Tam and Julie have a soap sale today. They'll be up at the London Terrace Street Fair on 24th ave. between 9th and 10th street, so go and get your self some quality soap and bath products if you feel so inclined.

The careful reader may have wondered who'll be caring for the baby while Tam is out all day. We'll my friends, today marks the first all day, non-stop, eight hour Mark alone with the bean day. That's right, more bean than you can shake a stick at. All bean, all the time!

Little Big Toe...

There will be attempts at periodic updates throughout the day, at least until child protective service gets wind and puts a stop to the madness. Viva la bean!

8:30 AM: Josie sleeps quietly. Maybe she'll keep this up for eight hours?

9:37 AM: posting to weblog while neglecting the bean (still sleeping, but the stirring has begun)

9:50 AM: setting up the Baby Einstein play gym in hopes of distracting her from the realization that daddy has no idea what he is doing.

10:10 AM: bean wakes up and has a nice brunch.

10:30 AM: she leaves me a little (ok, not so little) present in her pants.

10:40 AM: a little baby belly time. sadly, I can't help but sing "bum dum da dump, da dump, da dump, it's belly time" like MC Hammer for way longer than acceptable. A MC Hammer "hammer time" parody should never exceed more than ten seconds. Mine lasts about ten minutes

10:49 AM: possibly encouraged by my hip 80s stylings, the bean actually rolls over (for the first time)...I immediately call momma and blather excitedly into the phone. when she finally deciphers what I am saying, mamma is pleased.

11:20 AM: the nice things about babies is that they nap, and why shouldn't daddy nap as well?

1:01 PM: We wake from a nice long nap. she gets a change of unmentionables, and we watch an episode of The Office as we have a little lunch. I think it is important to note that she is the sweetest damn thing in the entire universe as she falls asleep in my arms.

1:20 PM: I set her down in the gym, and the phones start ringing and the dogs start barking and the bean starts crying. I cradle one phone while answering the cell phone and I curse the dogs under my breath. we have hit critical mass, and I wonder out loud why momma lied and said, "It'll all be ok." I try to find my happy place...

1:29 PM: after beating each dog repeatedly with a rolled up newspaper (how do you like me now dog whisperer), and hanging up the phones, the bean, most likely sensing my ineptitude and stress, decides another nap is in order. I couldn't agree more.

1:40 PM: we've passed the halfway point, over five straight one-on-one hours of bean-tastica. if you can get past the smell of spit up milk and body oder (I made an executive decision and substituted shower time with extra nap time), things are looking pretty good.

3:20 PM: Seems the bean can out nap her dad hands down. she slumbers away peacefully. a representative from the local block patrol handed over a petition signed by over two hundred neighbors demanding that I shower. If not for the fear of my rebellion against the local imperialist hygienic regime waking the baby, I would of fought to the bitter end. I now sit at the terminal cleansed and defeated. As I write this, the bean stirs. Maybe it's time for an afternoon snack.

3:55 PM: the snack turned into a three course meal. she was quite hungry, and another little gift left in the pants for daddy. I've decided to take bean-tastica on the road. we're saddling up for a trip to the deli to pick up some lunch, and maybe a little detour to let Uther (der gute hund) get a bit of exercise.

4:24 PM: during our walk the skies threatened rain the entire time. I felt many a drop, but thankfully no rain. I've returned to the homestead no worse for wear with a deli sack containing a chicken sandwich with muenster cheese (gina, I think you know what I'm talkin' 'bout) and a piece of crumb cake. If only the bean could partake...sorry bean, but it's daddy's turn for lunch.

4:35 PM: Momma, threatened by rain as well, returns home early...All hail the matriarch. I think we could all use a good boob right about now, as it were...

Josie begins her seventh week today. That's forty nine days on this earth, or at least forty nine days outside the womb, forty nine days of breathing air and crying out loud. It's a short amount of time really, a mere fraction of a life. And yet, she has grown and changed so much in that span of time one would think months had passed.

I read somewhere that a baby's favorite thing to do is to look into your face. They encouraged parents to make faces at your child, and noted that when a child gets older she will begin to mimic you. Since reading this little nugget of parenting wisdom, I have spent most of my free time making goofy faces at the bean, changing expression from happy to sad to pensive to ecstatic. She stares up at me in wonder. Sometimes she laughs, sometimes she furrows her brow with a strong look of concern that seems to convey, "Daddy, I am quite concerned about your facial ticks and contortions, and I would like it very much if you stopped." Lately, on occasion, she will make little squeals of delight when I make certain faces. This will start me laughing out loud, and inevitable bring about the baby's stern face of concern again. I attempt to return the stern look, but it seems the bean has already mastered her father in this little game, so I quickly return to rotating through a array of goofy faces until she smiles or laughs again.

Bean Photos, Week Six

Josie, only seven days since my last post about the bean, has turned a whopping six weeks old today. Well done bean!

She has had a few bad bouts of baby gas in the past few days. While on a call with a friend, and fellow gassy baby mother, Hannah, she had mentioned that they had to "fart" the baby once in a while to help relieve the, um, discomfort. I laughed at her foolishness, and thought silently of how thankful I was that our baby had the good sense to be gas free. That is until last Saturday night. The bean was up very late and quite cranky. Nothing would sooth her, and her wee belly felt bloated. I dared to mention that, maybe, our perfect little baby, our little darling girl, might be having a bout of the vapors. Tam looked over at me and said, "Don't tell me how to do it, it sickens me." Well, she didn't say that exactly. She may have said, "She just might be." I can read between the lines. After another hour of fussing, Tam's bloodshot eyes turned to me and spoke louder than words, "Please shove this little bundle of joy out the window so I can sleep." I started towards the open window, and then paused and said, "Let's try 'farting' her." "What?" she replied. "Hannah had mentioned that we could help relieve gas by 'farting' her." At this point in the early morning hours I could have suggesting shooting the bean out of a cannon, and Tam would of went along with it. I explained what a farting would entail, and she agreed, "Let's give her a good old fashioned 'farting'."

Farting 101: To fart a baby, as our baby farting friend instructed, you lay them on their back and lift their legs up towards their belly. You hold them there for a moment. You then let their legs down, and repeat. You continue this exercise until the baby relieves their, um, discomfort.

We began the "farting" procedure. Honestly, we were both skeptical. We weren't convinced that the bean had gas, and even if she did, would this so called "farting" actually work? We lifted. Held. Released. Repeated. We eventually began to feel foolish, and when I was about to give up, "Toot." We laughed. I wondered if we could make her toot again. She did, "TOOOOT!!!" We laughed until tears of joy ran down our faces. We had made the baby fart, and it was the most wonderful sound that we had ever heard. After a short while, the bean was fast asleep, followed moments later by mom and dad. We sleep throughout the night with the sweet sounds of baby farts echoing in our dreams.

The Bean, Week Five

There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No I never heard it at all
Till there was you

Josie is five weeks old today.

side note: I have realized the only way to scare off the few remaining readers of this semi annually posted weblog is to post only about the new baby.

side note side note: It is not lost on me that I have become a guy that lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has a baby, and blogs about her. My dreams of moving to the lower east side and contracting hep B in the bathroom of some hipster bar somewhere are lost forever.

Side notes aside (heh), the bean is five weeks today, and she is, for lack of a better word, beanalicous. Yet, here is where I must step outside of my daddy self and attempt to look objectively at my offspring. Before she was born, a friend relayed a story from a friend who was a new father.

Whenever I am at the park, I notice that all the kids there are weird looking. They all look like wrinkled old men, or bizarre aliens. I look at my own baby girl, and she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I wonder how I could be so lucky as to have the most beautiful baby in the park.

I call this baby goggles. As parents, we are unable to look past the overwhelming love for our baby, and see them as the wrinkly little poop factories that they are. To us, they are the wunderkinds, the smartest, most beautiful things ever to set foot on this earth.

Last night I was up late, and I decided to try and focus my vision. I sat in an almost meditative state, and I watched the bean sleep. This went on for hours, and when I reached the point of near exhaustion, right before I passed out and fell off the bed, I caught a glimpse, just a fraction of a second mind you, of what I believe is how the outside world perceives the bean.

I can't truly be objective here, so I leave it to you to decide.

Roll over image to remove baby goggles:

update: further evidence adding credence to my baby goggles hypothesis, and proving that all content here is, well, stolen from the farm.