Everything at Once

We're almost there... had the baby, accepted a new job, scouted out apartments, signed a lease, moved my friend in, paying double rent, got a moving truck, got bills, got boxes, got stuff packed, waiting for the government to shut down.

It's just a matter of time... watched all of Sopranos, Billy & Mandy, Always Sunny, working on The League, Louie, a thousand other shows. Found some odd movies on Netflix. Diagnosed ADD and/or dementia. Drank... drinking buckets. Taking weeks off, making cookies, and my hands smell like butter.

Too much to do... still more packing, lots of driving, unpacking, where are the dogs? I hate vacuuming. Carly can't remember when the kid last had a bath (it was yesterday). I have ten cubic feet of Legos, is that too many? When do I expect to open this, build these? It will be at least five or six years before the Wolf can appreciate Legos.

Less stream-of-consciousness-y: I don't think I'll have time to see everyone before we leave. I'm concerned about this to the point where I haven't planned a proper going-away party. It's like when you're kind of dating someone and then you have to leave for a long trip. It's easier to say nothing than to say goodbye. I'm reasonably certain, for some of these folks, it might be goodbye. I found a house-warming gift that we never gave some friends partly due to Hurricane Sandy crushing the party. Should I mail it to them? It's pretty cool, I'll probably just keep it. Maybe, if I see them and the boxes are unpacked, I'll give it to them properly. I have a birthday card that I failed to send in February. It will be hilarious for my friend to receive that in October. I sometimes prioritize things and justify the lapses later.

So, justify lapses or prioritize differently? How about next weekend? It's the only weekend we've got left. Picnic at our house.

(OVER) Due Date

This post is a belated sigh of relief. The kid's expected due date has come and passed and he is miraculously still alive. That's right, my kid is about 10 weeks old and he has not expired or decided to fuck off for a hippie commune after quitting college on me (again).

Wolf's expected due date was August 18, 2013. He was actually born on July 2nd, about seven weeks early. This week will be his tenth week in existence.

A few observations:

Wolf was born at about 4.5 lbs, and he is now pushing 11 lbs.

He appears to be blue-eyed and left handed, though both of those are still subject to change.

Wolf is generally quiet, but he has lungs. His uncomfortable gas-induced cries distort your eardrums.

The boy spits up a lot, but he's still gaining weight at a good pace so no worries.

He is now, only three weeks past his due date, starting to outgrow the 3-month old clothes that hang on the small side. He has grown out of a few outfits even before he had the chance to wear them.

Newborn-sized Huggies diapers are not good. Lots of blow-outs with that brand. Pampers are our go-to brand, but we'll start looking at Target Brand when we get to the Number 2 sized diapers.

He likes a lot of the art we have on the walls, as our tastes tend toward bold colors and broad strokes. James Thomas's piece, "Athena," is a fan fave.

Wolf likes the Sopranos. The A3 theme song, "Woke Up This Morning," played often while he was in the womb.

Carly's acne disappeared within days of Wolf's exit from her guts.

The cost of having a baby in NICU for two weeks, an emergency C-section, and other things was about $38,000. We paid $150.00. In nickels.

We have a number of nicknames for him:

Wolfie

Squawk

Fatso

Chubbo

Mayor McCheese

Chicken

Bub

Bubba

Buddy

Little Man

Farty McFarterson

JC Fats

et cetera

Carly makes up lots of songs with his name in them, mainly parodies of popular songs, such as:

Wolfie Boy (Lonely Boy, Black Keys)

Poopy-Face (Pokerface, Lady GaGa)

Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran, lyrics subbed for spit and poop and boobs, not far from the original)

The kid is the light of my week. At 2:00AM, when he just won't go to sleep and is gassy and fussy, I want to throw him through the window. But that's because I reasonably believe that he'd just fly away and zap me with some eye beams. He's a really super kid. He's strong and bright and his development and the fact that he's alive just amazes me.

He likes being naked and changing clothes. He sometimes throws up on clothes just so he can change them more often.

His belly button is grossly distended and is herniated. This is normal, and shouldn't cause any problems, and is due to his underdeveloped abdominal muscles when he was born. It's pretty grody, when you push it back in you can feel the food and shit moving through him. It should fix itself in a month or two.

The dogs are getting along with him just fine. Bear has had some stress and is losing all of his hair from worrying about the kid. When Wolf screams his fool head off in the bedroom, Bear runs in there to check on him. We can often hear him sniffing around on the baby monitor.

And there's so much more. I just need to keep this thing going to remind me to do it. I'm going to do another article about gaming and how it relates to raising a kid soon. Should be a riot.