Wednesday’s baby school was baby massage – the next 2 weeks are the same thing so we get really good at it. Zev loved it! He was calm and relaxed during the whole thing, and when I started massaging him, his face lit up and he smiled and cooed. It is pretty basic stuff, but good to know the actual techniques. I felt a little weird asking the baby for permission to massage him, especially when he didn’t reply, but apparently this is really important. The idea iis that you wouldn’t just start massaging an adult without permission, so you should treat the child with the same respect. Also interesting is that you are only supposed to use natural oils, so in class we use olive oil! The babies all smelled like salad dressing, and I need to make sure to keep him away from Grandma Jo, who would probably devour him in one bite, since she loves olive oil so much. Hopefully I will remember to take photos at this week’s class, because there is nothing cuter than a dozen babies on their little pads getting massaged by their mommies.

After baby school, Zev and I hung out with our friends Lucy and Sophie, then went to his weigh in. Since he is gaining weight steadily (7oz a week for the past 4 weeks), I am going to start going every 2-3 weeks instead of weekly. It is close by, but its kind of a hassle because it is a first come first served thing, so unless you get there 15 minutes early (in which case you have to stand outside and wait for them to open, in the cold) you end up waiting close to an hour. Then you have the whole routine of undressing, weighing, and waiting for Sarah, the nurse, to review the weight. Plus I am starting to get really annoyed with some of the crap that is going on there. They are constantly telling me to stay stress free and eat and sleep a lot, which is good, but then they have you running all these routines (all the various checks like hearing and his joints). I don’t know if it is just like that with a newborn, if it is like that here, or whatever. But yesterday took the cake. Sarah has a helper, Leoni, who does the actual weighing and queues you up for Sarah. So I undressed him and set him in the scale and she wrote down the weight in his little book, and then she was giving him some love while I got his fresh nappy ready. Suddenly she says in a loud voice (so the other 5 parents in the room can hear), “this baby has measles!” So naturally I freak out a little for a second, until I look at what she is referring to, which was 2 small scratches he made on himself while sitting in the scale. You could clearly see the small white scratch line and the raised red area around it. So I told her this and she gave me a dirty look and said we’d see what Sarah had to say about that. All the parents are looking a little queasy at this point, and I don’t blame them. These are tiny babies who mostly have not yet been immunized, and measles is obviously really bad! When it was my turn with Sarah, the scratches were gone and Leoni asked Sarah if Zev has measles… but the way she asked it somehow seemed like I was the one the who asked about it. So Sarah looks at me like I am retarded and said that no, there are no measles on this baby. Sigh. I didn’t even try to explain that it was Leoni who thought it. Whatever. The good news is, everyone is happy and healthy and measles free.
In other news, the weather is turning to beautiful autumn crispness. It has been a combination of sunny and cloudy, but mostly just cool and dry. The leaves are starting to change, but they haven’t reached the best state of color change yet. I’ll get some photos when they’re at their peak!