Anthony Graduates to Onesies
In honor of Anthony losing his umbilical cord, his parents dressed him up in new one-piece shirtpants. These "onesies" were a present from Heidi's friend, Sam Hendren, at the baby shower a few months ago. Unfortunately, Anthony is also outgrowing his newborn size diapers with the little divet cut in the front for the umbilical cord and healing stump. As a result, he leaked all over his lovely new clothes and didn't get to enjoy them for very long. He's now wearing the next size up in diapers (small), and if he stays contained in them, he'll get to try out his new clothes again.On other developmental fronts, Anthony is tracking faces, fingers, and lights very well with his eyes. He's starting to grab at some of his toys, but most of them are too big for him to manipulate well. He still needs his parents to shake and squeeze the noisemakers for him. With great effort, he can lift his head up and look around for several seconds when placed on his stomach. After about a minute of this, he gets pretty tired and cranky, though.
As he gets more aware of his surroundings, he likes his crib less and less. His favorite sleeping place is in somebody's lap, stomach, or arms. He'll settle for his parents' big bed. Several seconds in the crib is enough to rouse him from sleep and send him into a fury of crying. Too bad his father has no sixth sense about where Anthony is in the big bed. Anthony is in danger of getting flattened if he doesn't learn to sleep in his crib soon.
Apartment Hunting
Apartment hunting in Philadelphia is just the same as in NYC or Boston, lots of shoe leather and lots of disappointments. Paul and Rachel are looking for a one month rental for December(makes it hard right there as most folks aren't interested in letting out the nicer places for only a month)when they plan to return to Phili to do a bit of "grandparenting" ... really an exciting time for all of us. Both David and Heidi are planning to work the month of December, so little Baby has asked for some outside reinforcements.It's a top priority to be near Rittenhouse Square, where they live. That makes the choices rather expensive as this is one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Central Philadelphia. Baby will be three months and still not mobile, so a small, small apartment will still do.
Kevin Jet Sets Around
It seems like Kevin has been able to go lots of places -- except down to Phildelphia to visit the new baby! Over the weekend, he spent several days in Newport, Rhode Island with his friend Mike Sherling. While there, they played lots of tennis and golf (Kevin's golf game actually closely resembled a big Easter egg hunt) and found some time to go swimming, too. They tried to rent a sailboat, but the rental agent soon realized that they didn't know what they would be doing, and refused to let them borrow anything.Tonight, Kevin is headed down to Austin, Texas, where he will hopefully get a chance to see his friend Jack Humphrey from Brown. The purpose, however, of going down to Austin, is to pitch some business to a client. For some reason unbeknownst to him, Kevin has been selected to explain the structuring considerations of Morgan's proposed financing. Boy, are they in trouble!
Philadelphia on Foot, Part Two
An alternative to driving or walking Central Philadephia is public transportation, either subways or buses. When venturing further from home or carrying lots of packages (usually groceries), these subways and buses proved a fun and efficient alternative to walking.One caution for visitors is that a bit of knowledge and advice from the locals can be most helpful. We had to go to five locations before we could purchase tokens (that saved more than 25 percent of the fare): a Rite Aid, a CVS, a Check Cashing or Change Shop, and two subway stations! If one were willing to pay the full fare of $1.65, then all of these problems would have been eliminated. Paying full was not part of our program.
Once on the subway and bus, we found them to be really excellent: very clean, very frequent, and stops every three blocks. Today, we used it to explore Penn's Landing along the Delaware River and to carry lots of heavy groceries from Chinatown to Rittenhouse Square. Try public transportation and enjoy Philadelphia.
