I Want My Damn Snuffaluffagus!

Like most children of the 80’s, I grew up on a steady diet of television. Mister Rogers. Voltron. Star Blazers, He-Man, GI Joe, and of course Transformers. To me, this was and will always be the golden era of kids’ television. I know, I know, I’m sure there are plenty of 19-20 year olds out there who will no doubt say the same about Barney, the Power Rangers or Pokemon, and Nolan’ll probably grow up with a similar sentimental attachment to Sid the Science Kid and Martha the Talking Dog.

But through it all, Sesame Street has been a constant.

Or so I thought.

Every morning, Nolan and I take to the couch, him with his waffle, banana, and whatever drink I can scrounge up, and me with life-giving coffee, and we watch TV. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to watch the previous night’s Tonight Show or somesuch other show on the DVR. When I’m not, we turn on Sesame Street.

When Nolan was born, this was exactly the sort of thing I was looking forward to as a parent. Watching Sesame Street with the kiddo. But as I watched, I started noticing things. Changes. This wasn’t the Sesame Street I’d grown up with.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight…

Our biggest challenge with Nolan has always been sleep.

Things started out alright when he was a baby. All we had to do was plop him in his Ambi-baby sleep hammock, and he’d pass out, waking up occasionally, as babies do, but otherwise sleeping soundly.

Then he outgrew the hammock.

We tried the crib, but the challenges of getting him to fall asleep – turning on his little fish aquarium thing, and gently “jackhammering” the mattress to lull him to dreamland – left us exhausted. And all too soon, it stopped working. Then, out of the blue, he began to hate his crib. He would scream, and scream, and scream.

Jamie, of course, read everything she could get her hands on regarding babies and sleep. We tried putting a mattress on the floor, so we could lay with him as he went down, give him comfort and all that.

It worked, kind of. But there was a catch…he couldn’t fall asleep without us there, and the moment he woke up and realized we were gone, he’d be up and searching for us in a panic. That, and, especially at night, we (okay, I) had a tendency of falling asleep with him. Never good for getting to all the housework. And, invariably, he’d wake up around 11-something. Being too lazy and too tired to go through the whole exercise again, we would just let him sleep in the bed with us.

Then, this past week, something snapped.

“He Has Your Death Stare…”

I’m not even going to attempt to blog about all that’s gone on in the last four or so days since Nolan was born. I really can’t put it into words. Or I suppose I could, but they wouldn’t be sufficient. Since I took Jamie to the hospital last Saturday, I’ve experienced the most joyous moment of my life, I’ve dealt with (and am dealing with) sleepless nights and 2 AM feeding sessions (and 3 AM, and 4:30 AM, and…), I’ve learned to hold my son. I’ve experienced hope and despair and, in a sleep-deprived stupor, questioned my ability to see this through.

And I’ve changed my first diaper.

It’s been a wild ride, and despite the difficulties along the way, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Little Hot Dog

Today at 1:19 PM, we welcomed little Nolan into the world. Still in shock and awe. But here he is…

More HERE.

Bookmark and Save for Seven Years

Wow. I think one of these would make for a kick-ass father-son project one day. After all, what boy (or grown man, for that matter) doesn’t love using complicated mechanical contraptions to hurl small objects great distances?

In the meantime, I’ve got my eye on the Desktop Onager…

Quiet Time

I used to cherish this time of year. In my college days, the small window between the end of exams and Christmas was a time for relaxing, for doing nothing and enjoying the company of old friends. The novelty of being out of class and away from campus was still fresh. The boredom had yet to set in.

These days, however, there is no cherishing. I don’t hate this time of year, but I don’t enjoy it, either. I guess it would be most appropriate to say I endure it. Work is winding down for the year. Half the office has already bolted, and those of us left are just passing the time (with visions of the countdown clock from 24 ticking away in our heads). The roads are packed with distracted drivers. The holiday marketing machine is omnipresent and, this year, somehow more odious than usual. Perhaps that has something to do with the screening of “What Would Jesus Buy?” (excellent, by the way) I took in last week.

I wish I could look forward to Christmas and the buildup to Christmas with the same enthusiasm I used to.  I miss that enthusiasm of childhood, not just for presents, but for the trappings of Christmas. The stringing of the lights, the baking of Christmas cookies, the watching of A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. I just…don’t have it. Not this year.

Hope is not lost, however. Nolan is on his way, and I must admit I do find myself looking forward to next year. Maybe that’s just the thing I need, a vicarious source of childhood wonder at the holiday season.

It’s a…

The wife and I had the big twenty-week checkup on Wednesday, complete with a very in-depth ultrasound.

The baby’s doing great. And what’s more…

It’s a boy!

Upside the Head…

My life has a curious tendency of puttering along at a certain pace until all of the sudden events converge and change smacks me upside the head. I can’t really explain how or why so many different things come together around more or less the same time, but they do.

I can’t help but feel that one of those convergence periods is crashing over me this very moment.

Last week, the agency laid off a whole bunch of people. We’ve known it was coming for awhile. We’ve known it had to happen. But I don’t think anyone expected the cuts to be as broad or as deep as they ended up being. I lost a number of friends, some of them close. My own fate is still somewhat uncertain. I think I’m safe. As of today, I still have a job. But no one has told us when this will all be over. Whatever the case, whatever happens, this sucks. It’s an experience I never want to go through again.

On a happier note, Jamie traded in her Mustang on Saturday. She loved that car, but it wasn’t exactly what you would call baby friendly. The new Honda CR-V should be a different matter altogether. We haven’t put even 100 miles on it yet, but so far it’s been fantastic.

And finally, I picked up the crib yesterday. We’ve registered. We’ve had the baby room (Jamie refuses to call it a “nursery”) painted. We’ve bought bedding. We’ve bought and returned to changing tables. But the crib is different. If one piece of furniture could ever drive home idea that, holy crap, we’re having a kid, it’s a crib.

Correction

Apparently, our little one’s due date is April 5th, 2008, not April 4th.

Mea culpa.

Walk the Dog

Alas, this year’s Mighty Texas Dog Walk didn’t live up to the high level of expectations set by last year’s.  A big part of that, I believe, was due to the wind, which was hustling in from the northwest at a pretty much constant 25-30 miles per hour.

Wandering around the exhibitor booths and watching your dog make a fool of himself is great fun when the weather is gorgeous.  Not so much when it is cool and blustery.  That, and there did not seem to be as many vendors around this year.

Pre-Walk Highlight – Taking Smith over to the "agility course" the fine folks at Roger Beasley Saab had set up.  After a flat refusal to go through the tunnel, we coaxed Smith over to the hurdles.  He jumped the first one – maybe a foot off the ground – without incident.  At the second hurdle, however, he made no attempt, and instead reared up, knocked the whole thing apart, and then walked across.  He’s a problem solver, that one.

On the walk, sadly little occurred in the way of Smith chaos.  He did have a moment of quite loud whining, and he did reclaim his role as water dish tester, but sadly, there were no kiddie pools for him to pee in, and no girl scouts for him to make cry.

Still, it was in all another fun morning, and I fully plan on partaking again next April.