Yesterday, Bridget started giving the lad Mylicon. It's like baby Gas-X. He's been much more content since then.

My initial concern was, "Should we be loading the kid up withg medications so early in his career as a human being?" Apparently, the answer to that is a resounding "Yes!" In this case, the active ingredient, simethicone, has no side effects and no interactions with other medicines or foods or anything. Apparently, it's a detergent that makes one big bubbles out of many smaller ones. Bizarre; we're feeding Caden detergent.

Whatever. As long as it helps him to be less grouchy when his dad comes home from work. I already feel the hours, days, years all slipping by. Life does not afford enough time to satisfactorily enjoy being in the presence of a child.

Wait a minute. Was that me that said that?

Last night I had a dream that Caden talked for the first time. And he didn't just say a single word, he spoke a complete sentence - something like, "I am bugging you!" and pointing at me on the emphasis. I was so proud. But, when I awoke, he was still just a wiggly piece of flesh that alternated between screaming, eating, and ejecting substances with varying degrees of blech. Oh well.

He was crying quite a lot this morning, turns out it was because he was hungry, but I didn't know that. I was trying to settle him down, and failing, of course, as I am not the one with the food. I found myself starting to get a little mad, so I handed him over to Bridget.

Bridget's lucky. Sure, she has to be with him constantly, but she's getting the parenting practice that I am not. I fear that it won't be long before I'm just another one of those bumbling dads who doesn't know what he's doing, and refers to his alone time with his child as "babysitting."

Bridget's mom got this album of pop musicians doing kids' songs. I'm going to spoil it by saying that the first track is the very best of all: Cake covering "Mahna Mahna" (from the Muppet Show). It made me laugh out loud. I listened to just that song about 12 times on the way to work, and once after I got here.

Caden is getting slightly better at getting his own finger in his mouth, and slightly better at allowing me to help him do it. I find the documentation on pacifiers to be contradictory. One sentence says that you shouldn't use a pacifier to get the kid to go to sleep, because then he'll become dependent on that. In the very next sentence, the book says that if you really must allow the kid to suck on something while going to sleep, he should be suckling the breast. I'm not sure how that won't become habit-forming.

Here's something that happened a few days ago that I forgot to relate earlier. Let me give you some background.

We live in a very young neighborhood. There are three couples across the street from us who all had kids a year or two ago. We see them all outside with all the kids, being friendly with one another, laughing, playing -- all that. Before we had Caden, we'd try to wave to them, or make very small talk as we were pulling in the driveway or whatever, but it never worked. It was like they were all actively ignoring us.

We started calling them "The Baby Club." I was always very envious and pissed that we weren't in The Baby Club. When Bridget got pregnant, I was very excited that we would now have our chance, but Bridget reminded me that once our baby was born, it wouldn't be The Baby Club anymore. It would be The Toddler Club, and we could very easily be excluded from that, too.

Finally the day came where it was nice and warm outside, and Bridget suggested we go for a walk. That sounded fine, and oh! Hurry! The Baby Club is out! If we hurry, maybe we can be in The Baby Club. So we packed up quick and got out the door. The stroller was in the garage, so we went out that way, opening the garage door like a curtain rising on a Broadway show. This was going to be a decisive moment.

We pulled the stroller out onto the driveway, and all The Baby Club people looked over our way. A couple of them gave disappointed, half-hearted waves. One guy, Jeff (who I've talked to on a few occasions and is very nice), came bounding across the street with congratulations. The rest and all their kids followed soon after, even my friend Tim and his kids showed up (also from across the street, but I've known Tim forever. Another story entirely.) and before long there was a giant crowd all oohing and ahhing over Caden.

We have been welcomed, apparently, into the baby club. I don't yet know if there are secret handshakes or funny hats.

I think the lack of sleep is starting to catch up to both of us. Caden seems unfazed by it, as he is able to sleep or not sleep whenever he pleases.

I'm just a little hazy this morning, and I have a headache. I actually took some Advil this morning when I got to work. I usually just tough these kinds of things out, but I think I need all the help I can get.

Here's a non-baby related story. Yesterday, between work and class, I stopped at McDonald's. I'm in the drive thru, and the lady behind me bumps my car. Not real hard, and I'm thinking we'll just stop after we get out of the line and say forget about it. So I park and wait, and the lady ... drives away! I go after her, as she's going pretty much the same way as I was going to go. When I finally catch up to her, she first claims that she didn't hit me at all, then that she was only behind me in the drive thru, then that she didn't have to stop because she didn't cause any damage. Fact is, there is a little scratch in my bumper now. (Not one that I care about, but if I didn't have to go to class I would have made a huge deal about it at this point.) So I yell at her for a while and then head off to class. A very anti-climactic ending, I know, but there you have it.

Bridget was kind of grouchy this morning, too. She's been going running around in the world for the last couple of days, which I'm sure has tired her out. I can't blame her; the weather has been phenomenal. But I told her to make sure to get a nap today. I hope she does.

I tried to nap in the car after I got to class yesterday, but I couldn't seem to pull it off. My seat doesn't recline in such a fashion that would make it a comfy bed. I'll have to clear out the back seat so I can stretch out there.

This morning I woke up at 4. Caden was just waking up cranky and hungry, and Bridget fed him. I changed him and decided to just stay up. It's 9 now and I'm starting to think that was not such a good idea. I have class tonight and won't be home until 10:30 PM. I'll have to try and sneak a nap in somewhere.

He's getting closer all the time to being able to suck his thumb and/or fingers. We would enjoy this immensely, as he has a giant oral fixation. Sometimes a pacifier is all that will calm hiim down, but he'll drop it out of his mouth after just a couple of minutes and start wailing. His quiet relaxing time would normally be the time that mom and dad would get other things done, like showering and going to the bathroom, but his inability to retrieve and replace his fallen pacifier means that we must attend to him whether he's crying or not.

Last night, just when we were all laying down to sleep, he started with his nightly nose noises. Babies tend to have some nasal congestion, generally worse at night. Then, suddenly, he starts making that loud, short inhale noise that an adult would make if they could, say, barely inhale at all. I picked him up and turned him over and gave him a couple of whacks on the back, and it was like nothing was ever wrong. But for a couple of minutes we were both in a state of complete panic.

I know you're thinking that we were overreacting, because all new parents are always worried about whether their newborn is still breathing. This was different; he was making the universal "I can't breathe" noise. I think I'm just going to try and forget about that whole incident before I start worrying again.

So then I got up to change the diaper, and he started crying from being the teensiest bit hungry one hour before feeding time. I brought him back to the bedroom, and Bridget sang him to sleep. It was lovely.

Also, I got choked up on the way in this morning listening to Harry Connick Jr. singing "I Got a Golden Ticket." Don't tell anyone.

It's been a long couple of weeks, all of it starting on March 26th with the arrival of Caden, my son.

Here are the things I've learned so far:

It is impossible for a man, in the delivery room, at the moment he sees the head, not to say, "I can see the head!" It's on the same level as "my seat is saved" or "I saw her first" or "I got next." It's like putting your quarters up on the header sign of the video game to claim the next play. The father is laying claim to his offspring by "calling head." I call head; that's mine.

Babies have excruciatingly stinky farts for the first few days of life. These farts are not only industrial strength in odor; they are also at least as loud as any adult fart. It's truly mind-boggling.

I've surprised everyone, including myself, with my skill at fatherhood. I've never been real big on babies or children, never wanted to hold babies or interact with children on any occasion. But I insisted to Bridget (the Mom) that it would all be different when it was my own kid. Thank god I was right.

Picking up, holding, chatting with, changing, dressing - all of it has come very naturally. I'm the diaper changing king. I'm able to change a diaper in record time while only 25% awake at 3 AM. I even took pleasure in talking to a friend's six year old once. I'm not sure that other people's kids will always be interesting to me, but they've got their own parents usually.

So I'm back at work today, and it took me until about 2 PM to get caught up. I've still got some balls in the air, but I suppose I'm going to have to think of something to do besides reading OddTodd and memepool. I think that may come easier, though, because I have a new outlook on everything.

All those things that used to matter so damned much just don't anymore. The things that I would get myself all worked up about, like all the office politics and not having a decent salary and hoping my crappy old car doesn't fall all apart one day - whatever. I feel like whatever comes along, I'm ready to deal with it at the appropriate time and without getting all wiggy about it. Whatever happens, when I get home I'll be able to hang out with my family. My family.

So far, Caden has been easily consolable. Yes, he cries sometimes, but only over a very small variety of things. His crying means he's hungry, he wants to suck on something, or he wants to be picked up. He doesn't even cry about diapers. He'll lay around in his own wastes for days without making a sound as long as we keep him fed and frequently lifted.

Yeah, speaking of being fed, we take him in for his first checkup a couple weeks ago. He had lost a few ounces, nothing major, totally normal. Three days later, he'd only gained half an ounce, and the doctor was all, "You're going to have to supplement with formula." My wife took this very badly, as she's been nursing him and it was like a personal attack. We go home and read a bunch of books and figure out that the doctor was way way way overstating what was going on. Bridget became the nursing Nazi.

So much so that by the time another two weeks had passed, he was feeding about every hour or so, and spitting up a lot. We take him to the doctor again and find out that he now weighs ten pounds. The other doctor gives us a bunch of crap about overfeeding him.

I used to think that doctors know things that I don't. That they can tell things from very subtle bits of information that I would think fell within normal tolerances. Now I know that they don't. If I think my kid is doing just fine, he damn well is. That third eye right in the middle of his forehead? Doesn't seem to be bothering him, so leave it there.

I should say at this point (in case Bridget ever reads this), that Caden is empirically the cutest newborn in the history of humankind. I read that on TV they use two and three month olds to represent newborns, because newborns always look all screwed up. Their eyes are all goofy and their heads are out of round. They've got weird flaky skin and bruises and birthmarks. Not my boy. We should get him an agent. At 6 days old he looked perfect. You know how they've calculated facial bone structure to determine what would be the most attractive face in an adult? They don't have to do that for babies; they can just look at mine.