2 Months and Counting

Well it's been 2 months plus now and the kid is packing on the weight! Below is a picture taken on his two month milestone with Mom.




He is sleeping by himself a lot more now. Some nights are better then others though. One night we'll get a nice 3 or 4 hour sleep window which makes us feel real good. But the norm is usually that long sleep happens early evening instead. D'oh! Most nights we'll get a hour maybe two out of him. Which for Dad isn't that good since it takes me an hour or more to fall asleep. I've always had problems getting to sleep unless I was just completely exhausted and even then sometimes it takes a while. Mom on the other hand drops off to sleep as soon as the head hits the pillow. Damn that makes me envious! So for me it's usually a little sleep through the night until morning when Mom takes him downstairs then Dad gets a nice long sleep. Thank you Honey!

He's also started to become real fussy. If he's not eating or sleeping he's usually Mr. Grump with the exception of a few windows of time where he'll play. The last few days, he just got shots for his 2 month Well Baby which might be causing this new behavior, he screams bloody-murder when you set him down to unwrap him. We're really hoping this phase goes quickly. The doctor said usually the fussiness like this will go away after 2 and half months or so. We can only hope.

All these things make me a bit worried as the day is soon approaching of Mom heading back to work and me being home alone. It's real nice now with the exception of errands and appointments we're both around to deal with the Munchkin. Soon though it will be the Gelfling and Dad show. Hopefully we can get a good sleep schedule set by then and get him into his room at night, well I have to convince the Wife on that one. This will help both me and the Wife. Me so I'm good to go come the morning time and for the Wife so she's not dead tired at work. I can at least get in some cat naps during the day when he sleeps so not too bad if I don't get that much sleep. The good thing is he'll be 3 months by the time she goes back to work so hopefully we get things somewhat set into a pattern by then.

Well until next time enjoy the following pictures of me and my Son.


Dad and Son catching some Zs

Dad catching a uppercut to the old noggin!

Memorial Day Weekend

Well we had a busy, fun and pocket emptying Memorial Day weekend.

To kick the weekend off early my Brother-in-law, his wife and the Nephew flew in Friday morning. It's been since the shower since we've seen them. They came down to check out their nephew. After they got here me and my BIL went out for some shopping chores. First up I needed his help with looking at TV's and Blue-ray disc players. With his help I got a good idea of what to look for for when we decide to got that way. Then it was off to Lowes to pick up a Barbecue. After doing some looking and deciding we picked one up and then had the fun task of trying to load it into the Trailblazer! Well after some trial and error we got it in. Then got it home and hooked up! Whoot now we can barbecue! As they had a long day with getting up early and traveling down here with an almost two year old they headed to the hotel to call it a night.

The next day they came over in the morning and we hung out for a bit. Then they kicked the Wife and me out for some alone time. So we headed out for Lunch at Over the Border, a Mexican restaurant we go to down here. After that we went over to Best Buy to look for movies, games and such. Well we get there and while I'm looking for a game that my friend gave me a gift card for the wife comes over with a bunch of Blu-ray movies. I'm like you're already buying Blu-ray but we don't have a player. That's when she got that smile I know oh so well. Well needless to say they didn't have the game I was looking for but we did pick up a new Samsung Blu-ray player. Got home hooked it up with the BILs help and watched our first movie in HD! Whoot! That night we christened the BBQ with a London Broil with Corn on the Cob! Hmmmmm delicious!

The next day we had to head over to Sacramento to have a Baby Shower with my family members down here in California since it didn't make sense for them to go to the one up in Portland. My two Aunts put it on. Not to worry my BIL and family had some family and friends to visit as well that day. Back to the party. My Son got to meet his last Uncle, another Grandpa, two great-grandparents, some great-aunts and great-uncles, and many cousins of some type or another! The whole cousin thing gets confusing. Like what is my Mom's Cousin to my boy or my Cousin's kid to my boy? Very confusing so we'll just stick with Cousin for all! Well it was a great get together and no shortage of people willing to hold the boy! So he had a great day. Plus we got some good stuff for him as well. Afterwards we drove home and met up with the BIL and family for some Pizza and to bid farewell as they had an early flight in the morning.

Well the shopping for the weekend wasn't quite done. I was looking in the paper and found the Best Buy ad and noticed they had one of the TVs my BIL suggested while we were there for like $620 off. Plus they were doing 3 years no interest. Well since we had jumped in and picked up the Blu-ray player figured we needed a bigger and better TV for it! Well since we had also recently gotten our tax refund we felt that we deserved the upgrade as well! So we now have a new TV stand and 52" LCD Samsung HDTV! Whoot! Man things have never looked this crisp and clean before even normal TV jumps out at you with better image quality! Putting the new TV stand together was a nice long project! But well worth it!

Well below are some pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.


Me with Son and Nephew

Brother-in-law, His wife with my Son

My Brother with my Son

Wife and Family

More Family, Son with his Grandma

Lego Mania!

On the Gamecube a few years back a game was released called Lego Star Wars. I bought it for being a Star Wars game more so then for a Lego game. I had some worries that it would be too kiddie of a game. But was that further from the truth. It was such a great game I'm not even sure where to begin describing the game.

Lego Star Wars is set in Episodes I-III of the Star Wars movie franchise, of which I'm a huge fan of all the movies. So you start out with just two playable characters of Obi-Wan (Padawan) and Qui-Gon Jin aboard the Trade Federation ship. Oh and you are the Lego version of them! Sweet! When you blow things up in the world, oh by the way did I mention everything on the screen is made of Legos, they shatter into their the core Lego pieces and spit out collectible Lego studs. As you progress through each chapter of each episodes you unlock more playable characters and earn studs to buy things with. Also, after completing a chapter you can the go back and play in free-play mode which allows you to switch between more characters then the story play mode. And you'll need to in order to find everything you need from a chapter some things are only reachable by certain characters.

A few months later they released Lego Star Wars for Episodes IV-VI for those who like the classic better. It's game play was the same with maybe some upgrade character interaction stuff. But still a great game! For the Wii they released both games as a combined game. I haven't picked it up as I don't know if there are any changes to the games I have and can play via my Wii.

Well just this last week the released Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii. I naturally picked it up. It's great just like the Star Wars versions. Here Indy's got a whip instead of the force and a lightsaber. But the game still rocks especially running form a big Lego ball that's rolling at you! I've only played the first chapter and ran around the holding area a little bit so far. Tough to get too much grinding in yet with the little one! But I'll try!

Wii Excitement

Well as many know I was one of those fools who waited for hours in the wee hours of the morning to pick up a Wii when it was released. The system is an absolute blast and I have seen even the youngest of children having fun with the basic games that come with it. Bowling is a blast as is the golf game driving range. Since the release I have bought a few games here and there. Of course the classics Madden, Zelda, Metroid made it into my larder of games and all are fun. I'm a big golf person so Tiger Woods made it too and it is fun, and frustrating, to swing the controller in a mostly realistic golf swing. I played that game almost everyday for months on end. Ever since the first Tiger game came out I've been hooked. Well now just recently a new game has come out that is also a classic good time Mario Kart! For the Wii the game comes with a wheel that you insert a Wii controller into to give you a better driving feel then trying to just turn the controller. Man is it a blast!

The game is much like all the other incarnations in that you have the standard 50cc, 100cc and 150cc selections. And so far I've only done the 50cc you have your standard circuits of Mushroom, Flower, Star and Special. with at the start only Mushroom and Flower being playable. These are new tracks just like with the past versions they always update and create new tracks. However, there are also two other circuits available Shell and Banana with two to be uncovered. These circuits have tracks from all the old versions. They have been updated graphically of course but take you back in time to learning all those old tracks.

On top of the new courses and being able to relive the old courses you now have your choice of three vehicles when you make your character selection. This is cool as you can pick a type that works better on certain circuits and tracks. Each one has different stats. Also outside of the old classic carts there are now motorbikes to race too! I haven't gotten to those yet as they are for 100cc and 150cc. But can't wait for it.

The coolest feature of all is the ability to play online! Yes that's right you can race against people in your friend list, regional area or even world wide! I've only done this a couple of times and have gotten my ass handed to me but it was loads of fun to race against 12 other people instead of computer controlled opponents. You can also do timed events that you can then see how you rank versus your friends, regionally and globally. There are even tournaments you can enter. Online play allows up to 2 people per console to play online. This make it an even better game for me since I've moved away from all my friends who play vids with me. Now if I can just get them to pony up for the system and game! Come on guys and girls you know who you are!

Well that's it for now.

Been awhile but...

Well it's been a while again since my last post but this time it's with good reason. On April 13, 2008 at 4:23 AM the wife and I welcomed our Son into the world. The weeks leading up to this big event and after have prevented me from doing any posting. Things are settling down around here again so there should not be as many interruptions as there have been recently.

Anyway back to the exciting news! He weighed in at 8lbs even and measured a length of 20 1/2 inches. The birth process went rather smoothly I think the wife might have a different view. She started having contractions around noon or so on the due date. We ended up in the hospital around 8pm or so. Then at 4:23 am he joined us out in the real world kicking and screaming. Boy did he kick. He kicked the nurse while she was trying to do his initial checks. He also loved grabbing on. There was some tubing on the table which he reached over his head to grab and then reeled in hand over fist. Also, when they brought him over to mom he grabbed her IV which sent a few hands darting in to make sure he couldn't yank it out. After a couple of days in the hospital it was off to the house. Below is the first family picture taken on our way out.



My Mother showed up about two weeks before he was born and stayed two weeks afterwards. She was a big help before, during and after. It was all greatly appreciated. My Mother-in-law made it down a week after he was born and between her and my mom they were able to help us out immensely that second week. If it wasn't for them not sure how well we would have made it through those first two weeks.

We also got a visit from my Father-in-law and his wife the same time that my Mother-in-law showed up. So the little man got to see many of his grandparents very early on which was great.

All in all the whole birthing process was not so bad but the weeks afterwards were real tough with the lack of sleep that was going on. It's gotten better and better as time has gone on. The last few days have been good for the most part. He's taking to sleeping on his own a little better now. But he's just a bit more crankier then he's ever been in between feedings and sleep.