It's pronounced "Noo-klee-ar".

Aidan continues his good behavior...mostly. See, here's the thing: he'll be a perfect angel all day long. He'll play, and nap, and smile when I change him....he'll even take every bottle I offer without hesitation now. BUT...there's a big but.

Every day I have him, he reaches a critical mass around 5:00 PM. I call it the "Mommy Meltdown". That's the point at which he decides he's had enough of this "Dad" shit, and demands the real deal, in all her breasted goodness. You can almost set your watch by it....he'll be fine, happily playing or planning world domination with his exersaucer, and out of nowhere THE SKIES RAIN FIRE AND DEATH. At this point, he is physically and mentally unable to be comforted in any way for more than 10 seconds. No sleepy-time in the Neglect-o-matic, no binky, no bottle, no nothing. All he wants is Mommy, and only after an hour or so of wearing ruts in the carpet from walking him around even gets him close to the 10 seconds without whimpering/all-out screaming I want from him.

This phenomenon was extra bad yesterday, as he detonated himself at 4:12 PM, and continued until 5:48 (yes, I know EXACTLY what the times were....in things like this, you watch the clock constantly, praying to god that Mom is somehow miraculously getting of work early and is in fact about to come through the front door.)Of course, by the time she GETS home he's usually either asleep or about to be asleep, and he once again looks like he's been an angel. OF course, the second she touches him, he perks right up and is all smiles for dear 'ol Dad. Which is some consolation, but I can't help but think I see a little bit of smirk mixed in with the smiles.

New development: apparently, Aidan is trying to be "retro" and has regressed to his "sleep for 2 hours at a time during the night" schedule. This, to put it mildly, is exhausting. Apparently, however, it's not all that uncommon. I'm going to leave it up to your imagination exactly how much comfort that is to me. At any rate, I assume it is just a stage, although I am willing to pre-emptively give him unlimited use of the car and $100 for whiskey whenever he wants it in return for one single night's uninterrupted sleep.

The Negelct-o-matic

Well, this week was a good one-- Aidan continued to accept that I'm not going to try to kill him as soon as mom leaves the room, and behaved very very well for me when I was home with him. I even managed to get him to go to sleep late in the afternoon after his daily "DEFCON 5 Mom has been gone for more than 8 hours" screamfest. But the big development is that Aidan is now big enough to sit in the exersaucer he has.

This, my friends, is awesome. He has plenty to see and play with, which means he is entertained...and more importantly, it means I can get 15 minutes here and there while he's awake to do chores around the house...which also means that I can get a little sleep when he does. It's utterly incredible how long 15 minutes can seem, and how much you can get done in it. Why, on Tuesday I built a scale model of the Leaning tower of Pisa using only discarded toenail clippings and Elmer's glue! (Ok, I'm lyin'...I didn't use glue, it was mainly held together with tape. Glue takes too long to dry.)

Also, according to Mom, he had his first big-boy ride in the stroller yesterday-- no carseat, just him sitting up in the stroller. Pretty cool, I can't wait to try it with him. Chick magenetism only increases when they can see the baby head on.

One more bit of info (and this one is the one you've been waiting for).... he took the mother of all dumps the other day. I was feeding him, and he let fllly, shaking the house off it's foundation. In another stunning display of an infant's strange gravitational anomalies, the poo went out the top of his diaper, up his back, through his onesy, and onto my jeans. Jet he managed to get absolutely zero on his own pants. It was kinda like squeezing a tamale too hard, but (I assume) much less tasty.

Dem Shifty Baby-Stealin' Eyes

This week was great...Aidan is finally getting use to my taking care of him. Tuesday he didn't have any problems at all until 5, when I think he began to wonder if, in fact, the milk godess was ever to return. When she did, he was already sleeping soundly on my lap though, so we go through it fine. Wednesday was similar, although he began to get fussy earlier...I chalk this up to a slightly upset tummy; due in no small part ot my excellent parenting skills and keen eye for detail, I noticed he was spitting up more than normal. CSI, eat your heart out.

Ok, so what does the title refer to, then? Well....we went to the mall, just he and I, on Tuesday so I could pick up some developmental toy for him (o.k., fine, I got us a copy of Doom and Doom 2 for the Xbox, but anyone who knows me knows that this game played a cruacial role in my development). I thought to myself, as we were walking in.."Everyone is going to look at him and think he's an angel, and they're going to look at me and see a caring father taking a workday off to be with his child, a father who also happens to be attractive, at which point they will throw thier panties at me" That's not entirely true though-- I thought the first part, I may have uttered the last part aloud.

Anyway, once we got in-- let's just say I might as well have been a Roman soldier peeing in Jesus' face and pouring a lemon juice maranade on his wounds while riding on top of the cross he was carrying . Every single woman there with kids or of/past child-bearing age looked at me as thought they'd love nothing more than to drop me with a taser and call mall security. I felt really uncomfortable under the withering gazes of the Uterine Masses....they seemed to think that any dad out with a child in the mall on a weekday was obvioulsly up to no good, and in fact had probably stolen the child to sell into the baby Ultimate Fighting Championship circuit. Of course, as these things often do, this made me feel worse and I began avoiding gazes....yeah, not the best way to avoid looking like a baby rancher. So I ducked into what I thought was the only safe haven around-- Hot Topics Rock. Er, I mean The Children's Place. Heh. Yeaaaaah, I didn't try to buy him a "Bullet for my Valentine" onesy or anything first.

So there I am in The Children's Place store, and finally, FINALLY there was calm. The sales clerks were very nice, and I did manage to catch a few sets of panties with my tee....that's not important. So to end our trip, I was looking for a nice spring jacket for Aidan, as he's growing fast and we have nothing mid-weight that will fit him yet. I found a cool little denim jacket that he gurgled at, but I decided it wasn't going to be warm enough, even with the "Sepultura--'As We Rot' World Tour" t-shirt scrap I had planned to safety-pin to the back. So I looked and looked, and I found something of the appropriate warmth. Unfortunatly, it was stripes of almost neon light blue and navy blue fleece, and I though he'd look kind of like a gay Disco prison inmate in it. Before you all ridicule me for my non-PC ness, I don't think there is anything wrong with that (well, actually, I'm not too keen on the inmate part) and to prove it I showed it to him and asked him if he liked it (as much as a 3 month old can like anything that isn't a boob)-- with full intent to get it for him if he wanted.

In response, he furrowed his brows, popped out his lower lip, and unleashed Thunderass (which is like thundersnow, but sticker and more cheese-smelling and not as white and it's really nothing like thundersnow but I think that's such a ridiculous concept I had to work it in) into his waiting diaper. Then he sighed and looked away from the jacket, at me, and smiled.

I love my son.

From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee....

And hell it was. Tuesday Aidan was feeling extra cranky. Although he slept well int he morning, the afternoon was all screaming and tears. I think pretty much the first day each week I watch him he goes through major Mom withdrawal. Which I totally understand, but that doesn't make it any easier when he's screaming from lack of rest and/or food and/or a subtle shift in the earth's magnetic fields (hey, sometimes it seems that that's the only thing that could be wrong). But yesterday more than made up for it-- he was a perfect little angel. We went shopping in Wilmington, and he slept all the way there. While in his stroller, he looked around and jabbered at the lights, the plants, the mannequins...it was nice. Anytime he got a little fussy, in goes the pacifier and it's more baby bliss. He was even good in the car while I changed him. Which brings me to my most interesting discovery.

My arms, as it turns out, are exactly long enough to reach back from the driver's seat and stick a pacifier in his mouth. That, my friends, is akin to a parental Super Power. I'm the envy of anyoe who has ever travelled with an infant, and I love it. It's ultimate soothing power without even having to get up. Mwahahahaha.