Emo Burrito

Ok, so this post is going to need some background... And I would like to know everyone's opinion on something here. Please leave comments.

First, Hayley and I got Rock Band for our wedding. When playing rock band, you have to pick a band name. It gives some auto-generated band names, and the first one to come up was Emo Burrito. We liked it. We would say we needed to have band practice. We would talk about Emo Burrito like it was actually our band.

Flash forward to now, when we have a little baby boy. He was born in September, and we're trying to think of a costume for him. He has a little shirt that says, "Boo!" on it, and we thought maybe we'd just put him in that. We could make it a family thing, and get (or possibly make) other T-shirts that say, "Rawr!" or "Eeek!" or something. He also has a cute little Halloween sleeper that could work. Not real costumes, but hey, he's a baby. he won't really remember Halloween and just a shirt or sleeper would be easy.

But then one day, I was swaddling him up because, you know, he's so tiny! And everyone knows newborns like to be swaddled. They look like little, wrapped up burritos. Because of our Rock Band band, I often call him our little emo burrito when he's all swaddled. Then it hit me--that could be his costume! We could get a blanket with some emo band like The All American Rejects, or Coheed and Cambria or something,  and find a tiny wig to style all emo-like for him! If the blanket doesn't work out, maybe some weird, onesie from Hot Topic, and just a black blanket. And maybe even put ace bandages on his wrists with a little red stain on them. Black eye liner is out, sure, but he could be a little Emo Burrito mascot!

Is that even funny? Am I the only one that thinks so? Would anyone even get it? Would we look like horrible people if we dressed up our seven-week-old baby in an Emo outfit, complete with ace bandages alluding to him having cut himself? Should we just stick with traditional? Or maybe even his "Boo!" shirt?

Please share your thoughts. And don't hold back. Tell me I'm a moron if dressing my baby as an emo kid isn't funny.

What the snarf?

This is an actual conversation Hayley and I had, while wrapping Mikey up and getting ready to go on a walk:

Garrett: Should I wrap him up real good, or just put the blanket around him?
Hayley: Just put the blanket around him... [Garrett proceeds to wrap the baby up] don't snarf him.
G: Uh... ok.
H:... You know what I mean... what word am I thinking?
G: I have no idea what you're even talking about. [both start laughing] He's snarffed up real good, though.
H: [can barely keep her pee in, she's laughing so hard]
G: [to Mikey] You're mom's gone snarffin' mad!
H: [now trying to hold the pee in, by bracing herself on the counter and squatting a little]

Cutest video ever

Hayley already posted this, but I assume I have a couple readers that don't also read her blog, and this HAD to be shared. More baby Mikey. Enjoy.

Some baby stuff

Hayley has done a great job of posting pictures and things. And she started a blog to keep up on Mikey's project life thinger (I added a link there to the right if you're interested). While I don't have photos to add, here are a few baby things going on for me.

• Mikey's little cry is cute to me. His screamer cry is sad.
• We weren't prepared for him to not be a giant. We have billions of clothes for him, once he gains a few pounds, but for now, we're doing laundry all the time.
• I'm pretty good at changing a diaper, I think...
• I'm even better at swaddling.
• When Mikey is really upset, if you lift him strait up high a couple times, he seems to like that and calms down.
• I am having all sorts of paternal instincts. Sometimes, I dream I'm holding him, and when I wake up cradling my pillows under my face, I get a nervous jolt that I'm using him as a pillow.
• I have also had some pretty  crazy and graphic dreams where he was seriously hurt. In on of those dreams, I beat a man bloody and I think I killed him... I'm not a violent person usually, but this guy seriously hurt my baby boy and even in my dream I couldn't stop myself.
• I like to hold him when he sleeps. I should probably let him sleep in his bed--and I usually do--but it's fun to hold him.
• I like to watch Hayley hold him. It's nice just looking at the two of them.
• I like looking into his little eyes. He lifts his head up and looks around A LOT. I wonder what in the world he could be thinking. "do you dream about Jesus or quantum mechanics or angels who sing lullabies?"
• Hayley is the best. I am getting pretty good sleep. But I do try to help out when I know she just needs an hour or two to stay sane.
• We're pretty happy around here.

There ya go. Maybe the next one I'll post pictures. But for now, try Hayley's blog and Project Mikey.

Quck baby update

This is the email I sent to my manager this morning. I have been trying to figure out when I would have time to blog, but sleep and baby visits are taking precident over most other activities. While writing this email, though, I thought it would be a perfect little update to the folks that read my blog. So here goes (with a few additions and changes for the blogging community):

After trying to write a brief summary, I realized you might be too busy to read the whole thing. Brevity seems to be a thing I lack when writing about my baby boy, or when writing at 3:00 a.m. on very little sleep. In case you do want to read the whole thing, both the short version and long version of the last few days’ events are included.

The short version:

• Mom is good and recovering from c-section
• Baby is ok, in ICU, weaning off an IV and antibiotics before we can take him home
• He had a scary ambulance ride to a children’s hospital to take a dye test, which ruled out any bad problems (thank goodness!!)
• I’m quite tired, and not going to do much by way of work today or tomorrow

The long version:

Baby Michael is here, but there have been a few little scares. When he was first born, he went to the NICU because he had a little cough that indicated he was working harder than normal to get his lungs open. Almost as soon as they hooked up the monitors, he didn’t have the cough anymore, so only had to stay there about an hour. Later, however, he spit up some green, mucus-y stuff, which worried the doctors, and they wanted to do a dye test to check his GI track. The hospital we are at didn’t have anyone who could perform this test on him here (those that could had clocked out for the weekend), so he had to be transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital. I followed the ambulance there, and my poor wife stayed behind because she was still recovering from the C-section.

Luckily, the worst problems were ruled out (of course I can’t remember the names of anything… but it had to do with twisted intestines and so forth... started with a V... volvulous or something similar), and it looks like he has some reflux, and his stomach takes a long time to pass its contents on to the intestine. They transferred him back to our hospital and now have the little guy on an IV (which is now attached to a vein on his head—more scary looking than bad. The nurses were quick to tell us it was a normal place for an IV because babies tend to grab, wiggle, and pull out IVs in hands and legs), and we are trying to wean him off of it so his mom can just feed him. Also unfortunately, he is going to be on a series of antibiotics, so he’ll be here probably a day longer than mom. (UPDATE: The doc said this morning that because Hayley had a C section and the baby is in the ICU, there is no rush to get her out of here and will probably have her stay until Wednesday. We may get to take him home with us after all!)

So instead of having him come to the room every three hours to try to feed, we head down to the NICU, mom feeds him, he takes a little formula, and if he does a good job, they lower the IV dosage and we get closer to taking the little rascal home! Otherwise, his vitals are excellent and if the green puke never happened, he might still be upstairs with us rather than in the NICU, but we’re glad the reflux was caught and the larger intestinal problems were ruled out.

Just wanted to give you a heads up on things. I’m just getting back from his 2:00 a.m. feeding and thought I’d better drop a line. I’ll probably not do much work-related activity today. We’ll keep working on getting this kid off the IV and back upstairs in mom’s room.

Thanks for your understanding! And I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense entirely… Those first few days only allowed for about 4 hours of total sleep…

And finally, while it is probably cheesy to send pictures of my baby to my manager, he’s so stinkin’ adorable it’s hard not to share at least the one where he’s sticking his tongue out! He’s about 30 minutes old in that picture. :)

You know you're an English major when...

This web commic cracks you up:

I guess it also helps that I really liked crashing cars in Grand Theft Auto 3 in college. My roommate had an Xbox.
(poll for comment posters: should I add a new "you know you're an English major when..." category to my blog? Sorta like I've got my quick tips? These would be much less frequent than the quick tips, but could be fun. I'll leave it up to you, my reader-folk, to decide.)