I'm a Dad

Why I Love Being a Dad #245

Liam is feeling much better. He’s so awesome I can’t even tell you how much I love being a dad. Just the way he reacts to me when I walk in the door is so incredible. I look forward to it all day long. I walk in and say, “Hey there buddy! Hi Mr. Handsome!” And he just beams and smiles and starts bouncing like a maniac if he’s in the bouncer.

Lately I’ve been doing this thing where I put my head in his lap with my ear up and he just lets his head fall on mine, his mouth covering my ear, and he just starts gnawing on it. It’s soooo funny. I mean, it’s not tentative at all the way he goes after it, it’s more like a pounce.

Another thing I’ve been doing is banging my head on his bouncer while he’s sitting in it and he just busts up laughing. I should get that on video before it gets old and isn’t funny to him anymore.

He’s not crawling yet, but he wants to. We’ve been putting him on his tummy a lot more often. He wants to crawl; you can see that he does. He gets up on his knees a bit and tries to reach the toy I’ve placed just out of his reach, but then he falls back onto his tummy and just flails his limbs wildly until I break down and give him the toy, usually Mr. Moo Cow.

He’s had this thing lately about eating hair. Well, not really eating it, but grabbing fists full of it and putting it in his mouth. He’s not too gentle about it either. He grabs my hair, which is pretty short, as well as he can and pulls it toward his mouth. Afterwards my head is pretty well slobbered on. I was talking to him last night and all he kept looking at was my hair. It’s almost like he has some kind of abnormal fascination with it. And it’s not just my hair, it’s pretty much everyone’s, though mine is the softest and perhaps the most satisfying to suck on.

I’ve also started wrestling with him. Just holding him close and growling and rolling from one side to the other and then kissing him all over before rolling back the other direction. He laughs and smiles and closes his eyes as I kiss them.

Sometimes he’s awake in the morning when I leave for work. His mom is -snoring away- sleeping soundly, and he’s just lying there, quiet as can be, bright eyed and bushy tailed, watching my every move intently. By the time I’m finished he’s usually asleep again. Interestingly, watching me get dressed puts his mom right to sleep too.

I love being a dad.

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Burpin, Fartin, Spittin, n Scratchin

Jen went to a “Women of Fatih”:http://www.womenoffaith.com/ conference today, so Liam and I were home all alone doing man type stuff. He did most of the man stuff I mentioned in the title, although the spittin was more in the form of drool, and he tried to disguise the scratchin as uncontrolled baby arm movements, but I wasn’t fooled.

Liam was in a pretty good mood today. We watched some “Veggie Tales”:http://www.bigidea.com/. He had some peas and formula, I had Carl’s Jr. He played in his “bouncy saucer”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000056HB7/gravman-20, I watched “Stealing Harvard” (a pretty awful movie) with his Uncle Wes. He took a couple of naps, I drank Mt. Dew to be ready for when he woke up.

Jen got home around 5pm and her little baby boy was none the worse for ware. The house may have smelled a little different than when she left, but her two boys were just fine.

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The Dad Chronicles

“The Dad Chronicles(The Dad Chronicles)”:http://dadchronicles.blogspot.com/ has become one of my favorite blogs to read. If you’ve never ventured over there, you should. Yesterday’s entry is priceless.

“http://dadchronicles.blogspot.com/ “:http://dadchronicles.blogspot.com/

(There’s profanity in his post, but it’s part of the story.)

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Sick, Sleepy Little Monkey

Liam is sick. It seems like the poor little guy has been sick his whole life. This time he has a fever and he just is not a happy camper. He went to the doctor yesterday and was prescribed Albuterol and anti-biotics again.

When I got home from work last night he was asleep. Jen said he had been for about 4 hours. He woke around 7 and cried. I tried to give him some bottle; he cried. I put him in his bouncy saucer; he cried. I put him in his swing; he cried. I held him; he cried. I sang to him (usually puts him right out); he cried. I changed his diaper; he cried. I put him in his crib; he went to sleep in about 5 minutes. This was around 7:30 or so. He slept until 4:30, woke up, had some bottle, and went back to sleep until 6:30. That’s one tired little guy.

I feel so sorry for him. Every time I call Jen at home I can hear him either crying or whimpering in the background. Even when he’s not crying, he just looks so sad and miserable it breaks my heart.

They had some kind of cute baby contest on the Regis and Kelly show the other day – probably Monday – that I wish I had known about earlier. I guarantee you the boy could at least have been a finalist. He is a whole lot cuter than any of the babies they had on there. That’s all I have to say about that.

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President’s Day Madness

This past Monday was a holiday for me. President’s Day, I guess it was. I’m not sure why I get the day off, but I don’t question it much. I had taped the movie “Amelie” that had been on cable late the night before. A pretty cute movie, actually. Kind of a chick flick, and it was a French film so the dialogue was in subtitles. Even though I was reading everything the characters would say, I still found myself wanting to turn up the volume when people were speaking softly. I’m not very good at writing about what other things were about, so I’m not going to do a review or anything. Suffice to say that it was an enjoyable movie; edgy, funny, and thought-provoking.

At one point we stopped the movie for one reason or another, most likely a crying baby (he’s sick again). Oprah was on and she was crowning people Princess for a Day. I made some off the cuff comment about poor pathetic people who couldn’t be happy with their own lives and needed Oprah to boost them up. Boo hoo, I thought. Jen informed me I was ignorant and didn’t know what I was talking about. I decided to watch Oprah to prove to her that I did know what I was talking about. Princess for a Day wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. The princesses were people whose family or friends had written Oprah about how unselfish, giving, and deserving they were. So Oprah brought these people to her show and lavished them with gifts they could not afford for themselves. A couple of them made me a little teary eyed. It was pretty darn cool. I told Jen I’d like to be Prince for a day. She just laughed and told me to restart the movie. I get no respect.

I also made banana bread Monday evening. Didn’t have enough walnuts for two loaves, so I put chocolate chips in the second one. It was SO good! Jen asked if I was going to take some to work to share with my friends. “Heck no!” was my reply. I could sit and eat the whole loaf by myself at one sitting. Or I could have if I hadn’t left the bread home alone with my wife when I went to work Tuesday…

Is anyone else tired of all the Michael Jackson stupidity? I don’t mean the stupidity coming from MJ, I mean the media’s, and the public’s, fascination with the poor guy. He’s sick, leave him alone for crying out loud. I actually heard one reporter say, “We just can’t seem to get away from Michael Jackson in the news these days” or something to that effect. THAT’S BECAUSE YOU KEEP PUTTING HIM ON THE NEWS, YOU MORON!! I honestly don’t understand why people are so fixated on how many plastic surgeries he has had. I mean, who gives a rat’s rear? The whole pedophile aspect is a bit disturbing, but, to be honest with you, if MJ took me on a world tour and let me have the run of Neverland – I think that’s worth a little fondling. Granted, if it was my son, I’d have to kill Michael, and no amount of surgery, plastic or otherwise, would be able to put him back together again. Did I watch the news special on MJ? Of course I did, but only because there was nothing else on.

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Tantrums

Wouldn’t you know it. By the time I get around to writing about his little tantrums, he’s gotten over them. They weren’t even tantrums, really, just a crying fit that was impossible to stop. He would arch his back and kick his legs and scream. Yeah, ok, it was a tantrum. (That’s a funny word if you say it too many times. tantrum tantrum tantrum. Almost sounds like some kind of Native American musical instrument.) I think we finally determined that the tantrums would occur when he didn’t get enough sleep or was awoken in the midst of a nap. My answer to the fits was to put him down and help him to realize that when he acted that way I wasn’t going to hold him. I doubt that my actions had anything to do with it, but he hasn’t had any episodes in a week or so.

In other news, his croupy cough and wheezing have returned. My concerned daddy instinct is to take him to the doctor pronto, but my practical instinct is that the doctor is going to say the same thing she said last time, so why waste the time and the copay.

I also have a ton of pictures that are still sitting on the chip in the digital camera. I’ll see if I can get them up later today. Right now I need to shower and brush my teeth. Feels like there’s some kind of fuzz covering them.

Oh yeah, I also lost my spellchecker when I upgraded movabletype and haven’t taken the time to add the code that lets me check my spelling. So please forgive any gross errors – I’m also too lazy to proof read.

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Real Food, Tantrums, and a Fear of Diapers

Liam started eating vegetables yesterday. His mom boiled some green beans and pureed them up in the VitaMix. Apparently he liked them. She claimed he didn’t make a yucky face or really react at all. I fear the taste of the formula he’s been getting for the last few months has done irrevocable damage to his taste buds. We’ve entered a whole new realm of babyhood. Along with new solid food comes the dreaded solid, stinky poops.

Which brings me to my next topic. Diapers. I realized the other day that I’m afraid of changing diapers. It has nothing to do with the sometimes gooey substances I find inside the diaper, it has more to do with the actual diaper itself – the clean one. Those of you who know us or have been reading my journal for a while know that we use cloth diapers. Nothing but the cleanest, softest, most comfortable fabrics are allowed to come into contact with Liam’s precious little dupa. There is a huge underground cloth diaper society. If you don’t believe me just google cloth diaper and stand in awe. There are many types of cloth diapers and cloth diaper accessories: doublers, liners, covers, all-in-ones, plastic pants. Each type of diaper can have a different kind of closure mechanism: snaps, Velcro, pins. I think there are probably a couple of dozen different ways to fold a cloth diaper. I find it all very intimidating. If we had just one type of cloth diaper I think I could probably figure it out, get a system down. But we have several different varieties, styles and types. Whenever I go to get a fresh diaper to put on him, I’m running around in circles, I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be grabbing, I don’t know which goes with what. I’m like a dog presented with two equally savory snacks, one in either of my master’s hands – going back and forth crazily trying to figure which I want. I usually just go for the old stand by: 1 cloth diaper, one liner, one Velcro cover. This I can deal with… or so I thought. Took me three tries to get it right the other night. First it was inside out, then it was upside down. Every second is critical when you have a naked baby lying on the floor – things could erupt at any moment. I think maybe Jen needs to give me an 8 or 10 hour hands-on seminar on Diaper Application and Management. I could get a certificate to frame and maybe even a little ID card that I could laminate and keep in my wallet. It would have a picture of a well-covered baby’s butt along with my name and my new title: Aaron Gravvat, M.D. (Master Diaperer).

It’s almost lunch time. I’ll talk about the tantrums a bit later.

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Sears Pictures

Liam had his picture taken at Sears today. Jen said he was being a “crab apple” this morning. Apparently he got over it by the time they got to Sears.

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Sick Sick Sick

I’m sick. Jen is sick. Liam is sick. It has not been a happy week at our house. We took Liam to Urgent Care on Sunday (before the Super Bowl) and he was diagnosed with Bronchiolitis. The doctor prescribed him Albuterol (an asthma medicine usually administered in an inhaler) in liquid form, and an antibiotic to prevent Pneumonia and ear infections. He seems to be feeling better. His cough has definitely improved. He’s not sleeping well at all. He wakes up in the middle of the night and is next to impossible to console. He woke up at 1am this morning and I got him back to sleep by singing to him. He woke up again shortly thereafter and Jen put him in the swing and he fell back asleep. When I got up this morning, they were both asleep on the couch. We’re not sure yet what to do about his poor sleeping habits. We’re considering moving him out of the bassinet in our room and into his crib. I feel like we’re in for a long, bumpy ride.

Jen has a head cold, with just about all of the Nyquil symptoms. I have a nasty looking sore in the back of my throat and it hurts to swallow or breathe deeply. I emailed my Doctor about it and he responded that it sounded like an upper respiratory infection. He said to take regular cold medicine and drink lots of fluids and to come in if I developed a fever.

My doctor is awesome. I have emailed him on several occasions and he almost always responds very quickly. Today’s response was just about 5 minutes. I’ve even got him to prescribe Vicadin for my herniated disk through email. The email has saved me probably $50 in co-payments alone. All doctors should be so technologically cool. He’s an older guy, too. Probably in his 60s at least.

Seems like we’ve all been sick quite a bit this season. I wonder if it’s Liam giving us the colds or vice versa.

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The Aaron Identity

We watched The Bourne Identity on video last night. It was OK, I guess. I thought it was a little unclear what was going on. I expected it to be a good, cloak and dagger type spy movie with intrigue and double-crosses and mystery. The only mystery was created by the movie not giving the viewer a very clear idea on what the heck was going on. It was just an action movie. I was expecting Three Days of the Condor and what I got was Rambo Does France. I wasn’t expecting it to be like the book; I knew it wouldn’t be. I was however, at least expecting it to be interesting.

I told Jen during the movie that I thought I could be an assassin. She laughed, asked why I thought that. I told her I liked guns, I’m smart, trainable, I generally don’t like people much, and I’m cold blooded. She just snorted and laughed again. This time I could see her clearly and I knew it was not a delirious giggle that slipped out while she was imagining the riches of an assassin’s wife; it was not the nervous chuckle of her thinking, “my gosh, he is cold. What is he capable of?” No, it was a snort of derision. Right afterward she said, “You cold never be an assassin. You’re a big chicken.” Nothing like spousal support, eh. That was pretty much the end of that alternate career path. Maybe she should be the assassin; she’s the truly cold one. At one point during the “discussion” she even said, “yeah, you an assassin. You’re half right.” Give it a minute, you’ll get it.

If I’m not assassin material then why, when I fastened the toothbrush head to my SonicCare toothbrush this morning, did it seem just like tightening a silencer onto a Walther PPK?

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