Call him TINY

And don't worry, he has his whole head and everything. I just snipped it because teh internets can be creepy at times. Anyway, 2 chins, manboobs, a roll on his chest, bigolefat arms and legs. Yep, he's fat! Obviously this is a good thing. He's very healthy. Very very healthy. Except that about 1/2 of what he takes in comes back out through his mouth. The only person who hasn't gotten spitup on is BigBrother, who has some type of anti-spitup magic.

A Quick Note about the baby

Or Tiny, as I call him. He's just over 3 months old now. And he's stretching out of his 6-9 month clothes. Seriously. He's just that fat. DearWife will argue with me on that "babies can't be fat" - but she's wrong. If you put him on his back, he looks eerily similar to a komodo dragon.

It's a good thing too. We moved him into the nursery, and he's been very cool with it. On Wednesday, DearWife went to BodyPump. I (somewhat miraculously) got the big boys to bed early. Tiny screamed through the book reading portion of our routine, and wasn't too happy when I tried to sing to his brothers.

But then I turned on baseball. And he calmed down. And went to sleep. And stayed asleep...for 10 more hours! Amazing little kid. I attribute it all to his eating.

The little guy

Short update on the baby. I realized (after WoodChuck's comment) that I haven't really mentioned him for a while.

He's doing great. He doesn't look like Winston Churchill any longer, and he's smiling a lot. DearWife is co-sleeping with him, and it's going to be very tough to break him of this habit. He's taken to snacking all night, and that doesn't sit well with DearWife.

In other news:
LittleBrother still can't sleep. Two latest episodes:

11PM, walks into our room:
LittleBrother: Mommy! Daddy! I heard a sound. I'm scared.
US: What did it sound like?
LittleBrother (very serious): MMMMMEEEEEEOOOOOWWWW!
US: Kid, that's the cat, Izzy. Remember Izzy?
LittleBrother (walks back to room)

The other episode I find interesting because it is one conversation over many hours, and inbetween various levels of sleep.

11PM: LittleBrother

wakes up

LittleBrother (in the hall, screaming): It's all because of Mommy!
Me: What is?
LittleBrother: She wanted to take my books away.
Me: They're still here.

1AM:
LittleBrother: Daddy...Daddy!
Me (after waking up): What is it buddy?
LittleBrother: I can't get back to sleep, can you tickle my back?
Me: Ok

3AM
LittleBrother: Daddy...Daddy!
Me (after waking up): What is it budy?
LittleBrother: YOU FORGOT TO TURN ON MY STARS (his night lite).
Me: Ok, here you go.

The new kid on the block

Around 1:30, I asked DearWife why she was waiting for the epidural. Finally she was convinced that it was time. We caught the anesthesiologist just before he went into a C section. Had we not gotten him, it would have been at least an hour before she could have had one.

At 2:40, the Doctor walks in, says something about 3 or 4 and walks out. Next thing we know, the whole cavalcade of nurses walk in. DearWife said, "no no, I'm just 3 or 4." They said "no, you're 3rd or 4rth position." I don't know what that means in general, but for us specifically it meant T minus 10 minutes till baby.

DearWife was so not ready. She kept repeating that throughout the time she was pushing. She did a great job. The boys got to see their new brother that night, and they love him. BigBrother wanted to hold him immediately, and LittleBrother did too. LB didn't so much hold him as he let the baby lay on his lap.

So far, the baby has been great...during the day. He was pretty worn out all yesterday after being poked and prodded, so he slept most of the day. At about 10PM he woke up. I convinced DearWife to let the nurses take him to the nursery for a while - it was the only time we'd have that chance. So we ended up getting a couple hours sleep.

We brought him home today. DearWife and I took a nap. During the nap, my parents handed off to MIL. Let me tell you, I have no idea what we would have done without them.

I now have the rest of the week off to get to know the little guy. Now I just have to give him a nickname. Baby? I have to give it some thought.

D-Day (Delivery Day)

5AM: DearWife called in, and we're a go to report for induction. She's gotten only about 2 and a half hours sleep. I have maybe 3 or 4. They did say she could eat breakfast, so that's nice.

My parents are staying with the kids. I think everything will be fine, because the kids entire routine is printed out in detail on our refigerator. Let's just say I didn't put there there.

The hospital has wireless, which is probably going to get me into trouble. More later.

7AM: All checked in. Forms filled out. Medical history re-conveyed. Now waiting for a doc to come in and ok the petossin (sp?).

I should have also noted that we have officially decided on names. Except that DearWife brought the baby name book...just in case.

7:30AM Shift change. Mary Ann is our new nurse. She's great. I asked her what the over\under is for baby arrival. She said it was likely that the birth date would be today. But she wouldn't be shocked if it was tomorrow either.

The clock is stopped at exactly midnight. Not 12:01, not even 12:01:01, midnight. Odd.

9:00AM Just now got the orders to start the petocin. DW is having contractions, but irregularly. She's resting (uncomfortably). I'm conquering the NFL playing NFL Head Coach.

9:30AM Doc just committed to us that we're having a birthday party today!

12:45PM Contractions more regular. Nurse re-arranged the room, clearing things out of the way...just in case.

Boy Name may be in limbo. Going through more options as we speak.

1:00PM Epidural...

Boy names to 3, until further notice.

2:30PM DW: "My feet feel like fat tingly sausages of un-goodness."

2:40PM Doctor checking in...baby is right there!

2:52PM DW laughed and giggled her way through the last part of labor.

8pds, 12oz boy!

Baby Update

We had a final ultra-sound on Friday, just to make sure there was enough fluid in there for the kid. Everything is fine - and we're scheduled for an induction Monday morning.

We do have some solid names. I think we are down to 2 or 3 boys names, and 1 girls name.

------------------------------------------


On Wednesday night, I was at work late. I got him about an hour after the kids had been put to bed. I said hullo to DearWife, and went upstairs to change. As I got to the top of the stairs, the door to the boys room burst open. First LittleBrother (Crash?) ran out, then BigBrother. Each of them were only wearing underwear. LOTS of underwear. They put on all the underwear they own. LittleBrother was wearing 13 pairs, BigBrother 14.

When asked the next day what they were doing, BigBrother explained:

BB: "It's penis armor."
DW: "Why did you need penis armor"
BB: "To protect from the penis scratchy monster."

The Clock, she be a 'tickin

Today is a good day. Sunny for the whole commute into work for the first time in months. Listened to music instead of Sports Talk Radio. Favre retired yesterday, Steve Stone is in the White Sox radio booth all year.

AND WE'RE HAVING A BABY SOON!

With all that's happened (being laid off, switching careers) on top of regular day to day stuff, I've kind of cheated myself out of being really excited. But for whatever reason, today I am really looking forward to meeting the new baby.

Also, for the record, I think it's gonna be a girl. I'm going on record.

As MonkeyDragon pointed out, I may need to pick out new nicknames for the boys if the baby is a boy as well. LittleBrother wouldn't make sense, so I would probably have to start naming him Crash. You'd think I would have thought about the chance that we'd have more kids when i nicknamed them. I did, it's just that I knew we were done.

But this time we are done. Officially. For now...

Two boys enter, No boys leave

With DearWife's due date fast approaching (5 weeks and counting), several things are starting to change. The frequency with which we look at each other and ask "What were we thinking" is going up exponentially. We are getting a lot more phone calls from friends and family looking to generously give us infant clothes (or as I call it, get rid of stuff from their basement and let Khyle throw it in his basement).

DearWife and I also realized on Friday that we haven't really given much thought of where the baby was going to sleep. This might be a small detail, but we figured it was important enough to warrant our attention. Both boys slept in the same room when they were babies. It's the room closest to the master bedroom, and it's all colorful with John Lennon animals painted on the wall (I voted for mini-Bears helmets for the record). However, LittleBrother still occupied that room.

We have an open bedroom, but we use it for my parents when they stay over. And believe me, when that baby comes, I want to make sure they're as comfortable as possible. So we decided to suck it up and put both boys in the same room.

And you know what? It was pretty painless. They were pretty excited at first, but they fell asleep. It was almost magical. The next night? Same thing, no problems. Today, they took a nap together with only a single warning. It's almost as if they're growing up or have been replaced with dopplegangers.

Of course - no joke - as I write this post, LittleBrother ran out of the room 30 minutes after he was put to bed. Maybe they still are our kids after all.

Sigh of relief

You remember when LittleBrother was making all of those comments about babies? Well, today he told us why. HE has a baby in his tummy. Whew!