A Long Week - Daddy's First Rant

This is my first attempt at "blogging" so please bear with me. Combining my computer weenie skills and my writing skills might turn out disasaterous, but I'll try anything once. And besides, H has me hooked on reading parent blogs now and I may have picked up a trick or two.

I am sitting here at the computer waiting for a call from H to make sure that she and J have made it to the airport safely and will in fact be making their flight back to CA. For the last week I have been home alone. That's right, a week long hall pass. You'd think that this was the equivalent of having an early Christmas or another one of the infamous week long bachelor parties my college roommates and I like to organize for one another. No waking up in the middle of the night to the soothing sounds of Baby J. No diapers, no wipes. No tears, no lower lip sticking out. No bottles to warm up. No spit up on my shirt, pants, arms, neck, back, in my hair, in my ear, in my shoes, or directly into an open mouth (Mommy got that one...classic). This was an opportunity to revisit the past. A chance to remember what it was like before the baby. Surely this would be a good thing. I could listen to music, watch TV or even an entire movie without interruption. I could sleep in. I COULD SLEEP PERIOD.

Note: Sleeping is way underrated. Most mornings I wake up and realize that there isn't enough coffee in the world to help me. I would have slept more in 2007 had I realized the effect sleep deprivation has on a human being. It's unreal. You know how teenagers always think they know everything? Well they got this one right. As I teenager I slept a lot therefore I was brilliant. Now I don't sleep much and I have CRS like never before.

I had the enitre world at my feet. Anything was fair game. SO...What do you think I did? I watched TV? Not really. I watched a movie? I attempted but fell asleep all three times. I'm not joking about sleep. WAY UNDERRATED. Lavish dinners? Not unless you count chunky soup during Top Chef as fine dining. Bars? Yes actually, one bar with Uncles Drew and Mike to see the Bob Schneider show. Which was amazing and we got the recording of the show on CD.

Here we are during the show...

And here's a really crappy picture from my cell phone of Bob Schneider when we met him after the show. But this was THE only fun I had in the last week. Even March Madness felt a little lacking.

I spent my time working around the house. I think I was nesting. I'm not kidding. I nested. I am ok with officially being a parent. I'm not ok with officially becoming old. I went to Lowe's. In Dublin. I went to Smith & Hawken. Since when is it okay for someone to sell garden crap for those prices?!?! Pots should not cost as much as my iPod. I missed the trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond but I'll be damned if it didn't cross my mind while sifting through the 236 catalogs, coupons, inserts and mailers they sent in the last week. I cleaned. I ironed. I did dishes. I hung pictures. I vacuumed. But mostly I waited. I waited every day to hear from my wife and my son. It was quiet around the house without them. And I hated it. I hated that eerie, deafening quiet. There were no baby noises, Mommy noises. No family noises. I will also tell you that playing with infant toys in order to try to get a fix.....it didn't work. Baby Einstein sucks without the baby. I was disconnected. The only thing that worked was hearing them on the phone. Hearing the little voice and his Mom interacting with him and trying to talk to me over spotty cell phone reception. Note: Thank you AT&T. Apparently you work "all around the world" except for in my house. Keep up the good work. As good as Bob was, and he was AWESOME, he can't hold a candle to J and his Mom. That is music to my ears.

So I waited then as I am waiting now, to hear their voices. To know that they are safe. To know that they are coming home. Maybe then I can get some sleep.

Good Friday Giggles

Here's a fun video of the monkey and daddy. The baby and I are off to AZ for a week so unless D gets the itch to do a "daddy rant" there will be no posts until we are back. Happy Easter everyone!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Wishing you all the luck o' the irish today! Have a Guiness for me!!

Back in the saddle again

The monkey is sleeping a little better these days. We had a pretty hectic week though. My grandfather passed away over the weekend. We are so thankful that we were able to see him just over a month ago. Grandpa was the best and will be missed dearly.

Here's a sweet picture:

The little man had his 4 month shots on Monday and we have some great pictures and videos to post once I have a few moments to get them off the camera. It was also Uncle Johnny's birthday on the 12th - here's a picture of him, D and MaeMae:

Thanks for your patience while we forge our way through the challenging times. Hugs to all :)

In case you are wondering...

There will be no more posts to this blog until the monkey is allowing his parents more than a couple of hours of sleep a night. Yes folks, our sweet child that was sleeping like a champ has decided to no longer sleep at night....and naps are apparently history too! Is it too late to trade him in? Kidding :) Kind of.

Zoolander?

This is currently my favorite face that J makes. He started doing it about two weeks ago but it's frequency has hit an all time high the past couple of days. He does it when he's concentrating really hard on a toy or is in his lame ocean wonders vibrating chair. That chair is like a 30 minute babysitter that we only bring out when it's time for dinner or we're about to lose it. D says that the face is like the equivalent of Michael Jordan sticking his tongue out before he does something awesome. If awesome = major poop than I'd say it's a good comparison. I'm kidding, there's no poop correlation with this face - we still have yet to catch that one on camera. I think this face is more of a Zoolander Blue Steel impression (see picture of D and J together - it's dead on). Either way, I just want to eat him up.

Okay - here's a video...the pictures just don't do it justice - plus you can see the babysitter chair and hear my awesome "mom-entary."

The Monkey Rolls!

J-man rolled over from his front to his back on February 1st while we were in Florida but we knew that was the "easy" roll. Rolling from his back to his front takes a bit more skill, not just luck :) I was totally shocked when we were playing on Saturday (ironically March 1st) and he rolled over from front to back! He's been practicing ever since and is pretty good at it now. Here's a video from this morning. It looks like he is getting a head start because he's already on his side, but I promise that he got to his side on his own as well. Please pardon the "new parent" applause and goofy noises and sounds...we are dorks.