Brandon Gilbert

I don’t know if you will remember, but my Dad and I had a conversation about Jack Frost, and why there was such a big deal about snow. If you don’t remember, you can see it here. Well, I finally saw snow, and maybe it’s just me, but I still don’t see what the big deal is. First of all, you can’t just go out and play in it. You have to put on your entire wardrobe because apparently snow is a fashionista.  I heard Mommy telling Daddy, “no, you shouldn’t wear those gloves, they’re not right for the snow,” And Daddy asked Mommy, “Are you sure you want to wear those shoes? They may not be the best in the snow.” Seriously, we don’t have to even be that picky about the clothes we wear to church.

Not only that, apparently the world turns into a freezer so that the snow can “stick” to the ground. There are two problems with this idea. First off, I hate the cold. It gets into my nose and makes it feel funny. Second of all, I don’t understand how the snow “sticks.” It’s not sticky…at all. And why do you want it to stick? People have to run out and buy their bread, milk, and eggs. Is French Toast the official food of snow? Everyone gets all excited, “it’s gonna snow, it’s gonna snow!” And then they complain because the roads are slick and they can’t really go anywhere. I don’t know if I will ever understand this place.

Well, back to the “Snowpocalypse” as they’re calling it. I’m sure that’s a clever reference to something beyond my knowledge, but it sounds pretty silly to me. Mommy and Daddy got dressed up in the clothes they felt that Snow would like. Then they put every piece of clothing I have onto me. Then they put on a jacket over that. I was burning up, except for the cold that got into my nose and on my eyes. Then, you know what they did? They had the nerve to set me down in the snow. Now, I am doing pretty good with the whole sitting up by myself thing, but they know how cold and wet the snow is, and they just plopped me down in the middle of it. “Oh, that’s gonna be such a cute picture,” they said. yeah…”how cute, look at the little blue frozen child.” It would make a great picture to go with the headline when they find my frozen body. Who put these people in charge anyway? I guess I shouldn’t complain. They are pretty great overall. It’s only very rarely that I truly feel my life is in danger. Since I can’t type myself or truly speak the English language yet, I’m having to rely on Dad to translate and type this out for me. I hope you get the full story I was going for here.

Dad’s Note: It did make quite a great picture…

In case you didn’t know, Nashville got hit by the Snowpocalypse of 2010 last night. While it wasn’t the storm of the century, it was the first case of honest-to-goodness “thank the Lord we bought our milk,eggs, and bread” snow I’ve seen in a long time. I have a photo slide show here for you showing how we played in the snow and let Ryne get his first glimpse of a big snow (for 4 minutes). In case you were worried, he has on more layers than an amazing gobstopper. There’s also videos below that show the unfolding events. I wouldn’t watch with the volume up too loud though, because I was cold and my breathing sounds rather creepy. So there you go… I’ll let you know what Ryne thought of everything tomorrow.

As you can see, I’ve been on a hiatus for a couple of weeks. I have a very good reason. January 17th was mine and Jamie’s six year wedding anniversary. It was also the 10 year anniversary of us being together. Since I have no job and we have no money, we didn’t go anywhere, but Jamie did take one of her vacation weeks that week so we could spend some time together. And we did that and more. it’s amazing that after only six months of having Ryne how much we’ve actually missed in each others’ lives. So we did some catching up. And then this week, she got a lot of time off during the week, and we spent some more time together. It was great! So, yes, I decided my wife was more important than the blog.

Squeezed into that two week period were lots of noteworthy things, so I will have quite a few blogs coming the next few days to make up for the time I missed. Check back everyday!

Beginning with today…Ryne is six months old now. Well, he’s actually 6 3/4 months old, since this update is coming late. He now weighs 17 lbs. 4 oz. and his length is at 28 1/3 inches.

New Tricks:
His favorite mode of transportation is to roll wherever he wants to go.
He’s eating solid foods now.
He scooting on his belly…and oh so very close to crawling.
He’s teething like nobody’s business, and the first two have almost broken through all the way.
He’s saying Mama and Dada, though not when we want him to, and definitely with no idea of what he’s saying.

Picture: On the left is 4 days old when we brought him home and on the right is yesterday in the same outfit. Probably the last time we’ll be able to get it on him to take a comparison pic. He’s filled out quite a bit.

On Saturday, my baby boy turned reached 6 months of age. While memories of being able to contain that little baby in just two hands are still quite fresh, I am proud of the way he’s grown so much and of all the new things he’s learned and is learning. While visiting my parents at Christmas, I saw some of my own baby pictures with notations of when I accomplished certain things. I guess it’s ingrained in a parent that you want your kids to do better than you did at all things. I was standing in my crib by myself before I was 7 months old, so guess what? Ryne’s been practicing.

But as I look at all the new things he’s learning, I’m also reminded that it’s a great thing that we grow out of most of the things we do as babies. I have compiled a list of the top things I am glad that we stop doing at a very young age:

1. Using diapers instead of a toilet.
While using a diaper might save some embarrassment from the other kids in the class in Kindergarten, imagine still being in one in college. Imagine it’s the first day of class and you’re in your literature class. The professor gets up in front of the class, but before he or she can fully get into a discussion about MacBeth, they must ask, “Does someone have a stinky? I think I smell a stinky”… That would probably not be the best way to start out.

2. Exploring your world with your mouth.
Babies love putting everything they find in their mouth. For some reason this lets them know more about it. I believe that when Ryne puts something in his mouth, he can now tell you the year it was produced, the material, and its country of origin. Imagine what it would be like though to go to a business meeting and you shake the hand of an important person, but then you immediately pull their hand to your mouth and try to fit as much of it inside as you can. I would think this would be highly awkward, but at least now you know the person is human, they’re from Oklahoma, and they had Doritos at some point in their day.

3. Chewing on whatever you can find to soothe your gums while teething.
What if we didn’t have a set of adult teeth? What if they kept falling out and growing back in for our entire life? (Come to think of it, maybe that would be a boon to the economy…at least the tooth fairy economy). Imagine you’ve gone over to a friends’ house for a dinner party. You arrive, and as you enter the door, you say “Before we eat, do you mind if I borrow your coffee table? My gums are killing me.”

4. Needing someone else to clean you up after you’ve finished your potty business.
Imagine this story: “So, we were at the club the other night, and Ricky goes to the bathroom. I was thinking, ‘man he’s been in there a long time.’ Then sure enough, I get a text and he’s like, ‘Dude, this ain’t gonna clean up itself.’ And, yeah, it was pretty bad…” That brings a whole new meaning to the term “wingman.”

5. Drinking from a bottle with a nipple.
Imagine how much different sports would be if athletes could only drink Gatorade out of a bottle. Everyone is cramping up on the sidelines, and the team doctor is scratching his head thinking, “This wouldn’t be happening if only we could figure out a way to get more of this in them at one time.” I’m sure that it would definitely change the landscape of sports. On the other hand, I imagine a lot less drunk drivers would be out there as they sipped their beer through a bottle.

Can you think of any more? Leave a comment by clicking the link at the top of this post and let me know!

So there I was once again in the lair of the evil Dr. Daddicus and his partner, the Baroness Mommy Von Milkstein. I had allowed myself to be captured in order to infiltrate their lair in hopes of discovering their evil plan to take over the world.

What I didn’t realize is that they knew I wanted to infiltrate them, and they made special preparations. They built special restraints so that I couldn’t go anywhere, and they decided to torture me and try to get me to talk, and to let them know how I was going to stop their plan.

I was in for the shock of my lifetime. It started after they had secured me in my cell. They brought in a syringe filled with a clear liquid. I asked what it was. Dr. Daddicus told me that I would find out soon enough. He took the syringe and placed it in my mouth. He started administering the drug. It was unlike anything I had ever tasted before. I was sure the taste was sweet, though I had never tasted sugar before. It was very pleasant and soon I wanted more.

This is how they were working their plan. The Baroness said, “does that taste good? Do you want some more? Just tell us what we need to know.” It was then I knew they were just trying to milk me for information. I told her, “I don’t like it enough to tell you anything. You can keep it. I’ll never talk.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that. I convinced Dr. Daddicus that we could get you to talk the easy way, but since you refuse to tell us anything, we’re going to have to do it his way….the hard way.”

At this point, Dr. Daddicus came into the cell holding another syringe filled with a bright green concoction that was almost lighting up the room because it was so bright. He grinned his evil grin, and said, “this will hurt….alot…”

As he started to administer the drug, I immediately began to shake and convulse. This was the most putrid concoction I had ever tasted. I thought briefly about biting off my own tongue just so I couldn’t feel the taste buds anymore. Again, they tried to get me to talk. I shut my mouth as tightly as I could, but they were able to force it open and they just kept pumping it in.

My will was strong however, and although I swallowed quite a bit, I was able to spit a good bit of it back out as well. I knew they were strong and determined, but I’m a superhero. I outlasted them in the end, and they finally stopped. It may have been because they were out of the liquid. In any event, I knew I had them beat…until I started getting very, very sleepy…

Will RynoBoy wake up without powers? Will RynoBoy wake up at all? Tune in next time. Same RynoBoy time, same RynoBoy channel.

Epilogue from BrandNewDad: What had happened was… Ryne is still battling pretty fiercely with baby eczema. Our doctor gave us an herbal supplement to give him called Bio Essence. It has to be crushed up and put in some breast milk for him, so we have to give it to him in a syringe. It smells terrible, so I am sure it tastes terrible. When we gave it to him, he spit a lot of it out. The doctor also told us to give him half a teaspoon of Children’s dye-free benadryl to help with the itching, so that he wouldn’t scratch and therefore his skin could heal. This is a big deal because we are so tired of having to put socks on his hands. We are also tired of having our otherwise healthy and happy baby boy have rosy cheeks and scaly skin. This regimen has worked quite nicely and his skin has cleared up sooooo much. The Benadryl tastes like bubble gum, and that’s a new taste for him because all he’s had to this point is breast milk.

As you can see from the picture below, he’s come a long way. On the left where he’s all red and puffy and miserable is from last Wednesday. The picture on the right is from just one week later. He feels better, which in turn makes Mommy and Daddy feel a whole lot better.

If you liked this post, or just if you stopped by, please leave a comment by clicking on the link at the top of this post. I’d like to know who reads.