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As you can see in the image to the left, Duncan can do pushups now. This is a monumentous achievement, and I have no idea whether he’s early, late, or on schedule with it, but it’s awesome that he’s doing it.

Problem is, it apparently messed with his ability to sleep on his own. It used to be he could lay on the bed for hours, waking up to eat, then going back to sleep before waking up a little bit later in a cheerful and chipper mood.

Lately, he’s been the most cranky kid ever, and apart from a few hours ago when he finally went down for some real sleep, he slept a grand total of about 90 minutes today in three separate naps. I even tried laying next to him with the laptop, which helped him sleep for a while but then he was up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

On the whole though, it still amazes me how much of a happy little kid he is, even when he’s tired as a dog.

Earlier tonight, I had my son on my lap because it was way past his sleep time and I wanted to get him asleep before the cranks set in. So there he was, on my lap, smiling at me through his dummy every time I told him “Go to sleep”… when I heard it.

The most horrific, gut wrenching butt-gurgle I’ve ever heard. The kind of thing they warn you about in prenatal vitamin reviews. I literally felt dirty after hearing this, certain in my fate that I was now covered in shit that had escaped a diaper.

When I opened it up to survey the damage? A mark about the size of a nickel. I was both disappointed and relieved, and I’m not entirely sure why.

P.S. I only wrote this because it’ll gross a couple certain people out. I always swore I’d never post a blog about kid shit, but hey at least I didn’t photograph it.

BRB camera.

Our kid is growing up so fast. It seems like only yesterday we were passing out cigars and celebrating in shock the new life we’d brought into the world, and now he’s discovered kicking legs, that one hand can grab the other, and he’s almost figured out how to roll over.

Oh yeah, he’s discovered some pretty crazy looks and the art of giggling as well:

Duncan 2.3 Months from fwaggle on Vimeo.

Seriously.

He’s happy as a pig in shit most times – Sabriena and I both just brighten this kid’s day, particularly when he’s awake… but man, when he’s asleep, the tiniest little things make him rage beyond belief.

The tiniest little disturbance while he’s sleeping will usually elicit a giant, prolonged groan, which could almost be called a growl. It’s like he’s stretching, but is pissed off that he has to do so.

Having him on my chest and then trying to get up without disturbing him is about the best ab workout I could possibly hope for, and then heaven help me if I want to actually put him down for 30 seconds or more. He’s sitting on my lap right now, and he looks like he’d be terribly uncomfortable (though I’m guessing babies have a warped definition of “comfort”), but I dare not move him in case it pisses him off.

Oh my dog, it’s a miracle.

I had this kid sitting on my lap for a couple hours today, and I was so uncomfortable it was terrible… so I decided to take the plunge and put him in his crib, figuring I could go use the bathroom and come back and he’d want to be held again.

His mom was sitting not two feet from the baby monitor I was using, so we’d know immediately if he started fussing… and he didn’t. We kept checking on him and listening, expecting him to wake up, and he finally did – hours later.

All anti wrinkle treatment jokes aside, I think we might actually stand a shot at making this work without losing our sanity. Sabriena’s catching some much needed sleep right now – I’m up with the baby monitor to make sure we don’t both sleep through him crying.

Once he falls into a rhythm everything should be much better.

Man last night seemed like it went on forever. In the grand scheme of things, this kid of our’s is pretty awesome – he doesn’t fuss too much and he did give us a chance to get some rest the first day, but we were too worried about getting colostrum into him instead of taking advantage of the valuable napping time.

Now all he wants to do is eat – and sleep for 5 to 10 minutes at a time, then eat again. I lack the “equipment” to feed him, so I’ve been trying to pick up the slack in other areas. Sabriena let me sleep for a few hours this morning, which was seriously welcomed and I wish I could return the favor already… but even that few hours wasn’t really enough.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired – and when the original Quake was released me and a couple friends stayed up for in excess of 50 hours straight playing it on a LAN! This is a completely different kind of tired, like I know this little guy’s relying on us to be alert and checking everything. We should fall into a rhythm soon, and him getting better at feeding should help a lot.

Whenever I have to go out to grab something we forgot to pick up, I look like a heroin addict or something. My eyes feel like they have giant sandbags under them, and I’m sure I’ve got crow’s feet 6″ deep… it’s gonna take some badass deep wrinkle eye cream to make me look like a human again – that or about 24 hours of rest.

… and it actually feels great. People aren’t kidding when they say it’s a life-changing event, and in more than the obvious ways.

The labor went really quick, but the first few parts didn’t seem like it. Sabriena has had back problems since forever, so we were hoping she could do it without the epidural – everything was going great, she dilated most of the way without it and was doing well coping with the pain… until it came time for the baby to start moving.

I guess doctors describe the baby’s position in the uterus on a ten-point scale from -5 to +5… -5 being chilling way up like it’s nowhere near time for delivery, and +5 being ready to poke out if he moves any further. Well she went from -1 to +2 (or 30% of the baby’s total non-delivery movement, so I gather) in 30 minutes… so 10% every 10 minutes. From what she tells me it was pretty excruciating, so we went ahead and ordered the epidural – which was just as well we didn’t mess around any further because after the epidural it turns out she was 8cm dilated, and they wouldn’t have done it any later.

Not long after the epidural, it came time to push – and that part flew by. It seemed like one minute I was feeling like it was never going to end, and the next I was watching my kid being lifted up onto my wife’s stomach. A doctor’s handing me surgical scissors and pointing at the cord, and I get the stereotypical “am I qualified for this?” thought before I go ahead and get it done – it was a lot harder to cut than I expected!

I was pretty worried about his health, because as I understand it I was a pretty sick kid… and Sabs’ sister had a bunch of problems with Jeremy, so I think I was just naturally expecting a repeat of that… but he came out flawless. He’s strong, healthy, a bit on the small side but there’s nothing wrong with that.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity for the hearing test, only to find out somewhere around the 24 hour mark ourselves that he was by no means deaf… every time we moved… opened a soda can… or some kind of food wrapper… that boop from the barcode scanner whenever the nurses would scan Sabriena’s medication… everything warranted him sitting up and checking it out.

We’re home now, and I’m so glad. Hospital beds suck, along with the guest beds – even though our room was pretty cushy. Even though our mattress isn’t the greatest it’s so nice to be on our own bed… even though I haven’t got any sleep yet.

So about a week ago Ruby wasn’t feeling too great – it seemed like she’d pulled a muscle in her hips or something, she wouldn’t get up and would frequently yip while walking. Climbing the stairs appeared to hurt her, but going down was a non-issue.

We deliberated over taking her to the vet, because it looked like something she could have easily gotten over with just a bit of rest… but I just had this nagging feeling that if we didn’t take her and we woke up to a dead puppy the next day I wouldn’t forgive myself.

So we braved a forecast-terrible storm which actually gave us a break while we were out in it, and drove to Bluffton to the vet. Unlike the last time she was there, Ruby was pretty terrified and snappy, so I had to muzzle her for the first time.

The vet checked her out and couldn’t locate the source of the problem, so he just subscribed some meds for her and we were on our way. We call it puppy-vicodin because it seemed like it helped her within a few hours, but as ar as I know it’s just some kind of anti-inflammatory/muscle supplement.

Now it’s nearly a week later and she seems much better. She just took the last of her puppy-vikes and is still a little squeamish about going up the stairs, but she’s otherwise back to normal. So I figure we basically spent about $50 on peace-of-mind in the form of a vet visit.

I was havin’ a pretty sappy conversation with a friend today on MapleStory (I’m in the process of liquidating all my imaginary shit and quitting almost-permanently, so naturally I have a tendency to wax poetic), and the conversation switched to how lucky I kinda am.

Basically, I said, I really wish I had more money. I wish our house was warm in the winter. I wish I had two nice cars I could rely on, with fly-ass wireless security systems that’ll start the car remotely so it’ll be warm when I go out in the middle of winter.

I wish I had money for all the games I want, when I want them, a nice TV to play them on, and I wish I had money for a sweet computer every two years.

But for the most part, I’m pretty lucky – because plenty of other people find all these things really easy to come by, and they long for someone to share it with.

To answer everyone’s question at once: we had a pretty merry Christmas.

Money was a bit tight, we mostly got crap for the little kids and the forthcoming baby. Sabriena and I pretty much agreed not to exchange gifts, in favor of keeping our credit card balance low, she didn’t get any gifts for me and I didn’t get any gifts for her.

Okay that’s not entirely true, she found a pair of toe-socks she wanted and then we bought the Pirates of the Caribbean DLC for LittleBigPlanet.

Sabrienix was doing “meh” – I think we had the double-whammy of TS3′s beta release, which sucked away a few paying customers, and people wanting to spend money on christmas instead which made  a good few people late on their invoices. It’s starting to recover now, and we’re getting a lot of interest in Mumble 1.2 which is awesome.

We’re hopefully looking at starting our brand new web-hosting line, I’ll have more details about that later when we’re closer to release.