Mr. Mom Part II

I had a rough flight back last night from Minneapolis getting in after midnight so I haven't had a chance to fill in the cliff hanger. I was going to share the story with my colleagues at dinner one night and then realized we were eating dinner and it may not be appropriate. What you do for your kids.

I am sure all single parents can relate to what you have to go through when there is no one else around to provide a helping hand. Junior was up early and I had been holding him since 4am trying to get him back to sleep and he was pretty whiny. It was near 6 am at this point and I needed to go downstairs and get him a bottle out of the fridge and warm it up for his morning feeding. Well, nature called and I had no where to put him so I brought him along for the ride. Everything was working out fine until he became a little too interested in the event leaned over right after the toilet was flushed and spit out his pacifier into the now swirling toilet. Choice words were muttered, a short thought process of solutions was run down; A. pacifier roams harmlessly through Tampa's sewer never to be seen again, B. pacifier jams downstairs toilet causing overflow, which means a HUGE headache for single weekend dad, C. pacifier rolls out Tampa's sewer system into the gulf of Mexico gets lodged in a Dolphin's air hole killing said dolphin and Josh ends up on front page of St. Pete Times for killing dolphin, D. the least desirable choice of acting like a man closing eyes, going to your special place, throwing arm into toilet and retrieving pacifier. Unfortunately, choice D was deemed the most responsible. What's with having a kid and being responsible all the time? I'm turning into a horrible person. So, at 6 am I went fishing for a pacifier in our hopefully, spotlessly clean toilet. I did wash my hands vigorously after the event. The Qster didn't even seem to notice the sacrifice father of the year just went through.

Later that day he did even out the scenario for parent number two, his mother. I was changing him in our bedroom, on the bed, and decided since he likes to be naked so bad I would leave him there for a short moment in all his glory while I washed my hands. Do you see how often you wash your hands with a mini-me running around? In the short time it took me to wash my hands he rolled over and seemed to be very much enjoying himself. Well, it turns out that wasn't the look of joy, it was the look of relieving oneself on our bed. He peed through the covers, the mattress cover and began soaking the bed right where Carrie lays her sweet head. Another moment of panic, thought process of what do I do? Can you turn that thing off please? I need a roll of paper towels attached to my belt at all times to be prepared. I am now stripping the bed, holding a naked child, running through the house collecting something to soak up the pee (where is that Sham-wow! when you need it)? In the end his bodily fluids don't stink. After all, he's breast fed. The real question is whether or not we should tell the wife or just quickly wash the sheets and welcome her home? In Quentin's eight months of wisdom he decided to go the honest Abe route and duly confessed upon seeing his mother for the first time in 72 hours. No one in this family has ever been a very good liar anyway. It is fairly entertaining to discuss, especially around bed time.

Quentin is beginning to make serious progress toward crawling and here is a picture Carrie took while I was away this week. He turned 8 months old yesterday. Look at our little monkey go!

I am Mr. Mom

This weekend I had the privilege of being the sole parent in the household for an entire 72 hour period leaving Quentin at the mercy of his father's parenting. Before people start thinking about how much fun all the NFL game watching, beer drinking and possibly occasional cigar smoking session was, let me just lay a few ground rules. First, don't bother buying the beer. It will only make you jealous seeing it sit there because you will not have time to drink so much as one delicious drop. 8 month old children, apparently, require your attention 24/7 leaving no time to indulge in such frivolous personal enjoyments. Next, you can forget about the cigar smoking. He couldn't hold on to it and was constantly dropping it so that was out. Finally, he doesn't care about TV so it didn't matter if we were watching the 1996 season of "America's Team" where the Packers manhandled their opponents in route to their third Championship. He simply wasn't interested. So the man weekend I had planned was out. The Mr. Mom weekend I hadn't planned on was in.

It all started on Friday when Q and I got the pleasure to fly home together from Iowa. As usual Quentin was good on both flights. The first plane was so small a 1 by 2 as in a total of 1 seat, aisle, 2 seats we could barely fit in our seats. We were in the two with the lottery winner, a business man, who was so excited to see us bounding down the aisle only to stop at his row. Quentin is so big now, or rather the seats (planes) are so small now that there isn't room for two even if he is a baby. His feet either touch the person next to you if you lay him horizontal across your lap or are touching, actually, kicking the seat in front of him. Hmm, we get another year and half before we have to buy him a seat. You don't want to travel near us. The second flight he slept before we left the gate and was still sleeping when we landed.

The hardest part of traveling with him is carrying all the gear. My back will never be the same. I was carrying him (20+ pounds), my briefcase with laptop, the stroller and his diaper bag full of food/bottles. I had many people pass their pity on to me, and for the most part were pretty helpful. When I got off the first plane I got the stroller, put him in it and drove about 30 yards to discover there is two flights of stairs. How is that even allowed? Fortunately some lady threw me a solid and carried the stroller for me. Outside of TSA hassling me and making me open every bottle (3) and sealed baby food jar (2), incidentally considered a liquid, which delayed us about 30 minutes it was pretty uneventful. After TSA finished their "terrorist" check in Cedar Rapids, where Bin Laden is reportedly hiding, they asked incredulously, "Are you traveling alone?" Actually no, I'm with the screaming child you detained for 30 minutes. He was clean and we only had to put him on the conveyor belt for X-rays. I'm sure it was a great relief to the other passengers on our plane.

We got to the airport in Tampa and our bags and car seat (intact!) were already waiting for us. When we got home and got the mail we had a letter from Delta with their sincerest apologies and to tell us they were cutting us a check to pay for the car seat. We appreciate it and think they did the right thing. We were still very surprised they did. It was worth writing the letter. I am a big fan of the letter and think if people would do it more often there would be more satisfied customers. They also kicked me 10,000 miles because "they know I may not be able to fly as much this year due to the economy." And Miller Lite shot me a check for $15. Corporate America is worried about losing you as a customer for the first time in a long time. Take advantage.

I have more, but also have a 6 am flight, so I'll save the rest for later this week like how junior dropped his pacifier at dawn in a toilet, soiled and already flushed leaving dad with a half second decision to either go swimming or....stay tuned.

I am not hungry

Well, junior is still waking up 5-8 times a night but we did manage to get the crying to subside and that makes a world of difference. We still can't figure out why he's getting up every 60-90 minutes but we've ruled out hunger. First of all this kid has a gut that rivals champions of beer belly contests so he's certainly not starving. And we are the world's greatest parents but after the accusatory nature of nurse know-it-all we feel better now that we've been vindicated. Isn't it just like the medical professional to blame you when they can't figure out what's wrong? I think the MD profession is glorified voodoo. I mean in the last 2,000 years have we really made much progress? Is there a cure for the common cold? How about AIDS? Cancer? It looks like back to the drawing board for us and the doctor. He is now waking up and just hanging out instead of screaming at the top of his lungs for hours on end, and that makes the whole thing tolerable.

This morning he got up at 5 and we tried to pretend it wasn't happening as a family but only the dog was succeeding and actually sleeping so I got up and got to the office early and knocked out some busy work before the day started. It was pouring out so the dog couldn't get his morning walk in so we made a first class breakfast and ate as a family turning our morning lemons into lemonade. Now when 2pm rolls around and the umteenth pot of coffee is on that will be a different story. But until then we are happy.

Just returned from picking Q up from daycare and got scolded because he bit two kids! Oh no! My kid is a bully! I guess that's better then being the one that gets picked on but biting already?!? I hope he doesn't get expelled. I won't even sit here and tell you that other kid deserved it but I'm sure he did something to deserve my mild mannered son unleashing the angry beast within. Hopefully he's just trying out his new chompers and it doesn't mean anything. Speaking of biting, here is a pic of Quentin climbing off the chair on to the dog and ahem, biting him.

Success!

We had some decent success in the sleep department last night. Lil' Q slept from 8 until 5:30 without interruption. It cannot be? I don't know if he hit final exhaustion or what but he made it through the night so we didn't get to put our midnight snack plan into full motion. We are prepared to introduce meal number 10 today at daycare and will have emergency feedbags primed to go for any midnight awakenings if hunger happens to strike in the wee hours of the morning. It was incredibly refreshing to wake up at dawn having slept though the entire night without interruption. We read last night that over the course of a baby's first year the parents lose on average 1,440 hours of sleep. Sufferin' succotash! That translates into 60 complete 24 hour days or 180 (as in half a year!) of 8 hours of sleep or an incredible 4 hours a day - on average. So, if the Spiegelhoff clan is a little on edge or crabby please forgive us. We are missing out on 60 days out of the year in straight zombie mode. Really, they should just teach you that in sex ed. You don't find too many high school kids getting up at dawn on a regular basis. Abstinence found.

Q is really working on his words. His favorite is Dada and some how that doesn't surprise me. I've been working on him every time I'm holding him. "dadadadadadadadaddadadadada....daddy" I think his genders are a little mixed up though as I definitely heard him call Carrie dada yesterday and he clearly called me mama this morning. We're going to have to make sure he gets himself straightened out but he's definitely talking. I fear we have reached the end of our baby days with him sitting still and being relatively quiet. He's a mover and a shaker now jabbering all the time and he's clearly going to be running around soon. There is talk of baby proofing the house one of these weekends. That sounds like fun! I'm already trying to prepare myself for that first header he's bound to take. Everyone you know has that scar on their face from when they hit the fireplace or coffee table. Things are going to get pretty crazy around here soon so we are just trying to enjoy the remaining moments of Quentin still being a baby before he grows up. We're just grateful for sleep! Beautiful, pure non-toxic sleep. Oh, I'm already dreaming (and praying) for more of that addictive sleep.

Last night we took a picture of him sleeping because it had been that long since we'd seen him in his bed actually sleeping. We took the picture just in case it doesn't happen again. Doesn't he look comfortable? And repeat.

More aspirin please

We struck out again last night in the sleep department. We had to stay up a little later than usual to watch the Home Run Derby because Prince was in it and put up the highest total in the first round and eventually won the thing so of course we had to watch that. The Brewers are clearly on their way to the World Series. Junior got up at 11, 12-2, 5 and woke up for good at 6. Yikes. This is getting old fast so we put the call into the doc today to see if they could help us out. The conundrum is he is fine during the day so he doesn't have some underlying issue like teething or he would be a mess during the day as well. Incidentally he slept for 3+ hours yesterday at daycare. What am I paying for here?!?! The doctor thinks his 9 meals a day is shorting him so we're going to up his food another meal. He's getting a dose of milk in the AM upon waking, then breakfast of rice and some Frankenstein mixture like prune juice and milk mixed (total pleasure when he spits that back up on you), then off to daycare where he devours three more bottles plus one feeding of fruit. He comes home gets another dose of milk and then a meal of veggies. Right before bed yet another dose of milk. Starving? Really? Well, first we're going to feel h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e if he's been waking up all night because he's hungry. I mean absolutely terrible. And of course there's that whole parents of the year award that would be out the window so that's no good. They told us to add another feeding at daycare and if he wakes up tonight to start throwing food his way as in adding two more meals getting him up to 11 a day. If this keeps up you can forget the linebacker position he's going straight to the offensive line (shorter career, less credit, not as much money) as in not ideal. Well, we really want him to sleep through the night (and us too!) so hopefully this solves our problem even though we would feel like the worst parents on Earth. Okay maybe not the worst. There are those parents rearing serial killers and the like and clearly we're not that bad right? But pretty bad to miss those signs. We have contemplated, "Is he hungry?" before but he doesn't go for the feedbag so we figured it can't be. Maybe we were wrong. Hopefully, we can cut the coffee down to four cups a day with the help from the doc.

We leave you with a happy child busting out his surfer look. Check out that hair. If the surfer thing doesn't work out he can fall back on hippie.

Throw er' in reverse!

Quentin has continued to revert back to the early days with his sleeping habits. We had a very trying weekend with him getting up 8 times a night wailing a way. We can't really figure it out because during the day he is fine. We were so exhausted and frustrated from the long nights little got accomplished over the weekend. It was a tough one. Last night he did a little better getting up at 11:30, 1:30 and 4 am. He keeps getting up around 3:30-4:30 and is raring to go. He's wide awake and doesn't fall back a sleep for 45-60 minutes making that shift a killer. We have tried several pieces of advice including letting him cry it out, which was a total disaster. We gave that one three days and this kid can really scream it out. I don't know how people can go that route. You still aren't sleeping and he's willing to go the distance so all you are doing is filling your house with a lot more screaming than usual. We went back to the picking up and soothing routine last night and there was a lot less tears. We're running through aspirin almost as fast as coffee around here. Eventually, I think we will end up with the hybrid method; letting him scream it out if it's too much to take and try to soothe him if not.

On a more positive note he is picking up crawling. He has got reverse down pretty good but continually gets lodged under the table, against the couch, under the recliner and against the mutt. Lucky isn't too sure what to think having to share his territory. Several times he got up in disgust and moved to a new locale. He doesn't have forward down yet but is scooting a bit. Q is also turning into Mr. Grabby. He gets up to the coffee table and was grabbing the top of it and latched onto the glass coasters trying to yank them off the table onto this head. So far we haven't dropped him or allowed him to knock himself out so we're pretty sure we're front runners for parents of the year. He is a little monkey right now and is just moving all the time. He climbs all over you, the couch, the chair and all over the floor. He's definitely moving out of the "sit and stay" mode and into see ya later I'm going to check out what's over there.

With all this mobility and expanding of his territory he's starting to get confused which toys are his. The dog has been fantastic about leaving Quentin's toys alone. We're not sure how or why but we've never busted the dog eating one of Quentin's stuffed animals or chew toys. We busted our little chomper twice chewing on the dog's toy this weekend. In a word, Ewwww. That's not good. Does the old adage of, "the dog's mouth is cleaner than yours" still apply? We're gonna blindly go ahead and agree that it does because he has mouthed some very old, very well chewed on toys. We recommend all pre-parents get a dog first. For one you can give it back if things don't work out but really the money you spend on the toys, training, and patience really pays off since your kid will use the same toys, training and will need more of your patience. It's a twofer.

Here is a picture of me falling asleep on one of Q's toys - a triangle as in not a good pillow with one of his books on top for padding - on the floor, next to one of Lucky's chew toys destroyed. Life - ain't it grand?! When exhausted anything will suffice. Carrie took the shot and I didn't even flinch but woke up about 30 minutes later with a headache and a stiff neck. I also put a shot out there of my folks with Q at "the land" swinging. By the way that picture out at the land, that's July in Wisconsin; notice the outfits. Not shorts and T-shirts but coats and long pants- in July! I don't want anyone telling me it's too hot in Florida ever again.

The Lost Diamond

Carrie had a tough trip to Wisconsin flying solo with Quentin, having her flight delayed, a destroyed car seat, a long line to follow up with the baggage folks to attempt to make a claim and then an hour ride back to Lake Geneva. There is only so much Quentin can take. Crabby!! I actually beat her there driving and was locked out of the house with Lucky. Fortunately there were still a few brewskies left over in the cooler so much to my parent's (and neighbor's) dismay they found Lucky and I on the porch throwing a few cold ones back when they finally arrived. All parties were exhausted from the long day of travel and we went to bed early after spending an evening ordering pizza and catching up. The next morning we decided to go downtown and have breakfast. Shortly after arriving and getting seated Carrie noticed her ring didn't look right and upon further inspection a diamond had fallen out of its setting. The tears began welling up. My pocked book got angry. After such a long day yesterday surely it was lost. Carrie was upset, Q was fidgeting and it was the exclamation point on a rough couple of days of travel. I was pretty determined to find it as it has obvious sentimental value. I didn't think the diamond would just fall out so I figured it must be in something she had put her hand into like the diaper bag.

I dug out my Sherlock Holmes pipe and began my investigation beginning with the diaper bag. I rifled through that thing and found lots of undesirable items and toys that had been swallowed up by the black hole of "stuff" but no diamond. I moved on to the shower and inspected it with a bright light hoping to catch the glimmer of the diamond but no luck. Sink was next, followed by the make up bag and toiletry bag. I'm starting to lose hope but still think I have a good chance of finding it. I begin to dive into her suitcase next when I decide to turn up the light so I can see better. Upon walking back from the light switch I see something shining on the carpet. No way right? That has to be a tiny piece of plastic. I get closer and pick it up - sure enough it was the diamond. As I'm looking at it I drop it and hear it hit my duffel bag. You've got to be kidding me. I can't find it now and start yet another inspection with a slight moment of frustration setting in. After a few minutes I locate it again and emerge to the living room to accept the high fives for being such a good detective. If the plumber thing doesn't work out I can always be the next aging Dirty Harry.

The ring returned with Carrie's parents with the diamond in a plastic baggie to be sent back to the original Iowa jeweler to have it repaired. Hopefully it will last slightly longer than the two years, 49 days the original workmanship lasted. This weekend I am purchasing my metal detector and going treasure hunting in the shipwrecked filled seas off the coast of Florida. Hopefully more diamonds will be discovered. I leave you with a picture of Q with his great grandparents on Carrie's side and one of the sunsets we almost got to enjoy after Quentin got to bed only to have him start screaming about 10 minutes before the sun went down. I shot some pictures so Carrie and I could enjoy it later.

Back to the grindstone

We all made it back home safe and sound after nearly 3,000 miles of driving. Lucky has slept since we walked in the door exhausted from all that driving. Quentin and Carrie returned unharmed and a new car seat greeted us at the door compliments of us. Our resident wordsmith, Carrie sent off our letter scolding Delta for their disappointing behavior. Hopefully, they will respond in a gracious check writing manner but I don't think either of us are holding our breath. Quentin never really liked that car seat anyway so maybe he'll take to this new one. They attempted to charge us for a bag on the way home to cover the car seat. Um, lady use your peepers. It wouldn't be possible to beat this thing up more than it currently is. We'll pass on the $5 charge but appreciate your concern.

While in Wisconsin Quentin paid homage to the great bambino of brie, the sultan of swiss and the colonel of curd by devouring his first cheese curd in the Milwaukee airport. You have to start these kids early on cutting their teeth on cheese before they get too old. He liked it ergo he's an official cheese chomping Spiegelhoff. Unfortunately the Qster was not able to go swimming as the weather was on the rainy and cold side. I'm not sure who controls the thermostat in the midwest but they are asleep at the wheel. One day it's a 102 and the next day it's 61. Who can pack for weather like that!? The dog is still chicken of the water. (He's afraid of the waves crashing {river style} onto shore). He is a bit wussy, but at the same time we have two ponds in our backyard and we aren't so sure being afraid of the water is such a bad thing. He sniffed it, drank some of it, stared at it and even barked at it, but swim in it he did not. We pushed him in off the dock and that didn't do it either. It looks like this retriever is a land retriever. He did have fun making friends with a black lab ominously named Odie and the two of them wore themselves out daily.

The boating was fun and we found a new way to put Quentin to sleep instantly. The second that boat was in motion he was sleeping. As soon as it stopped the water works came on and the screaming began. We were in the boat while the uncles were tubing and every time one of them would fall off the cries began. It was clear who the real captain of the boat was. I said, keep going! It was hilarious. Like clockwork the boat would stop and he would wake up from a deep sleep and the second it started up again he was back sleeping soundly.

We had a good time but vacation has a whole new definition when you throw a baby in the mix. From the 5 am wake up calls to the constant freaking out of meeting new people it's rather exhausting. We're looking forward to taking a vacation from our vacation but we don't have any days left to take. Did I mention Carrie lost a diamond from her wedding ring? Oh, ya we'll leave that for tomorrow. I leave you with several pictures from the weekend. Shades - modeling, his brewcrew uniform (they won that day) and him in the boat with his life vest.

We Survived!

...but the car seat didn't. Carrie and Quentin flew Delta (as in D- don't, E- expect, L-luggage, T-to, A-arrive) and our car seat literally came out bouncing down the baggage belt. Carrie watched it roll towards her and was thinking that can't be ours because ours was in a bag and had a tag on it (and isn't the shape of a bowling ball and therefore shouldn't be ROLLING at me!). This one appeared as if it had been run over. It came out with no tags, no bag and the sides, handle and cloth had been dragged for what appears to be miles or at least long enough that the plastic was so worn down that it is no longer usable. The part of the car seat that interlocks with the seat belt has been worn down so far that the seat belt won't go through it any more. Carrie goes to complain, the agent makes a quick phone call and comes out with a brand new car seat, but it's not the same brand and our car seat was part of a set that goes with our stroller and base for the car. They offered compensation that won't cover half the cost of a new one, which we have to buy because we can't drive the Qster around without a car seat. AHHH! Where is the compassion one is used to receiving from the airlines? Oh, right, the airline industry; the only customer service business in the world that doesn't provide any customer service, not even a smidget of empathy. Umm, lady we can't leave the airport unless we have a working car seat. So my sister has two kids and car seats galore to get us by. We will go and purchase a new one right after writing several angry letters to Delta today.

Lucky and I made it and had a pretty uneventful drive in comparison. Would you believe he was a better driving companion than camper? He was so exhausted by the time we arrived at our campsite in Kentucky that he crashed right next to the fire but every noise he would hear elicited a bark. Ya, this is camping - as in the woods where there are lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) making noises. I don't think any other campers were sad to see us packing up the next morning as they spent the night listening to our fearless guard dog barking every two seconds all night long, which also meant we didn't get much sleep. Lucky was a good companion in the car, though. He settled down after the first 40 miles and by the time we clocked 250 miles it was pretty clear to him that he wasn't getting out of the car. He would sit down on the back seat and rest his head on the top of the headrest looking out the back window staring at the cars behind us entertaining the drivers coming up from behind. For me it was nice to have the company as we spent endless hours discussing world events. (Lucky thinks people should stop supporting the China economy by boycotting Wal-Mart and someone should drop a bomb or two on N. Korea sending them back to the stone age). For the most part it turns out, I agree with his politics. At the campsite Lucky saw several deer (he barked at them), a big old tom turkey (he barked at him) and a boy scout troop (and of course he barked at them too).

We drove 800 miles the first day taking 12 hours and went through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Georgia again, back into Tennessee and stopped south of Louisville in Kentucky. Yesterday we got up early and finished it off going through the remainder of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois (worst traffic jam ever in Chicago) and finally the great cheese haven, Wisconsin. We drove just shy of 500 miles the second day and in all clocked 1,293 miles. Black Beauty handled the open road like a champ.

Quentin once again charmed everyone on the plane and is becoming a seasoned traveler. He was awake a lot longer of the time yesterday and participated by helping his neighbor read the paper (his favorite toy) and playing peek-a-boo with the woman sitting behind him laughing endlessly. Hopefully, he will be that good on the way home. He was still charming passengers down at the baggage belt as they couldn't get enough of him. What a great baby. With the time change though, he's getting up between 5-5:30 am, which makes for a tired mom and dad. Tomorrow Q will get his longest car ride ever so we're hoping he survives that. It will also be our first trip as an entire family (Luckster included). My folks were gracious enough to take us all in (their poor cat with Lucky on the prowl) and they allowed us to do some horse trading. We gave up Black Beauty for their Tahoe for the Wisco road trip. They gain some gas mileage and we gain some square footage. Today we are taking Lucky out to the farm to run him around a bit and do some fishing. Quentin will get his first picnic as well. It was a freezing 61 degrees when we arrived so we hope the Florida sunshine is only lagging behind us by a day.