Nerf Accident

A very rare sight indeed!

Keeping it Real - Part 2

Drew's favorite game

This is my view of Drew when we play 'superman'. He loves it. He started off just going from a heap in my lap to flying over head as seen here, but now he is working on his standing when he lands. He's quite wobbly, but he's making great progress. I think he's going to be able to walk assisted before he's learned to crawl. He's cute when he tries to crawl, but he's pretty far from getting it.

100th post

Let's see, what is going on -

First snowfall of the season is about to occur. My snowblower doesn't roll so it looks like its a shovel for me. And my neighbor across the way is gone for the week so I need to do his too. If any of you know Dan, mention my snowblower is still broken.
**EDIT** Dan called me (thanks Michelle!) and he's going to come and fix my snowblower! What a guy!!!


I've spent the past few days outside stacking, moving, covering and moving wood. All my wood piles are tucked in nicely and covered. I have a bunch of wood on the patio that needs to be split and hopefully the wood splitter fairy will visit sooner rather than later. I'm not sure we have enough wood to last the winter, but it will help with the heating costs even if it only lasts us till the end of January. Next year on top of the wood Dan and I split, I think I'll just buy a cord of wood and see how far that brings us.

Drew's sleeping better. Credit goes 100% to my wife. I've finally started to help a bit and when he cries when its not feeding time I try to calm him and get him to go back to sleep. It works if he is just going down, but it hasn't worked middle of the night yet. Like last night around 1pm he was crying, so I went in and tried to calm him. I could get him to stop crying but putting him down was a trigger for hysterics. So frustrating. He's sleeping now, and that's the important thing.

I'm on vacation this week. Vacations kind of lose their luster when you already work from home. There are a ton of benefits of being able to work from my home, a big one is being able to see Drew during all parts of the day, not just when I would 'get home'. The problem is I'm always at my office. So this vacation, I'm in the same place I work. The only difference is that these days are declared 'vacation'. There is very little escape. I know, boo hoo. I should get over it because come Christmas break I have 16 straight days off.

That's it for now.

Bear with me for a moment...

Oh the puns!

But seriously, we had a bear walk across our yard and tip over one of our bird feeders. I was out getting wood for the fire this morning and in the snow there was this monster foot print. A lot of times what will happen in snow (pay attention there is a lesson to be learned) when an animal makes a foot print in snow, and then the snow melts the size of the foot print increases a great deal and makes a dogs foot print look like Zuul.

Anyways, there wasn't enough snow to melt and alter the foot print too much so I figured it was a bear. How exciting!!! Here is a one of the better pictures of a footprint I got with a ruler, and also a picture from a website of another black bear.

Words of Warning

"Do not snore tonight... BECAUSE I CANNOT CONTROL MY ANGER!!!!"

These were the words spoken to me as my lovely wife headed off to bed. I don't snore. But I still found her warning pretty amusing.

Me and Drew in the Morning

At 5am this morning Drew and I decided we wanted pancakes. Not frozen or from the add-water mix, but from scratch. Scratch meaning starting with bisquick. He settled down with a drink and let me do most of the work. If Drew doesn't have his morning caffine he's a bear.

I made a wondeful replica of Mickey Mouse, but Drew didn't know who that was.

Then the attempt for the Follansbee World Record Sized Pancake...

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Keeping it real

Its easy to post cute pictures of the boy. After all, he's pretty darn cute. But cute pictures don't tell the real story. That's what I'm here for, to tell it like it is. This picture sums up what life is like with a 4.5 month old. Its a dichotomy of cuteness, and vileness....

Slacking 101

Wow, 8 posts in the past two months. I doubt anyone comes here now because of the lack of content, and I don't blame them. I even forgot what my last post was so I had to look at the my actual blog.

So Drew is sleeping on his belly right now. He's been 'in bed' for just under 6 hours now and he's slept about 4 of them on his belly. This is the first time he's ever slept on his belly. In those 4 hours of belly time, I've been staring at the TV monitor for roughly 3 hours and 50 minutes of those. It's very nerve wracking. And i've even snuck in there and moved his head because I didn't think the position was conducive to his breathing. He seems to be pretty happy though, hasn't slept this good in a while.

First laugh was the other day. It simply took putting his pants on my head and saying "Peeyeww" 100 million times. Worked though. I was able to get a couple of giggles out of him the next day, but none Monday. We'll see how Tuesday goes.

Anyways, thats all.

Go Sox!

One of the younger members of Red Sox Nation.

Big Heads Run in the Family

Drew had his 4 month checkup today. Everything was great except the size of his head concerned the Dr. We emphasized that big heads were a family thing but she is going to consult a neurologist anyways. So Erika and I agreed not to consult the Internet about "Big Head"-itis because it would just send us down the a path of panic, even though right now we are not panicked. So we decided to call my Ultra-wise sister, who has had experience with one of her children having a rather large head early in life. She reassured us that it does run in the family, and provided examples of how all three of her children had plus-sized heads when they were young but they grew into their nogg'ns... what a great sister. Reassuring, compassionate, understanding. What more could a brother ask for? An hour later she sent these pictures of her three children:

The Cute get Cuter!

More Drew

Milestone

This is how Drew and I entertain ourselves....(you need sound)

Usurper

I'm basically the Michael Vick (may he and all people who fight dogs burn in hell) of plants. I start out all gung-ho and caring of my plants, but after a while if they don't perform up to snuff... lets just say they get neglected. If we go way back in my blog, some might remember my tomatoes. A long time ago, I tried to separate them, and it was a disaster. All the transferred plants died, and it was hopeless. Well, almost hopeless. When I was separating them I tossed a clump into one of Erika's elephant ear pots. I was tossing them away, but the tomatoes thrived and actually produced some yummy tomatoes. All year I heard from Erika how my plants didn't belong there... Anyways, here are some gorgeous pictures Erika took:

Update: I found a picture of the elephant ears and tomato plant. Excuse my work uniform, I dress for success.

Thoughts and Things from the Past 3 Months

• Being a Dad is the hardest thing mentally I've ever done
• Erika is a great Mom
• I love the baby smell, until Erika put bad crap in his hair
• We've renamed Drew to Drew'll because he drools all the time
• I hate night times now. And I have it a lot easier than Erika does
• I appreciate how easy owning a cat is, even more than I did before.
• Dan doesn't understand why he shouldn't call at 7am when there is a baby and a stay at home mom
• Drew likes my singing. Atta boy!
• He likes "Devil Went Down to Georgia"
• There is worse sound than that of a waking baby
• There is no better sound than silence
• I should leave the house more
• My son has a weak neck, due to his Follansbee sized head that is holding it up
• Sometimes a screaming / crying baby doesn't bother me. Other times it does. I'm getting better though.
• The cats have completely ignored Drew. Unless he's having a fit, then Dixie will come running. Not sure why, but I have my theories.
• Drew is getting huge. Doesn't fit nicely in arms anymore.
• When I pick up a cat, I rock and bounce them out of habit. Kelly told me it would be like this. Hi cuz!
• At times I feel useless when it comes to Drew. I don't feed him (a joint decision) but often times when he's upset feeding him is the only thing that can calm him.
• I know I shouldn't, but I can't wait for Drew to be a little older. Like being able to hold his neck / sit / play. I think I'll do better when he play a little easier.
• Its 2:30am and he's still sleeping. Go Drew! He's in his swing, some day he'll do an entire night in his crib.

Thats it for now.

Evolution of Dance

Random Pics

Fear

What is fear? Fear is what you feel as you sit in your office late one night, and the swing your son sits to go to sleep in is running out of battery juice. Its still moving, but barely. I'm not sure if he will be more apt to wake up if he's not moving. Erika won't be too happy if I have to wake her up before midnight...

Why is our son in a swing at 11:30pm? Thats where he starts his night. The last two nights he's been in that chair for 5 hours as Erika got some well needed and deserved sleep. I stay up with him while he's in his swing, and then when he wakes its Erika's shift. After Erika takes over she feeds him, and then he goes to his crib. Crib time has mixed results. Some nights good, some nightsnot so good. Then around 6am-ish, Erika brings him into our bed (as she kicks me out of bed to go to work) to round of the night with hopefully one or two more hours of sleep.

Oh no... it stopped...

Anyways, thats our bedtime routine. Kind of messed up but its working for us for now.

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

Like Christmas in the summer, every year around this time the new Madden football game gets released. This year's version looks pretty exciting, not to mention I get to throw bombs from Brady to Moss! Although it is released on 8/14, I won't be getting my copy until later in the week. As Doug put it, it's "traggic". I hope Erika and Drew don't have any plans this weekend that include a either a father figure or husband. Hehe.

Dan - tried to kill me - again.

So today I went to Dan's Dad's house to cut wood. Its a bit of a communul program we have worked out with Dans Dad. We cut the wood needed for his house, then we cut our own wood for our houses(not that Dan even has a stove). So, again today I went to cut wood with Dan. We finished up and he was going to give me a lift back to my car, parked about a 10 minute walk away. So I hop on his tailgate as he drove through the woods. Clearly he forgot there was a human being in the back of the truck because he was going like a bat out of hell.

Soon enough he hits a bump that sends me FLYING into the air. I came off that tail gate about a foot, maybe two. It felt like 10!! I came crashing down, all 250lbs of man meat, on to his tailgate. For those who don't know I have/had 2 herniated discs and been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease so I'm my back is in no condition to be tossed around like he's just another tractor part in the back of Dans truck.

Anyways, I'm doing fine. So far. We'll see how I am in the morning.

Oh, and let me tell you about the time I was looking through a small glass window, and Dan shot the window out with a pellet gun.... well, maybe another time.

Smiles

She's a Pinball Wizard

Uncle Doug goes swimming

Last year we all went to the beach, and Uncle Doug didn't join the kids and I in a swim. This year when we went to the beach he had on his nifty swim trunks, but assured us he "wasn't going in". But maybe...
I'm not sure what I was saying, but I'm sure it was friendly and encouraging.

Next thing Nate knew is that his Uncle Doug was landing next to him in a big splash. A very dramatic entry! There would have been more pictures of his entry, but the camera woman was looking in the opposite direction.
Immediately, Uncle Doug is regretting his dramatic entry.
I'm telling him, "once you can breathe again, its not so bad. Seriously."
Soon all was right and the kids and the uncles were splashing away.

Another first for Drew: A day at the beach

All 10 of us went to the beach today because Monday is supposed to be unpleasant weather wise. Dawn was being negative about the whole thing, but we all ignored her and we had a fun time anyways. The picture shows her moping on the beach next to Drew and Abby. It was a very hot and bright day, but in his car carrier with some blankets on top of him kept him nice and cool. He slept the whole time, so you could say he was relaxed.

NOTE: Actually I might have been the one who was a grump, I can't really remember it too clearly now. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't Dawn. The picture just works though.

We ride at Dawn!

Drew loves going for rides with Aunt Dawn. Dawn has been wonderfully helpful with Drew, and has inspired Erika and I to actually go out with Drew rather than sitting around the house. We've gone to a science center, Target today and wrapped it up with a trip to chucky cheese. Prior to Dawn's visit we've been... basically no where.

Too cute for words...

405 Down

405 pages down out of 759. I'm determined not to have the ending of the Harry Potter series be spoiled by anything. Too much information is floating around out there. I know the ending will be on the radio, some TV clip, message board, sister, ect. So I'm getting it out of the way as fast as possible. A big thanks goes out to my beautiful and understanding wife as she watched me read all day long. In between helping with Drew, of course. Back to reading!

UPDATE: I finished Sunday about 4pm. Roughly 25 hours. It was very good, what you would expect from a Harry Potter book.

Hi Laurie!!

5 Weeks

Happy 5 Weeks Drew!!!

I honestly can say I don't remember any of it. I remember today, but will struggle to remember yesterday. Last week? Forget about it.

He's had his one month 'weight check'. Weighed in at 10lbs 8oz. After the amount he's ate in the past couple of days, I would say he's a lot closer to 11 now. I know I sound like a broken record, but there are good days and rough days. Mainly the evenings, but he tends to settle down for bedtime.

He's not smiling yet, at least not for me. I've seen the occassional 'gas grins', but nothing by itself. Erika sees them, but then again, she's Mom. I can't compete with what mom provides. When he comes to appreciate an immature man-boy that will play with him, and holds the title 'Dad', thats when I'll come into my own.

Erika has a crop on Saturday. More 1 on 1 time with the boy. Its always scary. Hopefully the weather is nice and I can take him for an hour walk, so he'll sleep for another two.

Here are some misc pictures from the past week or so:

HELP! WE'RE TRAPPED!!

Its 10pm. Drew last slept around 2:30pm. Since then he's been gassy and upset and hungry and upset and hungry... so about 15 minutes ago my beautiful and talented wife finally was able to get him to sleep in his crib. We are now both in the office (next door to nursery) and we are afraid to breath too loud. Normally he's a pretty solid sleep, but just tonight we are a bit gun-shy.

My name is Dave, and I play video games.

I keep my hobby of video games to myself. There is a stigma associated with playing video games, even though the video game industry is bigger than the movie industry and will soon pass the music industry in the amount of dollars that changes hand. And just about everyone plays video games in some fashion or another. My Mom plays word games, my Dad plays the Cruel card game (2Billion games and counting, Go Dad Go!) , my sister is an Animal Crossing expert on the Nintendo DS. Even Erika occasionally plays a game of Bejeweled or Mah Jong. I have a good job, I own a house, I have a wife, and I play video games.

Ok, now that I've defended my hobby that really doesn't need defending, I'm going to make a very nerdy post, and you will all need to forgive me. This won't happen very often.

I typically play my games on a XBox 360 or a very nice computer.

So here is my dilemma. Its a very exciting dilemma, but a dilemma none the less. This is a bumper crop year for exciting quality games for the Xbox and PC. For those of you don't know, hundreds of video games come out every year, most of them are crap.

Here is a list of games that come out before the end of the year (in no particular order).
Madden 08
Tiger Woods 08
Bioshock
Halo3
GTA 4
Call of Duty 4
Assassins Creed
Ace Combat 6
Mass Effect
NHL 08
Mercenaries 2
The Simpsons
Halflife 2: Orange box
Hellgate: London

Now these are just games I want. I usually don't buy a game unless I know its going to be good (normally I rent), and all of these games fit the category GOOD. Now do you see my problem? Its two fold, not only do all these games cost lots and lots of money (about $60 each) I don't have the time anymore to play all these games. So now I'm looking for donations to help me out, and babysitters to watch my child. Volunteers only please.

1 Month, 1 Day

Today, things went fantastic. Its amazing the difference a day can make. He found sleep several times today, and we discovered something called BlissWater that seemed to help his tummy pains out. He was giddy with Grammie holding him after we gave him the BlissWater. I think he just felt better overall. As a result of feeling better, he's been sleeping a very long time. Erika and I may pay for this when he wakes bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 1am this morning, but a day like today was worth it. We went for a walk, we did a little tummy time. Hung out with Grammie on the porch. Doesn't get much better than that. And he's ALMOST starting to smile. WOOHOO! Oh,and I got more pampers. I hate huggies. I never thought there would be a day when I had a preference in diapers.

There will be good days, there will be bad days.

1 Month

Its getting harder as we go along. He doesn't sleep nearly as much as he used to, and when a one month doesn't sleep in our experience, he either wants to eat, or is complaining about not eating, or complaining about gas pains from eating. Once in a while we get an alert, not fussy baby that we can almost play with which is fun. So its not quite what I expected, and Erika and I aren't what I would call 'natural' parents. Don't get me wrong, Erika is doing wonderful with all the constant feedings, and I must say I'm a pretty good burper/diaper changer (except with huggies, its a disaster when I use huggies). You just don't realize, or at least I didn't, the grind day to day with a new baby is. And I'm not sure if we have an 'easy' baby or a 'difficult' one. Probably somewhere in the middle.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, because he is still our little angel, and we are very lucky to have such a healthy and vigerous little guy. We're just tired.

Buddies

Drew was fussy (aka hungry) so I was walking him around trying to take his mind off eating. I walked out on the porch and Mobes was sleeping on his side. I gently leaned drew against Mobes' tummy. Drew loved it, he fell asleep almost instantly. At first I was hovering in case Mobey decided to bolt, but he just put his head back down and continued to sleep. This went on about 5 min and then Erika got the camera.

3 Weeks

It's amazing that its only been 3 weeks since Drew came into our life.

On one hand, it feels like 3 months. Everyday we don't know what to expect from him. Some days he sleeps most of the day, waking only to feed. Other days he's fussy and fidgety, doesn't seem to want to sleep at all and the only thing that prevents him from blowing out a lung from crying is to feed (thankfully these days are pretty rare).

On the other hand, we can't believe how fast he's growing. Almost too fast. Outfits that were swimming on him when he was first brought home, actually come close to fitting him now.

Erika is doing an amazing job as a Mom. He is a challenge to keep fed, and she is staying on top of it. I don't envy her, its a relentless and thankless job. Drew is thankful, he just doesn't show it yet. Other than that drunk look in his eyes when he is done. Erika has been sleeping on the recliner since she's been home, and every night she goes to bed with Drew in her lap. If he doesn't sleep, she doesn't sleep. Hopefully we'll get her sleeping in her own bed in a week or two. Bottom line is she is doing great, and Drew is never happier than when he is in her arms.

Here he is chill'n out during his first bath given to him by Mom and Erika. My Mom has been a wonderful help to Erika and I. She's been over about twice a week to help out. She's great with Drew, and its wonderful to have another pair of hands to hold him. Drew ALWAYS falls asleep when Grammie holds him. My Mom and Erika actually went to the mall together for Erika's first time out since Drew's birth.

Pics

Dave 8 - Chipmunks 0

Chipmunks. So cute and furry. They tore up my wife's garden, and as a result 5 of them have lost their lives. I didn't start this war, but I will finish it. The chipmunks have ate dozens of bulbs, several hostas and I don't know the names of all the other plants that have been destroyed. This not only makes my wife unhappy, this means we need to spend more money to replace these plants. And I won't mention the damage done to the bird feeders, and the quantity of birdseed ate.

So I finally got to a point where we needed to take action. I ordered a couple of Havaheart traps, but Mom shared with me the 'right way' to get'em. A bucket of water, and some seed. You fill the bucket half full, put some seed in the bucket, then just wait for the curious bugger to go after the seed. They drown. Now, I don't find this funny, and I don't like killing anything, and I wish I could just talk to the chipmunks and ask them to leave I would. But I never leaned chipmunk in school. I took Latin. Semper Ubi Sub Ubi!

I'm not a complete heathen. I've relocated 3 chipmunks to the other side of the river using the havaheart trap. There are a total of 8 less chipmunks in the area around the house. Hopefully, this will make a difference.

The chipmunk explosion this years isn't just happening to us, but its across the north east. Hopefully next year Erika's garden will rebound next year and me and the chipmunks will have a truce.

Awwwww....

Happy One Week!

This time last week we were getting ready for the c-section. It feels like a lot longer than a week. Overall, things have been wonderful. We've had a rough start, but that is probably par for the course for brand new parents. Since about Tuesday, its been all smiles and giggles from all of us.

Drew is beautiful. He's such a little angel. Erika is turning into a Mom right before my eyes. The past day or so Drew has wanted to do nothing but feed. Not much I can to help in that category yet.

I also wanted to thank my Mom and Dad for all their support. They have helped with meals, transportation, baths, advice ect. They have both been a great help!

And some pictures of my little munchkin: