Guest Blogging

As many of you know, Kevin is on a work trip so I decided to do a little blogging of my own. Kevin shouldn't have to do all the work! Actually, that leads me to the subject of this post: it's time to give Kevin the credit he deserves by disclosing all of the things he does for Gus & me every day. We have become especially appreciative of these things when he's gone. Especially last night when Gus woke up at 11pm, 2am, 3am, 4am, and at 5am for the day. The boy seems to be on some sort of sleep strike, but I digress – this isn't about me.

I should mention that Gus and I haven't been entirely without help since Kevin's been gone. We went to the zoo with Grandma & Grandpa A. on Sunday, and stayed at their house on Tuesday night because I had a late meeting at work. It's been so nice to have all the help (thanks Mom and Dad!) and I'm not sure how single parents do it. Here is the evidence from the zoo. Can you pick out the monkeys?

Back to my original point, Kevin does a lot. A typical day at our house:

5 or 5:30am – The rooster wakes up. Kevin stops him from testing his climbing skills and changes his diaper. Gus then yells at his daddy to get him to his breakfast, pronto.

5:30-6:30am – I feed the bambino, which would be a great time for Kevin to catch a few more winks, but he usually gets out of bed to a) wash the dishes, b) take out the garbage, c) make coffee, d) get our bags ready to go or e) all of the above.

6:30am – Kevin entertains Guster while I try to get 5 more minutes of sleep. Then I get in the shower and Kevin entertains the boy and gets him a little snack because his appetite is never quite sated.

7-7:10am – Kevin showers and gets ready for the day. He usually gets about 10 minutes for this before Gus is climbing all over him. 15 minutes on a good day.

7:15-8:30am – This is the time warp where we're not exactly sure what happens but we have the hardest time getting out of the house before 8:30. I should note that when it's just me and Gus we leave around 7am. I should also note that Gus and I are not very clean when left to our own devices.

8:45am – I drop Kevin and Gus off at daycare/work and Kevin drags sleeping baby, bottle, food, extra outfits, etc. into building.

* * *

5:45pm – After working all day, I call Kevin and say there's no way I'm going to make it to pick him and Gus up by 6pm, so he'll have to run down to day care and bring Gus back up to his office.

6:30pm – We get home and change, and Kevin makes Gus's dinner and feeds him while I contemplate our dinner.

7pm – I feed Gus after deciding a vegetarian cassoulet would make for a tasty meal and hand the recipe and ingredients to Kevin. He brings me a glass of wine and whips up dinner.

8pm – I put Gus to bed and Kevin and I eat. He then turns to his work for a few hours and hopes he doesn't have to get up in the night with a baby who is teething/having bad dreams/congested.

I should add that Kevin rarely complains about any of this (except for the time it takes us to get out the door in the morning – but I'm working on it!) and insists that our little guy is totally worth all the effort. I have to say I agree.

This is what Gus thinks of Mom's cooking:

It gets better the next night:

The Mother of All Mailbags

John Bucigross writes a weekly column about the NHL for espn.com. At the end of the column, he includes comments from readers in a feature called The Mother of All Mailbags.

The G-Man makes an appearance this week. Check it out!

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=buccigross_john&id=3287968

And in this corner, from Minneapolis, Minnesota . . .

It's The Preacher!

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of professional wrestling. I remember going to matches with my friends and our dads and cheering wildly for Hulk Hogan, The Road Warriors, and The Junkyard Dog, and jeering with just as much gusto, the "heels" -- Ric Flair, Paul Orndorff, and Bobby "the Brain" Heenan. I loved the characters with their signature finishing moves -- The Undertaker with his "Tombstone" piledriver, The Honky Tonk May with his "Shake Rattle and Roll" neckbreaker, and of course, Razor Ramon's, "The Razor's Edge."

It seems that the love for the squared circle has been passed down, and Guster may be destined to join the spandexed ranks of the luminaries listed above. If he does, Em and I have decided that his ring name will be The Preacher. Gus has taken to raising one hand above his head and yelling at us -- it looks like he's giving us a sermon. Gus also likes to wrestle with us. (Gus likes to go for the eyes and the nose). The other day, he and I were wrestling, and Gus pushed himself up into a standing position using my prone body for balance, put both hands in the air and started "preaching" before belly flopping onto my chest. This was it -- his signature finishing move . . . "The Bible Thump." 1, 2, 3!

Pictures of the future champ below:

Gus with Grandpa.

A cracker and a faux-hawk.

Doin' some preaching.

Gus exploring the Children's Museum.

Smile for the camera.

At the Children's Museum.

Where's Guster?

He Scores!

One of the Team of 18,000.

So Tired.

Catching the wave

First, a little bit of an apology about the lack of posts these days (seems like a lot of these are starting out this way lately). I didn't mean not to post. I meant to. Honest... I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!

Bonus points for the first one to correctly identify the reference.

Seriously though, you know it is getting bad when Grandpa makes a semi-snarky comment like, "there's a baby blog?" Ok. Message received loud and clear. Give the people what they want -- and they want more G-Man. As a token of goodwill, I have made this post a picture-palooza.

Guster is now just over nine months old. As you can see from the previous post, he is now a mobile unit. Gus' crawling ability has improved dramatically from the crooked shuffle depicted in the video -- now he puts his head down and charges. Quickly. In the direction of trouble.
Alarmingly just days after crawling, Gus began pulling himself up into a standing position. Mostly Gus stands by pulling himself up and balancing himself on whatever is handy -- the ottoman, Mom or Dad's leg, the coffee table -- but recently he will occasionally just pop up from a seated position into a shaky standing position, whereupon he will wave his arms wildly and yell out before plopping back down on his butt. Guster has taken one or two small steps while balanced against furniture, but no solo steps yet.

The race for the first word is a heated one. A few weeks ago Gus began babbling, "mamamamamama" and it looked like "mom" might be his first word. But then "dadadadadad" started finding its way into his "vocabulary" and "dad" went from dark-horse to legit contender. We'll see what happens, but the smart money is on "mom." I say this because after 8 1/2 months of being Guster's favorite, I have lost the title. Gus doesn't enjoy me any less, his mom has just had an incredible spike in her popularity. When the two of us are both present and available, it's not even close -- Gustapher wants his mom. He will literally use me as a springboard pushing his feet off my chest in order to help catapult him at his mom.

But today, I was the recipient of a special honor -- I was the first one that Gus waved at. I was standing in the kitchen doing dishes, and Gus was sitting on his mom's lap. He waved at me and smiled. It was definitely purposeful and we spent the next 20 seconds waving back and forth. I will say that it felt a little less special when Gus turned to his left and started waving at a bowl of tomatoes, but still, I can say I was first.

Full-color Guster below:

The holidays were so great, we were seein' Penguins!
Not quite in the holiday spirit yet

This is more like it
For me?
Yep, it was for me.

Mom and Gus
Dad and Gus
Grandpa and Uncle Jesse and Aunt Susu
Aunt Kelli
Grandpa and Gus

Mom, Grandpa, and Great-Grandpa

Dan, Jess, and Ella

Gus and Dana

Kelly and Gus

Making his move
JoAnna, Gus, and Noah

Gus needed to borrow a pair of pants at daycare -- and they made him look like an Easter Egg
But he seemed ok with it
Gus and Mom at the Zoo
Grandpa and Gus at the Zoo
What's happening?

Bundled up.
Dad and Guster
Lovin' the lion
Face full of food
Nice pants.

A mobile unit!

The holidays were busy, and I am going to feel free to use them as an excuse for the lack of posting. I resolve in 2008 to blog more often. More postings over the weekend, but for now -- here's a video of the little man doing a little crawling.

Cool Mom Picks

Here's my plug for Cool Mom Picks. Doing my part to keep this informative site free.

Thanksgiving 2007

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but work has been hectic, and until I get paid to blog, the law comes first.

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Tennessee with Grandma and Grandpa Ueland and Aunt Kelli. Overall the trip was great. We planned well and avoided the holiday crowds at the airports, and had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Ueland.

The weather in Tennessee was beautiful -- my dad and I actually played golf in shorts on the day before Thanksgiving -- not something that you would be able to do in Minnesota.

It was apparent that Gus was feeling under the weather (we later learned that he had been developing an ear infection), but nonetheless, he had a ball in Tennessee. He particularly enjoyed unsupervised play with Grandma and Grandpa.

One morning after Gus woke up at an absurdly early hour, my parents offered to watch Gus if Emily and I wanted to go back to bed for a little while. I think that we were tucking ourselves back in before the offer had been fully communicated. After an hour or two of rest, we woke up, and Emily fed Gus. I asked my parents how Gus had been and what they had done while we were sleeping.

"We had fun."

Ok.

Later on the trip, I picked up their digital camera, and found that they were telling the truth -- they had fun. I found many pictures of Gus posed in various places in their house. Some of which are below:

Gus with his new excersaucer -- Guster's new favorite toy!
Hangin' with Grandpa
Helping prepare the sweet potatoes?

Family photo.

Gus' highchair (that is a baby pterodactyl flying towards the balloons)
Smilin' for Grandma and Grandpa
Kicking back in the rocking chair
Jailed.