Massive!

If I’m counting right, Peter is 15 weeks old now, or just under 3 ½ months. I just looked at some “old” pictures of him and I wondered what happened to that little guy and where did our big guy come from. Because there was a day when I could sit on the sofa and wear a sleeping Peter like a brooch on my shoulder, whereas now Peter is a 15 pound slab of muscular mini-man who likes to roll around like he was a dog with an itchy back before he nods off to sleep.

Not that I’m saying anything against our little hulk - far from it. The old Peter tended to keep his thoughts to himself, but the more mature Peter is a loquacious storyteller who regales us every day of his tales of… well, whatever it is he’s telling us. It must be very interesting, because it animates him so much when he shares it with us.

No, the part I’d gladly exchange for a little while every day would be the part that makes me recall taking physics and having to learn about mass, inertia, momentum and stuff like that. See, Peter is 15 pounds or so these days, but when you are holding him and his motor is running he gains at least another 15 pounds. And usually when I come home in the evening he gets a little excited to see me (that part I am happy about) and that motor starts running once he gets in my arms. The action that comes from his excitement entails his arms and legs pumping like crazy. It makes him look like he’s riding a bicycle like crazy - specifically he looks like sprinter at the end of a flat stage of the Tour de France. I call him Robbie McEwen, especially since they’re both about the same size. After several minutes of this I start wishing I could have the old Peter-brooch from the old days. But then he starts talking and I forget that.

He'll make a great ring-bearer

This past weekend Peter attended his first wedding. He behaved very well. He didn’t make much noise at all, or nothing that would have distracted anyone from the actual ceremony, anyway.

His mother and I were the gift-bearers for the mass. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with Peter when we were to perform our duties, but during one of the readings Peter filled his diaper. Mommy thought it would be for the best if she slipped away and changed him at that time. She got back about a minute before we were to bring up the bread and wine and it was obvious that what we were going to do with Peter is bring him up with us. I volunteered to hold him, and almost immediately after he got into my arms Mount St. Peter erupted rather violently, making use of the fresh new diaper he had been given. So I schlepped Peter up to the altar in my left arm with the communion wafers held in my right hand, praying that he doesn’t leak on the way (and on me). Fortunately I was with-it enough to give the priest the contents of the correct arm.

I noticed several minutes after we got back to the pew that my prayers were only good for so long, as the contents of his last episode were leaking a little onto the leg of his outfit. Mommy was holding him at that point, and she discreetly covered up the evidence, but we knew we had to rush him out of there as fast as we could to clean him up.

We had a couple hours before the reception was to start, so we took him home and I cleaned him up and got him into a new outfit. He took a nice nap and by the time we got to the reception he was ready to go. He met new people and bounced around until we left at about 8:30. It seemed like his energy was draining at the end there, but when he got home he was up and about until after 10:00. I suppose we should be thankful that at only 3 months his late-evening awakedness (if that’s a word) is easy to deal with - by the time he’s walking or running around he will be quite the handful.

Infant Gymnastics

A couple weeks ago Peter did his push-up roll-overs. Then nothing.

Yesterday Peter rolled over, without doing a push-up. Then he did it again. And again. He did it so many times I’m thinking of changing his name to Bob Roll (and we’d then have to see if he has a gap in his teeth when they come in).

It does cause us some concern, though, because he has such a powerful motor in that no-longer-so-little frame of his, and once he gets going there may be no stopping him. First it’s flipping over, then it’s crawling, the next thing you know he’ll be running around the block with scissors in his hands…

Last night Peter was sitting on my lap, sticking his hands in his mouth. At one point he had grabbed on to one of my fingers, and then started gumming that finger. I don’t think I’ve ever been gummed before (slobbered, yes – gummed, no) so it was a new experience. It kind of tickled.

De-heathenification

Peter was baptized yesterday, and his mother and I spent most of Friday evening and Saturday getting ready for the reception that was to follow. In fact, Peter and his mom were out Friday night when I got home, visiting Bed Bath and Things (or was it Linens ‘n’ Beyond?). I spent the evening tidying up. Peter wound up being up until after 10:00 that evening, partying.

Saturday was a day of cleaning and cooking, and Peter was the ideal baby on such a day as he decided he’d just sleep through all the work we were doing. Had he been an unhappy lad it probably would have been a difficult day, but instead he just slept and slept, so much so we had to peek in every once in a while just to make sure everything was ok. We kept working until 11:00 when Peter needed a feeding. Mommy crashed and decided to take a nap “for an hour.” An hour passed, and the nap continued. Sleep was more important to us, really.

Sunday morning we woke up before dawn, still making our place presentable and getting food ready. Peter slept through most of that work, but he did require a feeding around 7:00. It was a warm, humid weekend (fortunately it was not as hot as the well-paid-but-usually-wrong meteorologists threatened), and we felt like we had a coating of sludge covering our bodies. We actually managed to get showers in at a good time, but even after I dried off I still felt gross. I gave Peter a bath a couple hours before the baptism, too, and this time I did his hair. But his wedding dre… I mean baptismal gown has a bonnet (yes, my son wore a bonnet – for the last time in his life, I might add), so no one saw the nice job I did on him. By the time we had to leave for the church not all things were done and ready, but it was close enough.

We got to the church 10 minutes before the mass, but the other family that would be getting a kid dunked was no where to be seen until the start time. Call it a guess, but I think what slowed them down was the cast on the mother’s right leg which required her to stay in a wheelchair. The cast itself was really just a wrap, it was not a hard-set one, so I’m guessing the accident (I’ll propose she didn’t do it on purpose) happened within the prior 24-48 hours of the ceremony. Word of the tardiness of some of the participants didn’t make its way up to the cantor, who started the mass on time and announced that everyone should look to the back of the church so the families could be welcomed. Of course, there was only one family actually back there and that was us. It took a good five minutes for the other family to get their baby into his wedding dr… baptismal gown, and all the while we stood there trying to look inconspicuous. In retrospect I should have whistled as if there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Or I could have put on a juggling display, but there was nothing really back there to juggle except communion wafers, and I don’t know if that would go down well (although, technically, they were just unleavened wafers, so it’s not like they were consecrated or anything).

So they eventually wheeled out the mother and their baby (Joseph James, AKA Joey Jim) and we brought out our baby (Peter Charles, AKA P-Chuck). We answered the regular questions (Whozzat? Peter Charles! Why’s he here? Baptism! Hooray!) and then we processed to the front of the church. Peter was a good boy during the mass, but he got a little hungry by the time of the end of the first reading, as we didn’t get to top off his tank before leaving for church due to all the preparin’ going on. His mom whispered into my ear that she was going to try and imperceptibly feed him right there, and she did. Peter had a nice snack, and eventually fell asleep during the homily. When we were called up for the baptism itself he was still asleep. He slept through the first anointing. He slept through me dangling his head over the baptismal font, but when he got some chilly water poured on his head his eyes opened up pretty quickly – but no crying or nothing. He got another dose of anointing oil massaged into his hair (which his mom is thinking might have additional benefits for his cradle cap), and that lovely head of hair I arranged for him was rendered a spiky mess of anointed bed-head. The priest and deacon then each took one of the boys and walked out to the pews to present the newly baptized buckaroos to the waiting throngs. Father Mike, the pastor, had Peter, and when he came back with him after showing him off he said “he’s one big baby, now.” And he only hauled him around for about a minute.

Back in the pew Peter was awake and looking around. At one of the times when we had to stand up towards the end of the mass Peter let out a rather sizable belch, but due to the noise of everyone else standing up the noise didn’t travel far. We’re just glad he didn’t gurk out a glob of spit-up on the wedding dress. Baptismal gown! D’oh!

The reception afterwards went very well, except for the humidity. Peter had his awake times and asleep times, but as far as I recall he was a pretty charming fellow. His mom and I would go off and do this or that that needed doing in order to keep the machine of the party operating, and we didn’t have to wonder where Peter was because he always had someone with him, usually sitting on a lap being charming. That was actually pretty nice. Every so often I’d go looking for him, and he’d be with an aunt, uncle or grandparent, maybe chatting, maybe drooling. I don’t have any anecdotes, though, because I was running around most of the time. The closest thing to an anecdote I can think of is trying to figure out how to get him out of his long white outfit by myself so I could change his diaper (in short, I couldn’t).

In three weeks we’ll be going to Madison for Peter’s cousin Elana’s baptism. Hopefully Peter will be as good a boy as he was on his own special day. And Elana should do fine in a dress, what with her being a girl and all.

25% of one year

Today is Peter’s third monthiversary. And to celebrate, he…

Ok, first of all, let me interrupt here. I have to warn any reader that this will cover things that you wouldn’t want to discuss, say, when you meet the queen. And I know it’s a subject I’ve covered before, but the events of this morning do demand relating. So if you don’t want to read another post describing unsanitary happenings, please scroll down and look at the pictures. Ok? You have been warned, but you may miss out on a smashing story if you skip it.

Where was I? Oh yes, blah blah third monthiversary, yadda yadda celebrate. So Peter’s mom had gone away for work and Peter was a wiggly little guy who didn’t want to be napping at the moment. A squishy toot came from his hind quarters and so I waited the customary 5 minutes before bringing him over to the changing table (so anything else that might be coming out is vacated prior to being exposed to sunlight). I get him down and unsnap his onesie and then unfasten the straps of the diaper. He did quite the good job of filling the diaper, yet not overpowering it. I look over to my right to grab a baby wipe when I hear a splishing noise coming from my left, a sound I was not a stranger to anymore. In an instant I jerk my head over and saw not only that Peter was alleviating the pressure on his bladder, but that he was, in fact, spraying it onto his face. In a jiffy the baby wipe meant for his fanny was slapped down onto his lap and a dry towel was up at his face. All was not well at that point, however. While suddenly having to tend to his face I let go of his ankles, and his legs started pumping up and down like they normally do when we change his diaper. But I never got to remove the dirty diaper from the changing pad, so his feet and legs were doing their exercises right into the messy diaper. So, here is my son, half naked, covered in his pee and poo, wiggling, wiggling, wiggling.

I managed to clean off his feet, legs and bottom, and dry off his face. I then removed the wet onesie, and set to work on getting a clean diaper on him. And then the geyser went off again, straight up for the most part this time, but it did get all over his chest and belly, and the new diaper. Considering the work I had in front of me in the form of my darling little son needing fresh apparel I managed to stay focused on the job at hand, but I did question what evil I had ever committed to deserve such treatment.

I cleaned him up again, and had a diaper almost on him when, as I was applying diaper-rash protecting ointment to his nether-regions, he released his bowels again. On me, and my wedding ring. Well, I’m not going to continue with hands like that, so I dash off to the bathroom and do the fastest hand washing I think I’ve ever done. I come back to find the changing pad even wetter than before, and little droplets next to the changing pad. Oh, this just in, my name is now Sisyphus. Peter does mean “rock,” you know.

Away goes the now soiled diaper, and out comes another clean one. Butt up, diaper down. Toot, again. Sigh.

At this point I figure I’m not even going to try to get a diaper on him any more. But he still is dirty from all the relief he’s been getting. I had no choice but to give him a bath. But neither I nor his mom had ever given him a bath alone. All throughout this process I needed four hands, yet I was cursed by being born with only two (if ever there was a time to be a Hindu god, this was it). Now I was going to give him a bath? “Your boy needs you!” I thought to myself, “take charge!” So back I go to the bathroom, and I get his baby tub ready. I come back to pick him up and he’s made another puddle. I don’t care any more, it’s bath time, he can pee all he wants in the tub.

I place him gently in the sudsy tub and he does just fine. I wash him wherever he had soiled himself (but I don’t go for the hair, that’s not necessary). I drain out the sudsy water and rinse him off and lift him out of the tub, dry him, and place him in his crib while I remove the messy changing pad cover and replace it with a clean one. A moment later he’s in a clean diaper and is dressed.

Needless to say, all through this process Peter was his normal happy self. I’m sure he thought it was great fun.

2 Pics

Aye Eye I

As mentioned previously, Peter visited an opthamologist this morning to have his right eye looked at. His mom had been massaging the side of his nose (where the draining tear duct is) several times a day as we had been instructed by his pediatrician a week ago, and he has looked better since. The opthamologist confirmed that the tear duct is blocked, but that was all. She put a little yellow dye in his eye to confirm that tears had nowhere to go and, in fact, it didn’t go anywhere (he did tear up a little in the car afterwards - it looked like Mountain Dew). She also said the eyelash issue was related to the duct blockage, and that in most cases where eyelashes turn in that way for infants the growth of the nose causes the lower lid to change the alignment of the lashes over time. And at his age, she said, the lashes are so soft they don’t really cause harm when they get stuck to the eye. Good!

Peter was his normal charming self - especially since he didn’t get poked, prodded, stripped, or shot. He was a smiling, giggling magnet of attention, chatting with the doctor as she inspected his peeper. I just hope he’s able to maintain that kind of personality once he learns that there are jerks in the world and you never know when one will reveal themself to you.

And now it's August

In 2 days Peter will be starting his 4th month of life outside his mother’s belly. I could write about the relative nature of time, and the “woah, dude” stoned-hippy-like reaction it can cause in both me and my wife, but I’ve already written posts like that before and I don’t want to bore anyone with repeats. However… woah, dude, that was faaaaast.

Peter is being baptized this Sunday. Unfortunately, the forecasts call for it to be, if not hotter than blazes, at least as hot as blazes. There is a fine line there, I believe. The church is air conditioned, but the reception at our house to follow will not be. I can only hope the Big Fridge next door (that is, Lake Michigan) keeps us somewhat comfortable. Peter doesn’t like the heat so much, it makes him sweaty. Myself, I always liked a nice hot day as a youth. But I’m an old man now and I like to have air conditioning sent my way as I eat my early-bird special dinner at Denny’s.

There’s something I don’t quite get about infant baptism, and it has nothing to do with theology. What puzzles me is the baptismal ensemble. I understand the wearing white part. But I don’t quite get why my macho little guy is wearing, well, a miniature wedding dress (plus bonnet). Ok, true, I’ve seen tiny white tuxedos for baptism which look comedic, quite frankly, and I wouldn’t want that. But if you go to any baby clothing store and check out the selection of baptismal attire your choices tend to boil down to a dress, a gown, a frock, or any other synonym that I can’t think of at the moment. What’s wrong with a nice white polo shirt onesie and a soft, weathered baseball cap? Note to Peter’s Mom: I’m only objecting to the convention of dressing the babies, not the outfit you got. Really!

And he isn't doping!

Yesterday evening Peter recorded another milestone in his development. At 6:15 PM, after playing* with him for a while, I put him down on his tummy in his crib because I had neglected to do so all day, if not all weekend. It should be noted before I proceed any further that Peter had also awakened from a 3 hour nap (a threeeeee hour nap) not too long before this and was bursting with infant vim and joie de vivre. So I put him down, with arms out in front of him, and immediately his head springs up like he was a jack-in-the-box and he had just heard the end of Pop Goes The Weasel. This was nothing new - however I noted that his head kept going up. It turns out that he was also doing a push-up, pretty much all the way up. And when he got to the peak of his arch, he then leaned over to his right and turned himself over in something of a tumble. I just had to make sure he didn’t konk his wee noggin on the side of the crib.

“Oh, Honey,” I said. “I think there’s something you should see in here.”

So Mommy came over to the crib and I flipped our little Jack LaLanne back on to his belly, and he did it all over again. We then showered him with compliments and encouragement, telling him what a good boy he is and how proud we were of him. I put him back on his belly one more time, and, pumped up on his parents coaching, launched his little 14 ½ pound body into the air and clapped his hands and shouted “HUH!!!” Then he sat up, kissed his biceps, and thanked us for spotting him.

Ok, that last part is a lie, but he did do 3 push-ups and roll-overs. And he did get weighed at his doctor visit last Thursday, so we know he’s 14 ½ pounds and otherwise healthy. He also got a referral to see an opthamologist to check out his eyelash problem (as noted here earlier) to make sure it’s not causing any scratches to his cornea, but we're ot overly concerned at the moment

Other than that, the highlights of the weekend include Peter’s first block party, and our need to take him to the bike race a couple blocks away so he’d calm down and rest. Also his first visit to Sam’s Club (and he thought Target was big).






*The game we played a lot this weekend was similar to dodgeball, except you have to replace “ball” with drool to really get the meaning of the sport. And he won every game.

Monday Morning Mess

This morning, at the time Peter normally naps, he was awake and talking away in my lap. He was in my lap because he announced from bed that he was fully conscious and didn’t want to be lying down any more. So there he was, sitting on my leg, yammering away as he now does several times a day. Eventually I wondered why the cuff of my right shirt sleeve felt wet. I had kept his drooling pretty much centered over his body, and if it was going to hit me it would have gotten the left side, not the right. And why was the wet part kind of yellow? And why does… it… smell… funny? Oh dear.

I got him to the changing table (carrying him with my arms fully outstretched, like he was actually a lump of plutonium instead of my happy little dude) and took off his outfit and gently removed the straps of the diaper. And there I saw something that makes the Tunguska Event look like the pop of bubble wrap. I should have known when I changed his diaper at 4:30 and all he did all night was pee, that some storm was a-brewin’ in there. I should be thankful that the force of the payload didn’t cause the diaper to blast off his derrière and affix itself to the wall (or worse, punch a hole through). After cleaning up his privates and getting him into a new, clean diaper, I had to spend about five minutes properly stretching before I could attempt to toss the used diaper into the trash for fear of pulling a muscle while bearing the weight of Peter’s mighty load. Of course, I had to get him in a new outfit, and then I had to get myself into a new outfit as well.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, Peter now enjoys having his diaper changed, so he found the whole process to be quite the entertainment. He even didn’t mind having his outfit removed and a new one put on. Yes, he’s come a long way since Mommy and Daddy were tyrants for subjecting him to the trauma of the changing table. I’m glad he had a nice time. Several hours later, however, I noticed that I had a little stain on my left pants leg that I missed before walking out the door to work. Good thing it’s pale and not too obvious. I’d hate to have to explain it to a co-worker. “That? Oh, it’s poo- … uh, pudding. I spilled the pudding I had… for breakfast. Yeah.”

And speaking of drool (remember, in the first paragraph?), after I had him cleaned up and changed I was holding him up with his head at my shoulder. He kind of nuzzled my neck for a while, which was cute, I suppose, but after I had put him down for a nap I realized he had soaked the collar of my shirt (the replacement for the poo poo platter I thought I’d be wearing this day). I decided to stick with the shirt, though. The more parenting you do, the more forgiving you become of your own appearance. You find yourself judging whether the spit-up stains you have on your sleeve are big enough to merit switch or not. And as time goes on, the stains that are ok get bigger and bigger. By the time Peter is 6 months old, I think I’ll walk into work entirely covered in spit-up and drool and think nothing of it.

Let’s see, there’s gotta be something else new that doesn’t involve Peter’s bodily fluids. Um… Well, again, as mentioned in the first paragraph, his speaking has increased. He will now talk, mostly to himself, for 10-20 minutes at a time. Not many consonants yet other than M and W. The “hewwo wumbo” he said to me a couple weeks ago early in the morning as I changed his diaper hasn’t been repeated since, and the B part of it is pretty uncommon for him. So I could hopefully get “hewwo” again, but “wumbo” more likely would come out as “wumo.” Now, if the first time he said it he included the B accidentally, and he really meant “hewwo wumo” there are certain translations that could be inferred. “Hewwo” obviously is “hello.” Of this there can be no doubt. “Wumo” could have been an attempt at “woman.” However, Peter, who is a smart little boy, knows that Daddy is not a woman, he is a man. (Here’s where I can prove not only Peter’s vast intellect at 11 weeks old, but also his worldliness.) I spelled “wumo” phonetically here, but it could just as well have been spelled “uomo” and the pronunciation is essentially the same – especially when spoken by a 2 month old baby. And as everyone knows, uomo is Italian for “man.” “Hello, man.” So, not only is Peter smart, not only is he worldly - he is also hip. Dude!