You won’t like him when he’s hungry

There’s been two new developments with the baby as of the last few days. He’s starting to get a lot more fussy when he’s tired and hungry. He’s at this stage where he refuses to admit he needs to take a nap, which results in his mild-mannered self showing signs of his inner Hulk. I picked him up at daycare Monday and interrupted his nap, and Ryan wouldn’t let me put him down for an hour afterward. I found it’s not easy to make dinner with a 20-pounder in one arm. But Maria, his daycare provider, still says he’s the best baby she’s seen.

The other big news is that Ryan has started to laugh. Gina’s had him going with her games of Peek-a-Boo, and when I played it with him the other night he started to crack up. It was one of the cutest things ever.

Just don’t try playing it when he’s hungry.

Hot under the collar

A bird flew into a transformer at work and blew the building’s power. Everything was back up today except for the air conditioning. This made for a miserable afternoon as I worked in a literal sweatshop.  But management tackled the problem head-on by handing out Popsicles. Then the issue became who was getting grape and who was stuck with root beer.

Between this and the press room fire, we’re producing our own news.

He loathes a parade

Ryan’s still fighting his cold, but he’s breathing better after we used some towels to elevate his mattress. So we decided to lug him around in the 90 degree heat. It’s the last weekend of the Parade of Homes, which lets you tour different builders’ models to either be impressed or appalled. The problem is whereas every other year all of the homes are in one subdivision, this year there’s over 20 of them scattered around the county. So it’s more like a Smattering of Homes instead of a Parade.

We set out to cover a few of the houses last weekend with the baby. Ryan proved to be an uncanny barometer of which homes were worth seeing. He cried all the way to a model whose best feature was the exit, and slept like an angel en route to what would be our favorite home. He also helped us stage a protest at one of today’s stops. The builders of a swanky townhome insisted we tour it in booties, so we slipped a pair on Ryan while I carried him through the home.

Ryan started to fuss halfway through the model. He thought it was overpriced.

Daddy daycare

I decided to stay home with Ryan after he woke up with a hoarse cough. He’d been a little congested every morning this week but today he was a lot worse. I was reminded of when I had croup as a kid and spent hours barking on my mom’s lap, but luckily the doctor says Ryan only has a cold. His ears were fine, and as of tonight he’s back to his super-cute self. Right now he’s compacting his blanket in an attempt to swallow it whole.

Another baby crisis averted! I think it’s time for pizza.

Desperate for diapers

This current pay period was the first one where we had to pay for daycare, and the Moose finances were as tight as me in a 30-inch belt. We managed to swing new (reasonable) cellphones and a haircut for Gina, but everything else went to paying bills and filling our tanks and tummies. I stretched our last fourteen dollars in cash to buy enough groceries to last until payday, and was pretty proud of my budgeting skills. Until Gina said, “we need diapers.”

I counted the stash in our diaper bag. There were ten to last two days. Let’s see, I thought, Ryan’s in daycare on Friday, so we’d only need two or three, but Thursday he’ll go through seven or so, and tonight . . .

The math didn’t look good.

“We can use some of Daddy’s T-shirts,” Gina said. She was only mostly kidding. I wondered if we had some way to get cash without dipping into our savings. Gina was still amusing herself with her genius idea when my eyes fell on a corner bookshelf, the land of misfit discs. There were over a dozen videogames and dvd’s to sell, and I was confident their street value would score us a crate of Pampers.

So this morning on the “Daddy shift” I took Ryan out in the heat, and headed for Disc Replay hoping to clear at least 25 bucks.  Alas, I pulled up at 9:40 to see the store opened at 10:00, so I regrouped, headed to Target, and put the diapers on our debit. Our stash of discs wound up netting us a cool $37.50, so I put $30 in the bank to cover the Pampers and came home and balanced the checkbook. I was originally going to make our lunch when Gina came home from work, but hey, we had 13 dollars left! I reached for my new cellphone.

Baby, I said, we’re living large. Can you pick up McDonald’s?

Too much information?

Ever since we took the baby home from the hospital, we’ve been keeping daily records of his bottles, pees and poops. This helps to establish a schedule and try to figure out his patterns, and gives a cute little time capsule of the baby’s activities. When Ryan was two days old, for instance, I can tell you that he had five feedings and then stayed up all night. On April 2nd, he didn’t have a bowel movement all day. And on May 25th at 7:30 a.m., he had a wet diaper and half a bottle before he fell asleep.

I don’t know how long we’re going to keep doing these charts. It’s not like I’ll knock on the bathroom door when Ryan’s a teenager:

“Come on, Dad. Leave me alone!”

“I just need to do my report. Now, I know you had a steak for dinner and three pieces of pizza. But have you had a number two?”

“DAD!”

“Come on, Lil’ Star. This is for posterity!”

Naw, I think we’ll have to stop when Ryan’s out of diapers.

Roll models

Gina makes deadly chocolate chip cookies. She rolls the dough in sugar. Because we believe a good dessert has sweetness you can see.

I had about 10 to 12 after I picked Ryan up from daycare. Gina came home and had her fair share of cookie action herself. Then we sat down to dinner and wondered why we lost our appetites.

It’s a good thing Ryan’s not old enough to take all of his cues from us.

Near capacity

After another growth spurt, Ryan’s wearing the first of his one-year outfits. He’s mastering two tricks that his mommy’s taught him: saying “goo” and making raspberries. When he’s out of saliva he just blows through his lips, waiting for something to happen. Pretty cute until he starts solid foods and spits them all over the place.

Judging by our patented weigh-in technique (I weigh myself, step on the scale with Ryan, then figure out the math), the baby’s up to 19 pounds, which presents a bit of a problem. Most of his equipment has a 20 to 25-pound limit. How’s Ryan going to take it when he parts with his bouncy chair? It’s a sad part of growing up when there’s nothing to vibrate your rump.

Best present ever

Gina and I found out we were pregnant right after Father’s Day last year. I worked the angle that since I was technically a father then but didn’t know it yet, Gina should get me a video game as a retroactive gift. And she went for it!

So this year was my first Father’s Day with Ryan on the outside. He stayed up till midnight with me last night to ring in the special day, then I celebrated this morning with a breakfast of cookie dough. I came to regret this later at lunch at Andy and Brandi’s cookout.

Aunt Kathy, one of my favorite peeps, was in town from San Francisco, but with all the family gathered around I didn’t get to talk to her much. Ryan was overly stimulated and refused to take a nap, so we had to vacate the party early to get him settled down. He must have been extra tired from shopping for my Father’s Day gifts. He got me a super-cute key chain with his picture in it and a card with a voice recording. I have to say, they were even better than a video game. But here’s the best present that anyone could ever ask for:

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. It’s the best gig that there is.

Weight loss, vision gain

Gina and I, thankfully, are done with the South Beach purge, and have since returned to eating “bad” food with the resolve to do it less often. Gina is measuring her progress by how much weight she’s lost, but I told her I had a different measure for success.

“I don’t go by the scale, I go by how much more I can see of my feet,” I said.

Gina appreciated my radical system.

“Then how are you doing?”

“Not bad,” I said with some satisfaction. “So far I’ve gained half a toe.”