Old Lead Belly

The toy conglomerate Mattel said they’re recalling a billion toys made in China for lead paint. Now, a year ago a story like this would give me as much pause as say a story about a sneezing panda. But now, as a dad, all kinds of alarm bells went off.

I now crawl around our house inspecting every rattle, Whoosit and rubber frog for the telltale “Made in China.”

My latest advertising adventure has me hanging on by a thread. The hours have been brutal. So last night, Diana took pity on me and sent me to sleep on the non-baby-waking-up couch. I was the only husband in America who was excited about being banned to the couch.

Around 3am, I bolted up in bed (couch) and yelled, “We gave Finn recalled Thomas The Train Toys for Christmas!” Regardless of whether the trains were actually tainted, I was convinced the next time I saw my nephew he’d be wearing dark glasses and selling pencils out of a tin can.

I contacted my brother first thing today and told him to round up all the Thomas The Train toys he could find and burn them. In typical Steve style, he responded, “Finn’s got a couple in his mouth right now. They make him see beauuuutiful colors.”

Lack of sleep is making me paranoid.

First Non-Milk

Sometimes the “firsts” get away from you.

Yesterday both Diana and I had to work (it was a Saturday, pity us). So there was a fair amount of running around, passing the boy off to each other and to Pam, the greatest last minute babysitter/surrogate mommy ever.

Well, the family unit finally came together at 5pm, when it was time to get Elijah bathed and ready for bed. After his nudie time, Diana whips out a jar of mushed bananas and starts cramming spoonfuls into Elijah’s mouth. Upon seeing my look of surprise, Diana informs me he’s old enough to get some baby food and they’ve been experimenting for a few days.

I started stomping around whining, “But Di…the blog. I need to know about this stuff to keep the blog up to date.” Diana looked at me in the way I assume she’ll look at Elijah when he throws a tantrum in Toys R Us.

Well, the bananas went down ok. Not to quote every father since the invention of fathers, but he got more of it on himself than in his mouth.

I know it doesn’t reflect much in the blog, but Eli is one hap hap happy baby. His crying is done and making him smile is easier than falling off a log. Although falling of a log is an instant gut buster for him.

By the way, it’s Sunday at 4:54pm and I’m still at work. I’m doin’ this for you, Eli and Diana. And yes, Grover. You too.

p.s. Eli didn't sleep through the night last night. The other night was a fluke.

Eli Slept Through The Night*

Baseball Man Barry Bonds beat the all time home run record last week. But sports fans the world over will put a little asterisk (*) by his name because his record is shrouded in controversy. For anyone who is reading this blog in the year 2024 (Elijah), Barry Bonds is well known for being a steroid monster. Thus, tainting his accomplishment with performance enhancing drugs.

What the heck does this have to do with Elijah anyway? This is an Elijah nerd blog, not a baseball nerd blog. There are enough of those.

Eli slept through the night last night. I woke up and stumbled downstairs and Diana was almost weeping with joy and general non-sleepiness. She declaired, "Elijah slept from midnight to seven..." In the midst of my happy dance (my happy dance includes batons, fire breathing and a fruit hat) I realized something: Eli had a fever yesterday and we gave him enough baby Tylenol to drop a mule (that’s called an exaggeration, nervous nellys).

So, while is accomplishment was awesome and couldn’t have come at a better time, given Diana and my ridiculous schedules, me thinks it deserves a Barry Bonds asterisk (*).

Prove me wrong tonight, boy. Prove me wrong.

First Fever

Elijah had another first today: First fever. Poor little guy.

Diana took him for another round of shots yesterday, for which he was a complete trooper, except for the ten minutes of heart shattering screaming. But this morning he woke up with a 102 fever. I guess when babies get shots they sometimes get fevers. Sigh.

I keep thinking about this as a hacky comedian from the 80’s. (Do your best Jerry Seinfeld impersonation as you read this) “What’s the deal with these shots they give the babies these days? Aren’t they supposed to KEEP your kid from getting a fever? Am I right, here people? What are they sticking in there, the Bubonic Plague? Are you with me? Huh, people?”

The good news is Diana has broken his fever already with a combination of Tylenol and Grover spit.

The doctor also said Eli is somehow very tall for his age. He’s like, freakishly tall for a 4 month old. Which is strange because neither Diana nor me are hitting our heads on any doorways. Di’s older brother, Donnie, was a basketball star in high school, however. And both my brothers Luke and Noah were basketball players. So there’s some tall DNA out there.


So keep your fingers crossed. If Eli becomes a basketball star he’s gonna have a super hot prom date.

Although I’m not sure how he’ll have the time, what with his marching band commitments.

How to sleep

The first couple weeks Eli was on Earth, he slept all the time. Then he got into his “Please put me back in the womb” stage where he didn’t sleep at all (I still have the scars from trying to claw my eyes out). Now, he’s entering a new stage. The “When will he sleep through the night?” stage.

Every night we put him down and pray a little prayer. Will the stars align? Will tonight be the night he sleeps through the night? Will Diana get more than fifteen minutes of sleep? The answer has been “no” for 4 months now.

The truth is, a lot of babies need to be taught how to sleep through the night. They get so used to waking up every couple hours and getting some mommy action that they have no use for sleeping more than 4 hours. I, on the other hand, have a lot of use for sleeping more than 4 hours.

There are a couple schools of thought on how to get babies to sleep more. One is throw them in a room and come back the next morning no matter how hard he cries. This is the “My child will hate me for the rest of my life and become a successful poet” method. Another is to pick him up every time he cries and rock him back to sleep. This is the “My child will manipulate me from now on/let’s go buy him a Porsche” method.

Diana and I are experimenting with something in between. We put the little drool monster down for sleep, tell him we love him and then leave. If he cries, we come back after 3 minutes. We tell him he’s handsome and then take off again. If he cries, we wait 5 minutes, come back and tell him he’s a great dancer. Then we take off again. If he cries, we wait ten minutes. Ten minutes is the most we’ll let him cry.

But yesterday, the trial run day, Diana put him down and he cried for five minutes before sleeping for almost 6 hours straight. We could be onto something.

I’m at work today, so I don’t have any cute Eli pics. But I do have a weird picture of my brother Steve with muttonchops.

Dis. Gus. Ting.

When Elijah was born, we knew it would be a full time job, but we weren’t prepared for the fact that the job is 3 shifts, round the clock. And there aren’t days off. Which means time spent doing non-Elijah stuff (X-Box, drinking, riding your bike over home made ramps) goes right into the diaper genie.

Unfortunately, our housecleaning has suffered over these last 4 months. It happens slowly. One week we skip vacuuming to change diapers. The next, we choose feeding our baby over dusting. Before you know it, opossums are living in our den.

Now, anyone who knew me I college knows I don’t mind a dirty house. One of my landlords decided it would be easier to knock down my house than to try to defeat the funk monster in my bathroom.

Di, on the other hand has OCD (Obsessive Cleaning Disorder. Hahaha. I’m here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress). She hates a dirty house and the inability to clean has driven her cuckoo.

So today was Distract Eli While Diana Cleans Day. It basically meant throwing the boy into the Bjorn and taking Grover for an extended walk. You’ll notice I don’t take Eli in the stroller with Grover anymore. I learned my lesson.

So I was in front of Starbucks and this old woman starts hassling me about Eli being too young to be in a Baby Bjorn. I yelled at her, “DON’T YOU BE TELLING ME HOW TO RAISE MY BABY, YOU HAG!” But in reality I ignored her and bought an iced coffee.

Busy busy busy

Hey gang,

I've been supremely busy this week and unable to update the blog. Hopefully this incredibly cute picture of Elijah will tide you over.