Baker's Dozen...2010

It seems like it has been forever since I updated the blog…

We are only 13 days into 2010, but it feels like 300. It is amazing what a new year will bring.

The first thing the new year brought was new curtains for Caleb’s room. The “little house in the hood” has SO many windows and Caleb’s room alone has four pretty good-sized windows. We thought it would be best to get some “blackout” curtains to replace the shears that he did have. We headed off to four (yes, I said four) different Targets to find enough curtain panels for our little prince (ok…we got new curtains for our room too). I just hope Caleb is smart and can get a good scholarship to pay for his college education, because we are spending his tuition money now!

The pictures that follow don’t really showcase the curtains…I was actually taking a picture of the magnificent tower I made with Caleb’s Legos, but the curtains are in the background.







For those of you who don’t know by now, we took our precious baby to get a CT scan on January 4th to see why his little handsome head was not becoming a big handsome head. Caleb’s doctor was concerned that the sutures (the cracks in his head) had fused together too soon. If that had been the case, they would have had to create new cracks in order to have room for his brain to grow. Thankfully, the results of the CT scan were normal. The most traumatic thing about the day was having to have Caleb sedated for the procedure.

Below are a few pictures of Caleb in his hospital gown…



Sorry this one is a little blurry, but I thought it was funny that his diaper was sticking out the back of the gown.



One terrifically terrible thing that 2010 brought to us was V.O.M.I.T. (Very Obvious Monumental Intestinal Terror). Allison had to take a 4-day course (Advances in Nursing Physical Assessment of the Adult) in order to register for her next semester of graduate school. The daycare only took Caleb for two days, so I graciously and sacrificially took two days off work to watch my baby boy. Well, that was one mistake I will not likely do again! Bright and early Thursday morning Caleb and I awoke with plans of a fun father and son day. We were having a great time until VOMIT hit. When I say it hit, I mean it really hit. It not only hit the fan, it hit the floor, it hit the ceiling, it went down my back, it went up my front, it went around my head and I am absolutely sure that it went up my nose. As soon as I got poor sick Caleb cleaned up, another wave would pound down on us. The poor boy was SO sick. Caleb endured two days of the VOMIT and not only was he sick, he was sick and tired of us pushing Pedialyte like it was the new “crack”. I think that is why he decided to infect the rest of the family.

Allison got sick on Saturday morning and she emptied the contents of her stomach a few times over the very long day. I, being the incredible husband and father that I am, nursed both my wife and son back from the brink, only to succumb to a similar illness on Sunday. I am only going to say that I did not throw up at all and yet still had the V.O.M.I.T. (Very Obvious Monumental Intestinal Terror).

Below is a family picture my wife took on Sunday afternoon...you can see me in the background lying on what I thought was my deathbed.



Thankfully, my family survived. In celebration of our triumph over the dreaded pox that infested our home, my wife did the only thing she knew would help. She taught Caleb to do… the fishy-face.



I celebrated the only way I knew, by disinfecting the source. Enjoy a few (ok…seven) pictures of the disinfecting process…















I hope the first 13 days of 2010 has been as exciting for you fellow bloggers as the bountiful bastion of bliss brought forth during the baker's dozen days in our 2010.

Tales from the poop-side...

Let me first start this tale of terror with a small note about the development of my son. My parents and sister were in town this weekend and they taught Caleb to point his finger. It was so funny. My mom started pointing at Caleb and he just pointed right back. My sister would point…and Caleb would point back…my dad would point…and Caleb would point back. It was so much fun. Now when Caleb points to me, I sometime playfully bite his finger (this is important later in the story).

Now we can progress to the scary part…

Allison had to work today and after my parents went home, that left Caleb and me to fend for ourselves. We do this a lot. I am used to it...One can say I actually enjoy it a little bit. HOWEVER, today around 5:00 Caleb was being very fussy. I warmed up a bottle of the good stuff and he drank it down like a champ. In addition to the bottle, I fed him some baby food. We got a little messy with that endeavor, so logically I thought I would give my son a bath.

As an aside, one should know that Caleb’s bathtime in our household is my job. I would say that I give him a bath at least 5 out of 7 days a week. This is not a new thing to me. HOWEVER, what transpired this evening was definitely a first.

When I removed Caleb’s diaper in preparation of his bath, I noticed that he had pooped. “No big deal,” I thought. I will just rinse him off in the bath, then dump the water, and start fresh. It is at this moment when this story takes a turn.

I did rinse the offensive substance from the backside of my son. I did remove him from the bath, naked as the day he was born, and stood him by the edge of the tub and proceeded to dump the “baby tub” to drain the unpleasant water down the drain. As soon as I dumped the water, I saw the small, dainty, ever-so-delicate wash cloth pour from the baby tub and down the drain of the big bath tub!....GASP!

The only thing going through my mind was the plumber and his kids that we would be putting through college as he tried to fish this stupid washcloth out from the bowels of the 68 year old drains in this money pit of a house.

Because my reflexes are cat-like and I have “mad skills”, I was able to grab hold of a tiny sliver of the washcloth with my pointer finger and middle finger, thus preventing a plumbing catastrophe.

Let me describe the scene…I am bent over the edge of the bathtub with two fingers of my left hand shoved down the drain of the tub holding gingerly to a washcloth that is seconds from clogging the only tub we have in our home. My right hand is holding on to the arm of my naked son as he is standing next to me trying to get into whatever mischief is at his fingertips.

I begin to wonder how long my wife will be at work. Can I hold this position for the next 3 hours? Will the water that is trying to push the washcloth further down the drain ever stop flowing? As I am desperately trying to inch the washcloth out of the drain, I let go of my son and leave him to walk along the wall of the bathroom untethered. I am racking my brain trying to solve the problem. The water is still standing 3 or 4 inches in the tub and trying to push the washcloth further down the drain. I can do nothing but keep gathering the fabric with the two fingers hoping that I can stop the cloth from slipping further. After about 2 minutes (an eternity) of struggling with the drain, I hear my son giggling like a schoolgirl. He is pointing his finger right at me. It is almost as if he is laughing at me. Then I realize he just wants to play. I lean over to playfully bite his finger, but before I do, I thankfully look over and there smeared on the wall of the bathroom is poop! OH MY GOSH…there is poop on the floor, there is poop on his leg, there is a pile of poop on the end of his foot like the little cotton puff on elves shoes! Oh and let me not forget to tell you, but there is poop on the finger that he is pointing directly in my face! I almost vomited right then and there!

I cannot tell you what allowed me to do this, but I quickly grabbed Caleb, put him poop and all in the baby bathtub (still in the big bathtub), and then put my right hand back down the drain and grabbed the end of the washcloth. I lost all ground I had previously accomplished, but at least the poop and my son are now contained in the baby bathtub. Caleb is having a marvelous time. He is thinking this is a game or something. He stands directly up in the bathtub, with no help from me and proceeds to involuntarily pee all over my hand that is down the drain. I almost vomited right then and there, again!

I do not know how I did it. In fact, I do not think I did it at all. I think it was divine intervention removed that washcloth from that drain. It had to be divine intervention that allowed me to hold on to my boy (poop and all) and yank that stupid washcloth from its watery grave.

I threw that washcloth across the room. I immediately turned on the handheld shower and firehosed Caleb to remove any trace of manure left on him, the tub, and me. We then started all over with the bath. I don’t think I have ever scrubbed the boy more than I did in that bath. After he was dried off and put in pajamas, I put him in his bouncy seat and went back to survey the damages.

I chose not to describe the scene in detail, but needless to say I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the floors and walls to remove all traces of what my son left behind.

How could one little boy and one little washcloth cause so much trouble?

The boy…


The bathroom (don’t worry it’s clean)…


The bathtub and drain…


The offending washcloth…

Torture...

Today Caleb had his first "brush" with torture. We "cut" on over to North Richland Hills and "swept" in for his first haircut.

He was great for the first two minutes. He began to scream so loud that it "permed" the walls. Below are a few pictures that "highlight" the experience...

See how his long flowing locks of love looked before...



I think he knew his future was "set" when we got in the car...

I think he was a little scared even in the waiting area...



The place we went was all about the kids. It was a regular funville of "cuts" and "curls"...


Caleb sat in a firetruck and I think he was making eyes at his "stylist"...



Caleb's first "brush" with scissors...




The melt down begins...




All done...and he survived...


Caleb even got a certificate...


Mommy and Caleb had to have their picture taken by the fountain...


He looks like such a little man...


Finally we are home...


Below is the video...warning...it is a solid 15 minutes of screaming...

Saturday with Daddy...

Allison went to work on Saturday and if you are a faithful reader of thrilling blog, you will know that when mommy goes to work, daddy is put to work! That’s right – I watched Caleb on Saturday all by myself.

The hours in which Allison abandoned us flew by. It was like time accelerated. The 48,600 seconds where I was alone with my son didn’t at all seem like an eternity. It was amazing that in 810 minutes a small human baby can completely and utterly destroy a grown man’s sense of worth and make a somewhat intelligent and devastatingly handsome man curl into the fetal position and wail for his wife to come to save him.

It might surprise you that in 13.5 hours a baby can do the following:
- demand to be fed 36 gallons of milk…6 times the average daily milk production of a machine milked dairy cow.
- produce an astounding amount of waste… Caleb’s diapers from Saturday should be completely decomposed in the year 2509.
- produce a sustained scream that measures 148 decibels…if he would have screamed only 2 decibels louder it would have been loud enough to rupture the human eardrum (look it up).

Considering all of the above, Caleb and I had a wonderful time. The morning went very well. We played and laughed. I fed him, he digested. I rocked him, he slept.

The afternoon was not so pleasant. I fed him, he spit up. I rocked him, he mocked me. I comforted him, he scorned me.

The last time Allison worked, it was horrible in the morning...This time it was horrible in the afternoon. The next time it will be perfect all day long.

Enjoy a few pictures from the weekend (not all of them were from Saturday). A few of them were taken with my phone, so the quality isn’t that great.

Father and son...after Caleb's bath...





Caleb - before cereal...


Caleb - during cereal (sticking out his tongue)...


Caleb - full of cereal...


Caleb on the front porch swing - hitting the bottle...

More about "solid" food...

I can't help myself. We took a ton of pictures from Caleb's first crack at cereal and so I just have to share.

Caleb actually did a fine job for his first time at this new fangled spoon eating. In fact he did so well the first time, we were I think overconfident on the next two times. The last time we fed him, I don’t think he even got close to digesting any of the cereal. I always like to focus on the positive, so below are some pleasant memories of the FIRST cereal effort.

It is like Caleb can’t get enough…


Mommy even tries to be an example by opening her mouth too…


Caleb wanted to make sure it met his dietary requirements, so he decided to read the box…


We made such a mess we had to have a quick bath…


When one takes a bath, it is always a good idea to dry off too…