Code Brown

This posting is going to make you think that Emily and I are big into scatological humor, we're not. We are simply playing with the cards that we've been dealt - and we've got a handful of 2's IF you know what I mean.

Sunday, the day of the rest, the Sabbath - hardly. We had great intentions of joining our Hometeam after church to go see a movie, the first movie viewing for either of us since Benjamin. Everything was on track until a routine diaper change turned catastrophic. We undid his onesie and it looked like a chili dog exploded - stuff was absolutely everywhere. I still can't even understand the physics behind it - how did poop go up his back all the way to his shoulders? Seriously!

Emily and I tried to figure out how to get him out of the clothes without spreading his filth all over his face. I made the executive decision to get the scissors and cut his onesie off of him - I felt like I was in an episode of ER. There was something funny and sweet about the whole moment- here is a baby covered in what looks like Smucker's Natural Peanut Butter, but he is just laying there with a smile on his face cooing at us. Cute, but I ain't touching him. Emily took the bullet and hopped in the tub with him, because it would have taken 200 wipes to handle this mess.

Needless to say we didn't make the movie, but we did have a good laugh at dealing with a diaper blow out that was SO bad that we had to cut our baby out of his stained onesie. Wait a minute, it just occurred to me - this may have been Benjamin's first attempt at mommy/daddy-time sabotage. If it was, he plays a dirty game. An extremely dirty game.

I am Hilarious

I have a new favorite audience, and "yes" he is a drooling baby who can barely see in three dimensions. Nonetheless, he smiles or giggles at everything I do - even the stuff I copied from Carrot-Top. Benjamin's new awareness is beginning to restore my faith in the brochure-like talking points that our friends with kids were trying to sell us on. "Oh, it's the best thing you'll ever do in life!" "Oh, it'll just melt your heart the first time they smile at you." "Oh, being a parent is so rewarding."

Notice all of the "Oh's"? Some intelligence handbooks would tell you that when someone starts a sentence off with words like "Oh...Well...You know..." - they are lying.

All deception aside, I do have to say that getting a full ear-to-ear grin from Benjamin can convert my mood from "crappy" to "yeehaw" in an instant. And like Lay's potato chips, you can't have just one. I'll sit there from 3-20 minutes just making stuff up to keep his smile streak going. Benjamin enjoys such hits as: sticking tongue out, zerberts on the belly, freestyle nursery rhyme raps, synonyms, antonyms and repeating the word "boogie".

His reactions are priceless too. If I try something new on him, his first reaction is a wide-eyed look with a furrowed brow. It's the kind of look that makes me think he's saying, "What kind of witchcraft is this?! How are you sticking your tongue out so quickly!?!" After this mild look of panic, he becomes ecstatic and all of his limbs flail around as if they were controlled by three out of sync puppeteers - even if I tried I can't get my body to move that chaotically and random. Then he looks at me with a sense of, "What else you got?" So I do the same bit again and again until I get bored of doing it.

And the way I really know I'm doing a good job is when I hear applause coming from his diaper. I've never made someone poop their pants at an improv show, but I have in my living room. But then I had to clean it up. Makes you wonder who had the last laugh.

Let’s Talk About Poop (by guest writer, Mom)

**This blog is straight-up yo-momma style - feat. Emily Alexander**

(For the faint of heart, read no further. I’m warning you.)

Yes, I said it… Poop! The subject takes on a whole new meaning after having a child. Now I know this isn’t appropriate dinner conversation, but I gotta tell you… I probably spend about a quarter of my waking hours dealing with it: changing diapers, doing ‘accident’ laundry, or providing the foodstuff that will eventually become… you guessed it, poop!

I was a bit scared, then, when a whole day and a half went by and there were no poopy diapers. At Benjamin’s two month visit, I asked the pediatrician if I should be worried. She told me that when babies get all they need from mom’s milk, they can potentially use it up completely, leaving nothing to waste… literally, no waste. They could go up to three days without a dirty diaper. I was relieved to hear this. However, it didn’t last long. His well check also came with three shots that caused a bit of a fever and some “loose stool.” How “loose” you ask? VERY.

I was playing with Benjamin on my lap, making silly faces. He, too, was making silly faces, but not those of jovial response, rather of labor as he filled his Huggies claimed “ultra-dry” diaper with a load that rivaled Santa’s sack of toys. It crossed over from being a “number two” to a “number three.” As I picked Benjamin up, there was poop all over his new outfit, all over my shirt, the shirt under my shirt, my jeans, and eventually my watch (don’t ask). And it all happened in a matter of seconds. We made our way to the bathroom for a bath, as it was too big a job for baby wipes.

Later that night, I came home from a friend’s house, only to be reminded of our messy experience. To my horror, I discovered that I had left the poopy diaper out… not in the Diaper Champ like it should have been. I had wrapped it tightly inside of another diaper and set it on the couch (temporarily). The dog, with his affinity for poopy diapers, got to it… in a big way. There were shreds of dirty diaper all over the living room floor… tons of them. Later, I found out there was more to come. (And here’s the last warning for the meek to stop reading!) When I took the dog for a walk, he had a ‘number two’ like you wouldn’t believe. Actual whole pieces of diaper came out with the movement. I know I shouldn’t have been watching, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I was like a curious kid… or a creepy vet.

With this experience under my belt, I’d like to thank a few people: my mom and dad, for cleaning MY poopy diapers… any family member or friend who may clean Benjamin’s future poopy diapers… Pampers, for making a diaper so much better than Huggies… Tony, for referring us to a contractor who will inexpensively replace our living room carpet before our baby learns to crawl… and finally, me,… I’d like to thank me for being able to laugh at things like this while slightly crying at the same time.

Storm's a-brewin!

If you live in the DFW area or just really like watching the Weather Channel, you may have heard of the phenomenal storm that came out of nowhere on Wednesday night. I am oblivious of weather forecasts, is Willard Scott still doing them? I also had the dubious honor of working with my team at the office until about 2AM (yay!). I later crawled into bed and slept for what felt like 5 minutes, before we were awoken by a maelstrom outside of our window at 4:15AM. It sounded like someone put our house in an automated car wash - water pounding, wind gusting, etc. Then the tornado sirens went off.

I'm still half asleep wondering where my dream mates Alf and Cookie Monster vanished off to, when Emily says with a sense of urgency, "Quick, go get the baby and bring him in the closet." It seriously took my brain a couple of seconds to process her request - "Baby? What baby?" Then a slice of realization cut through my mental cobwebs as I pictured the prototypical twister hitting our house just as I made a break for Benjamin's room - debris whirling at me as I dispatch it with swift punch and kick combos, barely making it to his crib just as Benjamin is about to be sucked out the window, clasping on to his booties and pulling him to safety.

The reality is that I strolled into his room, picked up a sleeping baby (again, how do babies sleep through storms and restaurants, but wake up if I take a hard swallow of water?) and carried him into our closet. We hung out there for 20 minutes, the storm passed and we all went back to sleep around 5-ish. And then my alarm went off after what seemed like 10 minutes of sleep - I had an early morning flight to catch, which ended up being 1 of the 2000 flights canceled by American Airlines (I'm considering class-action).

As I drove to the airport, I noticed that our surrounding area looked like God and Mother Nature played a game of Jenga - entire trees uprooted, huge branches splintered, foliage reconstructed in ugly piles in the road. Yet, three styrofoam peanuts that were in my front yard (origin unknown) the day before some how managed to not move an inch. But seeing the destruction made me very thankful that our house survived and that our family came out completely unscathed.

And I was too tired the night before to really acknowledge that I am totally responsible for this other human being. If there was no me, it wouldn't be able to survive. This is an incredibly basic concept, but it was the first time a "me-focused" person had to really look out for someone else incapable of helping themselves. I also recognized that this didn't even scratch the surface of things to come later in Benjamin's life - running across the street, kidnapping scares, getting into country music, etc.

On a totally unrelated note, onesies are multiplying in our closet like rabbits. I'll put away laundry and the amount seems like it quintuples each time. The only theory I have to explain this is when socks get lost in the dryer, they are quilted into onesies by some breed of gnome.

Night Shift

Working a night shift can't be fun. Even if your job was "professional leisurist", I really believe that your body and mind are better off sleeping when it's dark and waking when it's light. I've always been a nightowl, however, and when I sleep I'm thankfully out until my trusty alarm clock beeps at me in that familiar generic tone. So I genuinely don't hear Benjamin crying in the night, I promise.

And fortunately Emily has been such a great sport that she goes in there to tend to his needs when he cries while I'm off to Sleepytown to play lazer-hockey with Millard Filmore and Bea Arthur. So the news that makes everyone happy in our house is that young Benjamin slept for around 8 hours TWO (noncontiguous) nights last week. That's right folks, 8 hours through the night with no crying, waking, feeding, bathing, changing. Emily was elated to taste the ambrosia of deep REM sleep for the first time in a long time. I told her she should have joined me for doubles lazer-hockey.

Everyone we shared our news with tempered our expectations that we had more than likely caught lightning in a bottle, and not to expect this to be the norm. Emily and I are choosing to be positive, we see the Sandman's bag as half full. And they clearly don't know how Ambien® For Kids works.