March Madness

Howdy gang,

                Holy shit…little lady is almost 11 months old already! I seriously have NO idea where the hell this time has gone. I remember when I set out on this endeavor; I honestly was shooting for at least one post a week, then it turned in to every 2 weeks and now I am thrilled if I can squeeze it in once a month. Little lady has been keeping us extremely busy. We are on our third ear infection in less than 3 months, which means that ear tubes are most likely in our future. These damn ear infections are yet another genetic gift that I bestowed upon my little Ewok. For the most part though, it doesn’t really seem to be bothering her too much. Actually, it seems that for this last leg of the infection, she has been even goofier and more happy-go-lucky than usual even. Daycare said that for the last 2 weeks that she has been a giant ham and super playful. The diaper rash caused by the diarrhea which is caused by the antibiotic though, can go away any damn time now…

                It has been a busy month since my last post. I won’t bore you with how work is still trying to kill me, but it has been trying very hard it seems. I’ve managed to stow my bad attitude that I had acquired regarding the division of labor in our home. I’m not sure how much progress I’ve actually made, but my wife seems much happier lately and to tell you the truth…so do I. We’ve gotten much better about just letting some shit go. The dishes will still be there tomorrow, as will the laundry, ditto for the vacuuming, etc. We’ve just been trying to focus on the stuff that has to be done on a nightly basis, pecking away when and where we can on the other stuff, and really just trying to get in as much family time as possible. That has been easier said than done of course the last few weeks with all of the visitors that my little lady has had.

                2 weeks ago, some friends of ours drove up to spend the weekend with us and mostly to see Ewok. For the purposes of this story, we will call them Bill and Polly. Bill and Polly are the type of friends that we really only get to see once or twice a year, but we always pick up right where we left off the time before. When they arrived at our house, it was just Ewok and I. Little lady had actually just woken up from a nap and was highly confused at the 2 new people that seemed very excited to see her. It took quite a bit longer than normal for her to warm up to them, which I found strange as she is normally very good with meeting new people. Once my wife came home though and Uncle Bill and Aunt Polly gave Ewok a present (what a greedy little turd), her normal personality came out again. She loved the DC Superhero Little People that they got her and went ape for them for pretty much the entire weekend. We couldn’t leave the house without Batman and Batgirl and I was fine with it as it kept her very entertained. We ended up taking a baby to the local winery/distillery and to a local brewery/beer hall. Got some mixed reactions, but we did find that if you show up with a baby, you tend to get A) quick service and B) A reasonable amount of free samples. 10/10, would bring baby again. We did a lot of be lazy around the house, talking, catching up and playing with Elizabeth. Elizabeth really liked her visitors, but ended up being a little cranky by the time they left due to the changes in her routine. Ended up being round 2 of her ear infection. Yay!

                This last weekend, we had another old friend come and visit with his 6 year old daughter. We’ll call him Ken and his daughter Lucy. Elizabeth didn’t really seem to care for Ken. Not even a little bit actually. Ken is one of the kindest people you will ever meet in your entire life. He may be the best father that has ever lived (more on that in a minute), but he is also a former semi-pro weightlifter/strongman. So it goes without saying that he is a big dude that looks like he could kill The Hulk. Elizabeth just didn’t know what to do with him. She spent the majority of the weekend just mean mugging him even though he was trying his hardest to get her to warm up. The silver lining though is that Elizabeth LOVED Lucy. It was ridiculous. We couldn’t keep Ewok away from her. Lucy has seven (if my memory serves me) step and half siblings so she has grown used to having babies crawling on her. She was sooooo good with Elizabeth. Lucy even got Elizabeth to give her a hug and several kisses! This is the first time that she’s done that! For the record, Elizabeth’s version of ‘kiss’ means that she opens her mouth wide, places it somewhere on your face (sometimes directly over the other person’s mouth), drools, and then pulls off and smiles. It was easily the cutest thing I had ever seen.

                Like I said, Ken is honestly the gold standard for dads. I’ve spoken quite highly of my father-in-law (and he deserves every word of it), but Ken might be even better. Ken and Lucy’s mom are not together any more, but he has 50/50 custody and you will be hard pressed to find a more attentive and loving parent. Period. He has raised such a great kid. Lucy is smart, funny, nerdy, well behaved, and is great with kids and adults. As an example, 2 years ago my wife and I went up and visited Lucy and Ken and we went to the Mall of America. We took a 4 year old in to the Disney Store and the Lego store without having to buy anything and without a temper tantrum! She let us talk while she played. She was and is a delight to be around. If Elizabeth ends up half as awesome as Lucy, then I will call myself a successful parent. Ken even does hair! That is something that I know I will have to learn sooner rather than later, but this dickhead makes the rest of us dads look bad because he took the time to learn how to do a French braid! When The Force Awakens came out, he saw Rey’s hair and learned how to do the triple pony tail braid that she wears because he knew Lucy would love it. It was seriously great to catch up with him and do a little learning from him as well.

                Tomorrow night I will be out of town for work, but I am planning on picking up Ewok early so that I can get a little Daddy/Daughter time in before I have to leave. I especially want to squeeze in some extra time since we will be busy this weekend yet again. We are heading up with Doc, Ginger and a few other couples to go see a Minnesota Wild game. We will be spending Saturday night evening after the game in the cities so that we can hopefully get Elizabeth in bed at a halfway decent time. I’m looking forward to it, but it will still be a long and “interesting” weekend. I just hope that we don’t throw the little lady off too much from her routine. I will have to update you all afterwards so we can see how it goes I guess.

                This last Sunday would have been my Ma’s birthday. Since her passing, I have usually “celebrated” by getting wildly drunk by myself, much in the same way that I remember her on the date of her death. Usually my wife and I like to do something the day off, like go out to dinner or see a movie and THEN I get drunk. It was nice having the visitors this last weekend as a type of pleasant distraction. My sister-in-law and her husband still came over after Ken and Lucy left so that my wife and I could go do something in the afternoon. We opted out of the normal dinner and/or movie and we just did some light shopping and got out of the house. It was actually really strange to be baby-free like that. I didn’t have my 25 pound potato sack hanging on my arm like I normally do which left me with two free hands to pester my wife just like the good old days. It was indescribably weird though. It’s not like I don’t go places alone, but I realized that my wife and I rarely go anywhere together any more without Elizabeth. My wife held my hand as we walked through the local mall and I almost had forgotten what it had felt like. Maybe we need to try to do a little more baby-free time?

                I have more…but it is getting late and my drink is gone. So I will try to get another post up later this week yet. In the meantime, I thank you for reading as always. Keep up with some of the daily fun with Fatterhood on Facebook. Until next time…PROST!