by steelie -

First post-newborn father-toddler story…

Well, it was bound to happen eventually… here is a funny little anecdote about the first morning after Little “X” (our new addition to the famiy) came home. This story, however, is about myself and our two-year-old, Little “L”… who is have some slight lifestyle adjustment issues…

Little “X” and Mommy finally came home from the hospital last Friday which turned Little “L’s” little world on its head…

SIDE NOTE: I’ve just started to confuse myself with Little “L” and Little “X” already. So, from now on, I’ll refer to our new guy as Baby “X” and our older boy as Little “L”.

Little “L” decided to wake up at 5:15 AM Saturday morning — not at all his normal scheduled waking time. Okay, so I’m in charge of Little “L” right now because Mommy/Wife “T” had that C-section which means she can’t really pick him up for five more weeks (which really breaks Mommy’s heart)… which also means that I have to get up with him if he gets up early. So at 5:15 AM, Saturday morning, we are up and ready for milk and cereal, and playtime… or at least Little “L” was…

After Little “L” finished his cereal he wanted to play… with all the noisy toys, of course. Trying to clam/quiet him down didn’t work and only frustrated the poor little guy. I’m sure it didn’t help that I was pretty much asleep on my feet while trying to interact with him. So, I had to resort to what every “good” parent and self-righteous-would-be-parent (you’d be surprised how many would-bes there are) “tisk-tisk” and frown upon… the television. Little “L” is already quite the TV-junkie… zones out completely.

So the TV (parent-of the-year-award killer) acted as a welcomed distraction for a rambunctious Little “L” and a very tired Daddy… actually, I fell asleep on the floor next to him. Don’t worry I have a method of knowing where he is… I take my finger and twist it into his shirt or pantleg, so to move he has to yank my finger free which wakes me up… except for this day…

Well, it did wake me up but I didn’t actually get up (character flaw) and just drifted somewhere between the land of the dreaming and the land where I wish I were dreaming… I could hear Little “L” go out into the kitchen and start digging through one of the drawers. I pseudo-incoherently asked him to stop playing in the drawer and to come out of the kitchen… I dozed off again… Little “L” proceeded to listen to the requests of his apparently-not-so-great-role-model-of-a father and came out of the kitchen like a good little boy… with a surprise…

Little “L” came over to sleeping-me and dumped an entire Ziplock bag of his old metal baby utensils on me to wake me up. This worked briefly but I was honestly so exhausted that I just dozed off again. So, Little “L” decided that he did not like me pretending I was a Sleeping Beauty Beast and started jabbing me with the only fork that was in the Ziplock bag… Naturally, I wake up, a bit stunned from this rude but appropriately-timed awakening. I ask Little “L”, “What are you doing?” And he just looked at me with wide eyes and a smile and said, “Fork!”, and went right back to jabbing me until I got up off the floor to play with him.

So, I was up for the day quite early that Saturday… and now I am no longer actively avoiding caffeine. Infact, later that same day I went to the grocery store to buy some really strong coffee and filters.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

It’s a boy!

As of this morning, at 8:14 AM AST, our family grew by one perfect little person to the perfect number four… Little baby “X” came into this world weighing in at 7 lbs 4.3 oz, at a length of 19.5 in.

He’s so tiny.

He’s perfect.

Little “X”  is almost a cookie cutter replica of what Little “L” looked like just over two years ago. He has Mommy’s nose… Little “L” has mine. Other than that they look so similar, it’s uncanny.

I love him so much.

The C-section went so well… less than 30 minutes from the time of the first incision to the time they wheeled us into the recovery room. And my wife, “T”, is doing great. Last time she went through 24 hours of labour then when through an emegency C-section which left her absolutely exhausted and in tears. Today, she was tired (we had to get up at 5:15 AM to get ready for the operation) but in great spirits… She’s awesome.

It hasn’t sunken in completely for Little “L”… I think it will start to when Little “X” comes home and invades his entire world… and doesn’t leave.

We were already so lucky to have had Little “L”… and now we have Little “X”… There is nothing that I could actually post that could cover what I’m feeling right now.
—
steelie, “T”, Little “L”, and now Little “X”

Oh, and I got attacked by my Pupkin-spice Soy-latte yesterday… I didn’t see it coming… more on that later…
;O)

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by steelie -

Google Aquires YouTube for $1.65 Billion in stocks…

Wow, Google is becoming harder and harder to avoid…

Google just aquired YouTube for $1.65 Billion in stocks. There goes one of my time killers. Some of you might already know that I’ve been boycotting the big “G” since I found out about the whole Google-China censorship ordeal. Eventually this whole boycott will become pointless because according to MacRumours.com, apparently APPLE is in talks with Google about streaming video for their upcoming iTV…

Crap…

I have an Apple computer. I need my computer to make a living. I need to make a living to provide for my family. Needless to say, I’m not prepared to not make a living for my family. At some point I’m going to be using Google services — directly or indirectly — whether I want to or not. I’m sure I’m using their services indirectly right now, just uncertain as to where or how.

Crap…
—
steelie

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by steelie -

I turned thirty years old today (AKA Birthday Rant)…

<rant>
As the title says… today, I turned thirty years old… and I’m actually very excited about it.

I’ve been very lucky in my life — luckier than many, I continue to discover… I come from a great family that has never been well-off but has always been supportive of everything I do and dream. I have a decent job that has afforded my family a house and car — the house is old and needs work and the car is used but I have a home and a means to get from there to most places I need to. I am in overall excellent health, and today, I have been granted the privilege of making it to my thirtieth birthday, still breathing with blood pumping strong.

I wanted to emphasize the word “privilege” because I feel that this is exactly what being alive is… a privilege.

I have heard/observed a number of people in the last little while complaining about life and how it sucks and how getting old sucks and how “thirty” is a good time to “check-out” because thirty is old and remember getting old sucks and blah fuckin’ blah blah…

Yeah… I’m a bit irritated by this type of talk… I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and I rarely force my opinion, thoughts or beliefs on anyone semicolon however comma “it’s my party and I’ll rant if I want to”.

There are so many people that die everyday, way before what seems like should be “their time”. Whether it be from terminal illness, war, unfortunate accidents or any number of other things their privileged life was taken from them. Again, I say privileged because at any given point someone who decides that they are having an especially shitty day/life could choose to end yours. The almighty Cancer could pay you a visit and make your last days miserable for you and your family. Someone could drop their coffee in their lap and react by jerking the steering wheel and redirecting their vehicle into a head-on with yours. I could go on but I’m starting to depress myself…

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live more than one hundred years… Over ten years ago I was having severe chest pains and doctors found a spot on my lung… I thought I would never make it to twenty, let alone thirty. Forget three-digits. Turns out it was nothing. I’m fine. And you know what? Until I got the news that I was fine, not once did I think, “Oh, thank God… I was afraid I was going to have to endure ‘thirty’. Man that would have sucked!” And I’m willing to bet that if you got hit by a car on the eve of your thirtieth birthday and the doctors told you that there was nothing they could do for you, you’d smirk and breathe that sigh of relief, “Whew! Thanks Docs. That was cutting it close, wasn’t it.”

I realize that there are people in the world who are so much worse-off than I am that I’m not going to pretend to be able to fathom an inkling of what their personal hell lives must be like. I am quite sure that many victims of war, grave sickness, abuse, poverty, etc… might whole-heartedly disagree with me but this is partially my point… The life you have right now is a privilege and any one of a number of people/illnesses/things can take it from you in a heartbeat.

SOOO… the next time you get all angsty about your life and getting old, take a good long hard look at the cards you’ve been dealt… and if you really want to complain about turning thirty or getting old, go to the palliative care wing of your local childrens’ hospital and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to trade spaces with you to have the chance to live to see their tenth birthday. Or even go to your local senior citizens' home and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to add a few more years to see the birth of their first great-grandchild.

Fuckin’ live, dammit!
Keep breathing and live.
</rant>
—
steelie

PS: Thanks to Julé, Jared and Jen for the warm birthday wishes. Thirty is awesome.

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by steelie -

All-nighter number four update…

[UPDATE]

Well, I decided I should wait until the day after to update this post so that I might get as much work done overnight as possible…

So, at roughly 4:30 PM yesterday, I went home to take care of my husband & dad duties. I made my way back to work after I put ’lil “L” to bed and got here at approximately 10:00 PM.

At almost 11:00 PM one of my co-workers called to let me know how much he had gotten done on my project while I was at home. He offered to come and help me with the rest.

Over seven hours, three cafeinated beverages and one burrito later, we were both so tired that we had to call it quits at 5:15 AM this morning.

I went home, showered, shaved, ate breakfast, got ’lil “L” ready for daycare and put out the trash.

And so the day began again continues… everything has to be done today so now I’m stressin’ some but also relieved that I’ll be done my part v’soon.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

QotD: Baby Love

How cute were you as a baby/child? Let's see those baby pics!


Well, I’m not entirely sure how cute I was, but many-a-times have I heard the story about my Aunt Anne who saw my first pictures and called my mom to tell her I looked like a little baby monkey. And then to follow up on that loving remark — and I know it was — she did some digging and sent a picture of a baby monkey clipped out of the Enquirer (of all places) to my mother to prove it.

Ah, family…
—
steelie

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