Friday, June 29, 2007

Nephew Gorgeous and the Princesses

So the little lemur is growing merrily away, becoming longer (3&1/4inches longer already) and fatter daily. We don't entirely believe that he will become a person yet, or that he is actually related to us, but we are still cooing, and utterly in love. And, we keep coming up with new names to describe this little being. A brief recap:

Liam
Leem
Lemur
Lemur Beamer
Beamer
Creature (pronounced "Treature")
Mini Houdini (he's a very small escape artist when it comes to swaddles!)
Beaner
Bean - a popular one.
Beano
Bug
Bud

and this one is a lovely one. Katie came up with it:

"Budlington"

Adds an air of haute couture to his otherwise slothful state, I think. Speaking of sloth:

We also want to report on a new move that Liam has recently aquired. It's called "the Princess" and it involves gently caressing his face with his hands, or generally striking any other demur posture. He seems to have a daily regimen of at least 10 Princesses a day. He's really good at them, too:


The central valley of California can really heat up during the summer, and there are many ways to cool of. Liam has found one of the best.

When Katie was little, after baths she would be dressed in a towel and her parents would coo: "Oh, sister gorgeous!" Now Liam is the new gorgeous creature, and seeing that the son of a sister is a nephew...
"Oh, Nephew Gorgeous!"

(It's worth noting here that he's asleep in the tub. We told him this was dangerous, but he paid us no heed.)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

The Monker

"The Monker" is Liam's sitting-up burping position. Sometimes Liam doesn't mind doing his monkers. Other times, they induce a great fuss. One thing has become clear, however--Monkers never lie. If the Monker's mouth is open and he is rooting around on my hand, he's still hungry. If he's asleep with his fat cheeks hanging over my hand, he's no longer hungry, even if later fussing from a confused Liam might suggest otherwise.

The Replete Monker

The Hungry Monker

Friday, June 15, 2007

The Lemur

Before Liam was born and became "Liam," he had a few names in the womb. The dominant name was "The Baber." Properly preceded by the article, and ending in -er, "The Baber" was rare enough to distinguish our child from just any "Baby." Naturally, the existence of the first name, created opportunities for recombination, and so arose "The Bader," and "The Bager" both pronounced with a long "a" as in bagel.

When we got our ultrasound pictures at week 20 post conception, one frontal shot of the head took some sort of demonic form. A velociraptor perhaps. As a former, and not-quite-reformed velociraptor myself, I was a proud father to be. The other name for this same image, of course, was Darth Baber. You can plainly see the sinister visage below:
From Tea and Kate

Before we finally settled on Liam, the term "The Babento" came to the fore. With a Spanish feel "The Banento" added some zest to the otherwise too-English names.

Now that Liam's been born, however, things have taken a new turn. Here is our own little son, young Liam, fresh to world, and Katie and I are already coming up with names for him. One of these names I've taken the time to graphically represent, for mnemonic purposes. The derivation goes something like this.

Liam.

Liam-er.

Leemer.

Sounds like Lemur.

So, we call him Lemur.
Naturally, the long form is Lemur Beamer:


Beyond Lemur, however, are a host of other names, including the term applied to a child swaddled in a small blanket, "Babe-urrito." See below for a "Babe-urrito."


He is also known as "The Creature," and "Mr. Squiggles" upon occasion, and thanks to our friends Maggie and Abe who have a daughter about 2 months older than Liam, "Fuss McGuss," for his more petulant moods. Recently, a sitting pose that Katie uses to burp him has inspired thoughts of simian ancestry, and thus, the name "Monker."

The following is NOT a picture of a Monker:


The term Monker is applied only to a particular sittong-up burping posture, and can be asked of someone. For instance, "Liam will you give us a Monker?" It just so happens that Liam doesn't always like doing his Monkers.

If names are meant to help us grasp our wonder at the world, then we've only begun to tackle the wonder we feel when we gaze at our little bug. (We call him "Bug" a lot too.) Some things we can't even put into words. Like how we feel when we see this:

Liam Kiran Waring Arrives!!!



On Monday, June 11th, at 5:11am, a brand new baby boy began to cry in a Walnut Creek birthing room. Katie labored hard, and Tim supported her tirelessly, so when Liam came, we were overwhelmed with joy, relieved, and with each passing moment increasingly enthralled with this tiny being. Now we're dumbstruck with love. This is day 4.







And here is a whole album of photos from these first days:

http://aliandcedar.com/gallery/tim_waring

More soon,

Tim, Katie and Liam

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Special Communiqué from the Baby!

Katie and I received a fax late Tuesday afternoon, apparently from the baby himself. He seems to have given us the go-ahead for our India plans, which is exciting. He also appears to be interested in a first birthday cake, which is a bit pushy, really.

Most strangely, however, he seems to have put a future photo of himself on the head of the baby in the image (see below). We can't quite determine his intent here, whether he was trying to scare us, or make some sort of joke.