The Warm Little Man

Now that I'm taking Wednesdays off to help with the baby wrangling, I'm beginning to think it's a pretty sweet deal. I mean, work two days, have a day off, work another two days, and then have the weekend off? It's almost like a freakin' vacation, it is. Needless to say, I did absolutely nothing productive today.

As you may be wondering, Alex still has his fever. The doctor was guessing that it was roseola, and that we had to watch his fever and make sure it doesn't go past 103 - otherwise he could possibly go into seizures. But he's definitely acting a little better today, much more active than yesterday and more vocal - just generally in a better mood. But his batteries are still not lasting as long - he gets tired quickly and is often just laying around, spacing out like his Dad.

Something good did come of it though. Little boy's gotten very cuddly because he's not feeling good, so he's sitting with us or just laying with us, chilling and resting. Often he's running around screaming, fashioning toys into weapons of mass destruction, but it's sweet that now he's just coming to us and cuddling with us. I grabbed him and hugged him and he let me, and that's actually a pretty big deal. He usually squirms himself out of my love hug and runs away.

Alex did a couple of fun things today worth retelling. He was chewing on a little piece of paper towel today, undoubtedly for its superior taste and nutritional benefits, so my wife stuck her finger in his mouth to retrieve it. That triggered his gag reflex, and in a second, he barfed a little bit of goodness on my wife. And like any good supportive husband, I immediately backed her up by laughing my ass off. My wife wasn't as amused, and Alex just carried on about his business, attempting to eat something out of the cats' food bowl.

The other amusing thing he did today was either entirely accidental, or the beginning of a very dangerous habit - at least for Mommy and Daddy. I was eating crumbs off the floor or something, I don't remember... But I remember looking up and seeing Alex, holding a used diaper. He had a rather disgusted expression on his face, accompanied with a perplexed-sounding, "Ugh?!" My first thought was that we had forgotten a diaper on the floor after changing him. But then I saw his bare ass and realized that it was his. Yes, he has FIGURED OUT HOW TO REMOVE HIS OWN DIAPER!

If either of us ever had any germ phobias, they're completely gone now. Just given up on cleanliness. Our garbage is now a toxic waste dump. Even flies avoid it.

Zoe is doing fine as well. Just the usual "hold-me-all-the-freakin-time-or-I'll-scream" bit and eating. She hasn't spit up as much, but we're very careful about it. It's like a unpredictable barf bomb who spends 20 hours of the days screaming. We love her, we truly do. But there's something completely unsettling about a screaming baby that has caused major short term memory loss in Mommy and Daddy's brain, and a sudden drop in vocabulary. We used to talk about a broad variety of topics, and now it's limited to pooping, eating, burping, and what's on TV.

I seriously have to take more photos and video of Zoe. It's just harder now because of Alex, and Zoe always needing to be held. But those are excuses of a bad father. I should be a better father.

Oh yeah, one last thing. Don't watch "The Punisher." It's amazingly horribly bad. Complete waste of budget and a decent actor.

Diego out.

Numbers.

Age of family member who has gotten a fever and isn't feeling too hot: 1
Temperature peaked: 103F
Number of worried parents: 2
Number of minutes parents "took off" anyway, leaving the kids at home in care by a co-worker of mine who lives nearby: 45
Number of minutes we were worried about our kids: 0
Number of minutes we were worried about my co-worker's kid she had brought along: 45

Number of Showers my Wife took today: 2
Number of ounces that Zoe barfed up on my wife, inciting that second shower: 2
Number of Baths my Daughter took today: 2
Number of hours between those Baths: 4
Number of valid reasons why she needed that second bath: -5

Number of foreign people in my dream, whose stereotypes were the basis of a man's personality: 5
People I should probably tell about that dream: 1

Number of hours before I have to wake up to go to work: 6
Reasons I can think of to stay up another 10 minutes: 1,000,000. And 1.

Time

Alex is growing to be such a cool little boy that it's hard for me sometimes to think that it's all going by so fast. It's already been a whole year, and granted, it hasn't been the easiest year, but it was a year of discoveries and new things for him and us. I was messing around with Zoe today, holding her by her shoulders and making her walk on the ground, and it's so odd to see how much Alex has grown because he was once that little too. Just this weekend, watching him walk around on his own, picking up toys and amusing himself with it, and learning to hand me toys when he needs help or simply wants to share - I'm just in awe of him. Just fallen completely in love with this little drool bucket.

Although if Zoe is reading this, she needs not to be afraid, we'll fall in love with her soon too. It wasn't until Alex started to smile before we started to really be attached to him. I know it sounds heartless, but when you have newborns, being a parent is hardly a rewarding experience. That's why you should always give new parents plenty of compliments and praise, because that's the only consolation of being a new parent consists of. Newborns are cute, but they're really hard on anyone who's trying to stay sane or maintain some kind of order. Once Alex smiled, it was the first true reward, after 4 months of sleepless nights and crying and poop, of being a parent. Thenafter it was just easy to appreciate him.

Right now, Zoe does have a sweet little face when she sleeps, and does involuntarily crack a smile every once in a while. When she's awake though, she's often crying a lot, or making a rather disgruntled expression on her face. Her eyebrows cave inward to form some sort of discontented look, and her lips pout on the verge of crying. When she is awake, she looks around at the lights, or right at you with that Look of Discontent, at which point you just have to make fun of her. Make her do a silly dance or something.

It is hard to believe that a year has gone by, and with Zoe's arrival, I'm sure that time will speed up twice as fast. Already 4 weeks is coming up, and last week just flew right by. Do I have anything to prove for it personally? Not really. I did a few things not worthy of mentioning, just routine chores or random tidbits of creative surges. Did Zoe do anything? Sleep longer and put on some weight. Alex further perfected his walk and found out today that throwing a rubber ball around is pretty entertaining. Perhaps to remedy my failure to appreciate what's really going on right now, I try to videotape a lot of things, take a lot of pictures. Because before I know it, they'll be in school, then college, then marriage. Let's say that right now, I'm not really thinking about being a grandparent though. Just doing some traveling once the kids are out.

I really want to go on a vacation. I need a vacation!

Basic Training

Privates go into basic training for the first few months and it is absolute hell, but eventually they become used to the hardship and pain, then it's just smooth sailing from then on, until we go to war or something. This is otherwise known as teenage-hood. But anyway, this past week has been a rather tough one - I went back to work after three weeks of slacking, and my daughter went back to school, leaving my poor wife to herself with two babies and three cats.

Well, despite my going to work earlier in the morning and coming back to help with the housework, my wife and I still locked horns and fought a little. She exacted her swift revenge today but shaving the back of my head really short, but I guess that's retribution. I have to say this to everyone out there who hasn't had a baby yet, or is about to have one. Don't venture into parenthood unless you have a really strong, healthy marriage. It is near impossible to do so and survive it with your sanity. My wife and I have a really good relationship with each other, but we still fought about the first week. I'm not too worried about it, the first few months with Alex was about the same. I actually even think it's a little better this time round, because we have a better system.

This week became even more challenging because I forgot to apply my sick pay for last week, so I didn't get paid this week. I have to compensate for the lack of money now by working the streets, whoring myself. It's alright, pays the bills.

Alex is really fun to watch now, and his sense of humor is developing rather healthily. He's learning to mimic, and he loves the camera. I showed him some video of himself and he was giggling the whole way. Definitely got the hammy aspect from Mom alright! He's also walking about 80 percent of the time, crawling only when he gets really tired or really needs to book it. Today when a toy went awry, he crawled at light speed away from the toy, sat down, and bawled. While my wife rushed to console him, I was busy analyzing where he learned how to flee. I thought it would be a learned instinct, but I guess not!

Zoe is also doing better, spitting up less and less. I guess feeding her less was key to her not projecting milk all over the place! And that is a good thing.

My wife was just changing Zoe but she was still pooping, so she held up her legs, wiggled those little apendages, and said, "Work those muscles! Work it!" in order to get her to finish her job, so that she could finish changing her diapers. That topped my experience of holding up her legs and waiting for her to finish. I didn't actually physically encourage her to finish up.

Hmm, more later. My son is too cute to not videotape.