Shout! Shout! Shout at the Ewok!

Howdy gang,

                Man oh man has it been a crazy few weeks! Super busy, but pretty damn good overall. The 22^nd was my wife’s 28^th birthday. She worked of course, but I took off from work so Elizabeth and I could pamper her a little bit. Elizabeth got her Mama the new Garth Brooks box set which we have sadly been listening to non-stop in the car. That will go down as one of my most regrettable purchases I think. Anyways, I picked up Ewok early from daycare so that her and I could get some extra snuggle time in before Mama got home. Once she got home I let those two do their thing while I made dinner. As it turns out, cooking for someone that is gluten and dairy free is a giant pain in the ass. I’ve never had a whole lot hiding out in the Fat-dad Cookbook, so I did my trusty stand by and made tacos. My wife was just happy because she got to get a little extra snuggle time in herself AND she didn’t have to cook. My wife even got a backrub once Elizabeth finally went to bed! I know. I know. I’m pretty much the best husband and father that has ever lived.

                Elizabeth is growing like a damn weed! Seriously. I can’t stop looking through the pictures of her on my phone and it is simply amazing how fast she has grown. She now has 5 teeth, she is eating non-boob food regularly, she has become much more vocal, and is SOOOOOOO close to crawling. She is so close to crawling that it is almost painful to watch. She has all of the parts down, she just can’t seem to put them together in order to actually crawl. She lifts her whole body up in some sort of a mix between a plank and push up, but instead of moving her legs to get forward movement, she ends up scooting herself back. The fact that she can’t seem to figure out the crawling thing doesn’t really slow her down at all though. She figured out about 2 weeks ago how to efficiently navigate her surrounding by rolling to where ever she wants to go. It really is quite the sight to behold. She is some sort of toy-seeking missile too. She still loves her Sophie, but she now also loves to knock down her stacking cups and she insists on emptying her ENTIRE toy basket. She has such an intense determination when she makes eye contact with that toy basket, it seems to scream “What the hell?! I JUST emptied that freakin’ basket!”

                Like I mentioned, she has become much more vocal over that last 2 weeks. She used to jibber jabber from time to time, but now… this kid won’t shut the hell up! It is damn near constant yelling and general noise making. She seems to have 2 real favorite times to do it though. 1^st favorite is to simply keep herself awake whenever she is getting sleepy, which has turned our nighttime routine in to a rather noisy affair. Her 2^nd favorite time is at strangers in public. I am not exaggerating either. We will be strolling as a family through Target and she will pick out some rando, make eye contact with them, cock a half smile and then just start yelling nonsense at them at the top of her lungs. I will attempt to write an example of her jibber jabber phonetically so that you can get the full picture. “AAAAHHHHahahahahahAAAAAAAHHHHHbabababababaBABABABAHahhhhDDDDDDDDDDDAAAAAADADADAda!” It is annoying and cute all at the same time.

                We, as a family unit, are very glad that teething seems to be getting a little easier and it seems like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Her big, goofy ass, jack-o-lantern smile still melts me every time she flashes it at me. It was so hard to see her in pain, especially when she is normally so happy-go-lucky. Even though she has 3 teeth all coming in at the same time, she seems to be doing much better with it this time around. It is pretty easy to get her to smile and giggle as she seems to think everything is freakin’ hilarious. I had to take her to the doctor this last Monday for the 2^nd part of her flu shot. They had the whole office decked out for Christmas, so we had a lot of fun looking at the lights on the tree, but the fun really began when we noticed the shiny balls hanging from the ceiling. I would lift her up so she could swat at them and I thought she was going to die of laughter. She refused to give up either, we seriously played with them for about 10 or 15 minutes before we were called in to the exam room. The laughter quickly died once she got the shot of course, but she only cried for about 15 seconds and then she started giggling for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON! She then reached out for the nurse and gave her a little snuggle hug and went back to her normal goofball self. The nurse mentioned that that was the 1^st time in her entire career that any patient had reached out for a hug after a shot. That’s my girl I guess.

                As per usual, we ended up having 2 Thanksgiving get-togethers again this year. The whole fam damily got together at my in-laws house for lunch and Elizabeth had lots of fun playing with her 2 cousins and her Papa and her Aunts and Uncles. She is just totally enthralled with her youngest cousin. We will call her Eva. Eva is the goofy one of my two nieces. Her older sister is a little more reserved and can even be shy, but not Eva. She is always moving, always doing something goofy, always doing something kind of weird, but always is adorable. She is infamous in our family for licking a window and for her favorite game called “sock hands”. Sock hands is really just what we call her insistence on wearing her sock on her hands instead of her feet. Now that I just typed all of that, I can totally see why Elizabeth is so interested in her cousin. Hmmm. Anyways, we also went to my cousins’ house for dinner and because it was our God Son’s birthday. He turned 7 this year! That just made me feel old as all hell. He is just such a fun and generally good kid.

                I guess we had a pretty eventful couple of weeks! I am out of town tonight for work and won’t be home until 1030 at the earliest so I probably won’t actually get to see Elizabeth until Friday afternoon if I don’t get called in to work. I was kind of “over it” when it came to work hotel stays about 5 years ago, but now that I got my little snuggle buddy at home and she is growing and learning so fast, I hate to miss any second that I don’t absolutely have to. Grrr. Anyways, as usual, I thank you all for reading. Don’t forget to check out Fatterhood on Facebook, I will be posting some of the holiday family pictures that we took and you WON’T want to miss em. Check back soon for more posts or use this time to catch up on some older posts! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well! Until next time…Prost!

What kind of man does that make me?

Howdy gang,

                As I said in “Grab the Kleenex Y’all” I had been planning on doing one more post about my mother. My original plan had been to get super loaded on November 12^th and write a post. I have had a 2 year tradition of getting crazy ass drunk on the anniversary of Ma’s death, but this year a unique opportunity presented itself and I decided to take it. My best friend Thad Dickson was in town for his cousin’s wedding, but sadly his awesome girlfriend couldn’t make it so he asked me to be his plus one. Since we come from a small town it wasn’t as awkward as it might seem to most, I went to high school with the bride and her sister, her mom works at the bank that I used to use, and being close to Thad’s family we just knew each other anyways. It was quite the departure from my normal tradition of drinking alone with my Ma’s urn and wallowing in my own pity party. I ended up still drinking, but while dancing, singing, and laughing with friends. I decided that this may have to become my new tradition by the way.

                The wedding was fantastic of course, the bride looked wonderful, the ceremony and reception were very classy, I got to hang out with my best friend and his sister for a day, and I got to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in probably 10 years. The festivities were a little tainted though by the loss of the family patriarch Archie.  He passed away the Monday before the wedding at the ripe old age of 87. Being close to the family, it was like a loss in my own family. It was an amazing mix of sadness, remembrance, respect, joy, family, and love. As awful as I am sure the loss is for the family, it was truly a sight to behold from an outsider’s perspective. I hate to sound selfish, but it is totally the environment that I needed to be in at the time. The funeral is on Tuesday and I plan on being attendance, possibly with Elizabeth depending on my wife’s work schedule.

                It also made me get very introspective about the loss of my mother. She truly had such an indescribable impact on me and ultimately on Elizabeth. I am reminded of an amazing quote by the 7 year old daughter of comedian Patton Oswalt after the untimely death of her mother. She said, “When your mom dies you’re the best memory of her. Everything you do is a memory of her”. I shouldn’t really surprise me that something so meaningful, simple, touching and elegant should come out of the mouth of a child. She put in to words the very idea that I should have came across myself. Elizabeth is the continuation of my mother’s legacy. My wife is a continuation of that legacy. My job is a continuation of that legacy. Everything I have ever done or will do, is a testament to her as a mother and as a human being. That may seem a wee bit narcissistic, but I don’t mean it to sound as everything I have done or will do is amazing, but rather that all of my successes are her successes. And even with my failures, I know that her unconditional love would mean that she would still support me.

                I don’t think I had mentioned in any previous posts that on October 3^rd every year I shave my head in memory of Ma on the anniversary of her diagnosis. She had lost her hair during the chemotherapy and I shaved my own in head so that she wouldn’t feel so self-conscious. Side note: in case you were wondering what constitutes “best friend” material in my book, Thad actually shaved his head as well. On November 12^th I let it grow out again as a sort of symbol of life carrying on, so to speak.  I actually picked up Elizabeth at daycare the afternoon after I shaved my head, she had not seen me yet and I couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction. I swear to god that she looked at me and raised an eyebrow until I said “Hi Sweetpea!” and then she cracked a smile once she realized who I was. For the last month she enjoyed playing with my bald head, but now that it is time for it to grow out again she still seems to enjoy feeling my hair as it is growing back.  My kiddo is just such a happy-go-lucky little turd that I am always in awe of her. We somehow lucked out as parents and ended up with such a great kid. I am kind of worried about when the other shoe will drop and we will end up with a total shithead. She has her shithead moments of course, but seriously she is so great.

                I am a full bottle of wine in right now and I fear that I have derailed a little. I don’t want to bum anyone out at all as this is supposed to be a humorous blog, but there is a song that reminds me so much of what my wife and I went through during Ma’s illness that after 3 years I still can’t listen to it without crying. If you are interested, it is called Dismantling Summer by The Wonder Years. The line that gets me the most is “If I’m in an airport and you’re in a hospital bed, well then what kind of man does that make me? I’ve been acting like I’m strong, but the truth is I’ve been losing ground.” Like I said in my previous post, I had to work in order to pay the bills even though every fiber of my being wanted to be by her side while she was in the hospital. In order to get through my day, I had to lie to myself and say that it was fine.

 As much as those thoughts eat me up, it really hits on the biggest parent lesson that I learned from Ma. Parenting is sacrifice. I had to act strong just to get through my day so I could pay the bills. When my wife and I had to bear through marriage classes, we were tasked with bringing in an item that represented family to us. I brought in a Mickey Mouse dressed up as Santa toy that has become a x-mas decoration staple at our house. I explained to the group the history behind the item. When I was little and Dad left, money was super tight, but Ma didn’t want me to go without Christmas. Seems dumb, but she was not one for taking “handouts”, she was far too independent and bullheaded for such things, but she put her own pride aside to make sure that I had something to unwrap at Christmas, so that particular item actually came from Toys For Tots. I didn’t know that story until I was much older of course, but that one item really solidified what parenting is…sacrifice. I never have to worry about my own needs. I don’t even really have to worry about my wife’s needs. I have one focus only and that is my daughter. If that means I go without sleep, food, luxury items, then so be it. As long as she is safe, happy, and healthy then it is all worth it.

I have more to say, but I feel this may be a great stopping point. As usual, thank you so much for reading. It is a little late, but if you would please join me in having an adult beverage at your earliest convenience in her honor. I hope to have another post or two up this week, but we can all see how well my intentions have worked out so far. Prost!

Down With the Sickness

Howdy gang,

                Man, I just can’t believe how time seems to slip away from me. It has been a busy and eventful week and a half, so I guess I better just hop in to it. Eh?

                Two weekends ago, Elizabeth was pretty sick as I covered in “The Power of Ewok Compels You”. I never really gave the ending to that story though. We didn’t end up going to the wedding that weekend; we chilled at home since Ewok was still not at 100%. She had shown some serious improvement by Saturday, but we are glad we stayed home since it kind of hit round 2 Saturday evening. By about 11PM that night, my wife and I started to get worried about dehydration. She was pale, she hadn’t peed in several hours and hadn’t pooped since Friday afternoon. We made the call to take her to Urgent Care right away on Sunday morning. We were pretty much the first ones there and were seen right away this time. The staff were totally amazing! I really can’t emphasize that enough. They immediately guessed that we were first time parents and did their best to calm our fears. Almost as soon as we got in to the exam room she had a massive piss (or “pee butt” as we call them”) which kind of made us feel dumb. The nurse and the doc looked her over and said that she had some very slight signs of dehydration, but that we were doing everything right and it looked like she was over the hump. It was such a weird place to be in as a parent. We didn’t want to be “those” parents that worry about every sniffle, but we had started to get very worried by Saturday night. We left feeling a little stupid, but the staff made us feel great for doing everything we could and not totally waiting it out either. The doctor also told us we had to have at least 10 babies since Elizabeth was so cute.

                By Sunday afternoon she seemed to be feeling much better. She took a massive shit. And I do mean massive! It was so big and forceful (remember she hadn’t pooped for about a full 48 hours) that it obviously was a chore for her to push it out. I had a dad-fail when I went to change it and I ended up gagging myself and throwing up. A lot of my friends, family and coworkers gave me shit (no pun intended) but I feel like I need to explain the actual situation before you can judge. Remember, I had hardly slept for about 4 days, wasn’t eating right, and this was no ordinary poop. This was the type of poop that I would have if I had only eaten the poops of hobos that had exclusively eaten skunk asses. And there was soooooo much of it! It just kept coming! It ended up being a 3 diaper poop once everything was said and done. The good news though, was by Sunday afternoon and after her massive adult sized dump, she was feeling about 95% better. She went back to daycare on Monday and did really well. The daycare teachers had told us that she was more fussy than normal, but that it was easily solved by being held. “Easily solved by being held” is a relative term though I realize, as when there are 2 teachers for 8+ infants, they simply don’t have enough hands. I even apologized to the teachers since her need to be held was TOTALLY my bad. While she was sick we took a lot of naps in my recliner and I kind of let her get away with murder for 4.5 days. Dad-fail number 2 I guess.

                Everything seemed right as rain until last Thursday when we got a phone call from daycare saying that Elizabeth had a high fever. Due to a work commitment, my wife couldn’t call in so I had to. “Had to” is a very loose term by the way, I had an incredibly shitty day on Wednesday at work so being able to spend the day with my daughter while napping and watching The Office really wasn’t much of a punishment. By 9am when I picked her up, her fever had peaked at 103.4F! I could tell immediately that she wasn’t feeling good. She was fussy, she was pale, and she was super snuggly. We got home and had some Tylenol, ate and took a insane 2.5 hour nap. By the time she woke up her fever was already down to 99F. My wife was texting me all day for updates and she gave me the unique challenge of taking a rectal temperature. I had never taken one and I had to look up the directions. As it turned out though, saying that Ewok was uncooperative would be the biggest understatement of the century. I found a different thermometer that allowed for an armpit temp and it was down to 98F. By early afternoon, she was hungry, she was playing, she was smiling, and she was giggling. I had been pretty confident from the beginning that the fever was just from teething and by Friday morning we saw a tooth starting. Daycare still wouldn’t let us bring her in until 24 hours had passed from the fever breaking. “Luckily”, my wife was able to stay home this time and took her to daycare later that morning.

                We had a house guest for a good chunk of this last weekend as well, my best friend Thad Dickson was home from Boston for a family wedding, I will have more about that in an upcoming post, but Elizabeth loved playing with Uncle Thad! It took her a while to warm up to him, but once she did it was constant smiles and giggles. Seriously, he might be her new favorite toy. There are a few pictures up on the Fatterhood Facebook page if you are interested. Long story short, we are seriously planning a trip out to Boston sometime in the spring or summer to go see him and his wonderful girlfriend. He kept bringing up how much and how fast she has changed since he last saw her and it has had bee looking through pictures on my phone. My god is he right?! She used to be a scrunched face little peanut and now she is actually looking and acting like a little human!

                All and all I am super glad that she is feeling better. The whole experience totally dicked her sleeping schedule, but she is back to her old happy-go-lucky self. Teething still blows though. As per usual, thank you all for reading and check out Fatterhood on Facebook. Another post will be coming shortly (for real this time), but don’t be afraid to catch up on older posts as well. Prost!

The Power of Ewok Compels You!

Howdy gang,

                Man how the time flies yet again. I shan’t lie, I am almost a full pint of Bully Boy vodka down (more on why in a little while) and I am ready to do some fat-dadding!

 It has been a rather eventful week since my last post. Last Saturday we went to a Halloween party that our friends were hosting. We ended up almost having a pretty good 1^st time parenting fail when we realized that we never asked if it was ok if we brought Elizabeth with us. The thought had never even crossed our minds until someone asked who we found to babysit. The very thought that a group of twenty-thirty something-year-olds wouldn’t enjoy the presence of our darling child never occurred to us. We lucked out as everyone seemed really excited when I asked via the Facebook group if she could attend. Halloween is easily my favorite holiday; candy, horror movies, dressing up, etc. My wife on the other hand is apparently indifferent towards it, so we ended up with what I still consider a ludicrous family costume budget. To fit in her damn guidelines (seriously, $300 is “too expensive” for a Ghostbusters themed family costume? WTF?!) we opted to be Popeye, Olive Oil, and Sweet Pea for a grand total of about $20. We looked cute and we had a blast at the part. I will post a picture of the 3 of us on the Fatterhood Facebook page soon by the way. Elizabeth was well behaved, but stayed out way past her bed time so she ended up being kind of a crank for most of the weekend.

                I was deadest on taking Elizabeth trick-or-treating on Halloween. I went so far as to take off work just so I could guarantee that I would actually be home to do so. I found myself in kind of an awkward spot though. You see, you can’t really go door to door with a small child asking for candy when you look like me. Even on a good day I have a tendency to look semi-homeless, but currently with my shaved head I knew it would look like I had kidnapped Elizabeth. I was severely self-conscious about the whole thing. I put out a Facebook message looking to tagalong with any of my friends or family that have kids to bring down my creeper factor and my cousin offered to let me join in. She and her husband recently joined the parenting cabal as well and they wanted to take out their little one too. She was freakin’ adorable by the way, she was born a wee bit early so she is still very tiny, but dressed up like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch she was just too cute to handle. We made the circle around my Aunt’s house which is kind of a swanky neighborhood, the kind that hands out full sized candy bars. Elizabeth ended up falling asleep on my shoulder about 3 houses down from my Aunt’s house. Not sure if going with my cousin helped the perception at all, but it did make me feel better.

                After trick-or-treating Elizabeth and I (my wife had to work by the way) stopped by my wife’s parents’ house. Grandma was still at work, but Papa wanted to see his little granddaughter. He took it upon himself to introduce Elizabeth to her first piece of candy since it was Halloween and all kids “need” candy. I figured my wife would go ape shit, so we kind of compromised and he found some sugar free suckers to let her gum on. She loved it…of course. There is a great picture of it up on the Fatterhood Facebook page. We made our way home and my little Ewok was totally tuckered out.

                The Wednesday night after Halloween Elizabeth just wasn’t herself. She seemed tired and cranky. Daycare had said that she seemed “off” as well, but that she had been over-all pretty good all day. We were sitting around having our family time and I was packing my overnight bag since I was supposed to be out for work Thursday night when all of a sudden she had a pretty intense coughing attack and started puking. And I mean REALLY puking. This was beyond spit up. I said that she looked like she was auditioning for The Exorcist and told my wife to hide any crucifixes that were in the house. She did that a few more times yet Wednesday evening. After looking at our calendars, we decided that I should call in since my wife had a very important review due at work and since she had called in the last time Ewok was sick it was kind of my turn. I stayed up all night with her since she seemed to cough less when one of us was holding her for some reason. We kept her out of daycare of course, and the two of us just kind of chilled on my recliner most of the day. She seemed to be feeling quite a bit better by Thursday afternoon, but was still coughing and was still throwing up occasionally. We called the Doctor and he said that there really wasn’t much to worry about unless she had a fever (which she didn’t) or unless she was showing signs of dehydration. By the time my wife arrived home Thursday it seemed like we were out of the woods, but then the puke started up again.

                I had called in for Friday as well, so I pulled another all nighter and stayed up with Ewok again. To be totally fair to my wife, I am a night owl by nature and I could have tried to sleep but I am a notoriously hard sleeper and I was terrified that I wouldn’t hear her cough and that she would aspirate her vomit in the night. My wife woke up Friday morning and found that she too was super sick. I won’t go in to details as she wouldn’t be very happy if I did, but let’s just say that I found myself on Ewok duty and Mama duty for all of Friday. Which brings me to the pint of vodka. My wife still feels like shit and went to bed at around 830. Elizabeth seems to be doing MUCH better since this afternoon, she has been playing and laughing most of the day and the cough has become less intense. I moved her pack-n’-play out to the living room so that I can watch her and let my wife get some much needed rest. This has left me though with a combined total of about 8-12 hours of sleep out of the last 60 and I have burned through my Netflix queue. I made the decision to start mixing vodka with Kickstarts (no lecture needed, again, we have already established that I don’t make great health decisions) and having a movie marathon. I made my way through the Saw movies and am currently plugging through the Underworld movies. Ewok is sound asleep right next to me and oddly enough…I don’t think there is any other place I would rather be.

                We were supposed to go to a wedding in Madison on Saturday, but seeing as how I am the only “healthy” one in this house and I haven’t really slept since Wednesday I don’t think we will be making it. I will see what happens tomorrow, but my hope is that my wife will be feeling better so that I can catch up on some sleep and then write another post tomorrow. If not, then I will perhaps be in some sort of coma-like hibernation for the weekend. Either way…I thank you for reading. As always, check back soon and don’t forget to like Fatterhood on Facebook.  I really don’t know how to thank you all for sticking with me so far. 6000 views in 20 countries and still growing. I know there are more popular blogs out there, but I would never have dreamed in a million years that mine would be even mildly successful. I really do thank you! Prost!