Two week lapse

It has been a while since I posted last.  A fair bit has gone on.  Both Nic and I have gone back to work.  Nic is doing both jobs at the moment.

Two Thursdays ago, I drive her to the second job and decided to stay in the area, grab a few portals for an augmented reality game I play called Ingress and then hang out at Barnes and Noble. 

Riley slept through most of it, until part way through the Barnes and Noble trip.  While there he woke up and wanted a changed diaper and a bottle.  I typically like to do it on that order, to make sure that there are no  structural integrity issues with the diaper.  I walk in to the men's bathroom and there is someone in the stall that had the changing table.  Riley is yelling his head off, I step out of the bathroom and wait.  Twenty minutes later the guy comes out, skinny with no obvious disabilities and he spent at least twenty minutes in the handicap stall.  I was furious to say the least.  That was a hard night, but I did find out that Riley likes cobble stone streets.

That was the only real hardship of the past two weeks.  Riley really is an angel, even when it takes me a while to find out what he wants.  He seems to enjoy daycare, and is all smiles when we go pick him up.  He is eating a lot and popping in amounts that seem almost grown up in proportion.

First Day of Daycare

We finally got to go back to work today.  Still no idea when school will resume.  For Riley, however, today was his first day at Daycare.  This was the first day that Riley was in the hands of someone whom neither Nicole nor I knew personally.  Suffice it to say it was very hard for both of us.  He woke up right as we were about to leave, so we got to snuggle him momentarily before having to go to work.  On the way out we both teared up, it was extremely difficult to leave him there, but we had to make some money.

His day was good, he ate a lot, he napped pretty well.  Our day was not as good, we didn't have any job related difficulties...or at least none out of the ordinary, but we both missed him to the point of wanting to call to check on him.  We only did once, so we did good despite the heartbreaking day.

Warning to future fathers, Daycare will help you to keep up with life...but it means trusting others with your child and this is extremely hard on you, and can only be harder on the mother of your child.  Make sure your child gets to play with you when you get them back, they will be happy to see you.

Winter has come!

Not necessarily on topic, but I finally got my car this afternoon, despite the weather and plow trucks trying to block my escape!  I went out for groceries and gas, and now am ensconced in a parking spot that I should be able to get out of fairly easily.  Likely, I will be back at work tomorrow.  It has been more than two weeks now since I have been away from my little monster for more than an hour or so.  I'm going to miss him tomorrow.  Hopefully, his Daycare doesn't get cancelled like it has been for the past two days.  Judging from the roads on my very little excursion outside today, it's possible to go either way.  You'd think after more than a full day the roads would at least be decent...and you'd be wrong.

Indoctrination

How early is too early to start indoctrinating one's child into Geekdom?

Well, the day after he was born I started reading On Basilisk Station by David Weber to my son.  He has been around while my wife and I have watched Dick van Dyke, Star Trek: Voyager, White Collar, Numb3rs and various other shows.

Today, however, on the eave of the Snowpocalypse, my wife and I decided to start watching the extended version of Lord of the Rings.  As I write this, Gandalf is riding Shadowfax from Edoras to find the Rohirrim and lead them to Helm's Deep.  The Two Towers is my favorite of the movies and of the books, and I have been remarking on things to my son this entire time.  When Gandalf fell, my son got upset, and calmed when we told him that Gandalf would return.

So, to return to my initial question, 'How early is too early to start indoctrinating one's child into Geekdom?'  My answer is never.  Our son never had a chance anyway, so I say we should embrace our subculture and let our child grow up with real heroes like Aragorn, Picard, Luke Skywalker, Honor Harrington and every other hero that has real personality.

Should I ever tell him that I seriously considered naming him Éomer?

Perfection

New Year

Riley and family have made it into 2014!  Riley is no longer in the year of his birth!  I hope everyone had a good New Year.  We spent last night at our friends house watching geeky videos and playing Cards Against Humanity.  Riley was awake all the way to 11pm, so he did not watch us ring in the New Year, but we made sure to kiss him and welcome him into 2014.

Also, yesterday was Nic's first day back at work, so Riley and I spent the day together.  What might be surprising is that is was the first time that I was alone with Riley for an extended period of time.  Things went pretty well, though I was a little unprepared.  There were some issues, though.  Usually when he gets hungry he can just start nursing once Nic is ready.  I, however, am not equipped thusly, so I have to get up and make him a bottle.  I was a little unfamiliar with putting together a bottle and so the first couple of attempts leaked.  This and the resulting further wait upset him greatly, which upset me.  I do not like to hear him cry.  I called Nic, I was a bit flustered as I did not know what I was doing wrong.  It turns out I had been leaving out a piece of the bottle which helped to make a seal between the bottle and its top/nipple.  I finally found the assembled bottles, it seems my fairly good spacial awareness doesn't copy over into kitchens, and got him fed.  After that point feeding wasn't quite the trouble, but as advice to other Fathers, learn the parts of the bottle that are necessary for feeding, the better bottles have more parts and if you do not know that it can lead to undue stress.

Tomorrow Nic is back at work again, and I am confident that bottles will not be an issue.  Stay tuned to see what, if anything, will be.