Month 1

Here's out much belated 1 month progress report...

After 1 month, I think we're used to having a baby. So far, here's what she does:

• Eats (breast milk)
• Sleeps
• Pees
• Shits
• Moves her arms around
• uhh...that's about it. 

At this point Lily has met a lot of family, but it still seems like there are always more to meet. I forget how many people we know until I think about all the people I want to show her off to. More to come soon...

Week 1: Take Me Home

After a fews days in hospital, it was great to be home. The first few weeks of baby owning were difficult. The baby part is tough, but that's only part of it. What makes it hard is taking care of non-baby life on top of it. Luckily I had 2 weeks off from work and we have lots of family that were around to help out with everything.

Before I get started with the summary of what went down, here's a little index of the grandparents:

• Grandma - Danielle's Mom, Liz
• Grandpa - Danielle's Dad, Bill
• Gigi - Greg's Mom, Peggy
• Grandpa Ed - Greg's Stepdad, Ed
• Pop - Greg's Dad, George
• Grandma Jo - Greg's Stepmom, Joanne
• Nannie - Greg's Paternal Grandmother, Mabel
• Danielle's Grandfather Bill Martin Sr.
• Greg's Grandmother Lillian

And I could keep going...

After we got home from the hospital Grandma stayed with us for a few days in our guest room AKA "room with crap that we don't know what to do with in it that's not the basement". She was great. She helped keep the house clean, so some shopping, helped Danielle with figuring out the breast feeding stuff, and most importantly, was there at any hour that we needed her to just hold Lily while we tried to catch up on sleep. While she was around Grandpa was sure to make his frequent visits. He was convinced that ha was able to will himself to get over his cold so that he could come hand out with his new grandbaby.

Gigi was up from North Carolina too this week. Unfortunately Ed couldn't make it up, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from spending a week up north. After most of the week of crashing couches at Tim and Jen's place in Brooklyn and Aunt Kate's house up in Washingtonville, we let her spend a few nights with us. She was in heaven. Of course she was a huge help as well. With all this mother-hood stuff going around, I definitely have a greater appreciation for all that they do. They can and will do anything for their babies. Even when their babies are approaching 30 years old.

Besides the grandma's that were staying with us for the first week, we also had some other visitors come and hang out with us. My sister Jen was up from North Carolina for the week with her boy, Nathan. My Brother Tim and his fiancee, Jen came over a few time from Brooklyn. Pop and Grandma Jo made a bunch of trips down from Valley Cottage to oggle at the child. Danielle's brother, Chris also made it down whenever he could. Of course everytime someone was visiting, Lily was quiet and sweet and angelic. As soon as everyone was gone, her exorcist side emerged. piss and shit flying everywhere. My favorite instance was when Tim was there to witness it. I went into the non-dining room to change Lily while Tim was in the other room. As soon as he turned the corner, Lily started projectile pissing everywhere. I'm surprised there wasn't any piss on the chandelier. To this site, Tim literally screamed and ran out of the room. I guess he din't know that little girls can piss into the air either.

In addition to all of the physical help and visits that we got from everyone, they made sure we were fed for 2 week. In fact they almost did too good a job. We got so much food that when new food came, we had to forget about the old food so that the new stuff wouldn't go bad. We had lasagna, lentil soup, chicken soup, sausage and peppers, pumpkin pie, alls sort of random pastries and Grandma Jo even made us an entire thanksgiving dinner (complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, carrots, stuffing, applesauce, cranberry sauce, and eggnog).

I also want to acknowledge all of the gifts that we received from everyone. Especially all of the handmade things. We got quilts and hats and sweaters and blankets and outfits and so many nice things. And from many people that we wouldn't expect anything from. Your thankyou notes are on the way.

Mentioned in this post:

• Uncle Tim and Aunt Jen - Greg's brother and his fiancee
• Aunt Jen and Nathan - Greg's sister and nephew
• Aunt Kate - Greg's mom's childhood friend
• Uncle Chris - Danielle's brother

5 Lessons in Baby Poop AKA Shit Happens... Everywhere

Over the past week and a half, we've come up with a few nicknames for Lily, many of them involving a variation of the words "stinky" or "poopie". This is not without reason, though my favorite is "Daddy's Little Gravy Boat". Now that we're well past the black tar poopie phase, the word "mustard" tends to make its way into the adorable nicknames that we make up, coincidentally during diaper changing time. Aside from the names, I've already learned a ton about the diaper changing process. Here's my top 5.

1. Little girls can pee on their face. It's true. A shocker to me, but my brother Tim can attest that girls can squirt their piss just as well and as far as boys. It surprised him so much that he literally screamed and ran away.
2. A fart is never just a fart. I'm glad that this applies only to new humans. They always have at least a little substance that tags along. This leads to the next lesson.
3. Stand to the side when changing a diaper. A fart shoots air at very high speeds though the rectum. A fart also shoots anything in its way at very high speeds through the rectum. Quick moving air can carry a good amount of matter a great distance across a room and can cover a wide area along a man's arm. This also applies to the shooting pee-pee water mentioned in lesson #1.
4. It's all about timing. Wait a minimum of 2 minutes after the last audible or visual sign of poopage before attempting ot change a diaper. Once the diaper is off, beware that the baby may still want to continue the little disaster that they've started. So stand to the side and have a spare wipe ready to throw on the waste making station at all times.
5. Baby's come equipped with the sense of vengence. If you stick a thermometer up a baby's ass, they WILL piss all over the hands that you are using to hold them up. And all over everything underneath it. I believe that they always have rations for unexpected situations such as rectum penetration attacks.

Nine Months Late

Ok, so we're sitting on our new awesome couch just waiting. There's a contraction here and there, but it could mean nothing. We're just waiting for our baby to be born. So while I try to figure out what I should procrastinate doing now, I figure that it'd be a good time to do something we've been procrastinating to do for 9 months or so. So welcome to our blog.

When we found out that we were going to have a kid, I thought of it as an opportunity for a new project. Kind of a surprise project, but still a project. The first thing that I wanted to do was document everything. Buy a hard drive and make it Franklin's hard drive of videos, photos, drawings, whatever else that can be made digital. How cool would that be to have your entire life documented for you? To not have some wacky-ass photo album with weird plastic coverings sort of keeping the photos in that may or not be of you as a baby? It could be something that I pass down once they turn 18 or something. Though I'm sure that I would get lazy and tired of doing that, I figure that we can at least create a website that serves the same purpose. I then realized that I invented the blog. So welcome to the first blog ever. So this is where we plan on documenting our adventures in owning this little kid and trying not to screw her up too much. And it's on the internet. That's what a blogs is.

I hope the people that do read this are entertained and enjoy watching our little girl grow up.

Enjoy.

Greg and Danielle
AKA Greggors and Preggers
AKA Grego and Preggo