Baby Updates
Ok, so here's what everyone really wants to know anyway. The baby is doing fine. She had her two-week doctor's appointment last week and she actually gained weight. We've had her home for over a week now, so we're tired but getting the hang of it. Rather than trying to write a cohesive look at everything we've learned in the past week, I'd like to instead just do a list in no particular order.

• Swaddling is baby-talk for shut the fuck up. Seriously, if a baby is unhappy, swaddle them and they generally calm down.
• If a baby is crying, it's generally for a good reason. Change the diaper and feed them, and they won't cry. It's not rocket science.
• While you don't get to sleep as much as you used to, you can get more by following the above two items plus by setting a schedule. People laugh at the idea of having a schedule, but babies are hungry a lot. If you can get them used to eating on a regular basis, then you can plan to sleep between feedings and switch off with your partner in order to maximize sleep. I'm getting only slightly less sleep than I used to, and my wife and I are working out a plan where she sleeps after supper while I take care of the baby until about 11pm or so. My wife then wakes up about 2am but already got some rest.
• Breast-fed babies need to eat about once every two hours. Formula-fed babies need to eat once every three to four hours. Yes, we're selfish fucks for not breast-feeding, but hey, our baby is growing and we get to sleep more.
• Some things that appear to be extremely useful that you wouldn't expect are receiving blankets, boppies, a co-sleeper, swaddle-me blankets, and that's about it.
• Not all nipples are the same. We had to go through about four different ones before finding one that was compatible with our baby. Why isn't there a standard baby adapter? A Universal Serial Baby adapter or something?
• Changing shitty diapers is not a huge deal. It's when you are changing a diaper and the baby starts shitting that is a huge deal. It looks like brownie-colored toothpaste coming out of a dispenser. If the baby shits, just put the diaper back on and wait a while. At worst, we went through five diapers in a row.
• Using your elbow to measure bathwater temperatures really does work, and is more accurate than that rubber ducky with the word "HOT" written on the bottom of it.
• Grandmothers are a great help because they have experience raising kids and can offer lots of advice to you.
• Grandmothers are a big problem because they have experience raising kids in the past and things are done differently now, and offer advice that may not be the best.
• Sometimes you might get tired of taking care of the baby. Too fucking bad. This is what separates you from people like Britney Spears. Get your ass out of bed and help them, even if you stayed up too late reading HuSi or playing God of War II.

That's about it for now. It's been a pretty good experience overall with a few things here and there. It is tiring, and I'm not able to do as much as I used to. However, it's also not as bad as some people say it is. It isn't 24x7 work. The work that is required is pretty easy, it's just repetitive. You will lose some sleep, but if you sleep as little as I do anyway it won't be a huge adjustment.

Birthday
My birthday was this past Sunday. Since the baby was home, we didn't go out or have a cake or anything, but at least it was still better than last year. I got a couple of gifts this year. However, since I haven't had a birthday party or any celebration for two years in a row now, I'm officially two years younger than my real age.

One of the gifts I got was Super Paper Mario. This is a great game that plays something like a Mario-themed Metroid. You run around these places finding secrets and getting new abilities to help you complete other portions of the levels. If you have a Wii and like Mario or Metroid, get it. My favorite things are when I get the star power, because rather than merely turning me invincible I get to become a gigantic version of the original SMB Mario (or Luigi, Peach, or Bowser) and run through the level destroying everything. I'm glad they abandoned the RPG gameplay in favor of something more like the 2D sidescrolling and 3D platform gameplay.

The other gift I got was God of War II. This game is badass. It's great fun and I enjoy killing things in brutal ways. Right now I'm stuck on the giant Medusa that goes by some other name, but I'll beat her soon enough. Others have described this game here in the past so I won't go into too much detail. It's just one of those games that are instant classics.

Work
The two weeks I was out on paternity leave, things got really fucked up at work. People freaked out, decisions were made that screwed everything up, misinformation was spread, and things became a mess. When I came back, things started calming back down and things improved instantly. I hope everyone that I work with remembers that when it comes bonus/promotion time.

House
I haven't talked much about my house, but there is an issue right now so I'll discuss it here. My next-door neighbor is getting a pool put in and I was asked to sign something from the pool company giving them access to part of my yard and to take down one section of my fence so they could put the pool in. I was told it would take two days. This was last Thursday that they started. I'm hoping they finish soon, but I might have to give another call to the company to ask what they are doing and when they expect to be done. These guys arrive before 7:00am and use loud machinery. My fence is also still down, and they left a huge trail of mud and destruction on the side of my yard. If they don't fix it soon and replace both the fence and the sod as they agreed, there will be a lawsuit.

Additionally, I'm having a problem with a faucet leaking. It's still under warranty but I need to contact them and have it replaced soon.

Anyway, this diary is long enough and it's time for me to go. I should do some actual work today, at least for now.