My son, the night owl!

We are never really certain what nights we will be able to catch our ZZZzzzz’s lately. Our newborn son, Mauldin, loves to keep his new mommy and daddy on their toes. Although, only being a week old I am more than sure he doesn’t understand what “sleep” time is; considering he sleeps 90% of the day. How can he actually determine when he should be sleeping and when it is optional? So, I guess I can cut the lil’ guy some slack. Talk to me again about this in six months.

“I think Megan will be voted off tonight,” I said while sitting on the couch next to Laura. “She is really cute, but I just can’t get past the tattoos!”

It is Wednesday night, and nothing we really watch is on TV, so we watch whatever is available. This season we have caught maybe two episodes of the Fox reality talent show, American Idol. I pretty much loathe the show, but we still catch the occasional episode to stay up on the pop culture phenom that has spread across the nation.

Carol, my mother-in-law, is sitting, comfortably, rocking Mauldin, in the wooden rocking chair that was my grandmothers while my wife, Laura, and I sit, side by side, on our laptops, lounging between the pillows, on the couch behind her. We sometimes enjoy our laptop time right before bedtime, in the bed, or just sitting around in the kitchen, but most of the time it is on the couch in front of the television. I had just finished my late-night cup of decaf coffee and bowl of cheeszits. This used to be a normal night for Laura and I, minus the mother-in-law, but we have not had time lately; mainly because Mauldin really likes to monopolize our time! How dare he, I know.

“There,” said Laura. “I just got finished uploading pictures to facebook for the first time since we got home from the hospital.”

Ever since we have gotten home, a week ago, we have taken probably 150 pictures… so if you really think about it is about 21 pictures a day… give or take. I am not counting the ones we’ve deleted! I mean can you blame us? Obviously, we are a little fanatical about our first born.

We usually head up to bed around 10PM. I hop off the couch and make my way over to Laura’s mom to scoop up the little man. This sometimes comes with some form of protest because Mauldin is such an addiction that anyone who holds him becomes entranced in his aura. It is like his baby pheromones, he gives off, trap anyone who has embraced him.

“Alrighty, Mauldin, it’s time to go upstairs,” I say with a fervent voice… I always plan for a whining and “awwwhhh” to follow after I spout the words from my lips. He looks so comfortable and cozy. The little man is in his little onesie that dawns a baby blue elephant, on the front, with the words, “lil’ peanut” embroidered under it. Mauldin squeaks a little as I slide my right hand under his warm head and my left under his itty bitty booty.

“All-right little man, it’s time for your late-night din-din!” I exclaim.

I always try to wake him up before he eats… otherwise he will just lie in Laura’s arms, his face against her bosom, totally zonked out. Now please understand… our child sleeps probably 18-20 hours out of the 24 hour day our Earth is known for! I asked our pediatrician how long this will go on for and she winced at the very utterance of my query.

“Usually babies continue on this type of sleep pattern for about..” she said while pursing her lips and pausing to look through his manila office folder. “About three-four months,” she finished.

“Please wake him up…” says Laura. “It is so hard to feed a sleeping babe.”

“I’ll do my best!” I replied.

One certain way that I know can wake up our child is to take him and place him on the changing table… Our child, for some reason, hates to have his diaper changed. I have a theory, as to why he does not enjoy the changing of the diaper. My hypothesis is that he is brought back to a time when he was strapped down and a cold clamp chopped off a bit of his… well, you know what I mean. That certainly would make me rethink some things! So, lately he has been a little more docile when we have gone to clean up the mess that was left on the underside of his buttocks. Maybe he has placed the memory of the circumcision waaay back in the black hole of his baby psyche.

“Mauldin, comon’ lil man, lets wake up so we catch have some of mommy’s yummy lactation!” I said.

“Eric… that would not make me wanna wake up…” said Laura while positioning herself on the bed with a brown boppy by her side.

“Well, what else should I do?” I reply with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know! Be creative!” replied Laura.

Thankfully, he awoke from his slumber, still a little groggy, but a form of consciousness! This time is the perfect window to introduce the “milk” to him. However, after about 10 minutes of feeding Mauldin tends to start slipping into his milk coma. Although, this night was not one of those nights. The more Mauldin eats, from his “breast” friend, he more he is roused to an awakened state.

“No, this is a little bad…” I said… “Why is he so awake? It is almost 11:30 PM! He needs to start winding down again… for his bed time!”

“I don’t know…” said Laura. “Maybe he slept too much today! Maybe he has to poop, maybe he has gas… maybe he…”

“He what? He wants to stare at the fan more?” I said in a confused and perplexed voice.

That is just what the little guy did… he laid in my arms and kicked and squirmed and would not stay still… then I heard the beautiful sound that I had been waiting for… *burrrp!* He burped! He usually does this about 3-5 times before he winds down for sleepy time and the sandman isn’t far behind. But, this night the sandman must of taken a vacation. Mauldin laid on the bed wide-eyed and awake. It is now 12AM and my wife is lying by my side asleep. I know this little guy is not going to give in anytime soon and I have to get up at 6:30 AM to get ready for work! I did the thing I really didn’t want to do… I gave in… I got up from the warm bed and made my way into the guest room where my mother-in-law was sleeping soundly. Or, for all I know, was lying awake just waiting for a little knock-knock on the door. Mauldin’s crying was so sporadic it was hard to tell if he was upset or just irritated that we were trying to make him go to bed.

Maybe he is just a night owl and wondering when he will be able to stay up and watch that colorful screen that his parents watch on a daily basis. What if he is just testing us to see how much power he has… “Maybe I can change the entire time-clock in this house! Mwhahahahaha!” –thinks Mauldin.

All-in-all I felt really bad giving up my son, to someone else, to Carol, my mother-in-law, to soothe to sleep… I am his father! Why can’t I do it? I am thankful to have had my mother and my mother-in-law the past two weeks, but, I, honestly, almost cried about it because after Friday Laura and I are on our own. What if this happens every night? I was hoping I would be a better father… A father who could soothe the savage beast inside my son. How could it be that our son would be put in the statistics book of the amount of children who grasp hold of their parent’s night and choke them to death until they are reduced to a walking Inferi, a zombie-like corpse that is dead to the world yet still sits behind a desk during the day…

It would be that as soon as I ditched my pride, for my sleep, he quieted down almost immediately. Well, I guess this parenting thing is about compromise and right now my sleep is being highly compromised. Well, let’s hope and pray by… counting in my head the months… June… he will be a little more adapt to our sleep schedule. I anticipate we will successful and can blend our son into the normal society sleep program. If not… I may need therapy, or a long nap!

"Lets go to the Mall!"

Today my wife, Laura, is going to meet her mom, my mother-in-law, Carol, and they are going "Mall Walking!"

She thinks this might make the labor progress a little more, because she tends to get stronger contractions while she is on her feet.



So, we'll see if walking by Victoria Secret & The Disney Store will cause Mauldin to try and make an appearance...

Jumpin' in a pile of leaves...

Who knew that jumping in a pile of leaves would prove to be so fun?

Who knew boys and girls were so different? LOL Okay, I knew it, but today I got some proof! LOL!

This weekend was spent at my in-laws, because this year we will be attending Thanksgiving with my family, the tried and true sacred day of turkey, cornucopias, food drives and tripdafan.

Being married causes you to have to share certain holidays in between families, by which is sometimes an easy feat and others a little more argurous, although my wife, Laura, and I have always been lucky that we have never fought over this issue.

On Sunday morning I decided that we should have some fun with the kids, my nephew and niece, Drew and Annagrace. I mentioned the night before about raking the leaves in the yard and letting the kids jump in them. I mean you can't go through life without atleast jumpin' into a pile of leaves at least once, right? I sincerely hope... no I pray my child isn't a pansy. I want my boy to not be afraid to play and get dirty... to roll on the ground and stand up and laugh... I hope my little boy ends up peeing in his pants because he is having so much fun playing outside! Okay, maybe not the last thing... I do want him to be potty trained, but you get my point.

The first kid to play in the leaves probably never knew it would catch on so... seriously it is a fun thing to do... I mean as long as you get all the sticks, pinecones and other ailing things that could lurk in the pile! I will say it is a little unnerving to hurl yourself into a pile of wet leaves, that can't be sanitary.

But, isn't it worth it to experience the euphoria of leaping into a soft patch of dry foliage on a day when the sun is shining and the leaves are nice and dry...

Truly this is a day for a kodak moment.

Laura, my father-in-law, Bill and brother-in-law, Paul all were sitting at the dinner table the night before when I mentioned the idea... they had no idea I was serious.

Well, we all took part in the fun...

It is the little things in life that you remember for a lifetime...

The Child Who Must Not Be Named...

This past weekend my wife, Laura, and I went on a trip to the Highlands of North Carolina with some of her family. We left on Friday, September 12th, just when the gas crisis began because of Ike. My opinion of gas prices being hiked just because of a hurricane is stupid! But, that is a whole blog in itself. I digress… We were gone only for a short vacation, Friday to Sunday. But, my story is not of the entire vacation, but of one incident that truly sticks out in my mind as both the cutest and saddest moment that I have experienced in a long time. Although, please note: to respect the confidentiality of a certain little boy, who must not be named, I am changing his name so to protect I promise I made not to speak of this incident to anyone.

It was Saturday, and everyone was getting ready to go to dinner.

“Can I use your bathroom to get ready?” asked Laura to her sister Amy.

“Sure!” replied Amy while taking pictures of her son Peter. Peter is a cute, blonde haired boy about to turn four years old. His idea of a fun day consisted of rough housing, riding around on his daddy’s shoulders and, of course, all things Spider-man.

“This is my transformer.” said Peter, while showing me a black race car with purple markings on it.

“Can you turn this into Venom for me?”

“I am not sure,” I said raising my eyebrows to Amy, “but I will certainly try!”

I proceeded to work on the progression of the transformer from car to action villain, but to no avail, I had no idea what I was doing. Any kind of toy that Peter had it had some sort of affiliation to Spider-man.

“He is very loyal to the genre” explained Amy.

“Here this might help,” said Laura while handing me a piece of paper with red writing all over it. She apparently had finished getting ready and was now trying to help with this insufferable toy.

At the top of the piece of paper read “How to transform Venom.”

“Oh great, thanks.” I said in a very sarcastic tone.

Anyone who knows me knows I hate directions. I guess it’s just a guy thing. After about 5-10 minutes of trying to transform this toy I said “I’m sorry Peter, but uncle Eric can’t figure it out!”

“It’s okay.” said Peter “Can aunt Lala do it?”

“I’m sure she can” I replied. “Aunt Lala can do anything!”

“Here, let me try.” said Laura.

I proceeded to take my turn in the bathroom to get ready for dinner.

While I was in the bathroom I could hear outside the door what was going on in the next room.

Peter was giving Aunt Lala and detailed description of what his toy did and showed her the different ways it could stand up and fight other action figures he had.

“And, if it stands up like this” he started “he can battle Spider-man and Sandman” he seemed to explain all this in a manner that said “Oh-my-God-You-Are-Kidding-You-Didn’t-Know-That?”

Laura would just say “that’s cool Peter, wow!!!”

After about 15 minutes in the bathroom I was dressed and ready.

“Wanna go upstairs so we can go?” I said looking at Laura, Peter and Amy. “I’m ready!”

We all trampled up the stairs which looked like it had been trampled on quite a bit throughout the years. The Berber carpet was light beige, but had a couple of stains here and there from all the people who had rented the cabin before our stay there.

“You all ready to go?” called a voice from the top of the stairs. It was Laura’s mom, Carol, who didn’t know we were already on our way up.

So, we all headed, out the big wooden door, to the restaurant. Laura, Amy, Peter and I were all in one car and Laura’s Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother-in-law rode in another. The drive to the restaurant was long and winding and the views were absolutely breathtaking. But, the only thing on Peter’s mind that evening was his toys.

We finally arrived at the restaurant after what seemed hours, but honestly was about 30 minutes, but driving around a curving mountain makes it seem like a lot longer than it actually is.

We all got out of the car and I ran around the other side to help Amy extract Peter from his car seat. “

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” asked Amy.

“No mommy, I do not need to go to the bathroom.” he said in a very matter-of-fact tone.

Peter is a very well spoken, almost four-year-old, in my opinion. He likes to enunciate his words, although he does get carried away at times and you find yourself with a screwed up look and thinking “what did he say?” Sometimes Amy can’t even decipher his words, but she does what any loving mother would do… she just smiles and says “Yeah! Uh hu!”

I proceeded to pick Peter up in my arms as we walked into the restaurant. One by one we walked through the door and waited to be seated.

The restaurant had a historic feel to it. It felt like we were sitting on a huge open-aired porch. All the tables were round and sitting spoartically on the floor. There was a huge antler-inspired light fixture, which didn’t seem to be working because it failed to give off any light at all. It was a rather mild night when it came to weather. The wind was not cool, but still not hot, it was just like Goldie Locks would of liked it, just right!

“How many in your party?” I heard a woman ask. “Seven adults and two children. We will need a high chair and a booster seat please” said Laura’s sister Jennifer.

Jennifer and Paul, Laura’s sister and brother-in-law, brought their daughter, our niece, Annagrace, along on the trip. Annagrace is a beautiful fair skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed, slightly temperamental child. She brought along her baby doll, Sammy, to the restaurant and at the table Peter decided he wanted to play with is.

“Nnnnnnnnnnnno!” said Annagrace in all her two-year old glory!

She apparently had no want or need to share her baby doll with Peter, nor did she want to trade for his transformer.

After about ten minutes we all ordered our food and the children proceeded to color and play with their toys. This kept them occupied and happy.

After dinner, everyone sat around stuffed and full. So, it was time for birthday gifts for this dinner was not just a regular dinner, but a birthday dinner for Laura’s mom, Carol. Laura’s family likes to wait at the end of dinner to open gifts, which is opposite of my family, from which we all open our gifts before the feast!

Carol opened her cards and gifts from us all and we headed out of the restaurant. Peter and Annagrace had already been uprooted from the table by both Paul and Bill in order to keep the peace in the open aired eatery.

Laura, Carol and I proceeded out the side entrance to the car. We saw Peter and Annagrace gleefully romping in the gravel parking lot.

“Oh this makes me nervous” said Paul. “All they have to do it trip and you get both crying and a skinned knee.”

“Yes, I can just see it now,” I said. “Which one you think it will happen to first?”

Everyone started to round up the kids so we could head back to the cabin, but there was an issue with Peter. He had a look on his face that read “I’m not happy.” He was frowning, on the verge of tears. Carol, Laura’s mom and Peter’s Nana couldn’t even get him calmed down, although she did figure out the source of the problem.

“Amy,” Carol said “he’s wet his pants.”

I headed over hoping there was something I could do to calm him down. In all the rush to get out of the cabin Peter’s extra clothes had been left and so there was nothing to change him into.

I bent down to his level and said “Peter, are you okay?”

He wouldn’t look at me, but his frown was certainly evident and was so deep that I could feel so bad he was feeling. I took it upon myself to pick him up and decided I was gonna take care of this situation. I felt so bad for him, I knew being a little boy one of the worst and embarrassing things that could happen is to wet you pants.

“In all the excitement he just couldn’t hold it” said Carol. “Are you sure you wanna pick him up?

“He has plenty of clothes back at the cabin” said Laura.

“Yah, I don’t mind, honestly.” I said.

I looked at Amy and said in a low voice “we need to get him out of these wet clothes; he has got to be uncomfortable!!!”

Amy shook her head, yes, in approval.

I went ahead and told Peter what I was about to do and tried to talk to him to get his mind off the situation.

I opened the car door to try and shield him from the public so not to embarrass him anymore than he already was. I had him stand inside the car on the floorboard in front of the seat while I took his wet pants off.

“You know Peter, when we get back to the cabin, we are gonna build a huge fort, okay?! Does that sound fun?” I asked him.

“Yes!” said Peter.

“Mauldin, can you pop the trunk?” I asked.

“”Okay.” Laura said. She and I occasionally share a brain. She proceeded over to the trunk of the car and got out one of the beach towels that we had brought along on the trip just incase we were to go swimming!

“Thanks, sweetheart, you read my mind.” I said.

“You’re doin’ good, Daddio,” said Carol.

“It’s pretty much common sense,” I started! “I was in his situation when I was little.”

We sat Peter in his car seat and covered him up with the blue and orange, Stitch beach towel.

Laura decided she would drive on the way back to the cabin. Peter’s demeanor had completely changed from what is was earlier. So, I turned around in the passenger seat and put my hand on his and said, “Buddy, seriously, it’s okay. It happens to the best of us! We all have accidents. Yours was just today.”

“I know, but I didn’t mean to” said Peter.

“Peter, guess what?” I said. “Uncle Eric has had an accident before too!”

This apparently was exactly what he needed to hear… not to mention his mom was sitting next to him consoling him and making sure he had his T-rex and Transformer toys to get his mind off what had just happened.

“Peter,” I started “don’t worry; this will never be brought up again. We will never tell anyone you did this!”

“The situation that we do not speak of” wispered Laura in a very Harry Potter-esq tone. (see Voldemort.)

“Okay.” said Peter totally convinced.

So, I have upheld my end of the bargin, although, I did tell the story, I did not implicate exactly who it was about.

Besides, One day he will totally look back and laugh!

It's Nursery Time!

The past few weekends it has felt like Laura and I had been doing nothing, but searching for the perfect crib for our newborn, well, unborn child. It feels like we have been to every baby furniture store in the Atlanta area! We had been to Babies-R-Us, and Target, USA Baby and Georgia Baby & Kids, etc… Why the city-wide search you ask? Well, we have a piece of reddish-cherry antique furniture that we are trying to match and the only place that matched it, perfectly, was Georgia Baby & Kids! Although, the name of the color we got was “papirika!” Go figure…

Carol & Bill, Laura’s mom and dad, wanted to come out to see the furniture we picked out before making the final decision. So, last Saturday we finally worked out all our schedules so that we could meet at GBK’s. (Please note that I will be using these initials due to the fact that retyping GA Baby & Kids seems like a daunting task). We had picked out the crib, but at the last minute changed our mind to a different one, same color, different style. (Oh, I know how this sounds so exciting and I will probably elaborate and tell this very story at different social events throughout the season, so stay tuned!) Then, unbeknownst to us, we were asked by the sales clerk…

“What about a mattress?”

“What about a mattress?” I said. “Do we need a mattress you mean?”

“Yes!” the clerk said in a surprised voice, which is a pretty stupid question if you ask me, but I guess I could assume that he thought we might already have one… blah blah blah, but we told him this was our first time buying baby furniture! Oh well…

“Yes” Laura and I replied, in unison. “I think we need a mattress.”

He strolled over to the area where about five different mattress, all wrapped up in their zipped-up glory, laying propped up on various beds and cribs.

“Now this one…” he began… “is great!”

I quickly interjected, and jokingly asked “Do they have a temperpedic baby mattress?”

“Well,” he said, “they do have something that has memory foam, sorta like a temperpedic!”

Laura looked at me with eyes of “I cannot believe you just asked him that!”

I can usually read both Laura’s tone and look… and this time it was the look of “please don’t say something crazy…”
Because I am known to ask crazy questions… but I will get to that at a later time.

“This mattress is water resistant and can…” I pretty much lost him at this point and had already chosen this mattress in my head… so the rest of what he said was all said in a Charlie Brown teacher voice…”Whaaa whaa whaaa whaa whaa wha…”

You get the idea.

So, we picked out a crib, changing table and a mattress… is there more to it? Yes, but, for some reason I wasn’t aware of it!
Laura went on to ask for all the gadgets and rails that you need on down-the-road for when the crib converts into a big person bed. Yes, this crib converts… I never can picture the bed turning into a real bed until I see pictures of it. My imagination just won’t work that way, I guess. But, as soon as I saw the picture I thought…

“Oh, okay, that is what it will look like, great!” also in the back of my mind thinking… “I dread that day because 1. the instructions will be no where to be found as well as all the nuts, bolts, etc… and me, put stuff together…” I laugh, laugh, I do!
Do you hear me laughing? Picture the count from Seasame Street! “Ah Ah ah!”

Anyway, we go to the front, the papers are signed and we have purchased Baby Furniture! Wha la!

Now, having it delivered is a different story… they are suppose to come in and assemble it. Yes, we will see…
Let’s hope it isn’t like “Rooms-to-go” assembles things…

“Here you go!” said the fat, sweaty delivery man.

“Thank you, but wait! Where are you going?”

“That’s it”

“But, the table is in the box! Aren’t you going to put it together?”

“We don’t do that, Sir.”

Until next time!