More from the balloon rally

Oh, brother

I guess the honeymoon is over.

Will has started to give us a few less-than-subtle clues that he's now feeling the effects of brotherhood.

At Pizza Hut recently, Will told me that he wished the baby was a girl.

"A girl? I thought you wanted a brother. You told me a boy was 'just what you wanted,'" I said.

"I've changed my mind. Let's get rid of this one and get a girl."

Not going to happen, pal.

Will, Papa and a hot air balloon

Pretty cool shot by Jana from a hot air balloon rally in Waupaca ...

Baby Shrek

Despite Charlie's recent lack of bowel movements, he has been a prolific passer of gas. I don't mean to take pride in such a trait, but I like to think that this tendency is keeping colic at bay.

My friend Sharon and I had lunch at the golf course recently and he really showed her what he's got. We're talking man-size noises. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's going to call him Baby Shrek.

Scott and I, of course, have been incredibly amused by Charlie's abilities. In fact, we debated video-taping him but didn't want to be responsible for a viral "farting baby" video on YouTube. Still, I promise you, it would have been hilarious.

The other day, I was at the new mom support group and Charlie let out a belch that caused even the veteran moms to raise eyebrows. But I wasn't embarassed. Nope. As Shrek says: "Better out than in."

The poop files

The baby has not pooped in five days.

Seriously. Five days.

No worries, of course I called the doctor. It seems this is normal. Babies who are breast-fed exclusively average one BM every seven days. He could go as long as 12 days. Wow. Apparently, Will never got that memo.

So, I'm not worried anymore about the lack of pooping, the thing we really need to worry about is the fact that I seem to tell every single adult that I know for the past two days. A few examples:

Stranger on the street: "Oh, what a beautiful baby!"
Me: "Yes. He hasn't pooped in four days."

Good friend from work #1: "How's the baby?"
Me: "Great. He hasn't pooped in four days."

Scott: "How's Charlie today?"
Me: "Still nothing."

Today, day 5, I actually started expanding the details. I can't believe I'm talking about it even as the words leave my mouth:

Good friend from work #2: "What a good baby!"
Me: "Yes, he hasn't pooped in five days. The nurse said I could take his temperature rectally if I want to get things moving. But I'm not going to do that. He doesn't seem uncomfortable so it doesn't seem necessary."
Thought in my head: Stop talking, no one wants to talk about rectal temperature taking.

So, I've resolved to not discuss this further. I'll just pack a few extra wipes, diapers and outfits in the diaper bag and prepare myself for the inevitable.

Battle scars

I locked myself out of the house today.

Just me, not the baby. He was sleeping peacefully on the couch when I went to water the tomatoes. I left through the garage door to turn on the hose. The patio door, usually open to allow for fresh air, wasn't open because it's hot and I didn't want the hot air to get inside and force me to turn on the AC.

So there we were ... the baby inside, me locked out. No obvious way in.

All ended well, I'll just say that before I mention that I'd just changed out of my "leaving the house" outfit into Scott's boxers and a wife-beater tank top -- my "can't even answer the door in this outfit" outfit. I was just going to water the tomatoes! No one was going to see me!

Well, actually, there are any number of people who might have seen me as a circled the house twice, tried every door repeatedly, checked for the spare key where it should have been 16 times, and looked in the window at least 40 times to ensure the baby was not awake and wailing. I finally ran across the street in Scott's underwear, sweating like a maniac and praying that the baby didn't wake up.

My neighbor, also the mother of a newborn, didn't answer her door so I ran back across the street determined to break into my own house. Which I did. It was scary easy (thank god, but, yes, we'll be addressing that) and all was well except for a few scrapes and bruises on my legs.

Ten minutes later, my heartbeat had nearly returned to a normal pace, I'd already e-mailed Scott to inform him that the spare is not where it should be, and the baby? Still sleeping peacefully.

Whew!

Day at the Farm, Part 2

And like any 4-year-old boy, Will also liked the sparklers and s'mores.

Day at the Farm, Part 1

A couple weekends ago we went to a party thrown by some friends some work, an annual affair dubbed Day on the Farm. Will loved the tire swing, goat, pigs, horses, roosters, llama, etc.

Polar bears on Mars?

Saturday night, Will and I made a fire and made s'mores. Mmmmm, s'mores.

As the sun went down and the stars came out, we started talking about the stars. Will empathized with one outlier, which he dubbed "Lonely Star."

We then started talking about the other planets in the solar system, and how there wasn't life on them, including Mars. I told Will that Mars was much colder than anywhere on Earth, so nothing lived there.

"Except polar bears," Will said.

That's right, except polar bears dominate Mars.

Ready for business

Bottle? Check. BlackBerry? Check. Poopy diaper? Check.

Charlie's a young corporate climber ready for business.