Hello there

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. My job keeps me at the office until ridiculous hours at night. The only thing that keeps me going is horribly embarrassing photos like today’s.

Speaking of night, we have a new nap schedule for the boy and its resulting in less all nighters. And even the occasional sleep past 5a.m.

But we still like to bring him in the bed for some “Boo” and spit time before I have to get up and at ‘em.

Elijah is still at that stage where he doesn’t really know a lot about what’s happening outside of his eye range. He’ll look over at me and give a big smile. Then Diana will say something and he’ll look over at her, with a look that says, “Well hello there. Aren’t you the lady I came out of?” Then he’ll look over at me with a look that says, “Oh, when did you come in? Aren’t you the guy with the hilarious Boo joke?” Then he’ll hear Di and start it all over again. “Nice of you to join us…” Meanwhile, Grover paces back and forth with a look that says, “Hello? Dog with a full bladder over here!”

Eli also adds a bit of eye hand coordination. He’ll grab my nose. Or Di’s nose, or pull the rare and awesome double nose grab. He also has, on occasion, grabbed my Adam’s Apple. Hard. Hard enough to close all the wind off except enough for me to whisper, “Don’t…kill…me…son.”

He’s surprisingly strong.

Blinded By Science

The last HamannEggs post included the sentence “As soon as he realized they had X &Y chromosomes he turned on the charm.”

I received several emails and posts pointing out the fact that women have 2 X Chromosomes, not an X&Y. Fact checkers, thank you for the catch. The post has officially been revised.

Your reward is today’s hilarious Eli picture. While you’re checking, here are some other science facts I’m planning on using in future posts:


Thunder is bowling matches in Heaven.

Penguins live underground and speak Spanglish.

Uncle Dick Hamann was a Podiatrist.

Electricity was discovered by The Maytag Repair Man.

The Periodical symbol for Bacon is “Bn.”

Our universe could, like, totally be an atom in some giant’s fingernail.

Line Up, Ladies.

I’ve noticed something over the last couple of weeks. Elijah likes him the ladies. I brought him to the office for a few hours last Friday for another lesson in "Never do what daddy does." And, as usual, my female co-workers were uncontrollably dragged over to the child by their uteruses.

As soon as he realized they had 2 X chromosomes he turned on the charm. Hard. He was Mr. Bat Of The Eye. Then he was Senior Coy Little Grin. At which point he turned into Monsieur Peek A Boo.

And when my Dad’s family showed up on Saturday? Eli was all about the women. Grandma? Bam. Brother's girlfriend? Pow. Sure, he’d throw the men an occasional smirk. Maybe a “Goo goo,” but he’s been girl crazy lately.

Look out, puberty.

First Cold

Elijah had another first yesterday. First bad cold. The studio audience goes, “Awwwww.”

I relieved Pam from her babysitting duties last night and opened a bottle of wine. Grover crept in and started whining. I’m not lying here, people. Grover cried and whined and walked over to the stairs. It could be coincidence, but Grover led me upstairs to our room, where Eli was hacking and wheezing and generally blowing snot all over his crib.

Not knowing what to do, I rolled him onto his back and went to my favorite baby reference book. Now, Diana and I differ on our baby books. She likes the old standard “What to Expect” books. My favorite book is by this New York doctor whose motto is “Laissez Faire.” Kid hits his head on the table? Kid learns not to walk by the table. Kid sticks his finger in a socket? Kid learns not to stick his finger in a socket. I exaggerate, but he’s kind of controversial.

So I look under the section, “Colds.” His recommendation? I kid you not, it’s “Ride it out.”

So I went back to my wine and TV. Content in my awesome fathering.

Diana arrived home several hours later and discovered our hacking baby. She was instantly concerned. I said, “Ride it out! Ride it out!” Grabbed the thermometer and I said, “Ride it out! Ride it out!” She inserted it (you know where), I cried, “Ride it out! Ride it out!” His fever was 101. Diana looked at me like I was an idiot. I whispered, “Ride it out?”

After a night of Tylenol and crying, Elijah seemed to improve this morning. But he’s still pretty sick. Elijah must be hoping to ride out my fathering for the next 18 years.

5a.m.

The boy is learning how to be a good sleeper. We toss him in the sack at 6 or 7 and he usually arrives at Dreamland in 15 minutes. I imagine Dreamland for Elijah to contain giant piles of dog hair he can cram into his mouth, huge vats of applesauce and many many rattles he can bash himself in the face with.

But here’s the rub: Eli can’t sleep past 5a.m. You mathematicians out there have probably calculated that he is still getting 11 hours of sleep. But I’m talking about my sleep here, not his. Every morning at the stroke of 5, he chirps, spits and howls until Di or I get him out of the crib. Di and I silently fight over who has to get him up. I usually lose because she has a lightening fast uppercut. And, well, she always takes the 1a.m. feeding.

So I’ll put him in our bed and play with him until my official wake up time of 6:30. And by “play with him” I mean sleep with my finger dangling over Eli so he can yank on it.

Well, a few days ago I caught Diana staring at Eli with a thoughtful look on her face. I imagined she was checking the air for poo evidence. She looked at me and said, “I wonder if he’s hungry at 5a.m. Do you want to try feeding him tomorrow morning?”

Sure enough, during the next morning’s chirp a thon, I gave him a bottle and he went right back to sleep. And continued to sleep until 7.

We’re morons.

First Sand

Although she wouldn’t be able to pass a field sobriety test, Diana recovered enough over the weekend for us to at least start looking like a family and not a sideshow. Diana was even able to stay upright long enough to take Elijah to his first trip to the beach.

Anyone who knows me knows my fathering technique is an constant internal battle between overprotection and underprotection. On the trip to the beach, overprotection won by a landslide. I forced Elijah to wear a hat three sizes too big and a ridiculous pair of sunglasses. Both of which he hated. However, his eye hand coordination hasn’t progressed to the point where he can snatch said items off his head and throw them into Lake Michigan. I even positioned myself between him and the sun, so as to throw a shadow over his baby skin. And make myself look like an idiot.

But the beach was a relative success. In other words, Eli didn’t scream. Imagine being a baby and seeing the surf for the first time. He must have thought mom and dad took him to Mars for the day. He did quite enjoy what he could see through his safety sunglasses.

Grover enjoyed the beach as he always does. Although I caught him debating whether or not to bury his human baby brother in the sand. He chose wisely.

Keep your fingers crossed, gang. I think Hamanneggs is gonna be back to normal very soon.

New Tricks

My big time fancy job seems to now include flying to different countries every week and scratching my chin in conference rooms while saying smart sounding things. All while the song “Louie Louie” repeats in my head. This week’s country was Atlanta, Georgia. If you want to argue Atlanta is not a different country, I’d like to refer you to my voting record for the last 4 presidential elections.

The bummer is Diana still hasn’t recovered from her ear. So I had to ship her and Elijah off to the Jackliches again. Thankfully, the Jackliches like Eli and have no problem with Grover destroying their garden.

Anyhoo (Diana hates it when I write “anyhoo” on the blog, but she’s still too sick to notice this one), I picked wife and baby up this morning only to learn that my boy has grown several inches over the last week and has learned several new tricks.

Apparently, he can roll over at will. Front to back, back to front. Over and over. Which means I can no longer place him precariously on beds, couches and roof tops. He also managed to shove himself backwards several inches while on his stomach today. Which means I can no longer leave shards of glass on the floor.

He also has figured out his hands. Anything within baby distance is worthy of a grasp, then a shove into his mouth. His favorite thing to snag is giant handfuls of Grover’s fur. For a good ten minutes today, Grover lay on his back while Eli had two fist fulls of his fur. Grover was very patient (good boy), but I could see in his eyes he was remembering that time he knocked over Eli’s stroller a few months ago.

Fear not, Hamanneggs reader. Di may still be sick, but she is feeling lots better. I think by this time next week I’ll be able to go back to one notch below Eli on the helpless meter.

p.s. We haven’t been able to take a lot of pictures these last few weeks. So I drew today’s photo. It’s pretty accurate.