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Spa treatment

Since I’m getting old and decrepit, Gina’s admonished me several times to use lotion on my face. Ryan must have heard her, because the last few days after bath time he’s adopted a new routine. He takes a drop of his baby lotion, holds both hands out to me, and dabs it on my cheeks.

Thanks for keeping daddy young, Boo.

Welcome Lilly!

Gina and I are an aunt and uncle again! Lilly Eleanor Hoffman made her world debut at 7:50 p.m. today. She’s 7 pounds, 14 1/2 ounces and 20 1/2 inches of cuteness. Congrats to my baby sister Sue and the proud papa, Randy. We love you guys and our new niece! Ryan hereby passes on the title of youngest grandchild.

High hopes

The children’s book I’ve been working on was making progress but stalling. So this week instead of clouding my mind with talk radio on the way home, I let myself sit in silence and think about the book on the commute. And wouldn’t you know it, I’ve produced more pages in three days than I have in the last three months. What a blessing it is to feel true inspiration and creativity. We’re hoping for great things . . .

Changing times

Ryan’s getting too big for his changing table, so I took it down yesterday. Changing his diaper has become a two-man job lately – one to do the dirty work and the other to entertain him – so Ryan didn’t shed any tears as I dismantled his nemesis. At one point, he applauded. Gina, on the other hand, was welling up at another sign that our baby’s growing up. I gave her a preemptive hug, even though she was sweaty from having just finished the P90. That’s love. Now we’re changing the baby on a pad on the floor.

It’s still a two-man job.

Everyone’s a critic

Yard work’s not a top priority at the Moose household. We don’t let the lawn get so bad that Boo could get lost in it, but we often have the longest grass on the block. It didn’t used to be that way. But as the years have progressed, I find myself thinking, “eh, I’ll cut it tomorrow.”

So today Gina had to come home from work to meet a repairman. The spring on our garage door broke. It wouldn’t open or close.

The repairman greeted Gina by saying, “You must want to get your mower out.”

Yeah yeah, I get the message. I’m mowing the lawn . . . tomorrow.

The cure is worse . . .

After staying healthy for a whole month straight, I have succumbed to yet another of Ryan’s day care diseases. I stayed home with him on Monday, and by that night I was coming down with what I’d soon find was strep throat. Actually, the sore throat part wasn’t so bad. But the two-day fever was, making me so loopy that I landed back at the doctor’s. I was prescribed antibiotics for my throat and steroids for the pain.

My first full day of each made me so wired that I barely slept Wednesday night. When Ryan awoke at 4 a.m. I was right there, feeling great. I was woozy for a few minutes at work the next day, but more steroids had me up Thursday night and feeling like king of the world. I came home Friday and started crossing projects off my list. It occurred to me, though, that it probably wasn’t healthy or natural to be up for two days straight with the desire to sleep replaced by the urge to move some heavy furniture. So I skipped my second steroid dose on Friday in the interests of sleep.

My strategy resulted in a full-blown case of hives. Turns out I’m allergic to the antibiotic, not the steroid. And you know how you treat an outburst of hives that’s caused by an allergic reaction?

With steroids.

Aarghhhhhhh . . .

Father’s Day

Here’s me and Ryan on my second Father’s Day. Gina got me a wallet, a major victory as she’d been campaigning to get rid of my old one. Ryan got me two new belts and eight straight hours of sleep. What a blessing it is to celebrate this day in a whole new way.

Open mouth, insert germs

I was heading home yesterday all fired up to do my P90 routine when Gina called and said that Ryan had a fever at day care. Gina had him at home, and I picked them up and headed to the pediatrician’s. At this point we may as well have a season pass to our doctor’s office. Boo was burning up and so out of it that he napped in the examining room, otherwise known in his unfevered mind as The Room That Makes Me Scream.

Our regular doctor’s partner walked in and gave Ryan a quick once-over. The good news: it’s not strep, and both the baby’s ears are fine. The bad: he’s got a lovely case of hand-foot-mouth disease. Yet another entree from the germ smorgasbord we’ve come to know as day care.

Not that it’s ever a good time for your baby to be sick, but this meant that we had to call my family and bow out of hosting Father’s Day. I didn’t think my sibs with babies would appreciate hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and a contagious virus to go.

To add to our Friday excitement, we arrived home from the doctor to find that our power was out. A storm had blown in during our appointment and knocked out half the city. Thankfully it was back on by the time we returned from a buggy ride.

The baby was up on and off all night but he’s feeling better today. We’re hoping for a good, long healthy stretch once we’re out of the woods again. He must have been exposed to almost every known disease by now.

The problem with the germ buffet at daycare is for toddlers, it’s All You Can Eat.

Trashed

The garbage men took our trash can that Gina ran over. They must have been tired of our trash bags being wedged inside of it. Now she has her sights set on our recycling bin.

Hello, abs? It’s me, Moose

When it comes to inherited traits, I can thank my dad for my calm demeanor and blame him for my missing abs. All of the Moose boys are plagued with bellies with the consistency of jello, a genetic scourge which has claimed untold pairs of pants and belts, as well as our ability to easily see our feet. As my belly has taken on the same definition as the baby’s, I’ve decided to take action. I am reintroducing myself to the concept of (gulp!) exercise.

This is my fourth week and Gina’s second doing the P90, a series of fitness videos. The idea is that you get a workout in 30 or 40 minutes. But in order to do this, they don’t give you any time to putz around. You move from one exercise to the next in rapid, relentless fashion. This suits me fine, as I want to get the pain over with quick, but clashes with Gina’s legendary technique (at the gym, she was known as The Staller.)

The other idea behind the P90 is that by switching from one muscle group to the next, your muscles won’t have time to plateau so you’ll build them up faster. The P90 marketers call this concept “muscle confusion.” This must be working, because my muscles are positively befuddled. As in, “what are you doing to me?” and “why are we up so early?”

But there’s a line forming in my midsection I’ve never seen before. Out of the shapeless mass that is my belly, a muscle has emerged.