Crotch Critters. . .

I wrote a whole post about my son's poop a couple days ago. How it's evolving in many ways. I wrote it and I read it over, it was pretty good. I wondered about how Skippy Jr. would like me telling the world about his poop. Then I thought, "if he doesn't want me to talk about his poop, what about the people reading? Do they want to know about his poop?"

So I deleted it and started over.

Why do we as parent talk so much about our kid's poop? Of all the things that gross us out about our kids, isn't poop the worst part? Do we consider the fact that we've been exposed to it a badge of honor?

While I'm on the subject of poop, what the hell is Elmo doing in my son's crotch? You can't see it, but cookie monster is also coming out of his ass. I love the Muppets. If I had to pick the biggest influences in my young life they would be in the top 5. However I find it terribly disturbing that Pampers would specifically design their diapers to have furry monsters peeking around the corner as if emerging from my son's nether regions.

Why do they print characters on diapers so small anyway? Granted the size diapers he's in now will cover him up to 22 lbs and he'll be in them for quite some time (unless he keeps growing at the rate he is), I've never seen him look at his diaper, so the smaller sizes definitely didn't need it. Is it there to make the diapers more pleasant for the the parents? Does putting Winnie-the-Pooh on a diaper make you ignore the poo inside? Why Huggies, why would you put a character named "Pooh" on diapers?! Is a diaper really the best place to be marketing for children's characters?!

Sorry, got a little carried away there. I probably should have stuck with talking about my son's poop.

What the duce!?. . .

When we learned we were having a boy, once I got over the slight disappointment, Family Guy became the funniest show ever. This is all because of Stewie. Not just the attempts at taking his mother's life, his mannerisms may seem like an adult but the writers are good about keeping him all baby.

This week Skippy Jr. has been waking up around 4 in the morning ready to play. He kicks on his TV, makes happy noises, and anything else he can do to get us to come in to see him. We've been saying he's having a "sexy party." Then we laugh. . .

God, I miss uninterrupted sleep.

Yeah yeah boo hoo. . .

Ever since Kristen Chase was featured on Jumping Monkeys for her site Cool Mom Picks, I've been reading her blog called Motherhood Uncensored. I have been at a loss as to whether or not to post a link on my side menu. I've been reading it for 2 months now and I still don't know how I feel about it.

Most recently I've been a little disturbed by this post. For anyone too lazy to click and read it I'll sum it up. Men cheat because their wives have babies and get stretched out and worn down, they are lazy sacks of shit who don't help parent except to donate sperm, they lose interest in their wives and go for younger models, and all a woman can hope for is an empathetic spouse that sees how hard being a mom is.

Why is this all women can hope for? It's the 21st Century. Fatherhood is supposed to be jumping to a new level. Stay-at-home dads are becoming more common place, places like Dad Labs are all over the internet, books spout off about how parenting is a 50/50 deal. . . why are you settling for less?

Make him change some diapers, make him stay up with the crying baby while you sleep, he helped make that baby it's his job to help out.

As for the cheating and losing interest, around our house it's not that way at all. At the risk of sharing too much with family and friends who come here to read about Skippy Jr., my interest in my wife has flourished since the birth of our son. . . her interest in me has all but disappeared.

So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this new trend toward being an attentive father makes her see me as less of a man. Maybe the changing and the bathing and the late night trips to the crib while she sleeps has done the same thing Kristen complains about. It won't stop me from wanting to be a good father. Hopefully, if that is the case, she'll decide that my help is a turn on and things will be different.

bummer. . .

My lovely wife was off work for her last day of spring break today. So she thought it would be fun to bring lunch and a baby to me at work. It's Parker's 4th time coming to my office. I love walking him around showing him off to people. I'm in a mostly female office environment so there's lots of oohs and aahs.

Then something happened that caught me by surprise. I walked them out to the car and put the little guy in his car seat base. I did my normal kissing goodbye to him and my wife. And for some reason, though I just spent 4 days with them, I started getting a little choked up walking back in the building and to my office.

I guess I realize that, though work provides me with some time away and an outlet doing something I love, I really hate being away from the people I love. Not just Skippy Jr., but my wife too. We have one of those weird relationships where the longer we're together the better we get along. We only fight once we are spending good chunks away from each other.

The moms reading this will relate, but I'm not a mom. I'm a dad who is profoundly sad when he says goodbye to his wife and kid. I've come back to my desk, and have no interest in what I'd doing.

Child prodigy. . .

Kids these days learn a lot about technology at a very young age now. Much more than when I was a kid. Sure, my family got a computer when I was in 3rd Grade and I used it to learn basic programming (I didn't become a stellar programmer but I get by). But Skippy Jr.?. . . Skippy Jr. will learning much more and sooner.

Take his newest activity. He kicks his legs around so they face his little TV and. . .

Let me back up a second. When I say TV I don't mean TV. We call his rain forest crib soother (see above) his TV. It hangs on the side of his crib, when he's going down for a nap and being extra difficult we turn it on to keep him quiet so he can sleep.

Anyway, a few nights ago at about 1:30 am I woke up and thought "why am I hearing Brahm's Lulluby?" I thought this because I was hearing Brahm's Lulluby. Skippy Jr. had kicked himself into position in front of his TV and kicked it on like he was the Fonz.

Fluke right?

That's what we thought, but since then he's kicked it on or off on 8 different occasions.

OK so it is a fluke, or was it him showing his technological aptitude by kicking the little blue parrot in his sleep. Yep, he'll be building robots before you know it.

One more thing. . .

Of course I'm posting this late so it's almost over, but today is a wonderful day. Today 30 years ago Parker's mommy was born.

Happy Birthday baby.

It's just been revoked. . .

New parents, and their respective babies, are like celebrities. People line up to see them, constantly asking for pictures, and gossiping about them. It's the closest thing to stardom I think I will ever feel. . .

Then a few months pass and you feel like a "D-list" star who can't beg their way onto a bad VH-1 reality show.

Family members stop calling to check in or stop by, friends disappear, even strangers stop reacting. . . when you go out, as the baby gets bigger, you notice people don't stare as much. Trips to the grocery store—that once brought oohs and aahs—now go over without one person even glancing at your slightly older bundle of joy. "Can't you see me here with this cute baby?" Whoever said babies were chick magnets lied. . . or maybe I'm the problem.

The crazy part is that when people were treating me like a celebrity all I had done was have sex with my wife (and I guess put up with her during the pregnancy). NOW we've both done enough to warrant a parade. . . or at least a cookie.

***I wrote this last week to save for a rainy day (it's really raining here). Since then I would say it's nice to still have some celebrity status here.***

On a side note, there are new pictures up here. Sorry it's been so long since I added more.

Weirdest baby on the block. . .

I narrate the video below, but I'll further explain first.

Our son likes having his head covered. I mean completely covered. He can be at a full screaming cry, you cover his face with a cloth diaper or blanket and he stops. We will wrap him completely in a big blanket (you can't see any of him) and he'll lay there and play, grabbing and chewing on the blanket. Sometimes wrapping him like that or covering his face with a diaper is the only way to get him to sleep.

Weird.

Who makes these things? . .

Baby toy makers are sadistic bastards. Or my son is a little slow.

So he's gotten pretty good at grabbing and he loves putting things in his mouth. The issue is most baby toys are too big for him to get into his mouth. So he grabs Malory the Monkey attempts to put her in his mouth and can't get any part in there (the other monkey we have the only part he can get in his mouth is the monkey's banana. . . which is slightly disturbing and can only be done if we do it for him). So he grabs toys tries to get them in his mouth and gets upset because all he gets is his own fingers

"Huh? This elephant tastes just like my fingers. Wait a second. . . damn it!"

Even his Jumperoo is taunting him. He sits in the seat and leans forward as far as he can—his mouth open ready to chomp down on the parrot—but the hanging toys are just out of reach.

I think it's a flaw in the toy's design. For a baby to grab most toys, they need both hands so they hold it vertically, but to get in their mouth it either needs a nubbin or needs to be horizontal. What we need is a little silicone hand shaped thing. He's good at getting our fingers in his mouth. We need something with corners that is chewy. Has anyone seen this toy?

Shots Suck!

Skippy Jr. had his four-month appointment on Friday. Here's what we learned. . .

• He's 15lbs 9oz. . . for those of you who forgot he was 5lbs 13oz when he was born.


• He's 25½" long (he was 19" when he was born).


• Both Height and weight move him into the 50th percentile, he started in the 5th for both. I try not to pay attention to this too much, but when my mother-in-law says he's chubby we can say "no he's the average weight."


• His head is bouncing back to normal, we didn't need the doctor to tell us this, just something of note.


• Shots suck ass! He got three (HIB, phenumocochol, and something else) and the rotovirus oral thingy. Poor little monkey was not happy after that. This prompted us giving him Tylenol for the first time. . . now that he liked.


• Speaking of ingesting new things, we were given the green light for food. We started some rice cereal this weekend. He didn't enjoy that much. We tried again last night and it went better. . . we'll keep going until it works. We love our doctor he's very laid back. His advice, as it normally is, was to just relax and have fun with it. If he eats right away great, if not, don't worry he'll eat eventually.


• The longer we're doing this, the fewer questions we have. Our list of questions was shorter than any other time, and the questions were mostly about feeding. I guess we may be getting the hang of this baby thing. I'm not saying we're pros or anything, just better than when we started.

Rise and Cry. . .

I like waking up to my son's crying.

There I said it.

I know it's crazy, no one likes baby cries (except the cute face they make, see left). Don't get me wrong, waking up to the sound of the ocean or the rain would be better. . . so would waking up to him being happy and laughing. However if given the choice between him crying and those wacky morning show people in my alarm clock. . . I'll go with him.

Of course not waking up as early as we do would be nice too.

Like a cool Irish Spring. . .

Been a while since I did one of these.


Shampoo Rinse Cup. We give Skippy Jr. a bath every day. It's not that he's especially dirty or smelly. We do it for 2 reasons. . . 1) routine and 2) he loves it! He kicks and splashes, tries to drink the water, and quite frankly it helps wear him out/calm him down so he sleeps better at night. So far he hasn't minded water getting in his eyes, but still we decided to get him this. Despite some of the negative Amazon reviews I think it works very well for an infant. It keeps the water out of his eyes and when I'm not pouring water on his head I can pour water on his belly and chest which he likes. . . of course a couple times I've gotten over zealous and got water in his mouth, nose and eyes that way, but that's daddy error not a flaw with the product.

This can also be used to help cool a bath that's too warm or warm a bath that's too cold, fill it with the opposite at the sink and pour it in. Just don't dump the cold water right on the baby, they don't like that. I speak from experience.

Giggles

Twice. Skippy Jr. laughed at me twice. Once on Friday during a raspberry session (he still thinks that's cool, smiling every time). Then again on Sunday while bouncing him on our bed.

He has the cutest little laugh.


NOTE: This is not Skippy Jr.