I have to warn you. Before you look at the following pictures, you should be aware that they're about as cute as they possibly get.
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(Ohhh -- this is the biggest dry-hump ever, but the wife just informed me that I can't show you these pictures because they're going to be our Christmas cards and they're a surprise. I'll put up other adorable pictures later)
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I haven't posted in a while, so allow me to update.
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Nolan is currently 9 pounds and maybe an ounce or two. So he's gained almost two pounds over his birth weight and he's only a little shy of the magical 10 pound mark. According to my baby-parent-friends, the 10 pound mark is around when they can almost sleep through the night.
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Lilly is currently 7 pounds 14 ounces. She's almost 8 pounds! This is hard to believe. Lilly has developed a nasty fussiness habit which I will blog about in more detail later.
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I've actually been meaning to blog about Lilly's newfound fussiness for about 4 days now. I need to start by issuing an apology to "Doctor" Harvey Karp. I'll discuss this in more detail, but it's possible that I've been a little harsh on "Doctor" Karp.
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Lilly, in a nutshell, has decided that wake time is yelling time. She has also decided that sleep is for the week and infirm, and she's neither so she won't sleep. Ever. We've tried to talk her out of this, but she hasn't quite mastered english. She's only a month old.
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So I've been trying to figure the best way to tell this tale. Needless to say it involves metaphor. I'm thinking movie...from the 80s. I don't do future-post previews a whole bunch, but I'm thinking of telling Lillly's tale of fussy through a movie vehicle in which she would be a bully, the wife would be an awkward teenage boy, and "Doctor" Harvey Karp is a sage old man. Nolan makes an appearance as well, but only as one of Lilly's bully friends. You'll see. It'll make sense.
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Or it'll fail miserably.
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I think about what I write sometimes. I think that someday my children will be lovely and they will sleep through the night and poop on their own in a toilet. If it ever comes that my children read this blog, I should be clear.
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1. You're both grounded. You're not allowed to read the internet. Especially not websites with the kind of language you'll find on websites like this one.
2. I love you both. While it seems like I'm really down on one or both of you from time to time, you have to understand that this is a very trying time for both your mother and I.
3. Currently Nolan is my favorite baby, but last week it was Lilly. This kind of competition will keep you both on edge and make you winners at life. Or it might drive you crazy. Who knows? I certainly don't. I've never done this before.
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A final thought.
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(I need to make a disclaimer here or something. I've been informed that our little blog about our family has made the rounds to people that I don't know. That's nice. I'm happy about that. But I'm about to make a sarcastic commentary that could easily be taken out of context, or with a bit of disgust. Or even an extreme amount of disgust. So if you find yourself reading what I wrote and feeling like something awful happened with my children and I or the wife -- just rest easy knowing that nothing did. Not in the slightest. In fact, even if you do know me, I think this disclaimer should also be taken to heart. Although I have to do less explaining to you. Yes, I'm looking right at you Mack).
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I'd like to talk a moment about baby shaking. Yes. I said it. I'd like to talk for a moment about the phenomenon where parents become so frustrated; so at wit's end that they resort to violently shaking their babies. This is not only a crime, but seriously brain damages and/or seriously kills your baby. It's a bad thing. Before I had babies, I never understood how anybody could become that frustrated with anything.
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It was at 5 AM last night/morning. I had been up since 3. One particular baby would not go back to sleep and insisted on crying like crazy for no apparent reason. This baby, we'll call her "Lilly" for the purposes of this story, just screamed and screamed and screamed and would not go to sleep. I held her, I rocked her, I gave her pacifiers, I gave her tummy drops. Nothing worked. By the way, I'm now officially out of the tummy drop fan club, but I digress.
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I stood there, in the early morning light, bleary eyed, and I found myself asking this child questions. Questions like, "what do you want?" and "I'll buy you a pony if you shut up" (technically not a question, but you get the point). I even asked her to shut up a couple times. Politely, of course.
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Then it dawned on me. (And this is where this line of thought gets really dark -- see disclaimer).
A little baby shakin ain't that bad. Not that violent fit-of-rage shaking that hurts your child, don't think for even one second that I meant that. No, in that pre-dawn moment, it occurred to me that all baby toys, swings, rockers, papasans, and bounceys operate on the principal that a little baby shakin ain't that bad. Like most things in life, it's the moderation that distinguishes the good from the bad. So with that in mind, I set my precious daughter in the baby-shaker we call the "swing" and laughed to myself for a moment as I "shook" my baby.
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Didn't work. She still cried like crazy. But that's another story for another time.
