My buddy and me

Two weeks ago, I became a father. Pretty wild, to say the least.

My lovely wife and I now have a handsome, healthy baby boy. See above. Thomas Eugene Keliher III, named after his grandfather, who is in turn named after his grandfather. This every-other-generation tradition for naming first-born sons makes me Michael John Keliher II.

Born on August 8 at 5:38 in the morning, Tommy — in this corner, wearing the yellow onesie — weighed in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces and was 20 inches long. “Long” because babies can’t be 20 inches tall, apparently.

What follows is a rather scattered collection of thoughts that spew forth as a reflect on the past couple of weeks. You’d expect more from a journalism student who fancies himself a “bit of a writer,” but you’re not going to get more. I have to finish writing this before naptime ends.

Tommy scared the hell out of us by staying grayish-blue (something like Pantone 2716) about 30 seconds longer than he was supposed to upon entering the World of Light, but he was fine. Those were, however, 30 of the longest “Are you sure those weren’t weeks?” seconds I had ever experienced. Once he got past that first bout of oxygen deprivation, he had four other little choking spells that turned him unpleasant colors and kept Mommy and Daddy unpleasantly terrorized. Apparently babies spend their first 24 hours or so “a little mucousy” and have trouble swallowing or coughing it up. Great.

Since then, the missus and I have spent the past 15 days getting used to sleeping in two- or three-hour bursts. Not ideal, but it’s easier for me than for her. I sense she’ll come around, though. She’s a fighter.

Now that we have a kid who can breathe normally, our cameras — video and still — are getting a stellar workout, and my Facebook and Flickr photo sharing skills are destined for glory. See also: the above photo is chock-full of awesomeness. Ain’t he cute?!

My employer graciously gave me two weeks off from work (thanks, again). What did I do with that two weeks? I tried to learn how to squeeze sufficient amounts of sleeping, eating, feeding, diapering and photographing into each 24-hour period. Hell of a lot harder than you might think — and then there’s dishes and laundry and family visits and the printer’s not working and we have ants in the kitchen and…

Just before he turned two weeks old, the kid had already experienced his first trip to the Nook. We considered baby-birding him some cheese curds but passed — for now. Still on the list of Important Things We Need to Do Too Early in His Life:

• keep a baseball near his left hand
• teach him to appreciate a good Jeep Wrangler
• instill a fiery sense of libertarianism
• make sure he always questions authority — but always appropriately, of course (let’s see what his mother says about this list item)
• show him the ways of the grill

And yes, the title of this post is indeed a reference to this:

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