We were upstairs tonight getting him into his PJ’s, and since Simon is really interested in numbers these days and also likes to point out clocks, I decided to introduce him to the wild world of digital alarm clocks.

“See these numbers, Simon?  This is a clock and it tells time.  But it uses numbers instead of hands.  Can you tell me what these numbers are?”

Blank stare.  “No hands.”

“That’s right — no hands!  It uses numbers.  Look!  Eight.  Zero.  Two.  It’s eight-oh-two.”  It seemed appropriate, so I quoted one of Simon’s favorite nursery rhymes, Wee Willie Winkie.  “Are your children all in bed?  It’s after eight o’clock.”

“Eight o’clock is bedtime.”

“What?”  That wasn’t expected.

“Eight o’clock is bedtime.”

I wasn’t gonna waste this.  “It sure is.  Do you want to go to bed?”

“Uh-kay.”

A few giggles and five minutes later he was out cold.  Eight o’clock is bedtime.

What finally encouraged him to make a decision and go public with it?  This evening’s news reported that Michelle Obama appeared in Louisville today reading The Runaway Bunny to kids at Kosair Children’s Hospital.  “Ooooh!” said Simon.  It was a tough call, but I think he finally had to settle on the candidate with the most pro-Runaway Bunny agenda.

Could anything change Simon’s mind?  Maybe if Chelsea came over and helped point out all of the lights in Goodnight Moon.

Simon was in good spirits and didn’t seem out of sorts at all. We played hard, and he took some amazing naps.  We went for a walk in the bizarre 67F weather (Simon took off his socks in the stroller again) and played with Christopher over at Mama’s Hip. I even got a bit crazy and, after a day of Cheerios, bananas and Pedialyte, decided to give Simon some milk and macaroni & cheese for dinner.

Bad move.

A little after 11:00PM Jessica and I heard a squawk from Simon’s room — not that odd for him at that time of night, but it was followed shortly by some repeated coughs. We both sat up for that, and I went to investigate. Sure enough — el barfo grande…on the crib, on him, on the carpet, on me. Simon and I just went straight to the tub while Jessica tackled the barf in Simon’s bedroom. Simon handled it like a champ, though, and stopped crying by the time we got settled into the bath. He didn’t seem to be feeling sick or in any pain, so we just cleaned up and shared a little bit of ginger ale (he made really funny faces when he tasted it) before I put him back to bed.

The pediatrician’s office said that if he appeared to feel okay, wasn’t running a fever and kept down his next meals then he probably just needed to go dairy-free a bit longer. So we’re back to Cheerios, bananas and Pedialyte for a while — although I might share a bit more ginger ale with him again before bed tonight!

The holidays gave me the first real downtime since the crash, so last week I built a new server with RAID 1 disk-mirroring, installed Ubuntu Server on it and lugged it over to IgLou for colocation. Today I dug out an old laptop disk that had a blog database dump from April and managed to get it installed into an upgraded version of WordPress on the new server. A few minutes later, I had exported Jessica’s new blog and imported it into the rebuilt one. Apart from a six-month gap, some clean-up and a lot of missing pictures, we’re back in business.

In the next week or so, I’ll start rebuilding May-October 2007 from blog entries I pulled out of Google’s cache the night of the crash.

Thanks for sticking with us through the mess. The new URL should be here to stay no matter what, so be sure to bookmark it.

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[Editor's Note: It must mean something terrible. He absolutely demanded the keyboard from me and then pounded away at it like Jack Kerouac on an Benzedrine bender. Now he's hitting himself in the face and crying. I'm gonna go try to put him down and then go out and buy a new keyboard.]

But for whatever reason Jessica couldn’t fall asleep tonight and just happened to check on Ian and Christine’s Photo Gallery — and there she was!

We don’t know anything but the name yet. It’s late in San Francisco by now, too, so we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow for details. But congratulations Ian and Christine! Congratulations Harriette! Congratulations everybody! And welcome Alise! We can’t wait to see you in May.

I mean, I was up from 3:00 – 4:00 AM this morning dancing and bouncing and singing song after song after song trying to get a totally wired, mildly cranky, somewhat vomitous baby back to sleep, but does that ever get photographed? Noooooooooo…. But just let a naked, hairy Dad slack at his morning baby care duties for 10 minutes, and out comes the camera. Sheesh!

So here, presented in chronological order, are the babies of 2006:

Thomas. First out the door this year was Thomas Alexander, born in late January. Thomas was not just the first baby of 2006, but he was also the first baby born in to our circle of San Francisco friends. His exploits (as documented at www.nijibaby.com) were eagerly followed by many of us, and probably kicked a few of us (and we know who we are) in the butt and reminded us that if we were really interested in doing this baby thing our mid-thirties might be the time to get on with it already! Thomas has made the most of 2006 with appearances all over Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as two trips abroad to visit his grandparents in the UK. Jessica was privileged enough to meet Thomas in February, and we both caught up with him as a three-month-old during a trip to San Francisco last May.

Fiona. Next up came Fiona Marie, born in early March. Fiona was born to Ann Arbor friends Tim and Cindy. Tim and Cindy got married one year before Matt and I did, putting us on a very similar schedule to start a family already. The one notable difference is that Fiona is Tim’s third child. We’re delighted that Fiona has her mother’s red hair, which we got to see in person during our June visit to Boston. We hope to get back soon, as Fiona seems to be in a hurry to grow up. Seriously. Kiddo started walking at 9 1/2 months. Sorry Tim and Cindy!

Gabriela. Gabriela Malka is my first cousin Connie’s first grandchild, born this March to my first cousin once removed Cara. Cara is only six years younger than I am, and I have fond memories of babysitting her when she was 6 or 7 and I was 12 or 13. Cara was such a cute kid that I’d basically go over to her house, play with her, stay up past my normal bedtime until Connie came home, and then get paid for it. Delightful! With the birth of Gabriela our family has officially “flipped” generations, as Simon is seven months younger than the cousin one branch down from him on the family tree. We got to introduce the two this Thanksgiving when Cara and her husband Jesse came up from Miami to spend the holiday with her grandparents, my Uncle Sam and Aunt Marcia.

Josephine. Matt’s co-worker Colin’s baby girl. He hasn’t been spotted playing World of Warcraft since she was born.

Kalyna. We were hoping Shawn and Yun’s baby would be the ugly breathtaking one, theorizing that someone had to have the ugly breathtaking baby and we didn’t want it to be us. But noooooooooo…. Kalyna Marie had to be the cutest baby ever, leaving us scared to death that our baby was going to be, um, less than handsome. She is also the best photographed baby of the bunch — Shawn and Yun really know how to use a camera.

Evan. Evan Samuel is Ann Arbor friend Bob and Chapel Hill friend Beth’s second child. We introduced Beth and Bob to each other at our wedding, and their first child, Andrew, was born three and a half years ago on our anniversary. Trippy, eh? Simon was almost born on Beth’s birthday, making the circle complete, but overshot by 13 hours and 48 minutes. Bummer. Evan came on July 4, thus relegating his original chosen name, Samuel, to the second slot for obvious reasons. Beth and Bob are in Durham, not far from where Beth and I first met in 1988. We hope to get the entire gang together this spring.

Lola. My colleague Sheri Cain was the first in my work circle to tell my boss she was pregnant. Karen, being a big fan of babies and motherhood, was of course thrilled for her. Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth got to call Karen and tell her that she was not only pregnant, but that she was even expecting twins (see below). Karen, being a big fan of babies and motherhood was of course thrilled for her. Shortly thereafter, I got to call Karen and tell her that I too was pregnant. Yup, three out of four women on her team all had babies within three months of each other, and I had to tell last. Karen, being a big fan of babies and motherhood, had the good grace to sound thrilled for me. Thanks Karen! For her part, Lola Lily was born in August and is flourishing up in a town by Indianapolis. I plan to see her soon, as she’s only a couple of hours from me.

Margot and Tatum. Twins! My colleague and good friend Elizabeth declared last Christmas that her fondest wish for 2006 was to start a family. Well, be careful what you ask for! The September arrival of identical twin girls Margot Louise and Tatum Caroline gave her an instant family. Last I talked to Elizabeth, she sounded every bit as tired as you would expect, but also deliriously happy. We can’t wait to meet these two cuties this spring when we travel to San Francisco to meet all the new Bay Area babies.

Ananya. Yet another colleague and friend, Anindo, became a Dad this September when his daughter Ananya, Nina for short, was born on September 11. Anindo does not work for Karen, so she was able to sound delighted about this addition to the Pearson family without wondering who was left to get some work done. In the picture I’ve seen of them together, Anindo looks exhausted but very happy, and Ananya looks suitably adorable. As an added bonus, Ananya’s bithday gives us all something positive to associate with an otherwise sad day. Anindo is also based in Indianapolis, so I hope to meet his new daughter soon as well.

Keira. Friends Ian and Christine’s new niece. Check out that awesome head of hair. Ian calls her “Ted Kopple”. What’s been cool about Keira (for us) has been getting to watch Ian and Christine interact with such an adorable baby, especially since they’re expecting their own sometime in 2007. Congratulations to parents Andrew and Jennifer!

Simon. Best baby of 2006, hands down. Super-adorable, extremely sociable and already demonstating genius-level learning abilities at week eleven. Puts himself to sleep at night with nary a whimper and stays down for hours, ensuring that baby and parents are fresh and ready for new adventures each morning. Practically changes his own diapers. Oh, did I mention he’s ours…?

William. We didn’t even know that William Cash was in the works, but when an email from Matt’s college pal Jason casually mentioned “going on minutes of sleep a day” we recognized the desperation of the new parent. Sure enough, he and his wife Tera had just had their first baby, and were diving deep, deep into the thrill of new-parenthood.

Colin. Simon’s new best friend thrilled his Mom and Dad by arriving three weeks before his original due date of Christmas Eve. So instead of being in the hospital or sitting around 9+ months pregnant this Christmas, they got to wake up every two-and-a-half hours to change poopy diapers, nurse and try to rock a crying baby to sleep. I’m sure it was worth the trade off. Colin’s Mom, Lucy, is an old high school friend of Jessica’s that got back in touch with us just a few months before we moved back to Louisville. Jessica and Lucy told each other they were pregnant on the same day, pretty much guaranteeing that the two babies would be built-in playmates. Colin Michael’s adventures can be tracked at his BabyBlog.

Whew! Fourteen babies in all. Almost hard to believe.

Watch for a similar post this time next year. Friends Ian and Chistine are due in April. Jessica’s former colleague and friend Chanda is also due in April. Jessica’s colleague and author Eric and Lisa are due in February. Jessica’s colleague Jen is due today and might already have a son. And several other babies are in the works but not yet publicly declared.

First Simon helped Mom make her own breakfast by supervising from his Baby Papasan seat (carefully perched on the kitchen island). Then the two of them headed back upstairs and listened to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR during Elevenses. After that, Mom sang along with his new My Fair Lady soundtrack album while Simon did an interpretive dance.* All that singing and dancing required a nap before Luncheon, which was served promptly at 1:30 PM.

After that, we attended to Simon’s social calendar, going for a stroller walk down Bardstown Road and visiting Aunt Stacy and the Goldstein Cousins. You wouldn’t think their place would be great for a nap with all the kids running around, flipping out with their Christmas loot, but it did just fine for Simon, who only awoke late in the game to announce that it was time for Afternoon Tea. We rushed home and fed him just in time to avoid a fuss.

Having paid attention to all of Simon’s meals so far, Mom and Dad were famished. So we headed over to the new Cafe at Douglass Loop, where Simon took in a light snooze before posing for some ridiculously cute photos. Next it was back home for Dinner, a bath, an amazing nap and a late Supper. Whew! Barely time in a single day to fit in all those very important meals**.

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* Malcolm and Colin are posing with his new football while we’re singing show tunes with Simon. Jessica fears we’re making ourselves a little Bobby Hill.

** See The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring or this Wikipedia article.