Laundry Day - Again

Marvel, at our European designed triple tiered drying rack, wrapped in rust proof epoxy coated steel, providing 13 square feet of efficient, air-circulating drying pace.

Behold, the same drying rack, three days after being home with a baby.

This baby has more accessories than my old G.I Joe toys. Bibs, booties, blankies, onesies, mittens, socks, burp cloths, layettes, sleepers, sheets... in addition to the adult towels and washcloths he uses. Plus the clothes that mommy and daddy wear that the little volcano will unexpectedly erupt on. I've learned to carry a burp cloth in a quick-draw hip holster for emergiencies.

"Who, me?"

Yes, you know very well that you spit up on that shirt and peed through your pants onto that blanket ten minutes after we changed you into your third outfit for the day.

Ironically, we haven't hit the laundromat yet to wash our own clothes. It's a good thing I'm not leaving the house for another week...

Hard Knock Life

As I lay him down to sleep, I notice he's kicking and furrowing the brow a little bit more than usual.
In less than a week, he was ejected from a womb, circumcised, got two shots, and thrown naked on a scale. Today, we visited the pediatrician, who pricked his foot and squeezed out a vial of baby blood for testing. I've never seen him cry harder than today. (Although I imagine he cried pretty hard during the circumcision.) As I'm typing this out, I'm hearing nervous little peeps coming from the crib. This kid has gone through some rough times at five days old. I felt bad for pregnant women before, but I feel nearly as bad for newborn babies now.

Smiley Face

We always wonder if babies dream, and if they do, what do they dream about? We haven't seen our li'l one smile yet while he's awake, but he will occasionally furrow his brow, or pull of one of these while sleeping:

At four days old, what dream is worth smiling for more than a clean diaper and all-you-can-drink milk?

Open Late

Three nights, ten diapers, and dozens of baby wipes later, baby is finally home from the hospital. Wifey and I are taking sleeping shifts, as we are learning together what to do and not to do, and quickly discover that we probably don't need to be taking sleeping shifts.

He's an expressive sleeper... grimacing, yawning, and occasionally smiling. He'll wave his arms about, and scratched his own face a couple of times (which led to a mani - actually, a babyicure at 2 AM.) And he does this pirate thing where he opens up one eye only to glare at you. Here he is after feeding time, at 2:30 AM:

I hope I'm doing that in an hour or two...

Baby Born

I can finally stop posting pics of other babies, since I now have one of my own. Welcome our new li'l boy, Lucas:

Born April 7th, 4:32 PM. Congratulations to my office pool winner, Dan B, who guessed his weight at 7 pounds 1 ounce. (And for the record, he's 20 and 1/4 inches.)

After a very long day witnessing a baby pop out of wifey, and changing said baby's first diaper, this dad is pooped (no pun intended). Will write more of the very sudden days leading up to his new birthday after some sleep...

Big Baby

My co-workers put together a pool to guess my future baby's weight. They have boxes from 6 to 8 pounds and corresponding ounces, and the winner is the one who guesses the closest.

For that baby weight office pool in Jilin, China, there must have been a lot of boxes to fill for this baby:

Those boxes would have to have surpassed 40 pounds for a winner. Actually, this picture was taken when this beast of a boy was at 8 months - he was an average 7-pounder at birth. Full story and more pics here.

Coming Soon

The doctor expects wifey to deliver within the next two weeks. That's a little ahead of schedule, but at this point, a speedy delivery will probably be appreciated. The little guy is squirming around quite a bit in there, and everything from his head to his butt is taking up valuable real estate, pressuring organs and other necessary body parts. Every time he moves, it is now highly visible and somewhat painful.

My sister-in-law was told she would deliver early, but ended up delivering a few days past her due date. According to The Expectant Father, "couples who think they are late really aren't." The due date is "a ballpark figure based on an assumed 28-day menstrual cycle, and there's always a window of plus or minus two weeks." From What to Expect... "70% of post-term (late) pregnancies are due to miscalculations of the time of conception." And my co-worker's theory: "Boys deliver late because they're lazy and like to stay inside." That theory actually makes the most sense of all.