Now THAT was a long month

On June 1 we were still in the hospital. Exhausted, injured, hypermedicated, and totally flummoxed by these strange new sciences of swaddling and diapering.

29 days, 200 diapers, 40 visitors, 6 doctor appointments, 3 pounds of baby fat, 100 episodes of The West Wing, 30 ballgames, and countless wrecks of both The Old 97 and The Edmund Fitzgerald later: Still exhausted. But salty dogs when it comes to parental origami.

I remember June 1991 was a long month. December 1995, January 1999, October 2003 — all seemed interminable. But June 2007? June 2007 was a whole lifetime.

Already Wyatt is sporting a beer belly and male-pattern baldness. Already he has honed his keen sense of comic timing, as evidenced by his flatulent rimshots (he shares a birthday with both JFK and Bob Hope — and so far, he seems more influenced by the latter).

He still enjoys a good singalong, though, and loves to talk baseball. I've found I can hold his attention by calling out the lineup of the 2001 Mariners, and he lights up, smiling ear to ear, when I get to “At first base, number 5: John Ooooooooooooleruuuuuud!”

He even knows how and when to lie, and who to lie to. I know this because he has a special set of cries that he uses only if his mother is in the room.

It's going to be a long 18 years, isn't it?