ;)

I'm exhausted already. Hopefully I'll get used to it and it'll get easier on my poor little brain.

For the first time today, he managed to get back to the sitting position from being on his tummy: Tummy to Butt

He still enjoys a good game of catch, but he's far too busy moving around...Playing ball on the rug

In other news...today he had a particularly nasty blow-out and I was alone with him, so I decided it was a good time to give Guido Jack his first bidet (he is Italian after all...). He seemed to like it! See for yourself

Guido wakes up anywhere between 6:00 and 7:00 am. As I'm a morning person and Mariah doesn't function in the morning, the morning shift is mine. So, when he wakes up I go and get him (he sleeps in the crib in his room) and basically attach it to Mariah for feeding (she's half asleep the whole time). I get my last 5-10 minutes of sleep while he has his breakfast, and get up when he's almost done. I get dressed quickly, brush my teeth and get him. Mariah goes back to being 100% asleep at this point.

This is our usual morning routine (say, 6:30 to 8:30): we play a little in the living room while he digests, then I change his diaper (you don't want to do it right away or he'll barf on the changing table). As I'm changing him, I also change him in day-time clothes: socks, pants, shirt, bib. Then I put my shoes and my hoodie on, and put a hat and a hoodie on him, stuff a couple of little toys in my pocket, grab a magazine or a book for me and we're off.

We get the stroller from the garage, I tether the toys to it, and we go to the coffee shop. Depending on how hungry I am we either go straight there or take the long way around the park so that the Guids can check out some bau-baus and some cheep-cheeps.

The coffee shop ("Bean There") is basically Guido's (and mine's) second home. He's been there almost every day since he was 3 weeks old, so everyone knows him and he definitely recognizes Ornella and the other people who work there. Double-latte and a pastry for me, tethered toys for Guido. He's pretty good at letting me have my breakfast in peace. Now that the weather is nice we sit outside and he looks at the dogs (big smiles) and the flowers and the cars, which is nice for me. If we're lucky some of his little friends are there too (other local kids, usually there with one parent, just like us). Somehow if other people are there Guido lasts a lot longer without getting antsy, which is nice.

Anyways, after the coffee shop we go back to the park and if I have the energy we also stop at the playground for a little swinging session. We're usually the only people there at 7:30, I wonder why... ;)

Then we go back home. He plays in his play-pen or on the living room rug or in the exersaucer, then, if they are online, it's Skype-time with one of my parents in Italy. He's been having video-conferences with them regularely since he was very young, and now is totally comfortable with the concept...my mom sings him songs and plays peek-a-boo with him...he smiles and laughs and pays attention. Makes you wonder about his generation...if video-conferencing and VOIP are some of the first concepts they learn, what kind of views towards technology and geography and the world will they grow up with? Man, I remember having a black-and-white TV when I was a kid!

Anyways, back on track. After a good 20 minutes on skype, we play some more, read a book or two, play ball (he's getting better and better a throwing it back in my general direction, which makes it easier on me). Towards 8:30ish he starts getting tired, so I have recently started another time-killer: Signing Times DVD #1! He really enjoys it: paritally because we don't let him watch TV or DVDs other than this one, partially because of the content. He's just recently starting to sign back...he signs "milk" when he wants cheerios...still, he's signing! :) I'll have more on that in a future post I'm sure.

After 5-10 minutes of signing time, it's 8:45, time for his second feeding. We wake up Mom, she feeds him and puts him down for his 9:00am nap. We started really enforcing the 9:00am nap, even for when he wakes up at 7:30. Having a nap schedule is something that we only started a couple of weeks ago, but I think everyone is happier with it. It gives the day some structure, and most of the mommy-and-me activities around town are at 10:30-11:00, so having Guido Jack be all rested for those is a good thing.

Once The Guids is asleep, and go to work (sometimes I make Mariah breakfast before I do). I get there at 9:15ish, and I'm still the first one there most of the time...ah, programmers...

Now I'm not so sure about what happens while I'm at work, Mariah can talk about this in more details. Anyways, his morning nap lasts anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. I know that he eats two more times (he's been on the 5 feedings a day schedule for a while: 6:00am, 9:00am, noon, 3:00pm and 6:00pm). His afternoon nap is at 1:00 (again, anywhere from half an hour to two hours sometimes). Mariah and Guido always have some activity planned (or at least that's the goal): either a mom-group, or the mom-movies on tuesday mornings, or lunch with a friend, or a museum, or a walk in the park, or a lap-sit at the library, or the "dancing and prancing" thing at the community center on fridays...you can never have enogh activities planned, and we're always looking for more. The day passes faster if there's something planned, and everyone's happier at the end of the day.

Ok, so by 5:00pm Mariah is understandably exhausted and I get the call: "are you coming home now?". Luckily work has been manageable lately, so I usually answer "yes".
When I get home on my vespa 8 minutes later I usually see Guido and Mariah looking out the window waiting for me. Guido always greets me with a big smile and some arm-flapping (we call them his "chicken wings"), which is a big gift.

I go upstairs doing our family whistle, put down my stuff, wash my hands and take him, much to the relief of Mariah. ;) We have some active play time (we wrestle on the bed mostly), then we eat solids in his new awesome $20 IKEA high-chair (we're adding a new kind of food every few days...so far he loves everything, like a good italian boy). Sometimes if it's early we hit the playground, which is packed at this time of day.

A little more play-time, a little "street patrol" (sitting on his stool by his window looking at the cars and the trains and the dogs in the park), until he gives us a signal that it's time for bed (usually he'll stop playing, raise his arms and whine a little). This usually happens anywhere from 6:30 to 7:30pm.

So it's "night-time-routine" time: I take him to the bathroom, brush his 4 little teeth with his little toothbrush (Guido knows what's going on by now and usually cooperates), then back to his room: turn on the night-light, roll down the shade, prepare his pajamas in his crib, and put him on the changing table. I change his diaper into a disposable, I give him a little leg-massage, take his shirt off, make him laugh by kissing him all over, then I pick him up to bring him to Mariah for a quick look at the semi-naked baby, which is a treat for any mom. ;) Then back to the crib, I put on his jammies and read him a book (usually Todo Los Besos or Goodnight Moon, which I translated in Italian. Sometimes we read The Going To Bed Book or Goodnight, Gorilla instead, but it's rare).

After the book, I take him to Mariah, who is waiting on the couch to feed him. She feeds him, he usually falls asleep on the second boob, she clips his nails (not every night, but often), and puts him in his crib. While she's feeding him I either cook dinner or order it or go pick it up somewhere near.

Once the bug is down we have our dinner and catch-up on the daily events. Then we either watch a movie or I read while Mariah watches TV or I do some computering while watching TV...all very glamorous I know.

I'm usually in bed by 10:30pm, and I love it.

Then we start over the next day. And the next. And the next. And the next.

As you might have noticed, not a whole lot of personal time for either Mariah or me. We're working on that...for instance, on Monday mornings I go to the coffee shop ALONE with a book, which is heaven. Mariah is going out with her girlfriends tonight...plus we're looking for a baby-sitter for one day a week, at least until we go to Italy this summer (5 weeks from today, yes we're counting the days...).

Cheerios!

Visit guidojack.com for more pictures.

Check out GuidoJack.com for more hilarious pictures.

Now I know that as parents our views are inherently skewed...but isn't this a bit advanced for a 6 months old? That's a fast-moving object he's grabbing, and with a bounce!

Awesome.

With Nonna Mary
Southern Tummy Time
Playing on Anne's Bed
More Solid Foods - we moved on to sweet potatoes now.
At the Conservatory of Flowers
WATCH THIS ONE: Bang it! - this is Guido's new favorite game. I love how he's starting to play with us more and more.

By now we have made enough little parenting decisions that patterns are starting to emerge. The first of such patterns to emerge is one that I think is very important to us. I struggled to pinpoint what it was, and after much searching for the right terms, I have figured out that our actions, from the start, are often geared towards raising a low-maintenance person.

For instance: we never gave The Guids a pacifier. Ok sorry that's a lie right off the bat, on a few occasions we shoved that thing in his mouth hoping against hope that it would get him to stop screaming. As you can imagine, that never worked. Anyways, back on the subject: the main reason we didn't give him a binky wasn't for fear of long-term problems with the roof of his mouth or anything like that. Mostly we just didn't want him to rely on it for, yes, pacifying himself. What happens if he wakes up in the middle of the night and can't put the pacifier back in his mouth? Basically we didn't want the binky to be a crutch for him. He soon discovered that sucking on his shirt on left wrist was just what he needed, and he has been doing it since (and it's really cute too).

Ok, next: we never used a wipes-warmer. We always only used cotton pads (the kind people use to remove make-up I'm guessing) and room-temperature water (the commercial wipes gave him a rash, plus I heard they have anti-freeze in them). From the start, he knew that diaper-changing time was going to be a bit cold. He doesn't know any other way, so he is fine with it. So now when we need to change him in a restaurant/park/airport, it's no different than home. Again, one less thing he "needs".

Next: we don't lower our voices much around him when he sleeps. He sleeps through anything (a Muni train goes by his window all the time). We watch movies in the next room while he sleeps, no problem (though I think this has to do with his mom's genes more than anything, she's the original champion sleeper).

Next: his night-light in his room is pretty bright (it's just a regular paper lamp + a 5 dollar IKEA dimmer). Again, we don't want him to rely on pitch-darkness in order to sleep. Plus, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, we want him to recognize where he is and feel safe (and, the theory goes, go back to sleep).

What else...oh yes, the whole "going to sleep" subject: basically we want him to be able to go to sleep by himself: no rocking until he's asleep, no going for a walk in the stroller until he's asleep, no going for a drive either...well, I doubt he would sleep on the back of the vespa anyways ;) We just put him in his crib, tired but awake, and leave him alone. Sometimes he "has to go out with a fight" (that's how we describe it around here) by crying for 5-7 minutes, some other times he just plays and sucks on his shirt until he's out peacefully. For a while we were concerned that he needed the boobs to go to sleep, which meant that "we could never get a baby sitter!" (I remember Mariah paniking about this one), so we trained him not to need it. We'd keep him up until after Mariah fed him (tickling always works), that way he was awake when we put him down. Anyways, the idea is the same: we don't want him to rely on anything but himself to go to sleep.

And while we're on the sleep subject, I am a total sleep-training convert, mostly because I don't want him to rely on getting picked up in the middle of the night.

Another subject is the bottle: since we want Guido Jack to be low-maintenance and be able to hang out with a sitter once in a while, I have been feeding him a bottle at least once a day since he was maybe a month old (and boy it was a struggle at first!). That way he just is ok with taking a bottle. Now I'm a little bummed that he definitely prefers his formula on the warmer side...I'd rather get him used to room-temperature water, but you can't have it all now can you?

Which brings me to the one little nagging doubt I've had about this whole thing: are we being overly tight and depriving our baby of something he needs at this age?

Nah, I don't think so...we love our bug SO MUCH and we he gets lots of active play, hugs, kisses and snuggles. And as far as we can tell, he is a very happy baby.

Plus we're always a little flexible with things: for instance, last night when he woke up screaming at 3:00am I picked him up, fed him and rocked him back to sleep (whoa, tripple whammy). It was against my principles, but it was an emergency situation (poor Mariah hasn't slept properly in weeks because of her horrible allergies, plus he's teething and a little sick and yadda yadda yadda). Sometimes parenting is about choosing the lesser evil I guess. Oh! Look at that! The second pattern I notice! ;)

Here's a few other recent videos:
- At the De Young with Hannah
- First Interactions
- On the Deck
- More Street Patrol