He's Like A Cat!!

   I once stated that I talked to Wyatt like he's a dog, saying a lot of things like "Good boy!" and "Come 'ere boy!" and "Get your nose out of your own poo, have some respect!" That hasn't changed at all, and probably never will (the kid loves the smell of poo, and not just his own), but I've realized that he's more like a cat.
   Not only does he have lightning quick reflexes (it only takes him like three tries to grab a block, two less tries than the average nine-month-old), but he's his own master. Like a cat, he goes where he wants, when he wants, and keeps his own schedule. The only way I can really get him to come to me is if I make the equivalent sound of an electric can opener:

   He loves that dishwasher. He'd play in it all day if I'd let him, but I don't because I am a really good dad! Also, I usually only have one chin, but the camera adds two chins.
   For what it's worth, the above video was my first try. I thought I could do better, though (that one is a little long), so I shot again the next day. Boy was I wrong:

   Why didn't I put on a shirt!? I had seen the video from yesterday, so why didn't I raise the camera a little higher to hide at least one of those chins, or to make my eyelids not look like I'm high?! Why did I still have knives in the dishwasher? At least the house was clean(ish), and it's fun that Wyatt actually crawled from a long ways off (I'm pretty sure he was playing around the toilet at this time). Still, I need to get better at this whole don't-post-videos-online-that-make-you-look-pathetic thing.


   But to answer your question: yes. Wyatt and I both spent pretty much the whole morning in our underwear.


My mood: so embarassed!!
Wyatt's mood: so curious!!
Listening to: Pink Martini

Separation Anxiety!!

   Well, everyone said it was coming, and it looks like everyone was right. Wyatt is starting to get pretty attached to his mother. (Just so we are extremely clear: I am not his mother.) She is the desired target when he is sad, or tired, or bored, or awake. How does this make me feel? Neglected? Sad? Dejected?

   No. It feels awesome.


   It's like I am off the hook for everything. Putting him to bed, calming him down, and playing with him: mom has to do it all!! It's wonderful!! What's even more wonderful is there's not really anything I can do about it. I want to help, I really do! But the baby wants mommy, and right now the baby tends to get what it wants. So I can still show remorse and try to be helpful, but really the best thing I can do is eat some ice cream.
   I do wish that Wyatt would show me the same affection, but I can wait until he's a little older and wants to play basketball or cards or something. Sometimes, maybe, it makes me a bit sad that - while in my arm -  he'll cry when mommy leaves for work. Sure, it's a bit of a reminder that he needs his mom more than he needs me. It's as if he remembers that I wasn't able to provide for him solely on my own when he was a newborn. Will I ever be able to? This does not feel awesome.



   <insert smooth transition>



   Watch this video! It's a bit old, but it's lots of fun.

   And here's a mandatory eating-spaghetti-from-a-highchair picture that is required to be a loving parent:

I'm trying to knock out every mandatory-baby picture. Here's what's on the list:
- Newborn in hospital (check)
- Newborn sleeping (check)
- Standing up in crib (check)
- Bubble bath
- Spaghetti on face (check)
- First birthday cake on face
- Halloween costume (missed a golden opportunity here, last Halloween we thought about dressing him up as a crayon (a crayon!!), but didn't get the idea until it was too late. What a waste.)
- Christmas present opening/eating
- Funny pajamas (zebra suit or frog suit or something)
- Kissing a sibling/cousin/friend of the opposite sex on the mouth (this one's more optional than mandatory)
- Prom
- Ballerina (check)


I'm sure I've missed some, but that's a pretty good list. Feel free to let me know of anything I should add. I think that Bubble bath and Funny pajamas are in the near future, whereas I have absolutely no idea when we might get a chance to take his First birthday picture.


My mood: relieved
Wyatt's mood: hoping Durant can play well tomorrow night
Listening to: definitely not Katy Perry

Father's Day

This is the new definition of "stuck:" Having one good arm while a baby sleeps with one leg caught in your sling. For the record, I grabbed that camera from the floor with my feet.

   I've always been aware of the injustice that is Father's Day. The double standard that comes from mom getting pampered and treated like royalty while dad might get a sandwich. It's not so much Father's Day as it is Not Mother's Day.

   So yes, I think it's fair to say that I have been a tad underwhelmed on my first true Father's Day. (There was a baby growing in my wife a year ago today, but I graciously let her off the hook after I didn't do a darn thing for her pre-mom mother's day.) Let's really break down the disparity:

   For Mother's Day I did everything I could. I bought my mom (who is truly one fantastic mother -- among the best of them!) a package at her favorite spa, wrote her a nice card and arranged our after-church lunch so she'd be sure to enjoy it. I did all of this all by myself.

   What has my wife done for me today? She let me get up with the baby at 5:00 am before she took him at 5:40, took all the hot water while giving Wyatt a bath (selfish), treated me to a Costco dog after a trip shopping, and made me watch the baby while she mows the lawn. Thanks Cara, more babysitting!! I doubt I'll even get a dinner out of this. She did tell me, on the way home from church, that she "thought about getting [me] an iphone," which gives whole new meaning to the phrase "it's the thought that counts."

Pretty little wife mowing the lawn, and working hard.

   To sum up: I did all kinds of wonderful things for my mother on mother's day and my wife did all kinds of practical, helpful things for me on father's day, much like she does every other day. So, really, there was nothing special about this day. Great.

   What's the deal? All over the country, mother's day rates higher than father's. I can't pinpoint exactly why Mother's Day is a bigger deal than Not Mother's Day. It's probably because M's day comes first, and graduations and summer break steal a bit of F day's thunder. I know in our household, we have like twelve holidays and birthdays to celebrate in May and June. It can pile up. Maybe one day I can start a 10K to promote Father's Day or something, because it is under the radar.

My mood: underappreciated
Wyatt's mood: recognizing that I'm underappreciated
Listening to: Carly Simon

(side note: I feel like my sarcasm isn't as transparent as I'd like it to be this time, so I'll be very precise: I am very thankful for my hard-working wife who puts up with me, and I had a wonderfully relaxing first father's day.)

For Your Viewing Pleasure

   Yeah, go ahead and judge our DVD collection. We don't care.




   My mood: self-conscious but laughing
   Wyatt's mood: OCD
   Wife's mood: happy to help
   Watching: Vertical Limit on DVD

A Day With The Grandparents!!

   Were super fortunate in our household. Wyatt is surrounded by people that love him and want to play with him. While I've been hindered by the temporary loss of an arm, my mom and dad have been watching Wyatt more than usual. A few days ago he and I spent the whole day at their house!!


   Wyatt loves playing with his grandparents. With Grandpa, he tends to be much more grabby. Noses, glasses, eyeballs and shirts. Grandpa likes to make different sounds and poke different parts of Wy's belly.

 

     With grandma, the interactions are still playful, but of a much more cuddly variety. She's the one that changes diapers and clothes and feeds him and puts him to bed.

Wyatt's obviously never happy with his grandparents

   They watch a lot of Sesame Street, play with Beanie Babies and other toys, and take lots of naps. While I was over, I managed to get the cutest video since that baby panda sneezed:

   I like spending the day at my parents. They clean up Wyatt's sneezes, change his diapers, feed him, play with him, and offer me food - all while I sit on the couch. It's pretty great. I'll talk about Cara's parents someday, maybe when they stop talking about Travis. I get it. He makes more money, you liked him better. He probably has the use of both of his arms as well!! However, I doubt he has a killer blog like I do, that gets over twenty page views per post. Think about that.

My mood: I hate hearing my voice on camera!!
Wyatt's mood: wanting to climb on everything!!
Listening to: Mumford and Sons

Workin' Around The House!!

   Wyatt's totally a hands-on, kinesthetic learner who just wants to do, you know what I mean? No sitting behind a desk for him, no sir!! So when he  sees daddy doing some of his man chores around the house, he wants in.


   Dad does the dishes? Wyatt helps unload. He loves crawling on the dishwasher door, almost as much as his dad loves italics!! And he'll stand up bracing himself on the bottom rack. When it rolls back and forth, he gets a little ab workout!! (Get it? Little ab workout? Cause his abs are little, quite unlike his father.)

That's a spatula, not a knife. Chill out already.

   While the dishwasher runs, dad is busy organizing his dvds and video games by theme and awesomeness. Wy says "I got this" and throws them all the ground!! (He thought I ranked The Fugitive too low, and boy was he right." He then tastes all the dvds and sorts accordingly.

   Time to put the dishes away? Wy says "No problem, favorite parent! Let me crawl into this cupboard and clear out some space!!" So he crawls into the little corner and takes out some glass lids that don't match anything in the house. What a guy!!

   And, it allowed us to take THE CREEPIEST BABY PICTURE EVER:

    It's straight from a zombie poster.


My mood: ferocious
Wy's mood: fantastic
Watching: Sid the Science Kid

Bad News Everyone...

     They aren't making The Land Before Time movies anymore!! They stopped at number 13 ("The Wisdom Of Friends"). I figured, at the rate they were going, by the time I had a kid old enough to watch them, there'd be like 34 movies or something. We could watch a new one every week for like a whole year!

What a wise, caring and noble mother. I hope to be the same.

     Sure, by The Land Before Time 20; Ice Age 4: The Re-Freezing, our intrepid gang of heroes would encounter humans who have some civilization, by the 23rd movie they'd sail on Noah's Ark, by the 28th movie they'd probably go into space or something, but it could be a wonderful, educational trek through Earth's history for Wyatt! Who knows what kind of adventures Little Foot, Ducky (who now says "Yes we can!" instead of "Yup yup yup!"), Petrie, mean triceratops girl (Sarah! How am I remembering these?) and the fat one would have had, learning about each other and themselves while avoiding sharp-tooths of a new breed (racism).
     I mean, they just released Now That's What I Call Music 81 (who has to make all those different covers?), and they plan to make six (six!!) Kung Fu Panda movies, which is an absolute dream come true, so why'd they have to bail on TLBT? They must hate children.
     At least we can always hope for new, brain-damaging episodes of Spongebob Squarepants. And Sesame Street continues to bring it.

My mood: Half disappointed, half outraged, half hungry
Wyatt's Mood: Sleeping and dreaming about new things to put in his mouth, I am sure.
Listening to: Now That's What I Call Music 3 (the best one, duh)

Two Socks, Four Holes

There are three interesting things about this picture:

1)   Those socks didn't have holes in the heels when I put them on three days ago. I could feel the holes wearing through as I continued to walk my sick baby in circles around the house. We probably did over 100 laps these last two nights, over the course of four or five hours. I should measure how far that is. I probably wore a track in the carpet too. Wyatt would only really sleep if he was held and walked. He's had a fever and sore throat, and now it seems to be a runny/stuffed nose. (Side note: our podiatrist's office said they wouldn't see him unless his fever was 105 degrees. 105!!!)

2)   Did I say I put on those socks three days ago? Did I mention that whole outfit is three days old? When you have shoulder surgery, changing your shirt falls pretty far down the priority list because it's terrifying. There is such potential for pain! Showering and changing upper body garments plummets in frequency, from 4-times per week to, like twice per week if you're committed. But, on the plus side, I've gotten very good at doing baby things one handed, and Wy has learned to sit on the sling's pad and hold on to the strap a little while I try to hold him. He's so smart!! Way smarter than the average baby his age.

3)   But it gets worse. I wore that exact outfit to work two days ago. Yes. Black athletic shorts, orange short-sleeved collared button-up shirt and garish sling. I hadn't yet put on the now-worthless socks, however, instead I was wearing chacos. That outfit is an assault on business casual. It's business-casual-athletic-dayatthebeach homeless-hippie-disabled. Really I was wearing it as a form of protest. I know not what I was protesting. I just spent the day hoping to avoid any superiors, and hiding behind my desk while teaching. Really, though, it wasn't that much more "casual" than some of my colleagues at the community college.

     So, if you're keeping track at home, you should have an underemployed housedad in a three-day-old outfit with holey socks, no shower and one arm who is unable to do most basic chores . Making me what all the single ladies would call "a catch," if my wife weren't so lucky to already have me.

My mood: groggy
Wyatt's mood: stuffy
Listening to: The Backyardigans

(in case you are wondering, there are also two holes at the tops of the socks, where my feet go in)

Follow Me!!!

     In a desperate bid for non-infant interaction, I have joined the social-elite on twitter!! If you feel like you need more - more pictures, more sarcasm, more baby (and who doesn't?) - then you should follow me!

@desprthousedad

     You can expect a lot of pointed observations about life, commentary on sports and NBC comedies, and updates on my day. What fun! Here's a quick sample of the killer wit you could be experiencing:

     While you're at it, you might as well follow this blog as well!! That way you won't miss any of the fun as Wyatt grows up into a normal, well adjusted human being!! Just click the button on the right. Maybe I can get to five!!



















     I need to get famous from all this somehow!!!

     My mood: a bit stir crazy
     Wyatt's mood: loopy
     Listening to: James Taylor, New Moon Shine