Well, this is quite extraordinary,

but today, at twelve days old, Arthur rolled over, on his own, on purpose, three times in a row.

The first time we set him on his stomach on the sofa during dinner and looked up moments later to find him lying peacefully on his back. But I couldn't believe it, so I put him back on his stomach and watched him and a minute later - over again. The third time, we videotaped it. Sadly, by this point he was pretty mad that we kept putting him back on his stomach when he clearly wanted to be on his back, so he's crying in this video. After this, we let him rest on his back - he deserves it.

For those of you not up on their baby development facts, most babies learn to roll over between four and six months. Beatrice did so just shy of three months. Doing it at two weeks - I have never heard of anything like that. In fact, my friend Joanne said that in medical school they were taught that if someone brings a baby into the hospital under 3-4 months old and claims they were injured when they rolled over and fell off something, they should consider that person to be lying, because it's not possible for a baby that young to roll over.

So there you go! Arthur is apparently incredibly strong. He also gained 11 ounces of body weight in six days, so we may have a superhero on our hands.

Beatrice and Arthur

Beatrice practices kissing Arthur gently

Beatrice first met Arthur at the hospital on Friday morning and she was absolutely delighted by the baby. She wanted to hold him and hug him and kiss him and carry him around, and we had some trouble getting her to be gentle and sit still, but at least she was enthusiastic about him. In fact, the first thing she did after giving him a hug and a kiss was to attempt to shove a piece of lemon scone into his mouth while shouting "Eat! Eat!"

Learning what babies do and don't eat.

She also cried when the nurses took Arthur into the nursery for a routine blood test because the doctor was taking the baby away. Of course, she also wanted to put Arthur into her doll stroller and wheel him around the hospital, so clearly we have a lot to learn about boundaries.

We brought Arthur home from the hospital on Saturday and since then it has been a real challenge to teach Beatrice to be gentle. She is constantly trying to grab him, squeeze him, or pick him up. I need her to be careful around him but I also don't want to punish her for trying to interact with him. It can be very trying at times, but worth it when she does something adorable like hold his hand or kiss him carefully. I'm grateful she at least seems to like him - I'm just looking forward to her growing more cautious or, more likely, Arthur growing more hearty.

Beatrice loves to set toys around Arthur, though he rarely thanks her for them

Every time Arthur cries, Beatrice announces "Arthur is sad! The baby is sad!" Or when he is quiet, she will ask, "Arthur is happy?"

Today we took Arthur along with us to the baby gym and then later in the afternoon, to the park. Beatrice spent most of her time climbing and exploring, but occasionally she would check back in to make sure that Arthur was still under the blanket.

This is how Arthur spent his time in the park.

The First Week

Arthur is one week old!

And he is strong, healthy, loud, and hungry - the in-hospital pediatrician described him as "vigorous." We're just getting to know him, of course, but so far I'd say he's very calm and content - unless he is hungry. When he is hungry, though, he completely freaks out. I remember how many hours we spent coaxing Beatrice into eating, but her brother is another story entirely. From the first time he latched on minutes after being born, Arthur has been a dedicated and voracious eater. Every two hours or so he lets out the loudest newborn cry you've ever heard - but as soon as he's eaten he's perfectly happy again.

Arthur took his first few outings this week - first to the pediatrician, where he was given a clean bill of health, and then to IKEA and Target, where we got to try out first the double stroller and then the Ergo baby carrier, both of which he slept in happily. He also tagged along with his sister as she went to the "baby gym," her regular Tuesday and Thursday morning play group at the local recreation center.

Arthur sucking his thumb, as he was doing in all his ultrasound photos

This week he had his first (sponge) bath. Not a big fan.

He also met a bunch of new friends, including his sister, the dogs, his grandparents Suzan and Naresh, his uncle James, Lucas and Veronika, Amy Turner, Amy Robb and Miller, Summer and Jack, and Sarah and Kaitlyn, with many more visitors scheduled for the coming weeks. Dev has three weeks off work for us to spend together, then my sister arrives in early June to help out after that.

Arthur and Uncle James

Arthur and Naresh

Arthur and Suzan

In the future we'll be uploading photos to Facebook and Flickr every month just as we did with Beatrice for her first year.

Visit from Nani and Nana

Certain other things may have upstaged this post, but I wanted to take a minute to thank Naresh and Suzan so much for all their help during their visit last week!

Dev's parents (whom Beatrice and her cousins call Nani and Nana) arrived on May 13 and immediately were put to work helping us with a ton of last-minute house projects before Arthur arrived, including buying and installing a new washer and dryer; setting up the laundry room; starting new landscape projects; researching paint colors, tile, gates, fences, and trees; re-sodding the empty dirt circle that once housed the fountain,

BEFORE


DURING


AFTER

and worst/best of all, painting the built-in bookcase in Beatrice and Arthur's room, which wound up being a far more involved project than anyone expected - it took Suzan at least twelve hours of sanding, priming, and painting all the shelves and sections. (Stay tuned for a full before-and-after photo once the paint is all dry.)

Almost all of their visit was spent helping us with babysitting and household projects, but at least we were able to give Suzan and Naresh a few breaks to do more relaxing things, like take Beatrice to see baby ducks and geese at Descanso Gardens or have an elegant baby-free dinner at Little Dom's in Los Feliz the night before Arthur came.

Beatrice chasing baby ducks at Descanso

Nani and Nana took Beatrice on daily walks; Beatrice loves to walk Cromwell

And then, of course, Arthur was born!

And so Nani and Nana extended their trip and cared for Beatrice and both dogs while Dev and I were in the hospital - which meant that they were caring for a toddler while still painting!

We were so glad and grateful for their help! Not to mention delighted that their visit intersected with Arthur's arrival so they were able to meet him. And we promise next time they come we won't make them work so hard...

Introducing Arthur Torque Kumar

Arthur Torque Kumar was born on May 19, at 11:02pm. He weighs 7 lbs., 7 oz. and he's 19.75 inches long.*

Arthur and I are both in great shape and feeling very well. We hope to be home tomorrow or Saturday at the latest to introduce Arthur to his big sister, his grandparents Suzan and Naresh (who are at home with Beatrice and the dogs), and everyone else.



*For those interested in the birth details: I started having real contractions for the first time at about 4am and went to the hospital at 11am, but I was still only 2cm dilated when I got there. From there I went along smoothly and relatively painlessly to 7cm, but then it stalled a bit. After much hemming and hawing, I finally decided to have my doctor artificially rupture the membranes (that is, break my water) at 10pm to speed things along because I was afraid I'd start to tire out otherwise having not eaten or slept in so long. An hour after the waters broke, we had Arthur! After only ten minutes of pushing and almost exactly 12 hours of labor.

**With Beatrice, by contrast, I had contractions off and on for several days before finally arriving at the hospital at 9am that morning. I checked into the hospital at 4cm dilated and they ruptured my membranes at around noon. Then I had Beatrice at 2:30pm after 5.5 hours of labor and about 20 minutes of pushing. She was 6lbs 3 oz, so Arthur is a quite a bit bigger, as well as two days older. (Beatrice was born at 38 weeks exactly, Arthur at 38 weeks and 2 days.) Overall, though, I'd say this was an easier, more relaxed, less painful labor than the last one, even if it took a bit longer.

Going Hollywood

Foghorn contributor and all-around good guy Adam Goldman is embarking on a summer road trip from the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Newton, Massachusetts (his hometown) to the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles (my hometown), hitting up 9 more Hollywoods on the way.

Follow his progress here.

And show him some support here.

Beatrice at 23 months

Beatrice is closing in on her second birthday and the last few months she has grown up so much.

Beatrice has undergone a vocabulary explosion recently. From a few dozen words she has suddenly learned hundreds. Now she talks all the time - to us, to the dogs, to herself, and to imaginary listeners on the phone. She's starting to use more phrases and occasionally even full sentences, and it's much easier to understand what she wants. She knows the names of all her favorite foods, toys, and activities. Unfortunately, this also means she can demand things she wants, like when she stands in front of the cupboard and says, "Bar, please, Mommy" fifteen times in a row because she wants to eat nothing but granola bars all day. It also means she can tell me to "Go away" when I'm thwarting her will.

A few of her more benign recent phrases include:

1. "No socks today!" - on a day when she was wearing sandals

2. "Cromie dear" - for Cromwell. Shackleton is simply "doggie" or sometimes "Shack dog."

3. "Elephant cow" - her word for a woolly mammoth we saw at the George C. Page Museum

4. "Baby cow*" - her (very inaccurate) word for the stuffed saber tooth cat toy that David and Julie gave her

5. "Daddy's house" - the garage

6. "Wash baby!" - something she commands me to do every time she dirties her baby doll

She is constantly surprising me with all the words she knows - yesterday she said both "peanut butter" and "shark," two phrases I never knew she knew. Or she'll mutter some amusing aside, as when she looked wistfully out the car window today and sighed, "Doggies! . . . Outside, though."

Also, as I mentioned earlier on Facebook, Beatrice calls all children "babies." She calls all women "mommies" regardless of whether or not they have children with them. Men with children are "daddies." Men without children are "guys." The other day she called to a man at IKEA, "Hi, guy!"

Awhile ago I made the mistake of letting her watch some short animal videos on YouTube and now she is obsessed. Every time anyone brings out a laptop she demands to be shown "cat videos" or "dog videos."

A few of her favorite videos are the "world's smartest dog" doing tricks, a commercial featuring 100 cats let loose into an IKEA showroom in the UK, and the trailer for the excellent documentary "Babies." She also likes short excerpts from "Planet Earth" or music videos featuring dogs.

When she's not watching dogs on the internet, she is playing with her own. Of course, she has always loved the dogs, but now she really sees them as playmates (whether they want to be or not). Her favorite activity is to serve Cromwell elaborate multi-course meals of play food. She carries one item at a time out of her playhouse and sets them in front of him on the lawn, and she insists he sits still and pays attention while she serves him. She also likes to "dress doggie" by draping clothing over Shackleton. The dogs are happy with - or at least indifferent to - these games. She also insists they be present in the same room with her at all times, and any time they walk away she calls after them immediately.

"Dressing" Shackleton

Overall Beatrice is as cheerful, fearless, and funny as ever (her new tricks are head-spins, somersaults, and going down playground slides face-first). Unfortunately, we continue to have problems with her aggressive physicality. As I've said before, she plays very rough with her friends, often grabbing them by the shirt to get their attention or hugging them so hard she knocks them down. She also becomes physically aggressive out of anger, and she is quick to push or slap kids in order to take their toys or defend her own. I know that all toddlers do this to some degree, but Beatrice seems to be the one who does it the most. While I admit some part of me is proud of her when she tackles a 10-year-old boy for standing between her and an animatronic woolly mammoth statue, most of the time it's just embarrassing and stressful as I tell her for the hundredth time "no pushing" or "say you're sorry." I really hope she tempers this behavior before she starts preschool in the fall.

What makes all of this pushing and hitting the more curious is the fact that Beatrice is one of the most loving and nurturing children I've seen. She adores animals and babies, and loves nothing more than gently caring for dolls and stuffed animals, cradling them, feeding them, and wiping their faces. She also hugs and kisses everyone and everything all the time. She's almost always happy and even when she's upset, she snaps out of it moments later like it never happened.

She refers to the garage as "Daddy's house."

Also, this week she successfully used the toilet for the first time! I'm not concertedly trying to train her right now since she's still under two - and more importantly, I don't want to add any additional stress to her life right before the new baby comes - but she is very, very interested in all things "potty." And after a few weeks of announcing "potty" and then sitting down on her small toilet after the fact, she finally figured out to tell me before she went "potty" so that she was able to sit down on the small toilet and use it properly. And as exciting as the "potty chair" was before, it became all the more exciting when Dev and I praised her and gave her a Hershey's kiss for her accomplishment. Now she's really hooked.

Playing with Jack in his backyard

Beatrice has had a huge number of changes thrown at her in the last few months, from moving into a new house to moving into a toddler bed, and she has handled them all very admirably. While she can be fussy and demanding, like all toddlers, I am still so proud of her resilience and cheerfulness in the face of all sorts of new events. This coming year will hold a lot more changes for her, from a new brother to preschool to toilet training, and I'm excited to see how she does with all of them.

*"Cow" is her catchall term for otherwise unidentifiable four-legged mammals. She uses the term to mean sheep, yaks, zebras, horses, elk, deer, moose, and apparently, prehistoric mammals.