I was talking to my boss today about infant sleep schedules. He recommended "Ferberizing" my baby. This is a process where you force the infant to be on a specific sleep schedule using this method, published in the book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. It sounded interesting. Katherine is a bit too young right now, but she'll be getting there really soon.

And also, it gives me a chance to buy some books from the bookstore recently purchased by The Lawtons. Jenny was my boss for a long time, and is now settling into running Just Books, in Greenwich Connecticut. (Hi Jenny!).

I'm increasingly trying to use my network of friends that have Internet or small businesses instead of the Amazon's of the world. It's much more satisfying, even though it's sometime's a bit more expensive.

Well, I just ran weblogs for January (minus today), and the numbers are astounding. In November, BK (before Katherine), I did 3300 hits and 22 MB of transfer. In December I did 11,241 hits and 137 MB of transfer. In January, I did 18,441 hits and 172 MB of transfer. That's a lot of hits, and a lot of transfer.

Thanks for visiting the site! It's great to know that owczarek.com is being visited!

And now to the news.

I'm still a bit PO'd at President Bush and our government over the whole POW thing. Everytime G. W. or any other senior member of the government describes the situation, they call it a war. So why are the detainees "unlawful combatants" instead of POW's, and thus not protected by the Geneva Convention. If anyone knows what concessions our government thinks this gains us, please drop me an email and let me know. I figure there must be some international legal issue they don't want to face down the road that is pushing them into this hard stance.

Kara had book club tonight, which is more like baby club, but anyway, I found myself with a few hours to kill, which is pretty unprecedented.

Our second attempt a nursing Katherine with a bottle went pretty well. She was much fussier this time, and it took a bit of coaxing to get her to take it, but she did, and took almost three ounces, which we thought was pretty good. This is going well. The only problem is that the nipples for the bottle seemed to stretch out after we sterilized them. This meant that instead of being able to just tilt the bottle upside down and stick it in her mouth, I had to prop her up and control the angle at which the milk was hitting the nipple. I suppose that's just better anyway, but the first time I did it, it would only come out if she actively sucked on it. It was a bit messier because of this too, so she drooled a bit during the nursing.

At any rate, I feel good, because I will be able to nurse her during the evening now, and I have a duty that I can actually perform that's a bit more directly related to her growing. I mean, I spend a lot of time now changing diapers, doing laundry, and holding her, calming her, etc., but now I can actually nurse her, and for the time being, it's my sole responsibility. This is because we're keeping Kara away while it happens. The little bugger is pretty smart, and we're worried that if she sees Kara, there's no way she'll take a plastic nipple attached to a bottle over a real live breast.

There have actually been some interesting things happening the last few days. I just can't seem to find time to write about it. So I'm going to steal a few minutes here at work to do so, since I've been punching a bunch of hours lately.

OK, Monday evening was a landmark. With Katherine at six weeks and one day, I was able to feed her with a bottle, and it went smooth as glass. Let me explain.

In our case, the switch to the bottle involved, um, collection of natural milk. Remember when you were in junior high chemistry, and you learned how to siphon off acid or something by sucking on a straw, and you figured that the acid would just run into your mouth and you'd be scarred for life, but instead the acid flowed through a feedpipe below where you were sucking on, and safely into another container? Have I lost you? Well, breast pumping is just like that, except instead of your mouth, you have either a hand pump that is kindof like a tire pump, or an electric pump. The pump allows the user of said device to express milk from the breast, and into bottles for collection. Frankly, I find the whole thing a bit distasteful, and having two of these tube and bottle contraptions hanging from your breasts is not the most glamorous image either.

But it does allow for the collection of natural milk, and that allows Dave to finally play (a very poor) surrogate mom.

Some babies have a hard time adjusting to the nipple on the bottle. In fact, we changed pacifiers a few weeks ago on the advice of a lactation support group to a pacifier that had a more, well, nipple-like nipple. And the bottle feeding went GREAT! She latched right on, and drank two ounces in one sitting, and gurgled and cooed away in my arms.

The other landmark about this is a new freedom Kara and I will have once she can be fed reliably on the bottle. We are now limited to about a two hour window at any given time to do anything, because that's the nursing cycle. Now, someone else can feed her with the bottle, and we could actually do something for four or five hours. Of course, that person would have to change diapers too, but let's not go there for now.

We are introducing the bottle slowly. I'll try it again this evening, and we'll gradually work it in so that she's comfortable nursing in either way. (Well, that's the plan, but as we learned last night, she often has her own plans).

Oh, Dave, what happened last night, you ask?

Well, for one thing, I got to go out in the evening and hang out with my old buddy Daak. It was his birthday yesterday, and for reasons of self preservation, he avoids all contact with the outside world on that day. But last night I brought a gift over to his house, and hung out for awhile. I helped with my melancholy. I didn't leave until after 10, but what did I care? I'm always up with the baby until at least 1AM anyway. It's funny, because I usually will have a few beers during a circumstance like this, but neither Kara and I has been drinking much of anything fun since, well actually, since Kara got pregnant. And now that the baby is here, I'm even more sensitive to it, because you just never, never know when something might happen. Anyway, so I have a generally wonderful time without any beers, and when I get home, there is a new and special circumstance happening.

Katherine is pretty upset at bedtime (12:30 or so), and nursing doesn't calm her down. In fact, she's so upset that she won't nurse. We know she's probably tired and hungry, but she's so cranky she just cries and spits the nipple out. This is truly a first, since she always, prior to this, would just take the nipple even when she was mad.
And Kara had this grand plan to keep her up a half hour past the time she should nurse, and then nurse her, and put her to sleep so that she'd eat, fall asleep, and stay asleep. But, as often is the case, the plan did not work because she did not cooperate.

So I take her, because I think Kara might be frustrated, and I have pretty deep reserves at this point. And I carry her into the nursery, and sing to her. This goes on for 20 or 30 minutes. I try bringing her back in and having Kara nurse her, but it doesn't work until she's completely calm. And I'm actually able to get her calm, which is awesome, and eventually she does go back on the breast, and just falls asleep.

She had a pretty fussy night. She didn't all out cry, but she thrashed around a lot, and grunted a lot. It's really amazing how expressive an infant can be. In addition to crying, they have cooing, gurgling, and whistling noises, and the beginnings of word sounds. And grunts. Katherine has the most amazing range of grunts I've ever heard.

So anyway, it doesn't matter how late the thing goes, I still have to get up for work. I snoozed for about 40 minutes this morning until Kara got a bit frustrated. Tired. Very tired. But happy.

Still a bit melancholy. OK, Kara dragged it out of me, and so I'm going to dish it up here. I am trying to deal with the loss of my former life. I was definately a guy with many hobbies, and I have no time for any of them. And I'm disappointed. I am also very much in love with my new daughter and my wife, don't get me wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be a new parent. But I also don't feel that it's wrong to experience a bit of loss or even resentment while I adjust to the wonders of my new life. So that's what I'll have to do.

Hey, on a different topic, what is Bush trying to prove by refusing to adhere to the Geneva convention, and call the Cuban detainees POWs. This is part of the reason that much of the world hates us, I suppose. It's pretty obvious to most of the world that they are, in fact, POWs, and yet we can't just suck it up and deal with it, we have to get our way on this one too.

Once again, I am stealing a moment, so to speak. I just answered a ton of Email that has been stacking up. This web site thing has brought me back in touch with all kinds of people, all the way back to high school, which is pretty cool. I just have a few college friends left to contact and I'll be caught up. I've also been contacted by relatives I don't know, and Owczarek's from around the world.

Anyway, I've actually been a bit melancholy this weekend, and I think it has to do with the loss of freedom that comes with Katherine. I was sitting up in her nursery with Kara this evening, and Katherine was lying on her back, and she had the Fisher Price aquarium on one side, and the spinning lights on the ceiling on the other side, and she was excited and pumping her legs, and a whirl of thoughts went through me, starting with, "I will have no real life until she's at least a teenage," and ending in something like, "I can't believe this little baby with really only basic emotions and motor skills is going to become an adult some day."

So I'm feeling a bit humbled, maybe a little overwhelmed.

You might be wondering why the current feature photo is in black and white. Well, it's because I took it in black and white. I know, I know, it may sound really retro, but trust me, a well taken B&W picture is a beautiful thing. Now, if only I could get to the point where I had mastery of contrast I might actually be able to take some really nice B&W pictures. This one isn't too bad, but the scan kinda hurts it.

Anyway, Katherine had us up until 2AM last night. Kara is taking a nap, and that's the only reason I have the chance to update the site. It's been pretty busy. We had a nice, quiet day today, though, watching the game. My dad came over, and we had pizza. It was pretty relaxing.

Oh, it turns out that David W. does read my web site! Or at least, he did just after I posted my rant below. He didn't promise to pick up the Lansinoh pads I was looking for, but he sent me such a cute movie of his son Evan that I decided to get some nursing stuff from him anyway. The coupon didn't hurt either. Thanks Dave!