Alex mentioned to me in an email a while back that chores around the house are nearly as good as a gym membership. My father echoed those sentiments when he told me what I was in for this spring. Our house was owned by a couple for over 50 years, so when the remaining member (the husband) moved out at 92 years old, the lawn hadn't been maintained as it had through the 1990s.

The front of the lawn looks great, but the back has moss and areas of spotty growth. Per my father's advice on lawn care, I bought some seed as well as some starter fertilizer and lime to start things off next month.

But before I got ahead of myself, I used a recent flood followed by a sunny, 60 degree day to stay home and poke around the yard. There were lots of random bricks and pieces of wood near the founation, as well as pipes and random gardening equipment for plants that clearly hadn't grown for years. It felt good to finally get a nice, warm day to roam my property, evaluating what work was in store to get it looking the way I wanted, and prepping it for the jobs to come.

I sifted through a lot of junk outside that had been buried by snow, and dumped anything natural like soil out by the treeline. I grouped together all the junk and put it in the trash, and took down the outdoor clothesline. The area underneath will make for another nice piece of flat lawn once I get it cleaned up and put down more seed.

With the house being painted this spring, I also had to get other junk out from around the house. The old gentleman did leave behind some things that will be useful, such as some lengths of hose. But when I saw an old rusted out fertilizer/spreader that must have come from the 1950s, I had to call bulk trash pickup and start cutting my losses with some of the crap he left behind.

Other chores this spring will include killing moss on the brick surrounding the house, and figuring out a good spot for the grill. It might be hard work overall, but taken one task at a time it'll be fun to sweat outside and learn things about my particular property. Once we can use our outdoor space to have company and enjoy fresh air, we'll finally experience the primary reason we moved out of our apartment.

We recently joined the "flooded basement" club, one with many new members with all the rain over the past few days falling in New England.

Roads were closed and utility crews did their job, and well. For as old as the infrastructure is here in New England, I'm amazed that not many areas (that aren't bordering river banks) have roads as dry as a bone less than two days after the last raindrop fell. At least some of that tax money makes its way back to us when we need it most.

On our end, we have a steamheat system and it's pretty close to the ground. Once we had to shut the heat off, it only took a day of 35 degree weather for us to buckle and go stay with my parents for the night. If we didn't have a six month old baby, we would have just lit a fire in the fireplace and dealt with it.

There was some furniture and personal belongings lost, but nothing that can't be replaced. Some lessons learned:

• Even if your basement hasn't seen water in 30-40 years, it's always worth it to store anything in a basement on pallets. If you can't get your hands on pallets, just use some of those hard plastic stackable holders for 6 2-liter bottles of soda.
• Don't melodramatize. If your basement doesn't leak but you get water from ground saturation, other people are in the same boat. It goes down quickly once the rain stops.
• Clorox bleach is your friend - if you clean up your basement right, you'll be fine.
• Keep generators on hand, one or two. If you have a heating system that needs to be plugged in to work, you can count on losing power during a bad storm of any kind - wind, rain, snow - and in cold weather it's useful to have backup power, wherever you live.

We don't live in a flood plain, but in New England, we do see some drastic temperature changes in the spring. So heavy snow can be followed by 50-60 degree weather for days on end, then you get flooding even without rain. It's always best to be prepared, rain or snow. Being new homeowners, we've resolved to have a sump pump installed, knowing it'll be an expensive ornament for perhaps years before it's ever used. But it's a cheap and easy way to keep your home dry, and better than dealing with an insurance company after you lose personal belongings in a flood.

While I realize not everyone can afford my sunny outlook on the storm after only a couple days of sunshine, in a way I'm glad this happened now. Had we not seen any flooding during this storm, we would be in a false comfort zone for the next big storm. Had we finished the basement, we would have lost a lot more than a couple of books and furniture that wasn't in use anyway. And the cleanup is a good opportunity to sift through junk and figure out what you really need and what belongings are really important. Decluttering is always a welcome distraction.

Recently, in the context of a tragedy in my extended family, I was called out by my own family members for not baptizing my son "yet". He's just about seven months old and we have no intention of having him baptized. He can do it if he wants to, John The Baptist style, at a time of his choosing. I have written about this topic before here.

The conversation went something like this, and I apologize for the use of internet abbreviations (DS = Dear Sister; DM = Dear Mother):

DS: So when you were in church [for the funeral], didn't it make you feel anything?

Me: Regarding religion or...?

DS: Regarding baptizing your son?

Me: Ah! Um...well, you know we didn't marry in a Catholic Church, so wouldn't it be disingenuous of me to baptize my son? No priest would recognize our marriage so how could they recognize a product of it?

DS & DM simultaneously: You don't have to be married [to get your son baptized]!

Me: Well, I wouldn't feel right about it.

DM: I don't know what they teach you kids when you go off to college.

Baptism as a symbolic gesture can be wonderful. But as an insurance policy because your Catholic guilt won't go away, it's a pretty bad idea. Keeping one foot in the proverbial holy water as a "just in case!" makes no sense, though it appears some would rather I purchase the additional homeowner's insurance even if I don't live in a flood zone, so to speak.

Regardless of merit, religion is a touchy subject with family members. It should be: as members of a family, one would expect that everyone has the same religious beliefs, because you share DNA. When people branch off and begin believing different things, it can drive a wedge between family members. Or it could be a symptom of dysfunction, depending on the family. Some will feel alienated by this person they've known all their lives, suddenly switching gears (even if it wasn't such a sudden change). Some will disown the person who changes beliefs; luckily, no one has taken it that far on our end.

It will be a challenge continuing to justify our beliefs while also remaining a part of the family, but we're up to the challenge. We simply keep the focus on our family, and running it in the way that makes the most sense to us.

Our son is enjoying solids now, to the point that his formula doesn't interest him nearly as much as it used to.

Even cheap baby food gets expensive, and despite some of the companies telling you it's "all natural", who knows for sure? As a result, we've put to use a food processor we got for our wedding, which stayed in a box until recently.

It's really easy to make your own baby food. Just buy a big bag of veggies - say, butternut squash - out of your grocer's freezer. Mix it up in a food processor, and then put it into ice cube trays. Refreeze and you have cubes of food with the proper consistency ready to go.

You can pop out the cubes and put them in a plastic bag in your freezer once they are frozen solid. In advance of your son or daughter's meal, make sure you put a cube or two in the fridge to defrost. You can use a bottle warmer and put a small baby food bowl on top of it, with the still-cold cubes of food in it to warm to room temperature. For our part, we sometimes mix in an ounce or two of formula just to make sure the consistency is right, and to add something extra.

For lunch/dinner, we also use baby oatmeal and baby rice cereal to mix in with the veggies. For breakfast, our son usually gets 6 ounces of formula and some all-natural apple sauce with mashed up banana.

Using frozen veggies and processing them yourself saves a ton of money. Typically, an entire pound of frozen vegetable can last over a week for a six month old baby and costs a dollar or two. You just bought & processed a week's worth of food for the cost of one packet of baby food containers that would only last for a couple of meals.

You don't even have to freeze it, you can buy a squash at the supermarket and prepare it as you need it.

This phase doesn't last too long, then it's time for them to start using their teeth. I look forward to the fun of being able to share our home cooked meals with our son.

A lot has been going on recently, and I even mentioned in a previous post that that is expected. Thirty years old doesn't feel any older than twenty nine, but I'm sure forty will feel different at this rate.

My father reminded me the other day that I need to take care of my lawn, something that had escaped my thought process with the winter move. If it were up to me (well, it kind of is), I'd put down a mulch lawn that doesn't require water. But that would alienate me amongst my neighbors. This is New England, after all - everything not paved is covered by trees or grass. It also would decrease my property value. Ideally, it shouldn't matter, but more on that below.

My father prides himself on taking care of his lawn, not obsessing over it and not because he had nothing better to do. He spent his own hard earned money on his house - taking care of the exterior one's own way is rewarding in its own right. So I literally took notes while he gave me some info, such as:

• Rake before you do anything. When the snow melts and you're in between snowy and warm enough for grass to grow fast, get a good rake and take up all the junk and deposits and loose, dead grass that has been left behind after a tough winter.
• Use a fertilizer with crabgrass killer. Use a broadcast spreader to fertilize the lawn early in the season.
• Twice in the summer, fertilize, and the second time, ensure a weed killer is also used.
• In the fall, use a fertilizer with 'winterizer' to ensure the lawn is properly protected again before the cycle starts anew.

The nice part about the above info is that our town has plenty of consecutive weeks of yard waste pickup, no need to drive to a compost (but if the town had a compost, I'd use it).

Most people who don't have lawns won't care, and if you live in the Southwest where irrigation is needed to grow or keep moist lawns or crops, this seems like a colossal waste of time. So again, this is a regional need. We have four full seasons and we get plenty of moisture throughout the year. If you let your lawn go, it gets a few feet high by the time the winter comes around, then your property looks awful (and probably becomes a breeding ground for ticks).

It's a gray area sometimes between focusing on what's important and becoming the typical weekend warrior who spends too much time at The Home Depot. We're proud of our land and our property, and keeping our lawn short & clean, and our hedges trimmed, not only reflects on us but on our neighbors.

In fact, when we moved in, one of our neighbors mentioned in passing that the previous owner - who had been there for fifty years - "always took good care of the house". We could tell that was the case with all the gardening and lawn equipment left behind, as well as the rope tied around all the bushes & hedges for the winter so the snow wouldn't deform them.

What kind of people live in this neighborhood? One might ask as driving by on their way to look at a property. If they see a lot of cars on blocks in the middle of a yard, patchy grass, overgrown shrubs, and chipped paint, depending on what kind of people they are, they may be less inclined to buy in that neighborhood and in turn keep up their property well. So lawn upkeep is but one element in the 'burbs used to not only attract the right kind of neighbor, but send the message to anyone driving through that the neighborhood is full of people who are proud of where they live and what they own.

I saw Alex's recent column touching on feminism and was reminded of some of my recent interactions with mothers. I know these women through work and have to talk to them for work-related material, but being a new father the subject of children always comes up.

I'm aware of social boundaries, particularly in the work place, so when I get started on a topic I feel passionately about I'm always very careful what I say at work. A couple of women talked about how they hate the idea of day care but really need their job. One told me "feminism sucks" when I finally eased the conversation toward the idea that we're stuck in a conundrum of two incomes being necessary to maintain our modern standard of living. Our entire economy is built on the idea now that both parents will work full time and contribute to the economic pie, even if part of that contribution is day care for children who would otherwise be at home. Who wouldn't see this as completely backwards?

I used the example of student loans. Way back when, before student loans, colleges were selective but even private universities weren't insanely expensive. Since everyone paid their own way or borrowed money from the school at very low interest rates, say 1%, if they needed to, colleges & universities focused on learning instead of money. Once you involve student loans to give people the "opportunity to learn", even though that opportunity always existed, it artificially inflates the cost of education. Down the road, you have insanely high tuition rates and people end up having to borrow money to pay it off with future income, another symptom of our debt culture. Never mind the fact that now everyone goes to school for a bachelor's, watering down the meaning for those who truly belonged in an advanced academic environment after grade school.

The same is true for the women's movement. If you inject a ton of new people into the work force, a few years later you'll have a spike in economic growth because family incomes on average have increased but prices haven't caught up yet. When companies finally realized they could charge more for services like day care and school, and credit card companies realized they could get more people to borrow more money, prices climbed. Now day care is barely worth the tradeoff to go to work for many women. Who would want to pay a good salary for someone making $10/hour to raise their child for 8 hours/day?

No wonder even women tell me that feminism sucks.

The past month or so has been a bit crazy. We were asking for it when we wanted to do a house closing the day before New Year's Eve - crazy time of year usually followed by a lull turns into crazy time of year ramping up into an even crazier time.

It dawned on me recently that this is it. There may be other children, and our first child will be less needy (but likely still a handful) when we get further into his childhood. But once the house is organized to our liking, there will always be a project here, an errand there to do. Houses keep you busy, kids keep you busy. And of course, work keeps you busy.

It's unfortunate that people get lost in this busy-ness - it allows some of us ready-made excuses to disconnect from reality. In the midst of the busier times lately, it's not signing the documents to buy the house we'll remember, but rather the first night we spent in the house. It's not signing the checks or being able to borrow against the equity that you strive for, but rather building a good environment for one's family and sustaining it over time.

So we've paid particular attention to documenting some of the milestones we've seen our son experience during his fast growth. Still not quite six months old, this is what many parents are telling us is the "fun time": he's not quite mobile enough to realize there's more than just wiggling and kicking his legs, so he's content most times just to sit on someone's lap and smile, laugh, giggle. Now that he can fully support his head for a couple of minutes instead of just a few seconds, we're more comfortable taking him out on errands and to restaurants. He can even sit in a high chair for a bit and is eating solids. We've found this is a good time to continue giving a child lots of attention, showing him that he has loving parents. Giving them attention gives them confidence; not giving your child attention while you're in the same room as them can be detrimental to developing good social skills and social confidence. It all starts in the home, as they say. So whenever my son is in the same room as me, even if I have my work laptop open, I make it a point to make him laugh and give him some affection. Hearing him giggle, knowing he's fully content when he's in my arms, is one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced.

My wife has also forged ahead with feeding the baby solids after we got the okay from our pediatrician. There's no shame in buying ready made baby food, but there is a cheaper alternative that is also more natural. Try buying some frozen vegetables - squash, peas, etc., always asking a pediatrician. You can use a food processor to process the food, then put it into ice cube trays and freeze it. The food is good this way for months; we just put the cubes into freezer bags and use it as we need to.

These are the types of milestones to document. When people told us, "take lots of pictures", I thought they were joking - of course we would take lots of pictures. It's easy to get wrapped up in what people call "real life" but ignore reality and not make time for the little things. We have a camera and can record video, so we make it a point to use them. Our parents did, and having those albums and videos around three or so decades later really does help make that connection to one's roots and upbringing stronger.

Whether you get along with your family or not, knowing where you come from is a crucial part of raising them. The side I know more about is my father's. Like many Italians post-WWII, my grandfather tried to find opportunity elsewhere. The country was in turmoil, and many were leaving. So my grandfather had a son, then left to go to Australia to find work and try to get established. Then he came back to Italy after a year or two, had another kid, and tried again in America. He ended up having four children and was able to finally bring them over after leaving his whole family to get established.

My grandfather was fairly innovative in that he was able to get his hands on an automobile and use it for commercial purposes - hauling people and goods - to and from other areas of the country before he left Italy, when no one else in his town had a car. He had amassed some money, not easy in those days, so my question to my father was always: Why did he want to leave if he was succeeding and building wealth?

There were a few reasons. One was the mafiosi in the region. They knew of the people who had means, and they would find ways to get money out of them. If they couldn't find an easy way, they would simply kidnap children and bring them into the hills to send random notes. My father told me his mother would always make sure he was close by her for this reason while he was growing up there. Anyone with a skill set they knew they could put to good use elsewhere and be paid well for it with little fear of this kind of passive-aggressive retaliation would be foolish to not leave - the opportunities were too good to pass up, and outweighed the culture & roots about which many had become disenchanted anyway.

The other reason was that, regardless of mafiosi, if you were successful in a small village of people who knew you and your family, these people would find ways to hate you. This goes to my point above in eliminating traits best left behind. While proud of my heritage, I know many Italians - just like in any other culture - are lazy, jealous people who would rather see people kept closer to their level than succeed. This is crowdism at its finest. If my grandfather had stayed behind and managed to not get mixed up in any of the mafiosi business, his fellow villagers wouldn't look too kindly on him if he stayed. They would have seen him building a better life while they were content to go with the flow of whatever government was popular that week - something for which Italians are notorious.

Stretching back further, something I didn't know until recently is that my great grandfather was one of the immigrants who helped build the interstate system (up through Vermont). Growing up outside of the place most of my ancestors did, then having to ask about my family's background from another country has been interesting. As I noted in the interview I did for Alex, part of my identity comes from a place I've only been able to visit three times in my life, and most of it comes from the area I was born in and have stayed in. Asking questions about my background has taught me a few things: that some of my traits are obviously carried over from my father and grandfather, and there were some I never realized that were carried over from past generations. Visiting the place my father's side of the family came from also motivated me to ask more about my family's past, something I recommend for parents to do with their children when they can afford it.

I've continued going to the gym in recent weeks, taking a little break around the holidays and on days where I had to shovel for over an hour.

I first went downstairs to the gym in my work building and the personal trainer offered a free session. I'm glad I accepted, otherwise I might just be stuck on the treadmill wishing I wasn't at the gym each morning. She kept some back issues I've had in mind and showed me a good 30-40 minute weightlifting routine to do each morning. There were enough different activities to do - including using a fitness ball for squats and pushups, etc. - that we split it up into "days 1 and 3" and "days 2 and 4", with a day to do whatever I wanted on day 5 if I were to come in a fifth day. I found myself going for two months straight, excited to see slow progress like adding five pounds here or getting my abs used to doing situps against gravity on the decline bench. Seeing my belt buckle go down a notch hasn't been bad, either.

The treadmill is less of a concern as I feel the weightlifting is burning a good deal of fat on its own, but I still get on there and walk quickly or run a bit for a total of at least a half hour each day I'm at the gym. It's a good way to end the workout after pounding one's muscles for 40 minutes.

I'm not into weightlifting for the same reasons Alex and Martin are, though. I want to lose weight, and tighten up my muscles, as more of a general health thing. Weightlifting with, say twelve reps each exercise two times each, gives my muscles more of an endurance workout than a workout geared toward explosiveness or building mass, and extends the amount of time I can lift (by taking shorter breaks between sets). I also find it useful to try doing ab work or work on the fitness ball between sets if I'm getting tired. This leads into some light running or fast walking to wrap things up.

It's a good routine, despite getting up in the very cold early morning hours of a New England winter to warm up the car, bundle up, drive in to work out. But when you're going to work right afterward, it's a rewarding feeling to know you've already accomplished something good well before you hit the desk. Then when you get home to your family, you know you're at least doing something to keep yourself active to remain healthy for a long period of time.

When we were searching for a house, we weren't concerned with square footage or whether or not the house would look good on HGTV. Ever watch those shows where annoying, yuppie couples pick apart a brand new kitchen and talk about how they'd add this or that? Our house is by no means dilapidated; in fact, it was built in the 1950s when people still built houses with pride. But it's dated, so it'll take some work to bring it to where we want it to be. This will involve a fresh coat of paint in the spring, and some other minor fixes. The "bones" of the house are quite nice - many people living in houses built in the 1980s would be envious of how solid the floors and walls are, let alone the craftsmanship.

More important than the structure itself is the land and the community. Our lot is mostly wooded but has a small patch of flat surface and a hill going up. This will be great for sledding when our son is outside playing in the snow, and nice for him to climb up and explore a bit of our land before he tires of it. It's still a suburban neighborhood, so there will be plenty of things to do outside our property. New England suburbs are a bit different than in many other parts of the country because the land is so hilly and uneven, and the area has been settled for so long, that there is very little room for things like subdivisions with same-looking lots stretching for over a mile. I've always felt this has added to the charm of living in New England.

Our particular community is one where people enjoy staying involved. We have lived here for nearly three years as renters and I grew up close by, so I know people take a lot of pride in living here. This is reflected in simple things like trash collection. Without giving people ego boosts simply for showing up with a recycle bin, they regulate how much trash you can throw out on a given week or else you have to pay extra for special bags or an additional barrel (the barrel has arms on it which can be grabbed by the truck, and everyone is given one). The documentation states this should push you toward using your recycle bins more, and you have to sort things a certain way. Some people would cry about personal freedom and time wasted on sorting your garbage, but it's quite easy when you get used to it - and this method comes with extra perks like free by-appointment appliance and electronic disposal, since it saves the town a lot of money.

Neighbors seem friendly and property taxes are kept reasonable by a huge swath of commercial space (corporate HQs, malls, etc.) that are all clustered together away from most of the residential property. Michael Arth would be proud.

While fortunate to have been able to purchase property in a state that is known for exhorbant real estate prices, we also worked our way toward this purchase with clear goals in mind. We didn't need stainless steel appliances or four/five bedrooms with a master suite and jacuzzi. We wanted to live in a decent community, not too far from family. I've known people who moved half the state away just to be able to afford a nice big house (and with it, a 2 hour commute). The problem is, all they ever see is their own home and their own immediate family, because they've moved into a community they don't know full of strangers, one neither of the parents grew up anywhere near. To sacrifice the family time and community roots for another 1,000 square feet didn't seem worth it to us, so we feel we've chosen wisely.

Is the world we (Westerners) live in really that horrible? Of course not. In many ways it's never been better. However, as we all know, a prophecy of Crappiness is slowly taking over our minds in the West. In short, we're supposed to feel guilty about the way we live. Some people use it as a convenient excuse to justify inaction. How about this one, which I was served as late as a week ago when discussing the Future:

Woman: I don't wanna have kids.

Me: Mmkay. Why?

Woman: ...becaaaaause.....we're living in such a horrible world.

Hold it. Rewind. Horrible world? Are you kidding me? A few generations ago most Swedish women would count on at least 1/3 of their offspring would die from either hunger, poverty or poor social conditions. Today they'd probably die because of overeating or accidentally swallowing a video game. Women today pull this argument a lot to justify their unwillingness to form a family, but I think it all pretty much comes down to hormones.

Women who are not very feminine, e.g. have less of estrogen, usually don't get along all that well with children. They don't think they're cute, they're mostly in the way, and their childishness becomes somewhat of a problem. Women like that feel emotionally alien to the task of motherhood, and so they rationalize their emotional viewpoint by saying the world is shit. Well, it's not, and even if it was, it's a lousy argument for a lot of reasons:

(1) Even if it was horrible, it hasn't stopped millions of mothers to give birth before in history, or today.

(2) Good thing you're aware of this horrible state we're in, because that means you can pass that knowledge on to your child and teach it to change the world to make a better place.

(3) Exactly how do you add to the world of horror, or avoid its crappiness, by having a child?

(4) Every child, everywhere, is going to face horror sooner or later in life. Maybe it's better with sooner rather than later.

As I've said before, I don't have a problem with unfeminine women or feminists in general. I like most of them. I just realize that many of them will not become mothers, and I wish they'd stand for what they are instead of trying to justify their emotions with lousy arguments that are supposed to convince other women of their righteousness. Let's face it girls, you're a minority. Most women love pink colors, cute babies and French kissing. The crappiness-argument is bullshit, and we all know it, so let's move on (and have some kids).

Our son is now past four months old. In a previous post, I had mentioned that he was sleeping well and now in his own room. But as many parents and doctors have told us, just when you think you have a routine pegged down, babies go and change on you. This ever-changing phase lasts through toddlerhood and then there are a whole new set of issues to deal with once your child is in grade school. But, one step at a time, yes?

The transition from apartment to house - with all the "house sounds" that come with it, like the furnace & sounds of wood settling - has been surprisingly smooth, though we are only on the third night in the house. He has begun to demand a bottle at 4am, which he's been getting, but otherwise sleeping soundly. Last night he tested us at 3am. As much as it hurt to hear, we had to let him cry it out until 4am when he was ready to have his bottle. As much as some - particularly in the Continuum Concept community - may disagree with sleep training, this is necessary in times of flux when both parents have to work, even if my wife is working at night. It's also necessary for other, social reasons, much as a four month old could care less.

The Continuum Concept would dictate in a case like this that the baby should sleep with the parents or in the room. It's a nice idea and sometimes my wife naps with our son. But it will only make the transition to social activities and schooling more difficult down the road, if the child is used to only constant contact with the parents, then suddenly gets ripped out of that when and if the parents are away for a few hours just to go out to eat here and there. Worse, when school begins, the child will have anxiety when away from parents for hours on end. This sets a bad tone for the future and for development. If the child is uncomfortable in school to begin with, how can he or she develop as a student? Many in the Continuum Concept board site that they can home school chlidren and not even use books. While I certainly have issues with modern education, a better system needs to be implemented; removing oneself from it isn't the end-all answer.

The idea that we should live like the Yequana tribe in modern society is absurd, and that's why I ultimately left the Continuum's email forum. I'd love to live that way, sure, everyone would. But there are social realities to consider when raising children in modern society. Much like Montessori education, it stops at a certain point and then children are expected to join the rest of the pack in modern educational facilities and modern living. These typically aren't as good or are at least very different from the systems in which they were raised. So as is usually the case, the best solution lies somewhere in the middle of local public school teacher and the radical new educational theories that can sometimes hurt chlidren when they eventually end up in the same colleges as children who went to public school.

My belief is that with a strong family and attentive parents, the exact type of educational theory or "concept" isn't as important as a loving home for the child. It might seem overly simple, but time will tell if it works in our case.

Things have been particularly hectic lately between the holidays and moving, hence the lack of updates.

So far, so good, is all that can be said. The holidays were wonderfully different, in the sense that they now revolve around the younger generation of the family. As people progress into adult lives, it's interesting to see which family members - extended and immediate - mature, which ones we stay in touch with, and which ones want to be part of the ever-changing life cycle. Some get left behind or become bitter, and as adulthood progresses, I find myself indifferent to people who don't want to progress into new phases of life.

This is a roundabout way of saying, "grow up", to people who show no interest in doing so. In America and most of the developed world, people enjoy extended adolescent years, so having a child in the same year as I turned 30 and bought a house forced me to do some growing up mentally. It's been a positive if at times stressful change; I'm happy to be living it and to face new challenges.

We've been fortunate to have lots of help & support from family & friends, hence the reflection on people who want to take part in life vs. those who want to deflect. Just yesterday, on a very cold Sunday morning, I had family members and friends I rarely see any more at my house and ready to help with looking at light carpentry work as well as bringing pickup trucks to help haul things where needed. It was a refreshing change. Then there are, of course, the pillars in our lives: parents, aunt or uncle here or there, siblings - who are always willing to help and who want to move forward with us as we do or have done with them.

Whoever said "a house is not [necessarily] a home" knew what they were talking about.

With Christmas finally here, many of us are going to spend a lot of time talking to many relatives we haven't seen in a while. Then on New Year's Eve we're going to spend a lot of time hitting on everybody else's girlfriends at the party, or whatever it is you do. That's a lot of conversations with people with whom you may have little in common. Here is one way of finding common ground in a difficult subject.

Guys generally have a hard time explaining guy hobbies to women. No matter whether you're doing the explaining or being poorly explained to, it helps to generalize the subject and describe it as guys competing for status. For example, here's how I managed to explain fantasy football to a couple of women.

I start off with the idea that guys like to argue about sports and try to prove who knows the most about sports. Those arguments are difficult to actually settle, though, so there is rarely a clear winner and loser. Fantasy football gives us a way to actually quantify the "Rooney or Drogba" argument and find a winner there, plus it also requires some knowledge of obscure players who are cheap. It basically lets guys prove who actually knows more about sports, and winning your mini-league makes you more respected and important in your circle of friends.

Women will generally roll their eyes and think "wow, guys sure are stupid", but they'll understand what it's about. They'll also think you must be very smart and perceptive if you can explain guy stuff in a way that they get. Sure, it's a vast simplification (you don't want to explain that being good at math is just as important as understanding the players' skills) and a lot of guy stuff is not only about competition, but even fishing and hunting contain a large element of showing other guys you're better than them. Some other things guys do are, of course, about showing women you're better than other guys, but women don't generally need that explained to them.

Of course "guy stuff" doesn't include male-dominated nerd activities, whether it's reenacting medieval combat or watching science fiction movies. That's nerd stuff, not guy stuff, and there is no good explanation for it.

Alex recently wrote about how dressing in style can be important.

It's easy to let things slip a bit when you've just had a baby, and my wife and I realize we've let our wardrobes go a bit stale. I tend to use a similar rotation, so to speak, of outfits each week, for a couple of reasons: I see other people at work do the same thing; things are tough and I don't want to spend a lot of extra money on new clothes; I interact with less than a dozen people per day in my office job.

Still, we're not kept up all night anymore, but we are moving so our focus is on packing and doing things that don't necessarily lend themselves to running out and getting some nice new clothes. The winter weather also allows one to leave the house without much of one's wardrobe showing. So we forced ourselves to treat each other and picked out some nice things recently.

The clothes aren't important, but it's one element of personal appearance. As a parent, you don't want people looking at you and your family, and thinking, "well, if these two ever had any style, they've long since given up when they had kids." We feel good and are in good health, so why not complement that with some new threads once in a while, and ensuring pants are pressed before wearing them, maybe cleaning those shoes up a bit?

I also noticed that when I had to go to a different office location this week, I subconsciously remembered to have my shirts and pants pressed, and wore my nicer clothes to that office, which are usually reserved for interviews or occasions. I knew I'd be meeting new people and seeing other people I hadn't seen in a while. So the new clothes aren't just about making a statement and ensuring I look respectable to the outside world, it's also about breaking routine and not falling back on the old, safe wardrobe which equates to comfort, but sometimes staleness.

Seeing our child develop has been an enriching experience. We've been told by others to take many pictures, and it's easy to see why after looking at pictures from a few days old, then fast forwarding to now - nearly four months old.

We're already seeing a bit of a personality develop. Interesting and funny observations include giggling almost uncontrollably in the bathtub; shouting at his 'mobile'; the fact that he can already support his head very well and can sit in a Bumbo chair for a while. It can't be overstated how fortunate we feel that not only is he sleeping very well, but that he's healthy.

Things have been extremely stressful too, as we're moving in early January and work has ramped up. That added to the holidays has been a bit much, but this is where extended family comes in. Siblings and parents are usually more than willing to help so they can spend time with this baby who will rapidly change and develop over the next year. Even with a baby that is, relatively speaking, easy to care for, the help is always appreciated when one needs to pack, have a break, a date night, whatever. Maintaining healthy relationships across the entire family, and both sides of it, takes on added importance.

Once the emotional rush of becoming a parent is over, and the child needs routine and begins to grow, parents can sometimes fall into bad habits. If you haven't had time to work out or take care of yourself, it's hard to get back into those routines.

Even though work has been more and more busy lately, I figure since I'm not sleeping much, I might as well join a gym and get some workout time in early in the morning. These days, I'm up at 5am, at the gym with my laptop and clothes for the day at 6am, and at my desk around 7:30.

This includes weightlifting and cardio. The mistake I made when I peaked too quickly last time I was in a great workout routine, was doing just cardio. No abs, no weights. Alex and Martin would be horrified.

This time, I met with a personal trainer and told her of my back issues, so she set up a routine where I can lift pretty much nonstop for a half-hour, and I can choose to do some physical therapy and ab work for my back in between sets, then get on the treadmill for a half hour or more. It's dark and cold in New England in the early morning hours at this time of year, so running outside can be a problem.

Getting into this routine has helped. Our new house purchase is moving along too, so I'm already dreaming up ways to make the basement into a workout area: BRT ball, maybe some kettle weights, and down the line a treadmill for days that running outside isn't an option.

Despite the insanity of piles of work and a baby to take care of, staying in shape, be it via workout routine or doing things around the house as Alex has pointed out, is important. When children see their parents as strong, in good shape, and having energy to do things with them instead of always seeming exhausted, lazy, and watching TV during down time, it will only benefit them in the future. For me, getting back into good shape is preparation for doing things around the house, as well as doing outdoorsy stuff with my son when he is old enough to appreciate them - hikes, going to the beach, swimming, and sports.

During the overwhelming first three months of becoming a parent, what is sometimes called "the fourth trimester", exhaustion sometimes takes a back seat to the emotional rush of being a new parent. For parents who are confident in their ability to raise a child with strong values, this is especially true. It also helps that our three month old is sleeping through the night, though with some recent adjustments that have to occur depending on the sleeping situation.

For example, at first our son was in a basinette and right by our bed. He wouldn't know whether we were in the room with him or not, so this doesn't spoil your child, despite what some people say. All they know is that sleeping and eating and being held are needed, nearly constantly.

Now that he is drooling and probably getting ready to cut a tooth, he's also bigger. So we need to stop swaddling him at night - otherwise he could roll over and not be able to adjust himself to breathe. Getting rid of the swaddle from the night time routine is a challenge because the child will inevitable wake up more often without the comfort of being tightly wrapped. This has been the case for us, but still, we consider ourselves lucky in that our son sleeps very well for being so young.

His basinette was exchanged for a pack n' play as he outgrew it, and it's just about time for him to begin using his own crib in his own room full time. Some parents have their children sleep in the same room for long periods of time, some parents even co-sleep with their children for long periods of time. With the purchase of a new home and getting ready to move in after the holidays, the timing couldn't be better for adjusting our son to his new environment while simultaneously getting used to sleeping without us being right there. It'll be a challenge, but one we feel we can meet.

Our son is nearly three months old, and we are grateful that everything is moving along for him nicely, in terms of his weight and general health. He now sleeps through the night, from around 7pm - 4 or 5am, and is generally agreeable (read: not colicy). Even after a small bout with a stomach bug, he's now back to eating normally and packing on more weight.

Now is also the time to ensure we're thinking about milestones down the road, as these three months is what some call "the fourth trimester" - just feed, love, and pay attention to the baby and your work as a parent is mostly done.

It's been a fun three months getting to know him, and we do have time to reflect on and laugh at parents who try to discipline their kids, or get them on a schedule when they're three WEEKS old, let alone three months. We've seen our son change before our very eyes, so we know a few things are coming up that we should be aware of:

• He'll be able to roll around soon, so swaddling has to end (if wrapped up like a burrito, cute as it is, he may get stuck without use of his arms if he flips himself over onto his tummy). It comforts him, as does white noise from the air conditioner in the room which we still run even this late for his sake, but we'll need to transition him out of these habits and hope he's as good a sleeper without some of these things as he is now.
• Teething will most certainly occur, it's just a matter of when. We're expecting in another month or so. We are prepared with some tools to lighten the pain - teething biscuits, rings, and other assorted chewable items one can put in the freezer to give the baby something comfortable to chew on.
• In another month or so, he'll be crawling around. So the time has come to "baby proof" the house. That will involve common sense items such as outlet covers, maybe a gate, and cord wraps. There are debates about just how far parents need to go, but using common sense is usually a good gauge - no need to lock the liquor cabinet or hide the bleach in the basement just yet, if you're keeping an eye on your child.
• Recently, we took him to a restaurant with my mother in law. He was great, found a fan and some lights to stare at, and was generally agreeable. But he still can't support his own head so we won't be doing that too often until he can as it's difficult to drag the baby seat in with us and keep him in there.
• It's easy to let one's marriage go and focus solely on the child. Beyond the occasional night out, parents need to maintain a loving relationship with each other during this great time. I believe we've struck a good balance in knowing that while our child requires round-the-clock care for the time being, we won't grow into a couple of comfortable old shoes too quickly - we're simply too interested in each other and look at this time as family time, not just "baby" time.
• Socializing is a tough subject as it's received some bad press recently. Look no further than George Carlin for an honest, hard look at what he calls a "sophisticated form of child abuse." People have taken the idea of socializing as an opportunity to force their kids into rigid schedules. Kids don't belong on rigid schedules, they should be using their imaginations and generally free to do what they want - safely and within reason - with other children as they grow. So there will be no force-fitting our children into an Outlook calendar of swimming lessons, play groups, and day care. Swimming lessons and play groups are fine, as long as it's just a piece of a strong, healthy upbringing. What a child needs are his parents and family at this very early stage of life - pay no mind to the parents who try preparing their children for Kindergarten entrance exams before they turn one year old. These are not the type of people you want to socialize with regularly or get parenting tips from.

Most of my relatives should know by now that our child will not be baptized in the Church (Catholic, I guess is what you'd call it). Even though I was brought up Catholic, and received sacraments all the way up to Confirmation when I was 15 years old, my wife and I opted not to marry in the church. For her part, she comes from a religious family as well, and yet her mother was supportive 100% with the idea that we do what we feel is best. Religion is hardly worth it if you feel guilted or forced into receiving some of the most precious sacraments.

While my wife's family has their share of religious zeal (luckily this is in the extended part of her family), we don't see them often. On my side, I do see my extended family somewhat frequently, so the questions are starting to pour in about baptism dates. I haven't yet had the heart to tell them that there will be no baptism, silly: if we weren't married in the church, what priest would baptize our baby anyhow? The problem is, logic doesn't apply to the people I'm dealing with.

Religion is touchy, as there are all matters of tradition, not all of it healthy, that get wrapped into that one word and idea. My mother has a gown that plenty of her family had worn during baptism. There are priests my family and my wife's family knows. There's even my own personal Catholic guilt, still rolling around back there in my mind: is it okay to not baptize the baby? Maybe we should just to be safe?

Having a child was already a life-affirming experience, and I wouldn't want to ruin that by going through the motions of a ceremony intended to save the soul of a child supposedly born with "original sin". My wife says it best: "I don't think a newborn has ever done anything wrong, so how can they say someone so young needs to be saved?" Besides, baptism used to be performed in adulthood, when one could at least make a conscious decision to be baptised or not. If my son wants to be Christian or Catholic later in life, I won't stop him, but at least it will be his choice.