An introduction to The Holidays

Peter just had his first Christmas. It was remarkable for the fact that it was his first Christmas, but it was also memorable because he hadn’t filled his diaper with the messy stuff since the Friday before (Christmas was on a Tuesday this year, so do the math). He was going to be wearing nice outfits for family gatherings, but we knew going that long without relieving himself was a recipe for disaster. So, when Christmas Eve morning dawned, Peter was given a steady diet of prunes. Lots of them. We thought we had stuck a little stick of dynamite down there, and after lighting the fuse had hid ourselves behind the nearest bolder to shield ourselves from the blast to come. No blast came. Just a giggling, if somewhat fatigued, Peter. His Aunt Sarah suggested the likely scenario: He’d poop, but only the following morning at church, in the middle of mass. One should always be cautious about laughing off prophecies, and we heeded her words, fearful of what the following morning could bring.

The afternoon of Christmas Eve saw us traveling to Auntie Trucker & Uncle John’s house in Whitefish Bay, where a sizable (yet incomplete) set of Peter’s Mom’s family was convening for a holiday feast. We were planning on staying the night and going to church in the morning, but when Aunt Mai and Uncle Siva were prevented from joining us due to work and a little trip to China the following day, everything changed. We wound up going to the evening mass at 5:00 with Peter’s Grandpa (mother-side), and then we’d head back home later at night so we could de-stress our son a little. It should also be noted that Peter understood that the past few days were not normal days, and so he did everything in his power to keep himself from being put down for a nap.

So we ran out to the mass and got there right as it started. I dropped off Peter, Mom and Grandpa, and parked the car. When I got to the church, Peter’s Mom advised me that due to the fact that the church was packed tighter than the Tokyo subway at rush hour, we would be sitting in the very front row (fortunately, though, we didn’t have to worry about whiter-than-white-gloves-wearing ushers pushing us into our seats like those Tokyo subway workers). Normally we sit in the middle of the pews. Always. Sitting up front was like suddenly finding yourself in a completely different church, or even the house of worship of another religion. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we were suddenly witnessing the sacrifice of a chicken. Anyway, Peter was a good boy, but his Grandpa was determined to have some fun with his grandson, and thus elicited a fair amount of laughs and minor screeches from him during the mass. When the service was complete, however, Peter still had not lightened his load.

We returned to Whitefish Bay for dinner and Peter took a short nap. He woke up in a foreign bed and cried to let us know that, but otherwise perked up nicely when it came time to open presents. As is often the case for a child of his age, his favorite present was the gift wrap. It crinkled so nicely and he could stick it in his moth and chew on it when his parents weren’t looking. He did get his mom’s finger stuck in his mouth once, though, fishing for a little bit of paper he was using as a chew toy. He didn’t care for the invasion, and pouted a little, but then crinkled up some more paper. As I’ve probably mentioned before, Peter is a party animal, and so he stayed up a long time that evening, all the way past 11:00 when we loaded him up and took him home. He slept pretty well that night, I can tell you.

Christmas morning saw me waking up around 7:45 and heading downstairs to commiserate with Peter’s other Grandpa and Auntie Sarah. Some time after 8:15 or so Peter’s Mom came down with Peter in her arms and exclaimed “Peter gave us our present!” and invited me to help clean it up. When we opened up his diaper, we saw that he did indeed provide us with just the gift we were looking for, and he wrapped it so well it didn’t leak out of his diaper. As I told my wife, “it’s a Christmas miracle!” and then a bunch of friends and neighbors came in and we all sang Auld Lang Syne. Oh, wait, that was It’s A Wonderful Life. No. We just cleaned up his fanny and hosed him down.

Later on I installed the new car seat his Grammy got him a few weeks back because he was growing out of his infant seat. Then we installed Peter into the seat, which he seemed to like a lot more than his old one, and drove him down to see his Gram. He was again showered with gifts (including a nice bouncy hobby horse with no springs that he liked a lot), and again he thought the wrapping paper was great fun. He was, however, pretty well exhausted by this time and crashed a couple of times during the afternoon. Again he’d wake up and give us the “I’m lying on a foreign bed and I don’t know where I am” cry to announce each nap was over. When dinnertime came, though, all signs of fatigue disappeared and he chatted up a storm. He also played a ducking-and-weaving game of hide-n-seek with his Auntie Sarah through a wine glass (um… it was a perspective thing, not like one of them could actually hide behind a wine glass. Neither of them is that small, nor were any of us such lushes as to need a wine glass the size of a barrel). Eventually, though, the four days of running around and partying caught up to Peter and he was fading by 8:00. We drove him home and he had a good, long sleep.

To sum up, Peter’s first Christmas was highlighted by three Ps: Partying, Paper, and Poop. Yes, infant constipation before Christmas brings new meaning to Advent. Excitement and expectation ultimately gave way to relief and heavy-duty cleaning. But once Peter slimmed down, so to speak, he was his happy, perky self. Now we just have to start preparing for his second Christmas…

Tragedy Strikes Wisconsin

Milwaukee, WI (AP) – After over two weeks of significant snowfall, the Northern half of Ozaukee County in Southeastern Wisconsin was subjected to a flash flood of an as-yet unidentified brown, pungent-smelling sludge at 11:00 AM. Damage estimates are not complete at this time, however clean-up costs have the potential to run well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Emergency management officials, using advanced scientific instruments, believe the epicenter of the tsunami to be in the Town of Saukville, some 30 miles from Milwaukee. At an impromptu press conference, local FEMA director Wendell Hornblatt indicated the substance was likely not toxic, but was “nasty.” Tests are currently underway to identify the sludge.

First responders are reported to have rushed to the site of the believed epicenter, where 2 survivors were found, a young mother and her 7 month-old son. Because of the age of the child, the AP is withholding the names of the two survivors at this time. EMT Sheila Stankowski attended to the mother. “She kept saying ‘it wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t stop.’ She was in shock pretty bad but was otherwise ok. I mean, she was covered in [expletive], so I can understand freaking out, you know?”

EMT Jonathan Smedley described the infant’s condition as “great, it’s like he experienced a lot of relief or something.”

Several hours after the disaster occurred, the mother was able to provide some details of the event. She said her son was seated in a Bumbo, a seating device for infants that provides back support and props up the child. The substance then burst forth from the seat, in quantities that stunned the mother. “He hadn’t pooped in 2 days, but how could he have had that much inside him? How could I have lifted him? It’s like he opened up a portal to another dimension. I mean, there’s no way he could have made all that by himself right? Right?” Her son then said “mamamamamama.”

Hornblatt was unsure of the mother’s explanation. “Sure, it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, but come on. One baby did all that? Right. She may smell poopies; I smell al-Qaeda.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was not as quick to point to terrorism. “There was none of the usual pre-attack chatter, and so far no one has claimed responsibility. And my first kid once actually spread the contents of his bowels across Jersey City, but no one noticed because it was Jersey City.”

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has declared the afflicted area a disaster area, and is asking the federal government for assistance. President Bush issued a prepared statement that sent “his deepest sympathies to the fine people of Minnesota” and advised he looked forward to his next chance to fly over the area in Air Force One.

Quick Facts about Peter

Peter prefers sleeping on his side.

Peter does not care for avocado. If he knew how to “flip the bird” he would likely do so to you if you tried to feed him any avocado. Since he can not do that yet, he just glares at you, with the dirtiest look a 7-month old can muster.

Peter has already chosen his preferred presidential candidate. As he told us at the dinner table about a week ago “ O.. ba.. ma!” Unfortunately, we haven’t yet discussed minimum age requirements for voting with him yet, so I’m going to have to be mean and burst his bubble some day. We’re also going to have to stop him from watching Oprah from now on.

Peter loves playing with a remote control, but if you take out the batteries he’ll throw it away. Whether he’d do this with his toy remote that says “Bon jour!” is unknown.

And finally, Peter knows the difference between dinner and lunch. Lunch is the meal where you shovel in as much food as possible before moving on to your afternoon activities (i.e. napping). Dinner is the meal where you engage in erudite, witty conversations, and you eat at a more socially acceptable pace. At lunchtime, you do not speak beyond a grunt. At dinnertime, you share your thoughts and observations about the events of the day just concluded. At lunchtime, you throw any and all toys you may have before you on the floor. At dinnertime, you throw any and all toys you may have before you on the floor.

Now would be a good time to live in Florida

Winter. Snow. Cold. Baby. New parents.

Some things go together well, others do not. Putting the five things listed above together would fall under the latter category. So far this December we’ve had 2 bouts of snow, with more slated to hit us tonight and this coming weekend. We can hold Peter up to a window and show him this new phenomenon, but that’s the easy part. At some point we have to go outside with him. Then it gets tricky.

You have no doubt seen A Christmas Story. You no doubt think of Ralphie’s little brother Randy primarily as the kid in the snowsuit that is so bundled up he can’t put his arms down. Simply put, if we could get away with doing that, we would. The only problem is that he doesn’t fit into his car seat when we put on more than, say, 2 layers. Ideally, we’d wrap him up in every article of clothing that he hasn’t yet outgrown and have him sit on the lap of whoever isn’t driving, but that is unfortunately illegal.

We also find ourselves in the dilemma of either hauling him around in his car seat if we are taking him shopping, or extricating him from it and carrying him. Peter is a heavy kid, and in the car seat he’s a beastly load now, so carrying him without the seat is preferable. But if he fits into the seat it means we haven’t bundled him up as we’d want, so if he’s taken out like that he could get pretty chilly. Already I’ve had to go through this decision, and I wound up factoring in how far I’m parked from the store entrance and the wind. You’d think I was determining which club to use on a golf course, not thinking about transporting my son a short distance. At least when I had him outside in the cold for the 8 seconds it took to get to the door he enjoyed the trip…

In developmental updates, Peter is getting his butt up in the air and revving his crawling engine with more gusto now. He will be crawling fully in no time.

Happy 7th Monthiversary, Peter!

So we had an appointment to get portraits taken for Peter with his cousins Ethan, Elana, and George Saturday afternoon in Madison, and people in the area will know “ah, winter storm day.” We knew the slop was heading our way so we drove out to Madison Friday night. Peter must have known what was up and got excited, because half-way through the drive west he got uppity in his car seat and wanted to bust out and play. It must have been his way of saying “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?...” because he wouldn’t calm down until we got there, and nothing calmed him down except for a little stop on the way at a gas station, where we took him out of his seat. Fortunately we only had to go to Madison and not Minneapolis. What ever happened to the Peter who napped quietly in his seat the weekend before on the drive to Chicago? Oy.

When he did get to Madison he got to play with Ethan and Elana (as much as Elana can play these days) and also his Aunt Sarah, who joined us for dinner. She got quite the work-out with him jumping up and down for her for about an hour in her arms. She had to fly out to Dubai the next day, so I guess he worked her over for a couple weeks’ worth of dancing. The good part for us with all his activity in the evening is that he wound up sleeping 8 hours straight, only waking up at 6:00 the next morning. Nice.

The photo session went well. Peter lit up for the photographer, and we got a bunch of naked baby pictures, which is pretty remarkable considering he tends to get shy when we change his diaper in public. No shyness here, that’s for sure. There was an attempt to get some pictures of all four cousins (clothed!) at one time, but the results were mixed. It seemed like with that many little kids for the photographer that it would have been easier juggling 4 globs of container-less jello. Fortunately there were no splats, but for the most part in the group photos Peter looks confused.

We drove Peter home Sunday afternoon after the storm was pretty much over, and this time he slept for us. It’s got to be the wireless power of the presence, or presence-to-be, of his cousins. Technically, it doesn’t bode well for the future. We’ll just have to never tell him about family visits.