Just give me one day.

So this was the second week I had Aidan all to myself for two days. It went much better than last week, to tell the truth. Tuesday he was fussy in the morning, but slept most of the afternoon...allowing me ample time to curse at the telework IT lackeys as I tried (in vain, as it turns out) to get my work laptop up and running. Also, it allowed for a little zombie-bashing fun on the Xbox while he dozed. The second day he was an angel in the morning-- we went to the grocery store, and although he was awake he just kind of looked around, lulled by the ambient noise. The afternoon, however, was spent once again by him crying solidly and me trying not to kick down doors.

I'm coming to realize, however, that this crying really has nothing to do with me. It's him being unable to go to sleep, mainly. And it's a razor's edge I walk as a parent...because if you put him down too soon, he gets upset and there's nothing on this earth that will quiet him to sleep. But if you wait too long....well, same result, minus the putting down part. I swear, sometimes the only way he's happy to fall asleep is with me wearing furrows into the carpet as I circle the pool table endlessly. Still, it kills me when he cries, especially now that he has real tears flowing. Before, I guess it was bearable because I'm conditioned to view no tears as marking someone who is mainly angry. But those tears, man...it's a whole encyclopedia of pain in every drop. What's even worse is when he gets so upset that he starts to choke on his own spit....which, in turn, brings more screaming and tears. But I can't quite bring myself to rub whiskey on his gums (mine, however, well...that's different. I'm kidding, FYI) so for now we'll just ride it out. He looks like he's getting bored just laying around these days...you can tell he really wants to at least sit up and throw things. And really, who can blame him? I'd be content to do that all day too.

All in all, though, the thing I'm looking forward to most is the one shining day where he doesn't cry for more than 10 minutes at any one time. That will be heavenly....and probalby about 18 yeaers from now.

Oops! Almost forgot.

I kept meaning to post about various things Aidan has done, but due to lots of activity and taking care of him myself, I kept forgetting. So here are a few little tidbits. First, Aidan had his first round of shots post-hospital....5 in all. Ouch. The nurse was very nice and did them quicker than I thought was humanly possible though, and he was a real trooper about it. He cried for a very short time, and then was ok. On the way home we stopped to get infant Tylenol for him...which brings me to my next tidbit.

They Tylenol was grapre flavored. It didn't really occur to me until we actually gave it to him, but it was the first thing he had ever had that tasted like anything. Up until that point, the only thing he had was milk-- that blows my mind. Think about it...if you had never experienced tasting anything, how strange would grape taste? Especially grape-flavored medicine, which we all know is like 90% sugar. He reacted like someone set off an A-bomb on his tongue. He immediatly stopped whimpering, and his eyes got very big. His eyebrows shot up and his mouth turned into a little "o"...then he licked his lips like a hyena at a fresh kill. Ah, sugar. The crack for every kid's tongue.

The last bit I have to relate is his latest bathtub development. Contrary to what we initially surmised, bath time is NOT his favorite activity. At best, he sits there and takes it-- at worst, it's a 15 minute scream-a-thon complete with flailing limbs and splashing water. On the particualr night in question, he was taking it pretty well... he was tired, so he was just kind of zoning out. We got him undressed and put him in the tub. I shoul dhave known something was up when he turned his head to look me dead in the eye, and gave me a little smile. I smiled back...and then I looked down. He was peeing allllll over the place. In his little tub, over teh side into the big tub, all ina state of pure bliss. This got me thinking-- I posit that not one of us can say we've never peed in the tub in our lives. There hasn't been an encore to this performance, but I'm sure it's coming... and I'm betting it's going to involve something much less pleasant than pee. But, as usual, it will be cute. I think it must stop being cute at some point though... I'd have to ask my mom. I'm betting it's around the time that you need a gas mask to deal with the PoopTanic that has just been launched.

I . Am. SPECIAL.

And by special, I mean in that very very non-PC way. Yesterday was my first day at home alone with Aidan; Mom made her triumphant return to the world of wage slaves, and I embarked on the True Path of fatherhood-- namely, trying my best not to allow harm to come to my son. To all you men out there who aren't dads yet, a word of caution: yes, we all know it's polite to nod at the skirts when they say "Mothering is not only a full time job, it's the hardest one you'll ever do." However, don't believe the hype-- caring for an infant for one day is THE HARDEST JOB IN THE HISTORY OF TIME. Especially if you aren't, shall we say, of the lactationaly enabled gender.

I got one bottle down Aidan in the morning, and half of another at around 11. Then, for what (to my uninitiated eyes) was no good reason, he proceeded to shriek at the top of his lungs until about 5. Oh, yeah, he slept here and there....for 10 minutes at a time. And he would not slowly rouse, oh no, not THIS little future metal singer; instead he shrieked with enough intensity and at such a high pitch that I'm pretty sure Jani Lane, Brett Michaels, Rob Halford, Sebastian Bach, and Vince Neil simultaneously decided to hang up their codpieces. When he was awake, the only way to get him to calm down a little was to hold him upright while walking. Sitting down caused him to have fits, and the whole calming process had to begin anew.

He also managed to blow crap all the way up his back, almost to the tag in his shirt. When I discovered this, I immediately felt relief...surely, this was the cause of his malcontent. I changed and washed him, and he gurgled happily while I put new duds on him. At that point, I felt like Corky after a sharp blow to the head. I couldn't believe the solution was so obvious!

It wasn't.

You see, all this time, I had been trying to feed him bottles. But the fact that he was having a gassy day combined with the fact that I was trying to give him a bottle rather than the ol' milk fountains made him too angry and his stomach too upset to eat. I of course was ignorant of this, and had concocted all manner of things I was sure I had done to him to make him scream like there was a praying mantis clamped onto his sack (odd simile, I know, but I've been there and it hurts more than you can imagine). I decided that at some point, I simultaneously scalded him with a too-hot bottle, pulled both arms out of socket, pinched his peener in the elastic of his diaper, scrubbed his back too hard, and poked him in the eye. None of these were true, but I wasn't exactly in my right mind.

At around 5:15, I finally managed to get the bottle just the right temperature and him in just the right position to simulate nursing, and he fed like a champ. IT was seriously a miracle... INSTANTLY he was a perfect little angel. With 45 minutes to spare before Mom returned home to witness my complete and utter failure, I picked up all the debris from the day's war, threw the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and did a load of laundry. Of course, all this time he was sitting happily in his Snugli babbling away to me. And when Mom got home, he of course continued to be a little angel, betraying no evidence of the hell he had put me through. Today is my second day, and we're doing much better... you learn lessons quick in this situation. It's either that or throw yourself through a window. I literally, at one point yesterday, put him down in his crib, went downstairs, and screamed. Then I went back up to his crib and continued to comfort. Sometimes, it's not about being the best parent. Sometimes (And let my abject failure serve as example) it's all you can do to just survive. Oops, he's waking up.... time to pray to the Milk Gods that he finds this offering worthy!

There goes the College Fund

Well, we finally got the bill for Aidan's birth. Actually, we got two bills. The first (and of course we don't pay this amount, insurance does...more on that later) was for his birth. Wighing in at a little over $4000.00, the wife was amazed. She thought it would be more, and I said I was pretty sure that wasn't the WHOLE bill... I mean, it cost about $1000.00 to have me in 1978 (according to the meticulously kept reciepts my mother assumed I might someday, for no good reason, cherish) and I simply cannot believe that 25 years wirth of inflation only amounted to an addition of $3000. She was sure it was right. Anyway, our co-pay for that was only $5, so we got off pretty easy.

Cue delivery of second bill. It turns out that the first bill was LITERALLY for his birth-- it only included the actual delivery and nothing else. Pretty good racket-- the Dr. was only in the room about 20 min, and even given the hospital's chiunk of that he still made some nice jingle. So this second bill.....wow. I got through 2 years of college for what it cost for this kid. Including books. And probalby drinking money. Grab your whiskey glasses and raise them high-- Aidan's entry into this world came to a total of just under $40,000.00.

Yeah, you read that right. 40 grand. That's 400 Benjamins. To put it in perspective, that's $33,113 Euros. $51,119 Franks. $2,963,384 Dinari. $4,573,705 Yen. $636,400,000 Vietnamese Dongs (I had to say that). And more than the GNP of Canada multiplied by the age of the Pope. Now, we have some interesting itemized things on that bill.... for instance, under the general heading of "Medecine" there's a pretty large chunk. I knew the wife was taking a lot of Motrin, but jesus, she must have been mainlining the stuff. The best part of all this is that we only owe a total of abou $800. Well, I mean, that's not good, but get this-- despite the hospital gouging the hell out of things that cost almost nothing outside of whatever mythical realm their accountants live and crunch numbers in, our insurance company has a contract with them...and they only have to pay about $12,000. Aparently, the hospital has to in fact suck it and swallow the rest. Cool, except...well, why should they only have to pay a little more than a third of the total bill, when we would have gotten stuck with the whole mind-numbing 40 grand? I think I'm in the wrong business. They say you can't put a price on love, but thanks to Tenet and thier evil hospital management, I now know that I can be put down for love in the amount of $40,000.

Happy New Year

My New Year's resolution for this year is to not have Children and Welfare Services show up at my door. So far, so good. New Years' Eve was one of the more memorable ones in recent history for us this year-- we spent it with friends who have a toddler, and Aidan behaved like an angel. He's really good at putting on a good show... everyone who sees him and is around him thinks he's a perfect little baby. Of course, when the public leaves, he goes back to snorting powdered pacifier off of dead teddy bears and going on epic milk-fueled benders. I keed, I keed. But he does seem to have an innate sense of showmanship.

So anyway, New Years Eve he sat quietly while we all ate dinner and passed out shortly thereafter, leaving the adults to drink and be merry playing games. He roused briefly around midnight (I think...I'm not sure what time it was really, since the bottle of Jameson's made time go all Dali on me) to watch Dick Clark slur his way into the new year, and was out after that too.

New developments? Not much really, although I continue to be amazed with the nonchalant way he throws up half his body weight occasionally. He'll be sitting there, happy and cooing and then vomit a liter of half-digested milk all over himself without missing a beat. He doesn't even do so with any visible effort-- no gagging or heaving noise, just slightly open mouth and spewage. I wish I had the power to sneak-attack vomit, it would make meetings at work much more interesting. Well, that's all from the front for now-- I'm going to cut these back to about once a week from now on, owing mainly to my forgetfulness.