So I totally jacked a home-run off Parker the other night and then showed him up with my fancy bat flip and home-run trot. I probably shouldn't be proud of this, but I hit the crap out of his pitch - and I was psyched.
I should probably explain. When the little man and I head into the basement we basically have a modern day decathlon (baseball, football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, track (although not field) and wrestling - I guess it's actually a octtahlon). Anyway, I don't actually know what got over me on the baseball thing. We were sitting there and I was pitching and PK was batting. There were couple of things I had to straighten him out while he was batting. First, I own the inside of the plate. He was starting to crowd the plate a little, so I tossed one right at him - you know, just to brush him back a little. The other lesson I had to teach him was that I was not afraid to mix up my pitches a little and throw a little junk followed up by a fastball just to throw his timing off a little.
Anyway, after I established my pitching dominance, he wanted to pitch and he wanted me to bat. All I can figure is that there's a little pent of frustration (is frustration pent or bent?) that PK seems to have a little trouble listening these days. More accurately, he's having A LOT of trouble listening (at least to me) - as in - his ears don't seem to function at all. So perhaps that was playing a roll, because on Parker's first pitch, I absolutely jacked it out of the park. "YEAH! WHO'S YOUR DADDY?" And then I did my little home run strut.
And honestly, he didn't care, within the next five minutes we were on to our next event (wrestling), but it did make me think 'did I seriously just show up son?'
Conclusions. One, maybe I'm just a little too competitive. Two, I was the big winner - I totally dominated.
Have you ever noticed a sleeping infant is like a drug? It almost every aspect. I mean almost everything in the world of the baby somehow revolves around sleep - either yours or the baby's. I mean, sure, there's "eating" and crap that like - but man, for the first couple of months - it's sleep.
First, especially trying to coax your baby to sleep, sleep is like crack. You (okay, maybe you won't but I will) will do almost anything to get him to sleep. It's pathetic. I mean ANYTHING. Drive over 60 in a parking lot? When you have a baby who wakes up screaming anytime you drop below 60 - yeah, you'll do it. That actually sounds like an awesome movie. You are being held hostage by a terror beyond your control - drop below 60 and it's the end of us all.
And then when you aren't able to get the wee one to sleep, you really start to lose your mind. It's like you've taken some bad acid or something (I've heard, I mean how the hell would I know?) When it's 4am and you have a one month old who just looks up at you totally happy and wide awake looking up at you with a "hey - how you doing?" sort of look, you start to panic a little. Not only do you panic with a, holy crap - why isn't he going back to sleep, sort of way, but you actually start to lose your mind. You start talking to yourself and cease to have a functioning brain. By the way, Julie thinks I am impossible to be around if I haven't gotten enough sleep (enough sleep in this case being four consecutive hours). She walks around basically telling me how miserable I am. That is really helpful too - totally puts me in a better mood.
But my personal favorite is when he is sleeping in your arms. It is the worlds biggest sedative. He's all warm and we have this fuzzy blanket on him - and it is impossible to stay awake. I mean you try, but you can just feel your eyes started to weigh like 400 pounds and your head starts to do that slow nod where it sways and sways and the slams back jolting you and the baby awake. That's awesome, and completely unavoidable. No matter how hard I try to stay awake, when I am holding, you can feel this wave of sleep wash over you.
And when you finally lay him down and he settles in (and now you can go to bed), it's ecstasy. Its just such a stress release - it's like 'finally, he's down. now I can go accomplish 400 things before he wakes up.' For me items 1 through 399 are sleep, but Julie actually tries to get shit done.
So sometimes you wake up in the morning and you just sense that it's not going to be the greatest day. I had one of those last week, and just as I sensed - it sucked. Started out with Riley alseep in his bouncer, and Julie gets up to take a shower. I am just finished getting dressed, when I just hear this insane yelling coming from Parkers room.
I go to check it out, and he is up and he is PISSED. I don't actually know about what yet, but I suspect that it's because he's had a cold and fever for the last week - so he generally feels like crap. Fair enough, I can understand that. I try to talk to him in a very concerned fatherly way "What's the matter big guy?"
It kind of goes downhill from there. I wasn't the one he wanted. Mommy is the cuddler, I am the entertainment (dance funny man!). So PK comes running at me yelling "NOOOOO! NOOOOO!" trying to push me out of the room. Buddy, I am something like seven times your weight - I'm not exactly going anywhere. Whatever - I try to stay calm and try to help him catch his breath, and, you know, usual actual words other than "NO!" Didn't work. This kid yelled at me for ten minutes at the top of his lungs. He couldn't speak, he was so hoarse.
It sucked. I mean really sucked. Now I'm getting late for work, but I'm not going to let this fire breathing four year old push me around, so I dig my heels in determined to work it out rather than just let Julie come in a calm the situation down. But here's the thing, when someone is just screaming at you; it's really REALLY hard to stay in control. It can very quickly spiral wickedly downhill. I mean, I get it - he's sick and he was jolted out of sleep because he can't breath because of his stuffy nose, but he was totally pissing me off. The scene actually looked a little like this:
That is not good times. But after another ten minutes of this, and making no progress - I changed tactics. I got really really calm; I channelled my inner Stuart Smalley.
"Buddy, I get it. You're really mad right now. If you are mad at me, I'm really sorry I upset you so much. But I need you to take a deep breath and tell me why you are so upset."
I think me being so calm (and apologizing, which Julie will suggest is something I never do (but when you are never wrong, what can you expect?)) kind of freaked him out, because it worked. After 30 minutes of pure hell - he switched an off switch and it was like it never happened. Might be easy for the three year old, but my head was spinning.
I think it's fair to say that PK is also having some adjustment issues. Nothing directed towards Riley or anything, who he seems to adore - but some of the stuff he's doing it making my head want to explode.
So I have a shadow. Now one would think that it would be a large shadow generally speaking (you know, 6'5" 500lbs), but my shadow is actually relatively small (about three feet) and weights about 30 pounds. There's actually a perfectly reasonable reason why the little man is following me around all the time now (other than my awesomeness, of course). Julie is at home all the time now, so PK actually gets plenty of mommy quality time. But what that means is that when I come home, I'm like a celebrity. I go up to change, he wants to change. I wear short sleeves, he wants to wear short sleeves. Follows me everywhere. Although he has taken a little break this week because he has a fever. Dad is not so good at the cuddling -that is reserved full time for mommy.
W tend to do things like go and play some football. Of course when PK plays football, he just tackles. It -doesn't actually matter who is carrying the football - he just comes running at you at full speed and then lunges at you to try to knock you over. He's amazingly effective at knocking me over.
So it's cute having your very own shadow - but it seems like I have a shadow who is really trying his best to piss me off sometimes. It's like he finds a tender spot (say, procrastinating - which I say with a full awareness of the irony) and keeps poking it. "Does this bother you? Yes? Okay, how about this?" It's like Parker, seriously - don't lay your head on the toilet, that's just disgusting, just get ready for bed, okay?
Julie thinks that while PK probably is testing me more these days, it's more a function of the fact that I don't operate well with a lack of sleep, and so I'm operating on a pretty short fuse. I thought about it....um.....no.
And as a matter of fact nobody operates as poorly as Julie does lacking sleep. For the last two days in a row - at around 5:30 or 6:00 when Riley is waking up she rolls over and begs "Please can you do downstairs and feed him? I will pay you one million dollars." Then she tries to talk about how she just got back to sleep because Riley puked all over himself and needed to change his outfit, blah blah blah. It's pathetic.
See how supportive I am? I rule. Here is the one thing I have learned about giving the wee-child a bottle. While a room temperature bottle might be okay - a cold one causes Riley to lose it. I, of course, learned this the hard way one morning when he was screaming to be fed and I started to panic, so I just gave him a cold bottle right out of the fridge. He took two sips and man was he pissed. He picked up the bottle and threw it at my head.
Okay, so I don't think I'm alone in this one, but looking at the side by side pics of Parker and Riley at roughly the same age - I think they look really similar. It's like they are siblings or something. Weird how that is working out. Although, of course, the pictures that I managed to upload don't highlight that fact at all because I am retarded.
So Riley has reflux, just like Parker did. That's awesome. We are really enjoying going through that again. I mean the spitting up of complete meals until it seems like he's choking. That's just good times - not to missed. I mean why wouldn't I want to go through that again.
Here are a couple of other things that I've noticed about the little guy (Riley that is). First - they new born stage really does kind of suck. Now Julie will get all fired up at me for this one, but seriously - they just sit there cry, eat, poop, and keep me up - and I mean quite literally that it is. And I guess I'm hanging out too much with a preschooler because I'm looking at Riley and thinking "okay buddy let's interact." What do I get? Nothing, except a lack of sleep. So it sucks like 90% of the time. But then there are times when Riley wakes up and you are holding him and he just kind of looks at you and smiles. That makes everything worth it. It is one of the most pure moments ever.
I do have to share the quick story about Riley's first bath. Complete disaster does not even come close describing it. So Julie and I are sitting there talking (about my inconsistent parenting, I believe), and the bath is on our sink. And so Julie is filling the water in the tub with a bucket. And after like 10 minutes the tub is barely getting full, and so finally Julie asks "what is that sound?" I look over and there is water pouring out of the tub, all over the sink, into all of our cabinets and drawers ruining. And it's like 10 at night now, so we have to put Riley into the papasan and empty out every drawer in the bathroom. Water is everywhere, Riley is awake and just sitting there looking at us going 'what the hell is the matter with you guys?' So finally around midnight we have finally straightened the bathroom up, so we figure we might as well bathe him now.
The bath itself was relatively uneventful until Julie starts to rinse him off. I say to her "why the hell are you spraying me with water?" She's not. Riley had decided the warm water was a little too relaxing and peed all over the place. And when I say place, I mean me. All over me. Sucked.
And then to put a perfect finish on the evening, after Julie feed Riley - I am standing there burping him with him over my shoulder. And he burps - and then I feel a very warm liquid half way down my back.
The little guy vomited all over the place. It was a little freaky actually because it was almost two cups of vomit or so, which my shirt so willingly absorbed.
I cried last night. I did not expect that at all. There I was sitting holding Riley with Julie sleeping next to me and they announced that Barack Hussein Obama would be the next president, and out they came. Don't worry, I quickly bottled them back up - because I'm a Keenan, of course, we don't show emotion. But there they were for the briefest of moments.
And then I tried to figure it out. What the hell was I crying for? My taxes are most likely going to go up. I'm not black. 150 years ago black people were property. Literally, they could be bought and sold like milk or food. One of the reasons we are the country we are is because for the first 75 years of our founding we could own other human beings. It's woven into who we are, we have to accept it and move on. And I do believe with the election of Obama, we actually have started to move on. It is a very dramatic symbol as a nation.
But here's the thing: I didn't want to vote for a symbol. While a symbol represents something significant, it doesn't actually DO anything. No, I didn't vote for a symbol. I voted for hope.
Hope that he maintains the same calm demeanor he exhibited as a candidate. Hope he governs from the center. Hope he can repair our international reputation. Hope he governs according to the Constitution and a respect for the rule of law. Hope he frustrates liberals almost as much as conservatives. Hope he does believe in the power of the market, but recognizes that it sometimes fails. Hope he appoints intelligent but not ideologues to cabinet positions. Hope he is humble about American power.
I just I really am looking for the anti-Bush. It really has been a long eight years. But this is what is truly amazing about this country. With as much damage as has been done over the last eight years - we as a country (finally) recognize it, make the necessary adjustments and just move on to fixing the problems. It really is a great time to be American.
And lastly, Obama is a White Sox fan, which implies he is an excellent judge of character.
Wow. This is taking some getting used to. On one hand, as a second time parent, you're a little less stressed, more familiar with things... a little more experienced than the first time around. On the other hand, it is hard to describe the sheer chaos that errupts going from one to two children in the house. Quick example -- last Thursday is Parker's Halloween Parade at pre-school. The night before, I actually asked Julie if she thought we should set an alarm (clearly sleep deprivation had disrupted intelligent thought). Anyway, the alarm goes off in the morning, everyone is sleeping and Julie jumps in the shower. Within minutes, Riley is awake and ready to eat... NOW... and Parker decides to wake up early too. You would think this was a good thing because now we have a little more time for everyone to get ready. But perhaps you don't appreciate what a procrastinator our eldest son is. (While Julie and I have been nicknamed "Late and Later", at least it took us 16 years together to earn those labels. Parker has mastered this skill in a little over three.)
So there I am, trying to calm an angry, hungry baby and simultaneously motivate a pre-schooler to get dressed and ready for school. I was seriously losing it. This whole scene lasted maybe six minutes before Julie was out of the shower and on the scene to lend a hand, but by that time I was about to lose my mind. Here we are... only two weeks into this... and I am completely overwhelmed. Other than that, it's going well.
So when I was in the fourth grade I had to do a report on the preying mantis. Turns out the women bite the heads off their male partners right after they are impregnated. Just one of life's little lessons I learned at a very early age. Here was another lesson I learned at a pretty early age. If you screw around long enough - someone else will inevitably do your work for you.
I learned this in the fourth grade on said report. The person kind enough to help finish what I should have, aka sucker, in this case was my mom. If I recall what happened correctly - I half-assed my way through the old praying mantis report, with my mother critiquing it. I believe her response to my effort went something like "this piece of crap is what you are going to turn in? It's terrible, a second grader would have done a better job." Devastating. Instead, however, of having me rework my report (you know, and include research and maybe some facts rather than just random drawings of insects), mom cranked out the old encyclopedia and type-writer and got to work. No way in hell was I going to impinge the family name turning in that piece of garbage. I believe we got a B+ for our efforts.
The next year when my report was on Galileo Galilei, she didn't even risk me attempting to write the report. No, she figured I would just slow her down and went to went about the report with great vigor. I believe that year we received a B (standards are obviously higher in the fifth grade) with a note back saying "I am surprised by the breadth and depth of your vocabulary Alex. Not many 5th graders know the true meaning of the word antidisestablishmentarianism, which you so eloquently worked into your report."
Always one to strive to do better, Mom promised to double up on next years report. I should point out that I'm not sure she went through this kind of effort for all six of my other brothers and sisters, but then again - she probably didn't make their breakfast and pack their lunch everyday until they were 28 either. I can't tell you - you'd have to ask them.
The reason I bring this up is because I now see how this level of parental involvement and commitment develops. It starts small, but then eventually gets bigger and bigger until they are showing up at job interviews with you when you are like 36 vouching for his abilities.
So we had pumpkin carving night at preschool the other night - and I think I've discovered how it all gets started. Here's how it went down in the Keenan household. Julie asked Parker what kind of jack-o-lantern he wanted to carve. Since PK is learning about all sorts of shapes and sizes these days he said he wanted triangle eyes, oval nose, and a smiley face. Hell, even I can do that - and I am functionally retarded. So off we go to school, and I bring with me a steak knife and teaspoon. Turns out carving pumpkins is a lot harder than one might think.
I am trying to get Parker to help (that's just genius - give a steak knife to a three year old), but he was way more interested in looking for cars and trucks that were in the classroom. It suddenly became Daddy's project - it only looked like it was done by a four year old. We take our "jack-o-lantern" into the room where every other parent was. To say some people had perhaps taken their childs project perhaps a bit too seriously is perhaps an understatement. They brought a bevy of pumpkin carving tools (who knew they even existed?) - and if I am not mistaken, someone managed to carve a to scale replica of the Sistine Chapel. That was a good time.
Okay, so we made it through our first week with Riley. I'm not going to say it was easy by any stretch of the imagination, but having already been through it once with Parker - I have to admit that we are at least a little less freaked out. But when you are only getting something like five hours of sleep in total broken up by a crying child, you just can't overcome being tired as hell.
Story of the week? Yeah - we have one. So last night we are trying to get ourselves ready because we are having some pictures taken today. We decide that we need to give little Riley a bath. Because he still has his umbilcal stump we have to give him a sponge bath. In an attempt to keep him warm and limit the freak out, I have the genius idea to hold Riley while Julie wipes him down. That way I can keep as much of his body covered and warm and uncover only what Julie is cleaning then. Of course I was also the rocket scientist who took off Riley's diaper. That may very well have been a mistake because as I was holding him - the little man took a dump on me. I actually wish I was kidding about that - but sadly, even I wouldn't make that up. I'm holding Riley in my lap and the next thing I know this yellow chunky crap is on my shorts. I was a little freaked, but I'm holding the little man -so it's not like there's actually anything I can do about. So I just sit there.....in shit. That rocked.
Other highlights. You forget just how small newborns are. I mean they are tiny. They are also like little furnances. I can't believe the amount of BTUs that little boy kicks out. You hold him and you just start to get really warm, which, of course, causes me to get wicked sleepy - so I end up falling asleep every time I carry the little guy. He's awake for about four hours of the day, which is totally cool. It's usually from 10am to noon and the (of course) 10pm to midnight. At least he's consistent about that. Anyway, even though he can only see like three feet in front of him it is so awesome to just sit there and watch him and he is just looking around trying to figure out what the hell he's looking at.
He has also managed to put back on all his birth weight and then some. When Riley left the hospital he had lost about 4oz and was 8 lbs 5oz (that was Saturday). By Monday when Julie went to the doctor he was already up to 8lbs 11oz, which made the doctor highlight that he didn't seem to have any problems eating (that's how you know he's a Keenan). The doctor also thinks he has reflux. A little early to worry about whether or not he would need medicine, but basically the guidance we have been given is to never lay him flat. Challenging, eh? But since we are lucky enough to now have a second child with this problem, it's all too familiar. Overall, the little guy is doing pretty well. Don't worry - we're still freaked and paranoid parents, but we're actually all adjusting pretty well.
We are actually a little more concerned about Parker quite frankly. Not that he isn't totally awesome with Riley, because he is. And he's had a great week with Julie and I both at home. But it's fair to say he has been doing a little testing of what kind of crap he can get away with these days. The thing is, I doubt it has anything to do with Riley. All of a sudden we have Parker under a microscope wondering if he'll do something different now that there is a sibling in the house. I think he's been doing this testing thing for awhile, but it's just now that we're all of a sudden worrying about how best to deal with it. That's good solid parenting right there. Spend all the time worrying about the three year old over the one week old.
One thing I will say is the boy has excellent taste in music. And while I won't actually tell him any of the words, because they are....well... vulgar - he has a new favorite song. American (I actually haven't told him the song is American Idiot - he doesn't need to know that).
So we have been home about three days now with the newest one, and I can't help but make a couple of observations. We'll start with the little man first, because quite frankly he's easier to describe. As it turns out - the infants really only have like two organs on the inside. Lungs and a colon. It's like the rest of the little man hasn't really developed yet. He eats, he takes dumps, and he cries - literally in that order. I mean Julie is feeding him, and often during the meal you hear it coming out the other side.
That's not normal. I mean it takes even the best of us at least five minutes to work it's way through. This generally leads us to change the boy's diaper. I would say in the last five days we have probably changed six thousand diapers. And I would say that probably five thousand nine hundred ninety-nine have resulted in use of the other organ (lungs) by Riley yelling so much that he might actually become hoarse.
I mean when you are trying to change a diaper at four in the morning and the man is screaming his head off it gets just a little stressful. He's like a little eight pound ball of terror or "the smallest intimidating man". The boy does not like to be cold. He's cute as anything, and then when the diaper is stripped off all hell breaks loose.
I think it all works out in the end for him, since he tends to get his revenge by either peeing or pooping mid diaper change. I'd be okay with it except for the fact that just prior to him releasing his urine furry he opens up his eyes, looks up on us, smiles, and thinks 'change my diaper will you? Take this.'
Then he falls asleep and the whole process starts all over again in two hours. Speaking of sleep (was I speaking of sleep) - the boy has given us two nights of three hours of straight sleep. That's killer for a one week old because we're actually getting like six hours. Granted we spilt that six hours up with an hour or so of feeding and diaper changes, but still - six hours and we're psyched.
And since this will most likely change several times over the next couple of days, I have to mention how awesome Parker has been. He is totally doting on Riley. Offered to get his breakfast the other day when we told him Riley was hungry. "Okay, I'll get him Raisin Bran." I mean, seriously, what kid doesn't love the bran? He is also very gentle with him. Hopefully it's not because we've freaked him out or anything - because I really don't think we have. It's just been really fun to see. I actually think one of the things that's helping him adjust is the fact that Riley really doesn't do too much (other than cry and eat) - and since we're both home this week he is getting all kinds of attention. I mean Julie is able to get up and run around (slowly) and he and I are still kicking it Lord of the Flies style down in the basement - so he might be thinking "hey - mom and dad are both here, this is awesome!" He also totally gets gushed over if he looks at Riley nicely - he's probably picked up on that too.
Julie, however, is just starting to get used to a household full of boys. Two under four and one emotionally stunted. That's going to be a difficult household. Julie has this delusion that maybe someday at least one of the three of us will dress nicely, be ironed, and care about their appearance. I don't know about Parker and Riley, but it's not going to be me.
Okay - so it's almost 11:30 Friday night, and I am totally exhausted after the last two days. But since I am at home (taking care of the little man (scratch that - his new nickname is now the big man, more on that later)) and I don't actually see me having another coherent thought for the next six months - so I'm just going to vomit up some thoughts on the day, just to have an (incomplete) memory of yesterday. So here goes (and I'll try to keep it brief, but we all know that's nearly impossible for me).
So the doctor wanted us at the hospital at 7:15am since Julie was going to be induced. We, of course, show up closer to 8. I mean, seriously - this kid is already late, and we are, or course, chronically late - so of course we show up for the birth of our own child late.
Anyway, we get all set up by like 8:30 and checked into the room and what not. And by about 10am the doctor comes in the room to get this show on the road. Julie had not really been having any serious contractions - so the doctor puts this gel on her cervix (I don't know how she did it because I couldn't look - I'm still troubled by a bunch of the stuff I saw over the last two days). Whatever -the gel works man. Within 20 minutes Julie starts having contractions. She was about 1cm dilated at 10 - and by 12 she was 3cm. This is where the shit really started to get surreal. The doctor now comes in and is going to break her water. Not only do I not recommend not trying that at home. If someone ever suggests it or is going to have it done - I recommend leaving the room immediately.
Again, I couldn't look because, well they were working down there - and I don't need to see that, but anytime you hear someone yelp "holy f'ing shit - that hurts!" and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, well....that sort of sucks.
Anyway, the hoover dam that was Julie's cervix has now been broken, and all I could think was 'we're going to need more towels.' This was when the contractions really started to go crazy. They were coming basically every two minutes and getting pretty intense. Around 1pm the doctor came in to check her again, and got as far as saying 'Do you want an....' "YES!" 'epidural?'
I don't know who invented them, or how they even thought of it - but an epidural is quite possibly the greatest invention for any husband ever. Husband, you ask? Yes.
So at 1pm Julie was 4cm, and as the doctor was leaving he mentioned that as soon as she got to 5cm it was going to go fast. Of course we didn't think he knew what the hell he was talking about - because with Parker, she basically got to the hospital at 4cm and we were still there for 12 hours (including pushing for 4 hours (yeah - holy crap, right?)). So we basically settle in like we're going to be there for a while. Julie starts to doze off, I get a book out and start to read. At 2:30, the nurse comes in to check - and says that she's now 5cm, so things are going to start to happen. Right. By the way, is there some sort of world record for number of times violated in a 24 hour period? If there is, I'm guessing it's related to the birth process. Everybody seemed to be checking her out.
Anyway, after that measurement - I tell Julie she should try and get some sleep because we're going to be in for a long and pretty exhausting night. She tries to sleep, and I watch her contractions on the screen they have her hooked up to, sometimes just saying 'Wow. That was a big one. You don't feel anything? Amazing"
Finally at about 3:30 Julie calls the nurse and just mentions that she is feeling a lot of pressure 'down there,' and the nurse casually mentions that it's probably the baby. At 3:45 the doctor comes back in to do another exam and just says "okay, you're fully effaced and 10 centimeters. It's go time!"
The bed is like a damn transformer - it immediately changes from a relatively comfy sleeper to a baby making making. The bottom drops out - these feet things come up, and it's just like "bring it!"
4:00pm Julie starts pushing. I can't find the appropriate words to describe what happened, but Julie pushed for four hours last time and so we were not really looking forward to this, but the baby must have been hooked up to some sort of jet propulsion while sliding down a slip and slide, because the baby just came flying out.
And the doctor who had been very nice morphs into this drill sargent. "I WANT YOU TO PUSH AGAIN! NOW GIVE ME TEN SOLIDER!" Jesus, she scared the crap out of me - I started pushing.
Six pushes (which by the way means that I had to count to ten 18 times, nobody ever appreciates that) and at 4:13 the doctor yells. "Julie, give me one more good push, here comes your baby!"
It is amazing. There isn't another experience that even comes close, and I'm just watching and counting to 10 -it's not like I really did anything. I'm balling, Julies balling. It's just spontaneous eruption of emotion.
And I go and look at my new son. And he's blue. Head to toe. Blue everywhere. WTF? Jesus, we gave birth to an alien. Parker had maconian last time so he was whisked away pretty quickly - so I don't remember if he was blue, but this one was most definitely was.
It's totally okay. I love my blue baby boy (YOU MY BOY BLUE!).
He finally starts to turn a color that can at least be described as some human shade of pink - and he looks like a little old man. It is so adorable, I start crying again.
8 pounds 9 ounces. 22 inches long. Head 14 (i guess centimeters? who knows, maybe inches).
A nurse asks if we have a name, and Julie and I kind of look at each other and say:
"Riley Alexander Keenan".
I could not be more proud. And to watch Julie go through childbirth - all I can say is she in an amazing, amazing woman.
(riley helped out his name being born with glasses on, because that is a name that exudes a dude wearing glasses)
And this will annoy Julie forever, but he already has his own music video.
I have got to get some sleep, but I will eventually have to discuss the bubbling tar that is maconian. How is one even able to produce something so disgusting
Yea. We don't know where the baby is. Okay, that's a lie. We TOTALLY know where the baby is - you can hardly miss it. The issue is more the baby has barricaded itself inside Julie's womb. I mean we head down to the hospital and everything, you know, contractions and what not - and then a week later here we are with no baby. Not only that, but Julie went to the doctor on her due date and she hadn't progressed at all -no effacing (I can't even spell that) or dilating or anything.
Not that's it's frustrating or anything, but Julie managed to go through all seven stages of coping in about 6 minutes of Saturday. It was actually quite amazing. One would have thought it literally not possible. But to her credit, by the end of Saturday she had worked through her different stages by the end of the day she was finally at acceptance. I mean she apparently does everything fast including coping. But it's all good now - we have an induction scheduled for tomorrow. WOOOHOOOO. Lack of sleep here we come.
Although I have heard that when you have an induction it takes much longer - so we might have the baby sometime next week or something. At this point it's like who the hell knows.
One thing I do know, however, is that I went with the little man on the preschool pumpkin patch trip. That was really really fun. Got to go pumpkin picking and then go look at some animals. I also got a chance to see him interact with his little buddies in school. How does he do it? Well, it turns out he just stalks them. Seriously - it's almost as though he just follows them around until they start playing with him. It's pretty funny - and a little like 'whoa dude - take a break' He has one little buddy Wade - and while we were at the pumpkin patch and PK just kept walking around going "Where's Wade? Daddy, where's Wade? You can talk to Wade's daddy, and I'll play with Wade."
The only issue with that was that Wade really wanted to hang out with his dad - and so for the afternoon it was almost as though Parker became just another sibling in Wade's family. He went with them everywhere. Um.... Hello? Father/son bonding here Parker - how about a little of it? Nope - not interested in hanging out with Dad. Wanted to hang with Wade. He's three going on fifteen. It's all about the friends.
And, as you can see from the picture above. The pre-school does not encourage smoking for the little ones.
So how was the weekend you may ask (okay, you might not have asked, but I'll tell you anyway)?
It was a suckfest. No other way to describe it. That's right a festival of sucking. I'm not going to say it was the worst weekend of my life or anything overly dramatic like that (the weekend I spent in jail during my visit to Singapore holds that distinction).
So we are hanging out on Friday night, and Julie starts not to feel so hot. You know it -- she's starting to have some contractions. So it's like 10:45 at night and we start timing them. They're coming something like every fifteen minutes. Finally we decide that they aren't getting worse - so we head off to bed thinking "maybe we can sleep them off" (we're not so smart that way - we probably should have done that about two hours earlier).
Anyway, Julie wakes up around 2:00 (yes, an hour of sleep) - and then wakes me up around 2:30 because the contractions have started to become more frequently and stronger. Now they're like every 5 to 8 minutes and they're lasting 30 - 40 seconds. That's actually starting to sound like, crap - this kid is coming. Around 3am we call the doctor (not unlike Hilary's 3am ad I suppose).
Doctor tells us that we should probably come in. This is really where the night went from pretty fun to AWESOME (with extra awesome). Now it's about 3:30 and we didn't want to be alone having all the fun. First up, Julie's parents - sure they may have been up in Boston at the time, and were probably totally asleep, but we weren't going to let 5 hours distance and a lack of sleep ruin our attempt to have them join our party - let's give them a call! So they immediately get in the car. Seriously - we called them back something like thirty minutes later and I think they were just pulling into their driveway. Amazing.
But we didn't want it to be just about family, so we also called Melissa. Granted we called her at about 3:14 telling her to take her time - and at 3:16 she was pulling into our driveway. Weird, you mention to people 'oh yeah - we're having a baby' and people seem to get their ass in motion.
So anyway, to make a long story even longer - we drag ourselves to the hospital at about 5 AM. Turns out the contractions between 3:30 and 5 have become rather erratic so we're not sure what's going on. Whatever, the nurses strap us in (I'm using 'us' in the figurative sense of course - I didn't actually get strapped to anything) - and puts the old contraction monitor on Julie so we can actually see them (you know, just in case I thought Julie was making them up or something). And there they are.......Contractions, and they're pretty strong, or at least that's how they looked on the old monitor thing. The nurse comes in, thinks they are legit (they're 5 min apart now), starts the paperwork and calls the doctor. Of course Julie keeps asking why they aren't hurting more (foreshadowing...)
Everyone keeps leaving open the possibility that we might not be staying, and no one will actually examine Julie until the doctor arrives, which were told will be "sometime this morning". I don't want to be a pain in the ass, but we've been up since 2:30 and we'd like some understanding of what's going on. So we're hanging out, waiting, Julie's having contractions, and I figure my job is done here, so I can just fall asleep. I'm supportive that way. Doctor finally shows up just before 10. By this time, Julie has her fuzzy socks on, I've gone out to get our 1 million bags, and we figure we're having a baby today. It has been 5 hours since we arrived, after all.
Now comes the internal exam. This is awkward for a husband to watch, particularly from the foot of the bed. Avert your eyes. Turns out her cervix hadn't thinned and she wasn't dilating... basically the baby had baricaded itself in there and had no intention of coming out. Since she wasn't 39 weeks yet, they wouldn't consider inducing (yeah... 2 days short). So they kicked us out, contractions and all.
So we're driving home, and its equal parts exhaustion and frustration. I get it. The baby's not ready. But the contractions are 5 minutes apart, and even though we're no longer in the hospital, it's not like they stopped. We're ready now baby. The room is painted and everything. The good news was, I did get home in time to take the little man to swim lessons. And for someone who was afraid of water a few months ago, he's becoming a little fish.
Here we are, a week later. In fact, almost exactly a week later since it's 10:50 PM. Julie has had intermittent contractions, cramps and general discomfort all week and basically stopped working. When laying around and relaxing didn't move things along, she decided to prune four bushes and clean out the rocks in the garden today. We'll see how that works out for us. But if this keeps going, we've got a lot of household projects to tackle. If nothing happens soon, I fully expect a finished basement. Next stop - doctor's appointment Monday when they'll schedule an induction for next week. Anyone want to guess the weight of this monster? Let's see... Parker was 17 days early and 7 lb 14 oz. I figure she's baking a 10 pounder by now.
Okay, the little man cracks me up these days. He's just able to string together whole consistent thoughts with an imagination. The other day (I wasn't actually here, Julie told me the story) - he was in his play room and he made breakfast for all of his NASCARs. Jimmy Johnson got eggs, Jeff Gordon got ham, and Kurt Busch got a tomato (a tomato? I guess he doesn't like him). But the whole thing apparently went on for like 20 minutes - he was just off on his own making sure his little NASCAR boys got themselves a healthy meal.
We're down in the jumper the other day just totally messing around. That's one of the things that's awesome about the basement. Sure, its cold as hell and there are no lights - but there are also no rules. So we're chucking balls around and basically destroying the place; and he's in the jumper, so I lob a ball at him. It hits him - and stuntman style he jumps up and goes flying back yelling "WHHOOOOAAAA!" It was so flipping funny. Know why? He sold it. He committed himself to the joke of being knocked off his ass.
The only issue about laughing when the little man does something really funny - he doesn't fully appreciate that after the 20th time, it gets a little old. He's still jumping back every time I throw a ball, but you know, it loses a little something the 40th time you do it.
I will say, one of the things that's a little awkward is he still wants to kiss on the lips. Buddy, we're Keenans - it's a him handshake and a thump on the back. That's about as warm as we get here. We don't do the whole 'kiss thing' And we totally don't to the kiss thing when you are sitting on the potty and have just touched your scrotum with both your hands. That's just messed up. I know, gross.
Although one thing that was touching this morning. It's possible I had a little zit on my forehead this morning. Apparently to Parker it looked like I had a little boo-boo, so he wanted to kiss it. Awkward! But then Cookie wanted to kiss it, then Jimmy Johnson. then a dump truck, and finally a cement mixer. The zit was getting a lot of sympathy, it felt much better.
So lastly, the little man LOVES the rock 'n roll. Julie says he likes it only because he knows I like it. But I don't think so. I offer up kids music all the time. He doesn't want that crap. He wants rock and roll. Right now his favorite song is Henrietta by the Fratellis. It's fast and you can dance to it. He actually requests, "Daddy, I want to hear Henrietta" So I don't know if this works, but I've even embedded it below. And lets face it. It rocks.
So I was actually asked recently what I thought about the whole financial mess over the last couple of weeks. I swear, I will get back to writing about the family in the very near future - but I actually had some thoughts about this.
Fundamentally the problem is that the US is a debtor nation.
I mean we've had massive balance of payments deficit for years, and over the last ten years we've also had a huge fiscal deficit. So essentially we had to borrow money from overseas (china, japan, etc) to finance those deficits. In the 90s and early 2000s most of that money was going into stock market. And when that bubble burst in 2001 - all that overseas money started looking for new places to invest, so they turned to real estate.
My understanding is that a bunch of poor policy decisions rewriting some of the financial regulations that limited oversight and transparency happened right around the same time. A bunch of financial companies had more lax regulations and a ton of money to invest and they started being really really aggressive in writing mortgages (which they would then consolidate and repackage which was supposed to alleviate the risk, but fundamentally didn't change the risk) to people who couldn't afford them. And US consumers starting buying those insane mortgages to buy houses bigger/better houses. At the end of the day they couldn't afford them - and starting defaulting.
That meant that some of the assets that were based on those mortgages started performing really bad and the whole thing exploded. Honestly, I think all that would normally be fine - I mean you make a bad decision and you have to face the consequences.
The problem is that there has been so much slicing, dicing, and repacking of those mortgages that nobody really knows what anything is worth or what they're really holding. That's where it becomes a mess - it seems that banks don't fully know how many bad assets they hold or anyone else holds for that matter - that they are not lending money to anyone.
I think that's really what causing the crisis - banks aren't lending to other banks, and the cost of borrowing for normal companies has gone through the roof because everyone is freaked with who might fail next, so companies can't grow or can't finance equipment they need to buy - which could really effect the whole economy. I just read something about McDonalds not giving its franchises any loans to upgrade their latte machines, because the costs of borrowing and the risks associated with it have gotten so high. I mean, seriously - that's messed up, their latte's aren't even that good.
And that really does need to be addressed, but I think the gov. really needs to just get transparency back in the market so companies understand what's on their balance sheet and banks relax a little and start to lend money. I even have a possible solution.
I think the government should start a company. It's charter could be rather than profit maximization, just a fair return (say higher than the 30 year note). Hire a bunch of smart laid off wall street types (hey, it's a job creation program too). They could then hold an auction on the distressed assets. Any company that wants to offload some of it's bad assets could put them up for sale. Any potential company that was interested in buying the assets could bid on them. The government company would set the price floor at what price it would buy the asset.
I mean the assets do have some value, right - as long as they generate a modest return, they could work with the homeowners of the distressed properties to rework the mortgages; it would inject liquidity into the system.That might work. Eventually the gov could spin the company off or whatever.
I don't actually have enough detail on what the governments plan, but I think they are attempting something similar for getting liquidity back in the system. It sounds like a lot about the current plan stinks - but if companies can't borrow we are talking serious recession; so you kind of have to hold your nose and vote for it. From what I understand the plan doesn't just hand over $700bn to Wall Street or anything, it is letting the government buy these assets which they might later resell and even make some money. What I personally don't like is that it's not as market efficient as it could be. The price would be negotiated rather than market determined, and no other companies are able to come in and say they might buy the assets for a higher price. Why not?
So what do I think is going to happen? A recession, and a pretty bad one. That sucks, but consumers are worried, right? So they are going to start spending a little less, and probably try to pay off some of their debt. So production decreases, which means people start to get laid off (kind of a vicious cycle there, because that just reinforces the decline in spending). It also means imports go down (good thing), and with a depressed currency our exports will start in increase improving our balance of payments position, which is well overdue. Eventually, peoples credit debt gets cleared up enough to start to spend some money - and strong exports lead us back to some growth. But that's like three years away (that's a guess, but it's something like that).
And what is even worse is that when you are in a recession, you want the government to be spending money to get some growth in the economy. But with the already huge deficit, and funds potentially tied up with the bad mortgage assets, we've kind of limited ourselves there. One of the reasons why Bush's tax cut was kind of a bad idea - you want the government to be counter-cyclical. Saving money when the economy is doing well and spending when it's doing poorly. But the current policies spent a ton of money when the economy was doing well and gave money back in tax cuts when they should have been hanging on to it when everything went pear shaped.
Okay, well - now I feel uplifted. Back to the mundane.
There's an awesome This American Life that covered this a couple months ago - if you have an hour it's really worth a listen:
Yeah, I don't care - I'm writing about politics. I know I normally discuss crap like my inability to parent. But I have to tell you, I've just been doing too much reading on politics and I can't handle it anymore. I'm about to freak out.
I actually try to be reasonable about shit. I mean if someone was staunchly pro-life, or thought that the Bush administration actually did a pretty reasonable job over the last eight years. Fine, I get it, go support McCain. Don't get me wrong - I don't agree with you, and think that W is going to go down as one of the worst presidents we've had, but my view perhaps is not shared by everyone (go figure).
It's not that I even think W is the root of all evil (which is how most of my liberal leaning friendse want to portray him). Bad, you bet - but he started off his presidency in the worst possible way (appointed by the Supreme Court) and then just a major tragedy nine months into it. I think a lot of the decisions he made (right or wrong, but really - just wrong) were based on what he thought was necessary for the protection of the country. That he refuses to reevaluate his conclusions or positions is a completely frustrating but a separate issue. I do actually think he was acting in what he thought was the best interest of the country. That is actions were actually the oppisite, does not speak to intent, just competence.
So all that is okay, see, I can justify W's presidency (ouch, that hurts even to write). But what I am struggling with is people that don't like Obama or are voting for McCain for completely bullshit reasons. I don't know how many people are making decisions like this, beause it's just based on some of the stuff that I am reading, but I'm following it pretty closely, and it seems like waaaaaaaay too many.
For example:
Obama is an elitist. WTF? A black man raised by a single white mom on food stamps is elitist, but silver spoon W. or multi-house McCain keeps it real? Excuse me? Have we entered some sort of bizzaro world? How is this even possible.
Obama will raise my taxes. Do you make more the $250,000? No. Then STFU. Oh, you do? My bad, he will raise your taxes. Actually that's not even true. The tax cuts Bush put in place have a sunset provision in them saying that they'll end in something like 2010. Bush/McCain wants to extend the cuts - Obama wants to bring taxes back in line where they were pre-cut.
Obama is all style no substance. Wrong. As a matter of fact it's so completely wrong it's not even a lie - it's like the anti-truth. Yes, Obama is a gifted speaker (esp. compared to McCain) - but if you actually listen to he speeches or go on his website, he has actually laid out a ton of actual policy positions. I mean, one might not like them, but seriously - they're out there, and they're real. McCain, on the other hand, has offered up no specifics - but says things like 'cut taxes' (and how to we finance that?) and 'washington needs change.' He gets that it's been a republican administration for the last eight years - and that until '06 they controlled congress as well. I mean he's tying to say 'we need change - stick with the party in charge'
Good God, I'm so frustrated I don't even have coherent thought anymore. I'll have to refine this tomorrow.
My new slogan is: Vote for the Smart Guy. Dumb hasn't been so good for the country.
September 15, 2008 I guess it turns out that there are just certain roles that each of us need to play in the family. For example, Parker, you know, with no income to speak of is sort of a money vacuum. His latest method of making suckers out of us is to find something he really wants (say, I don't know, a dump truck) and he'll get this long face and say "Awwww, I wish I had one of those - then I would be sooooo happy." And to our credit - his success rate is only 90%, I mean we really hold our ground 10% of the time. So that is Parker's role. Julie's, of course, is different. I think Parker put it best regarding Julie. I came home from work yesterday, and Julie and Parker were playing (yes, trucks). Parker likes to have some individual quality time with each of us, so when I came in he said, "Daddy, you can play with me now." Julie relinquishes her spot, gets a drink and shortly returns to the room. Parker looks at her and says, "Mommy, don't sit on the couch" (for fear she is going to interrupt our quality play time). "Mommy, you can go wash the dishes."
To his credit. there were a few dishes left over from lunch that needed to go into the dishwasher. And, in my defense, I have in no way suggested or implied that very traditional 1950's gender stereotyping for our family. No, the big man did that one all on his own. Very progressive. Apparently Mommy's role is in the kitchen.
Me? I am the poop whisperer. I don't know why - but the little man seems to only poop when I take him. It's actually a little freaky. I mean we have been trying to potty train this kid for like the last twenty years. He's been awesome with number one for maybe the last year or so - but he was in some sort of poop protest for the last nine months. He appeared to take great pride in informing us that he had, in fact, pooped his pants. But sometime over the last two months he has started to turn the corner. By the way, I realize that discussing a child's bowel movements is quite literally letting people into a world they could not care two shits about.
Anyway, like I said - he seems to have turned the corner, with one caveat - I have to be around. He actually even tells Julie that he's going to wait for me. I think Julie actually uses this, because lets face it, the whole thing is pretty disgusting, and the less time one has to spend dealing with other's feces the better.
I can handle it - we come up with games guessing how big it's going to be, calling it the big stinky, and rolling cars and trucks over my head. Good times, good times.
He has also started swim lessons again - and we are talking huge progress since last year. Still wants to have the death grip around my neck, but now I can eventually pry him off.
Okay, so I took the big man to preschool for the first time today. That was kind of a big deal. And I have to say he handled it really well. When we went on Tues, Julie and I were both there, which probably made it less weird for him. Not this time. And I have to say, I think I handled it just the right way - did the whole drop and run bit. Walked him in to the room, signed him in, and just said to him 'okay buddy, give me a hug and go and play' - and that is exactly what he did. It was cool. Of course, after I drove away, I was like 'damnit, I should have at least watched him for a minute.' I'm such a loser.
I also got to pick him up on his first day - and that was awesome. They were all out at the playground, so I got to catch a sneak peak of how he was playing with the other kids. More telling was that when I went over there, I was a little early, so I asked him if he wanted to go or he wanted to keep playing - and he wanted to keep playing (he wanted me to come in the playground which I declined).
But here's the thing, I try to get him to talk about his first day, show and tell, etc. And all he'll tell me is that he did nothing. It's like he's 13 or something. What did you do today? Nothing? I think it's actually pretty funny and then attempt to tickle the truth out of him, but it is so frustrating for Julie - who, you know, actually wants to carry out a real conversation. She obviously does not appreciate how guys are wired.
So anyway, the whole school thing went well.
So last weekend we took the little man to the hospital for a sibling preparation class. It was pretty fun. The only issue I had was that the instructor who is obviously used to working with kids was so flipping cheerful and upbeat it made me immediately dislike her. Nobody is that happy. And I know she was doing it for the kids, but still - easy on the cheer, okay.
So anyway, he got to see a newborn - which he loved. And there were some great things about the class -- like seeing what the hospital, room, and baby were all about. But then the whole thing got a little over-the-top when the arts and crafts project included gluing together a uterus, baby, and umbilical cord. The kids were all listening with screwed up faces until she finally said something familiar about belly buttons, which is when Parker tuned back in, lifted up his shirt and yelled, "I have a belly button!"
Next we were on to how to diaper and swaddle baby. Cookie Monster played the role of "baby" and proceeded to wear a diaper and receiving blanket for days thereafter. All in all, little man is as ready as he's going to be. He has a certificate to prove it.
We're not going to lie to you hear (at least on this particular post, who knows about the rest of them). This has been a huge week. First over the weekend we took Parker to a sibling class at the hospital. I'll write more about that later, but he is now officially ready to be a big brother.
But on Tuesday, he had his first day of preschool. The little boy is all grown up - but it was pretty cool. Didn't start out that way. Perhaps Julie and I had been trying too hard to get him excited about the whole school thing. Here's the play by play.
Tuesday morning we have to wake him up at 8:30 (man he is lazy). The first day of classes started at 10am rather than the normal 9am . So we get up and get him all ready. And I mean Julie and I are fired up, we're jumping all around (maybe not Julie) saying dumb stuff like "who wants to go to preschool!!!!!" And Parker seems to be getting into it because he said "I am psyched to go to preschool!" (yes, he actually talks like that - he gets psyched).
So anyway, we go down to have breakfast (cracklin' oat bran) and we're sitting there having just a lovely little morning. So I start to give him some watermelon. So he's happily eating the watermelon, and Julie tastes the watermelon and thinks it's gone bad. No big deal we have other fruit - so I throw it away. Holy meltdown batman! I mean he starts to lose it. Julie is trying to console him, offer him different fruit. We actually had more watermelon, but it wasn't cut up, so I didn't mention that until later (Julie ended up getting fired up at me for holding out).
Even after I cut up the new watermelon, he's still pissed because he didn't want that watermelon - he wanted the other one. Mentioning that the old watermelon was in the trash didn't seem to do much good.
After about 10 minutes he finally starts to calm down and Julie looks at me and says "yeah, I don't really think he was that fired up about some watermelon"
Needless to say, we are off to a great start. So we head off to school, and meet the teacher (Mrs. LaRitz). So she gives about a 20 minute little talk about how she structures the class. And while all the grown-ups are listening Parker has camped out between Julie and I playing with (go figure) some construction trucks he's found. And he is taking a dump truck and running it up my one arm, saying "the dump truck sounds like this vrrroooooommm!" and then down my other arm.
And we're trying to whisper to him "why don't you go play with some of the other boys and girls" "Ummmm, no thanks." After I pointed out a jackpot of trucks over in the corner he keeps saying to me "come on daddy, come with me to get the trucks" So I am basically saying to him that he can go over and get them, to which he responds that I can go with him. After a couple of minute of this, he finally gives up and tries to get mommy to go with him "Mommy, come get some trucks."
Julie leans over to him and whispers something, and he just gets up by himself and gets some more trucks. I asked Julie what he hell she said to him; and she responded that she pointed out that all the grownups were sitting and listening, but all the children were playing. She couldn't go and get a truck now, because she needed to listen. It was amazing.
Finally the time had come that we had to leave the little man (although only for forty five minutes). Didn't really know how he was going to take it, and obviously the teacher must have picked up on some of our hesitation, because she asked Julie if he was going to be okay. We looked back in the room - and there he was happily playing with like eight construction trucks. Not any other kids, mind you, but the boy had his trucks and he was going to be fine.
And I will say that when we came back to pick him up, he really did seem to like it. He said that he wanted to go back - and that on Thursday it was going to be show and tell. He is bringing a John Deere dump truck. I did not see that one coming.
That caption is probably true - we do bite. So since the boss has been pregnant for, you know, about eight months now; I think I've started to draw some conclusions.
I think being pregnant kind of sucks. I mean I realize that there's this instantaneous bond between mom and child immediately, given that she pushed the kid out and all. But seriously, at what cost?
I mean you put on like 20% increase in body weight (although for me it would only be 1%), you end up waddling around for a couple of months with none of your clothes fitting, out of breath walking up a flight of stairs, has to pee like every eight seconds, and can't sleep through the night. What a joyous life affirming experience (and, no, I really am not trying to be flip). At the end of term you get to look forward to pushing a bowling ball out an opening the size of a quarter. Yeah - that sounds awesome. Sign me up.
Now don't get me wrong - there are some really cool things about being pregnant. First off, you can balance a bowl of ice cream on your belly perfectly when you want to eat it. It's like having your very own personal table. That's kind of cool. And if you have a car loving three year old, you can make belly mountain - and have all your matchbox cars zoom up belly mountain and have them race down the (very steep) hill. That's cool. Fun for the whole family. And lastly - when you feel the kick - and you're like 'holy crap, something is actually growing inside of me' While freaky and kind of alien - that's pretty cool too.
Julie has mentioned now several thousand times that she wishes that just for a week I could experience what she is going through. Obviously that implies that I am not sympathetic enough. And I try, I really do try to be sufficiently sympathetic. Although sometimes when I'm a little fired up at her, I leave crap on the floor just so she has to bend down and pick it up.
I don't actually do that, but she is convinced that I do.
Anyway, I don't really need to go through that. First, I don't deal with pain well and second, as Julie has pointed out repeatedly, I whine a lot - I couldn't handle it.
g just a lovely little morning. So I start to give him some watermelon. So he's happily eating the watermelon, and Julie tastes the watermelon and thinks it's gone bad. No big deal we have other fruit - so I throw it away. Holy meltdown batman! I mean he starts to lose it. Julie is trying to console him, offer him different fruit. We actually had more watermelon, but it wasn't cut up, so I didn't mention that until later (Julie ended up getting fired up at me for holding out).