Number 1 Calder

Last week I mentioned that Calder had learned to roll over, and I want to talk a little more about this activity since it’s really changed things around here. First off, I need to stress how quickly he learned to do this. On July 2, 2007, in Zoe’s blog, I wrote that Zoe had been struggling to roll over for about two weeks. Calder, however, just rolled over one day, and the problem is he has not stopped. If you put him down on his back he will immediately–immediately once you have walked into the next room–flip himself onto his stomach and start to cry. Some babies like to be on their stomach but not Calder. He cries. Playtime is all well and good, but when we put Calder to sleep at night he is placed on his back (as is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics) he will wait to we leave the room then flip. We come back into the room, flip him back, stick the pacifier back into his mouth, he seems to drift off, and we leave. We repeat this about a half dozen times (he flips so often that I have left a giant spatula beside the bed) until he falls into a deep enough sleep that he stays put. Inevitably during at least one flip he manages to get on leg stuck through the bars of the crib, and he becomes this little squirming puzzle to extract. Once he’s asleep he usually stays asleep until three or four in the morning when he rolls himself onto his stomach, and decides that since he is up he might as well have a snack. Alison has suggested a Velcro pajama-sheet set and I suggested duct tape to keep him in one place, but I think the AAP has a negative opinion about those options.

In the last few weeks I have met two young boys (wouldn’t it be scandalous if I stopped the sentence right there!) who also are named Calder. At the time we decided on the name we had neither met anyone nor heard of anyone with the given name Calder. We knew we were not the only people who gave our child that name, but figured that it was fairly rare and that it would be unlikely that we would meet another. Yet here they are, popping up all over Berkeley (all over being in two separate parks). The parks I bring Zoe to are often crowded and it’s rare that I hear other children’s names, yet I have discovered two. The odds indicate that there could be hundreds of Calder’s in Berkeley. But perhaps it is even more unbelievable than that; perhaps I’ve met, simply by chance, the only other two Calder’s in Berkeley. Think of those odds? So, I am sending out the call for more Calder’s. If you know someone with the given name of Calder let me know. But if you want to see photos of the cutest Calder of all go here.