Last week I found a handy little snippet of PHP for WordPress that could do exactly what I wanted. Now, instead of seeing a list of post titles, you’ll see a thumbnail of the picture/video in that post. The subject and date archives also work the same way.

Small update, but a fun one. I love that I can see all at once just how the lad has changed in three months.

When I returned to work a few weeks after Bennett arrived, one of my colleagues eagerly asked to hear stories.

Those of you out there with young’uns may recall differently, but in my experience there are no stories from the first month. He ate, slept, cried, pooped, peed (sometimes on me), and got a bath every few days. He didn’t do anything funny, though perhaps nothing feels funny on four hours of sleep.

That said, he has surprised me from time to time.

First, he does not hate baths, which floored me. He wailed through sponge baths as if we were wiping him down with acid. The first time we plunked him in a tub, I gritted my teeth, and what did he do? He sat there quietly, biding his time, burbling only when the water hit his head. Go figure.

He changes every week. He loves his car seat, he hates his car seat. He loves being swaddled, he hates being swaddled. He loves his pacifier, etc, etc, etc.

Less surprising are his eating habits. Sir was formidable at birth (8 lbs 15 oz) and he weighed in at 10 lbs 11oz during today’s one month checkup. Atta boy.

Of course what goes in must come out, and it frequently comes out with gusto. We refer to these audible evacuations as ‘butt explosions.’ He let one fly today just as the Doctor was discussing his admirable weight gain.

“He’s in the ninety-fifth percentile for weight,” she said, showing us the chart of national averages.

BLATT.

She blinked in surprise. “Maybe ninetieth percentile now.”

The gentleman of the manor has arrived! Bennett Anders Myler was born on Wednesday, July 23rd at 3:46pm.

He’s lucky to be so flippin’ cute because sir is a taskmaster; we change him, feed him, burp him, change, rock, try to sleep, feed, burp, feed, burp, change, try to sleep, change, feed, change… I’m fortunate to check email twice a day or sleep for 3 hours straight. Honestly it’s tougher than I thought it would be. But it’s also amazing.

I’d love to post more, but I think he knows I’ve found a pocket of free time. Quickly:

The deets:
8lbs, 15 ounces
21.5″ long
Born 3:46pm, 7/23/08

How it went down:
Renate woke me at 4:30am. Nine hours of labor and pushing later, the doctor held Bennett up for me to see. He was as blue as a blueberry, which they say is normal, and silent, which is seriously freaky. But he wailed like a banshee after they sucked the snot out of him, and a nurse pointed an oxygen line at his mouth, flushing him with a healthy pink tinge starting from his head and moving slowly to his feet.

The hardest part? Having no baseline. He’s so new that nothing is normal, and everything slightly odd is worrisome. He just ate an hour ago, how can he be hungry again? Is his umbilical cord infected? What does that scream mean? Did he seriously just pee all over himself while we were changing the previous dirty diaper?

The best part? When he opens his eyes.

More when he’s 18 and out of the house. Until then, I’m posting pics on the photoblog.

The first time I saw this poster, a “woop” slipped from my lips. Renate rolled her eyes.

Breastfeeding doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m just a bit caught off-guard by the imagery associated with the product packaging.

Honestly – you don’t see this kind of thing every day:

Back in the store yesterday, I examined diaper bags to avoid any further bouts of surprise. Can’t embarrass yourself by staring at diaper bags, right?

“You know, we’ve got some man bags in the back,” a store clerk said helpfully. I felt like I’d been discovered unwittingly browsing the women’s selection at Footlocker. “Let me get one for you. They’re more manly, they go across the chest.”

I was unaware that a cross-chest carry is more manly than over the shoulder. Might be time to subscribe to Men’s Journal.

Made of canvas and mesh, the enormous man bag looked more suitable for transporting orange cones and soccer balls to practice. The words “Daddy Bag” were glued to the flap, which seems like a potential source of ridicule; instead of ‘secure-enough-to-carry-a-diaper-bag’, I’d be ‘so-insecure-he-had-to-get-the-testosterone-bag’. I already have one woman rolling her eyes at me.

I thanked the clerk, handed over the bag, and wandered up front to study the ‘Horton Hears a Who’ onesies. Renate rescued me shortly thereafter.

Last fall we retooled our dining room into a sitting room. Two leather chairs face the television, with a bookshelf standing nearby in case the power should go out and we need either a) entertainment, or b) fuel.

The rearrangement was a smashing success. We now spend a good portion of our evenings on those leather chairs, either engrossed in our laptops (yes, we have become those people) or watching the tube (we’ve always been those people).

We’re usually enjoying a quiet moment in these chairs when the cat wakes from a nap and comes shooting into the room, squawking as if her tail is on fire, just to let us know that she IS HERE and she IS NOT HAPPY ABOUT SOMETHING.

Now that the guest room has morphed into a nursery, the cat largely avoids it. I think she’s protesting the loss of her favorite hiding spot beneath the guest bed, or perhaps ignoring the impending reshuffling of the pecking order. (Maybe I’m alone in that.)

But then earlier this afternoon she gingerly picked her way about the room, sniffing the freshly killed rug and the drawer beneath the crib, which holds burp cloths galore, a sound machine that mimics the womb, swaddling blankets, and roughly one-third of Target’s nursery department.

I wonder how she’ll get on with the newest Myler. She once sniffed around the base of a car seat that carried a sleeping infant, but I don’t think she knew what was inside. She tolerates toddlers until they get excited, at which point she hides and we steer the child toward toys that don’t have fangs.

These days she routinely sets up shop on top of Renate’s belly for a snooze. I like to think she’s aware of the little one in there, and hopefully not trying to establish dominance from the get-go.

I can picture her reaction when we return from the hospital: the ears will go up and the eyes will widen. Upon hearing the first squawk from beneath the swaddling blankets she will slink off to hide, waiting for the right moment to remind us that she IS HERE and she IS NOT HAPPY ABOUT SOMETHING (IN PARTICULAR).

The last rough edges have been sanded off, and the lacquer is dry. Introducing the Myler Family Photoblog.

You may notice all the posts have been authored by me, but that’s temporary. Some of us here are still breaking in our blogging shoes.

We’ve backdated a bunch of pics – cruise around the archives or click ‘next’ to check it all out.

Built with WordPress in eager anticipation of the actual new family member.

“Do you hear that?” she asked as my niece shrieked in the background. “She’s saying, ‘no bathtime, no!’ Oh lord, now she’s running naked through the living room.”

The most excitement we have around here is when the cat throws up at three a.m. and we have to guess which piece of furniture she’s decorating.

“Oh baybee… oh baybee,” crooned Ella, settled in the tub, as my sister tried to dig up information on their crib. We’re having a hard time selecting a brand, and I’m taking all recommendations. I have no problem preventing my sister from assisting during bathtime to achieve this goal, though I don’t think she minded terribly.

After several hours at Ikea and Target, and several more reading up on makes and models, we’re struggling. Maybe we’re overthinking things, which seems to be the trend with me at the moment; I’ve been concerned that the nursery doesn’t get much light, and as a result we will have a somber little cave baby. But then the cat found a sunbeam there over the weekend and plopped down in it, blissfully unaware of the days to come in which a streaking toddler will send her scrambling for refuge under the bed, where she will undoubtedly throw up.

But now someone is moving in to this room, which means all of our stuff has to find new lodgings, get stored, or get tossed. In fact, just about everything must come out of the guest room to make room for a crib and eight tons of diapers.

(An aside: we were at a dinner party last night with two set of new parents, both of which lifted up their baby and smelled its rear to assess the need for a new diaper. Now – I still remind my in-laws of the day they left me with a locked-and-loaded infant nephew, so you know I am not looking forward to this activity, but SO HELP ME I WILL DO IT. That said, I am still hopeful that someone will invent a diaper that changes color when it’s “full,” or perhaps emits a soft beeping sound. If we could make this diaper seal in the odor too, and maybe even change itself, that would be great.)

So our apartment exploded into piles of stuff yesterday, and we have worked diligently to restore order. I volunteered for the task of reorganizing the bookshelves while Renate boxed up items for storage. Inspired by the Weisz’ reorg of late ’07, as well as the ridiculously engrossing ‘Bookshelf of the Day’ site, I set to work.

Entirely organized by section, occasionally by spine height and sporadically by last name.

The guest room has improved:

Now – it may appear that we simply stuffed things into boxes (which we did), but my parents have graciously offered to take in these boxes until we move into a larger place. If they’re not careful we may punch holes in one of them and ship along a watchful, sullen surprise.

I walked up to the corner drugstore to pick up a few essentials, counting the minutes until I could go to bed. When I returned, Renate was hovering near the front door.

“I got you a present,” she said, handing me a positive pregnancy test.

Which pretty much cleared up the fatigue (or at least relocated it eight months down the road).

Of course I am very excited, but also nervous and somewhat, well – shocked. As in, I knew this was the plan and all, but now this is really happening. Shouldn’t I be more Dad-like? More capable with tools? Able to build a crib with my bare hands and an axe?

Now, nearly four months in, this snowball is rolling down the hill with gusto. Plans are underway to turn the guest room into a nursery. We have kicked the tires on a few strollers and purchased roughly eight billion baby books. I mean we are informed, thanks in part to the web. Each week Renate sends me an update from babycenter.com that describes how the baby is developing.

“Your baby’s eyes have now moved from the side of its head to the front,” went one memorable update. That, to me, is solid progress. The baby is always compared to fruit. “Your baby is roughly the size of a kiwi.”

About a month after learning I would be a Dad, I began experiencing some serious anxiety. Most of it focused on the idea that I would contract a horrible disease and perish. I grilled my doctor at a routine physical in January.

“What are these red lines under my eyes?” I said. He shrugged. “I don’t see anything. You’re healthy. Go home.”

Hmmph. The dermatologist proved more cooperative, determining that a suspect mole needed removing. I now have three stitches poking me in the back, and I’ll have the results in eleven days. In that time, my baby will have grown roughly to the size of a grapefruit.

My baby. Holy cow.