News Years Eve 2009

For the last few New Years’ I write a supposedly private note to my son, Elijah. Aside from the weak gag of yelling at my readers for reading the message, it serves the purpose of an official record all my sissy feelings for the last twelve months.

We’re leaving for a fancy party in a few hours, so I wanted to get all my sissy feelings out before I meet my old nemesis, Veuve Clicquot. And I have an additional letter to write this year.

For the record, I don’t write a letter to Diana because she gets her own private letter from me on Christmas morning. And I don’t write a letter to Grover because he finds my writing hackneyed and generally a waste of his time. So here goes.

Dear Elijah,

I’ve cried only one time in 2009. It was when I dropped you off at school a few months ago. I was in the parking lot and it just dawned on me that I loved you so much it physically hurt. And to see you grow up is the greatest adventure I could imagine. I wouldn’t pass up a single moment of this crazy, silly, scream-filled year for a billion dollars.

Next year will be great, son. I promise to go on lots of Dad and Eli only adventures. Especially ones where we go to the puppy store.

You just walked into the office and unrolled my yoga mat and said, “I have to do my exercises, daddy.” I can’t find a better example of why I love you.

Dear Luca,

Well, well ,well. The Silent Man. My dad told me my kids would be different, but I assumed we’d be getting a carbon copy of son #1. I’m so happy you proved him right.

We hardly know each other, but we already have a heap of memories. My favorite so far? When we watched at Jean Claude Van Damme movie late at night because you couldn’t sleep. You just stared at me with those dark eyes of yours and I thought, “I had no idea I could love another kid as much as Eli. But…there it is.”

I know you’re trying to figure it all out, behind those dark eyes. But let me help you with one answer: Your mommy and I love you more than anything in the world.

Love,

Dad

p.s. This was the sissiest of them all.

A Quick Reason Why I Love Diana

6pm tonight. Luca was so desperate for food that the actual taste of milk in his mouth made him furious because it wasn’t in his belly. I had an extremely howly, squirmy, red-faced baby in my arms in the Luca Room.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Elijah decided at that very moment that he hated this favorite food, Mexican rice. So he was screaming at the top of his lungs and banging his feet against his highchair, making a noise that would impress a jackhammer.

Grover sat at the end of the Luca bed, starting at me with a look that said, “No, in fact, I do not forgive you.”

Suddenly, Diana entered the room with a freshly opened beer. Probably the most desired beer in the history of hops and barley.

Unfortunately, both of my arms were busy with trying to feed Baby Banshee. Diana tipped the beer into my mouth. So it was Mommy feeding Daddy, Daddy feeding baby. Yeah, we’re not going to win any Parent Of The Year Awards with that maneuver. But I love her.

p.s. Despite being the most beautiful woman in the world, she doesn’t want her photo on the blog right now. So please enjoy this photo of my in my Rex Grossman jersey Christmas present. And my underpants. That’s about five jokes right there.

We Should’ve Named Him “Marty.”

Christmas was great. And by “great,” I mean there were no blog-worthy disasters. Elijah went sufficiently bonkers. Di’s family came by and sufficiently praised my boeuf bourguignon. And we learned that Luca is sufficiently farty.

For those of you who are about to give birth (Patrick, Tom), around the 4th-6thth week, babies are at their most gassy. Whereas Eli’s version of gassy was to projectile vomit on my dress shirts, Luca’s form of gas is way more hilarious.

It’s like living with a one man Dixieland Jazz band 24 hours a day. Immediately after eating, he begins with the “Saints Go Marching In” in his diaper. Now, you can imagine how this delights me. Diana, not so much.

Although sometimes it really looks like it hurts. He gets red faced and scrunches up and then, wait for it…wait for it, “TOOT!” It seems as though he needs to mentally get his spleen out of the way before he can really let loose.

This all culminates in his 9-10:15 “witching hour.” If only all of us could decide that we were going to be jerks at the exact same time every day. But it seems as though he gets his baby daily calendar out and says, “Ok. Eat. Sleep. Toot. And then howl from exactly 9-10:15pm.”

So after Diana and I have had our wine and have watched enough HGTV to make me want to drive nails into my skull, I’ll scoop up Luca at 9pm on the dot and sit in his darkened room on the rocking chair and let him go nuts. And it’s not like he rattles the windows. He just squirms, grunts, cries out and toots in no particular order.

And then at 10:15, on the dot, he will get into a ball, let out one hellacious howl, followed by a day’s worth of toot and then it’s like a switch turns off. He immediately falls into the deepest sleep and doesn’t wake up for 4 hours.

So yeah. I’ll take my grouch baby in one and a half hours per day increments, thank you very much.

p.s. This is Diana’s sister, Peggy playing the one man Dixieland Jazz Band.

Jelly Beans and Dinosaur Screams

Merry Christmas everyone! I’ll report on anything interesting tomorrow. But for now, here is our Christmas Eve story.

Elijah and I went to the expensive grocery store to get stuff for boeuf bourguignon and to get out of the house while Diana dealt with a surprisingly fussy Luca.

As we were walking through the bulk food aisle, a very nice elderly French woman stopped us. I resisted the urge to announce, “We’re making boef bourguignon! Like you people!” She was filling up a plastic bag with jellybeans and offered Eli a couple.

Eli realized that very moment he lurved jellybeans. He repeatedly asked the Frenchy, “More? Jellybeans?” She was nice about it, but finally said, “I auf to saf some for my granddaughter.” We bid her farewell and cruised on. However, in every aisle we walked down, there was the elderly French woman. “More? Jellybeans?” I’d attempt to go what I thought was her opposite direction and there she was, attempting not to make eye contact with Eli. “More? Jellybeans?”

I had an epiphany. We were set to attend Christmas Eve Mass with the Steve Hamanns. He and I looked at it like a suicide mission. We knew the outcome. Kids under 5 in church? Disaster. But tradition is tradition. You have to sit in church before you get presents. That’s the way we did it when I was a kid, and by gum, that’s how we’re doing it. I figured I could bribe Elijah into sitting quietly during church – with jellybeans. Yeah, I know. Wrong holiday. But I was still playing in the Catholic treats, so I think it was ok.

Diana shrewdly announced that Luca was too fussy to go to church, so she would volunteer to make appetizers for afterwards. I wished I had though of that.

I laid down the rules as we entered St. Nicks. “Ok. If you’re quiet and sit still, you get…” Then I held out the box of jellybeans. Eli’s eyes lit up. We managed to get to the Hamann pew when it started. “More? Jellybeans?” As the organ started, I began feeding him jellybeans one by one. He sat there like an angel as the kids dressed as angels slumped by. I thought, “You’ve done it again, Hamann.”

Right about the time we realized this was a Spanish language mass, Eli hit the threshold of jellybean sugar in his blood. He began vibrating and buzzing and took on the irritating qualities of that one guy who snorts coke at your party. He began running headlong into the heaters, making a loud “bang!” He also announced his desire to speak with the priest. “I want to talk to the man!” He also decided at that moment to become potty trained. “I want to go pee pee in the pottyyyyyyy!”

Luckliy, Finn and Rory were engaged in battle with Steve and Pam, so Steve gave me the finger across the throat gesture and we high tailed it out of there.

Once at home, Pam, Diana and I began chugging Champaign and we let the kids loose on the presents. Star wars stuff. Art stuff. Books. I made a game decision to let Eli open one of his official Christmas day presents. The Dinosaur. The Dinosaur is actually a Matchbox car thing that really doesn’t do anything except look like a dinosaur with a couple ramps. Diana wanted me to return it because it was so lame.

But what she didn’t know is dinusaur+car=awesome. Finn and Eli began a feverous battle for it. Pushing. Crying. Yanking. Finn announced loudly that if he did not receive one from Santa the next morning there would be severe consequences.

Which was their cue to leave. Eli immediately forgot about The Dinosaur and went immediately to sleep.

Diana and I sat on our bed and listened to Luca scream and I thought, “This was the greatest Christmas Eve ever.” And I meant it.

p.s. Power To The Babies!

Look Me In The Eye

The other day, I was rocking Luca in his room during the fifteen minutes a day he’s in a bad mood. He was concentrating out into space and I wondered, “How far can this kid see?”

I was going to ask Diana, but she was engaged in imitating an obscure Pixar movie character to the delight of Elijah. I forgot about my eyesight question and fell madly in love with her all over again.

Today, I was “working from home,” which means keeping my phone vaguely within 100 yards in case there was an advertising emergency. The Chicagoland weather was crappy crappy crappy, so Diana asked me to take Luca to his one month check up.

After checking height, weight, noggin size, etc (he’s 50th percentile across the board, unlike Eli, otherwise known as Andre the Giant), the doctor asked me if I had any questions. Resisting the urge to ask about his ear hair or what percentile he is, penis-wise, I asked about his eyesight.

“Oh, he can see perfectly from short distances. So right now he can see your face.” I looked at him on the white crinkly paper and said, “Pretty handsome, aren’t I?”

She washed her hands and said, “The nurse will be in shortly for his one month shot.”

Come again? Shot? No, no no. I’m not the shot guy. I’m the jokey guy.

But the nurse came in and told me to hold Luca. As the shot was administered, he looked me right in the eye and could see me perfectly. Here’s a rundown of his expressions:

1. Hey, I know that guy. He’s the one with the beard.
2. That feels cold.
3. That feels like a giant needle being thrust into my leg.
4. You, sir, are a son of a bitch.

And then he proceeded to cry hysterically. Heaving, hiccupping, elephant tears. The works. All they while, looking at me with perfect eyesight.

Baby Straight Jacket and The Two Stooges

Luca has been putting in some serious sleep at night. 4 hours is a ton for a 3 ½ week old. We’re not ready to proclaim him Best Baby In The World just yet, but he’s in the running.

But even though he’s taking it easy on us, Diana still doesn’t get a full night’s sleep during the week. So we’ve decided that I’ll take the overnight shift on Saturday nights. While I am far less neurotic than I was with Elijah, I still like to take certain precautions.

Namely, the Baby Straight Jacket. Some people refer to it as “Swaddling” or the “Baby Burrito.” I’m not a big fan of calling it Baby Burrito. Yeah, inside is warm and farty, but it seems like an insult to my son to dress him in something that college students eat to prevent hangovers. I prefer the even less flattering reference to my son being a lunatic, The Baby Straight Jacket.

For you non-parents, The Baby Straight Jacket is basically wrapping a baby tightly in a blanket, pinning their arms against their body. This is to prevent them from involuntarily punching themselves in the face while they sleep. Oddly, it’s comforting to the babies not to punch themselves in the face.

We’ve found that Luca actually prefers to keep one arm out of the Straight Jacket. He holds his arm over his head, fist clenched, giving him a look of the cross between Superman and a member of The Black Panthers.

We also prefer to Baby Straight Jacket him in stolen hospital blankets. There is just something about hospital blankets. They’re the right size and right material for perfect Straight Jackets. No kid can escape. I don’t care if you are baby Houdini. So yes, I’ll admit it. So yes, a few blankets accidentally fell into my backpack. And by “a few,” I mean “20.” I’m not proud of it. But we’ve tried every other material known to man and none compare to hospital-grade Straight Jackets. Our pediatrician busted us with the ill-begotten blankets at our first check up. She just laughed, so I’m going to take that as permission.

Other than that, I just give him the “Moe” a few times a night. I do have a thing about airway blockage. SIDS is no joke and I wake up panicked every once and a while, wondering if Luca’s mouth and nose have been covered up in his sleep. Even if he had control of his arms, he’s in a Baby Straight Jacket. So at least once a night, I’ll creep over to his co-sleeper and feel around to make sure his nostrils are free. Since I do this in the pitch darkness, I usually end up accidentally yanking up on his nose holes with my two fingers. Remember that move Moe from The Three Stooges did? Usually to lead Larry or Curly around? I end up doing that.

I think Luca prefers when his mom does the overnight shift.

Peril

Good old Elijah. I’ll give it to him, he’s smart. Very smart. Too smart?

As you recall, he’s experimenting with ways to pull attention away from Luca. From the “I love you, man” to the tantrum. Well, he’s stumbled onto something pretty genius: Peril.

When Diana sits down to breast-feed Luca, she has to be fairly stationary. There is a fair amount of gear, like her Breast Friend thing and her towels and her water and, oh yes, a three-week-old baby. So once the event starts, she has to sit until Luca is satiated. So if is definitely hard to jump up and fetch milk or apples or Curious George cartoons.

So when Diana hunkers down, Elijah will instantly attempt to get himself into some kind of life threatening situation. He’ll climb up onto, and get stuck in, Luca’s crib, or he’ll climb onto an unstable stool in the kitchen. Or he’ll play with a litter of rabid coyotes or the bear traps we keep in the den.

And then he’ll shout, “Mommy! I need heeeeelp!”

At which point, in order to keep from having to rush to the hospital, Diana will have to extract herself from the Breast Feeding Station and find the fire extinguisher or our anti-zombie spray. Which involves removing Luca from her, um, milky areas. Which results in the rare, but loud, screaming from boy #2.

Each night when I but Eli to bed, I have my nightly talk.

“Hey buddy. Mommy needs your help with Luca. He’s just a little baby and needs a lot of attention. So can you try to be good tomorrow and not get into trouble when Mommy is feeding Luca? Like not playing with the nuclear weapons we have under the sink?”

“No.”

For better or for worse, Elijah hasn’t really figured out the concept of lying yet. He delightfully admits to all his wrongdoing.

“Elijah, did you hit Grover?”

“Yes! And I kicked him. And I kicked Mommy!”

We’ll see if this honesty lasts. I somehow doubt it.