almost five months

Today is May 4th, that's five months from the boy's original due date. I'm stunned to think back to december 4th. My wife was giant! We were so excited and happy and scared and stunned and oh my gods it was so intense I thought I was gonna die. And then the 'due date' came and went and holy crap, I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to us. Those due dates are ridiculous anyway, they should be outlawed.

So just a little HOLY SHIT to the world to look at Thorsbaby in all his smiling laughing giggly glory and remember when we couldn't believe he'd ever get out of his mommy... a little HOLY SHIT to look at those sturdy hands, chubby legs, and strong arms and remember when he was two days old and couldn't breastfeed and had lost 13% of his body weight and I knew, deep in my heart, that he was going to slip away if we didn't get him some nourishment... and one more HOLY SHIT to see him balance on his butt for a second before he topples over, to see him raise his body up on tummy time like it's nothing, and a forward looking HOLY SHIT because I know he'll be crawling before I believe it.

tick, tock, tick, tock

In retrospect, it was pretty easy to spot...

This afternoon, the boy suspiciously few burps after his bottle. I think he might have burped a little bit, but the really big satisfying BURRRRP that leave a fresh milk smell in daddy's face eluded him.

Next, we took the cat to the vet. He was uncharacteristically fussy at the vet, considering that there were two woman making a HUGE fuss over him. I figured he was probably just concerned that after the cat was done being tortured maybe it would be his turn.

Then he slept all the way home. When we got home, he stayed asleep in the carseat.

There we have it, all of the components to the most dangerous explosive on the planet... the baby time bomb.

You add:

1 part gas
1 part burp-hiding
1 part sleepiness
mix well over several hours.

So at 4:45, BA BOOM! Huge explosion of screaming, crying, tears. It's instant, that's what is so horrifying about it. He went from a bissful sleep to screaming like he was being tortured. There's nothing to do except get that gas out, that means walking around the house with a screaming baby over one shoulder and a steady stream of gentle pats on the back. It takes about 20 minutes to defuse the baby bomb, a little burp here, a burp there, some more screams, a lot of kisses, more burps, more screams, more kisses... and then you know he's burped out because he's capabable of looking around at the world again, but still.. there's something else wrong....

oh yeah, he hasn't eaten in three hours because he was so gassy he felt full. Now the cries have changed from pain to hunger. Well, that's easily remedied.

Other then that, what a great day! Sorry for the long break between posts, but today was one of our best... long walk in the zoo, kangaroos, all sorts of fun, then we went to the supermarket and he made about 10 ladies fall in love with him, then a LOT of great tummy time with daddy and plenty of kisses.

in the zone

The boy-o has this little frog thing hanging on his bassinet. If you press it it says "Hi My Name is Leap! Let's Sing the Alphabet Song! A B C D.... "

I hit it for him every time I put him in the bassinet. Once in a blue moon he manages to make it sing. Sometimes he gets sooo pissed off at poor froggy for not singing to him. But he's starting to figure it out, I just heard the ABC's three times in a row in about five minutes. Now he's trying to make it again, and I think he's out of the zone because he's yelling at his froggy friend!

HUGE BOY

Blogging is like going to the bloody gym, or dieting, or anything like that... the longer I go without posting, the easier it gets to not post. I was just feeling badly about not writing more, and thinking "eh, well, at this point, why bother" which is a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it?

It's been only a week, but it seems longer. Biggest news is, we went to our first playgroup. I'm telling you, it was a big-time thrill. Much more exciting then you'd think. Just a half-dozen parents with babies -- they seperate them out, crawlers in one group, non-crawlers at a different time -- sitting around and talking about silly and/or baffling things their babies do.

The big take-home for me? HOLY SHIT my son is BIG. I mean, huge. He seems almost around the same-scale a as a six-month old boy that was there, and he made a couple of five-month olds -- one girl, one boy -- look positively tiny. Of course they can do all sort of tricks he can't yet, like sit up and roll over. But man oh man, he's big. I've been looking at his clothes and going "what? 3-6 months? these people are crazy, this stuff barely fits him!"

I can already hear the "CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP" of size 16 shoes coming down the stairs sometime in our future.

cigars and carriages do not mix

I've got a huge, huge stash of cigars, all of them dating from my pre-marriage days when I thought nothing of spending a couple of hundred dollars to buy a few boxes of smokes. I've got them all in a cooler converted to a humidor by means of some oasis-foam and distilled water. When I bought most of them, I was smoking about two a day, maybe four a day during the weekend. Yummy cigars, I love them all. As every bachelor's friend, Rudyard Kipling, wrote, "A woman is only a woman / But a good cigar is a smoke."

Of course now I smoke about four cigars a year, maybe. Since I gave up cigarettes, I just don't enjoy nicotine like I used to. Anyhow, today seemed like a perfect chance to try something I've had on my mind for a while... it's a beautiful day, why not smoke a cigar while pushing the boy in his stroller? Why not indeed? He'll have to learn about "Do as I say and Not as I Do" sooner or later anyhow, I thought.

It started off great... walking, puffing gently, talking to the boy, enjoying the sun, enjoying the horrified looks from the minivan-driving moms as they drove by. And then a little puff of wind came... blew a hunk of ash that landed on the boy's foot. Totally cool ash, no danger -- don't worry! But I stopped and said, OH. That's why Daddy's don't smoke cigars when they walk the baby. Because it's a DUMBASS THING TO DO.

So I tossed the cigar, 98% unsmoked, into the gutter and said "Dumb Daddy, won't do that again." Then I pulled the boy out of the carriage and carefully brushed all of the ask from his sock and cleaned all the ash out of the carriage. Dumb ass @$#@$ daddy.

Sooner or later I'll be rid of all those cigars. Until then they just tempt me. Here's the Kipling poem in it's entirety. I read it and chuckled at my lost bachelorhood and then thank the gods that I have a REAL family, not one consisting of cigars.

The Betrothed, by Rudyard Kipling

"You must choose between me and your cigar."
-- BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.


Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas -- we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at -- Maggie's a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away --

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown --
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty -- grey and dour and old --
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar --

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket --
With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the socket!

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila -- there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion -- bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counsellors cunning and silent -- comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,

This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee's passion -- to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stums that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider anew --
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba -- I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!

he loves his daddy

It's odd, but I know that's true. He loves me, I can feel it, I can smell it, I can see it. When I went to my mother's to pick him up he was half asleep, his eyes fluttered open at the sound of my voice and I said, eh, he's asleep, I'll get him in a few minutes and I walked away and he SHRIEKED. I knew he just wanted to see me! I picked him up and felt the tension ease back out of his body. He's so cute and tiny and this love affair is totally mutual.

I didn't know having a son would be so much work; such hard work... but I also didn't know it would be so awesome. It's really the most blessed thing ever.

Kangaroos!

TB managed to stay awake all the way to the zoo today and, as promised, got to see the kangaroos. I took him out of the stroller and held him up so he could see and they were even cooperating by putting on a big show. They were boxing, scratching each other's asses -- you name it, it's a cool kangaroo thing, they were doing he. It's hard to know how much the boy-o notices... he looks at stuff, but the wide world is quite overwhelming for him and he mostly looks with this big eyes like "holy shit, I'm glad my Daddy is here."

I keep telling him over and over again, "hey dude... this is called 'the world' and it's where we live, there's a never-ending supply of cool stuff to see and do here -- check it out!" I love him so much, it freaks me out that someday he's going to have his first memory, like 40 years from now, he'll remember going to the zoo or something -- I mean, not anytime soon, I dunno when your first memory is but probably not for a year or so -- but WOW it's unbelievably awesome.

That's my semi-coherent chunk of amazement for the day.