Say Cheese!

Grady just celebrated his big one-month birthday with a grande milk, a soy-formula fart, and a twenty-two hour nap. Man, that kid can party. During this first month, Regina worked tirelessly to get our little man on "the schedule." As far as I can tell, "the schedule" involves feeding, burping, diaper changes, and naps. It seems there are some subtleties to "the schedule" that I am missing. I sense the undercurrents of some sort of rigid plan, but I cannot figure out of what, exactly, the plan consists.

Whatever Regina's doing, she's doing it well, because Grady (usually) only wakes once during the night to be fed, can already roll over, and can down a big bottle of formula without barfing all over himself. I know this because my wife tracks his routines on a little notepad we keep by the microwave. It reads something like this: 9:45 PM, 6.5 oz. formula, stretches, change pee/poo. I add to it in my distinct penmanship to make it seem like I'm doing a lot to help out with "the schedule." I include things like: 2:00 AM, 32 oz. Mt. Dew, 75 push-ups, toilet trained. 4:30 PM, 1st shave, Japanese lessons,

rugby practice. 5:00 AM, finished training every unbroke horse on the ranch, ate a steak.

I'm probably a little subjective, but Grady's a pretty handsome little guy. He really resembled Dylan during his first few days, but now he's growing into something very different. He has finer features, lighter eyes, and a stronger chin. And while these features look beautiful in person, Grady isn't the most photogenic kid in the world. Sure, Regina has snapped some great shots of him, but we're used to Dylan, who, even on accident, always takes a great picture.

Grady is a pretty good sleeper. Even when he's awake, he looks like he just might drift off at any moment. It's a great quality, and a gift, especially with a sister who has an abundance of energy, but sleepiness doesn't always translate well to film (or pixels). With his eyes half-shut, Grady comes off looking like an extra on the Sopranos. He just needs a polyester track suit and a few gold chains. I expect every caption beneath his pictures to read, "Gimme the @!&% macaroni or I'll breaka your legs."

Case in point, our friend, Amber, who is a great photographer, came over and wanted to snap some shots of the the two of us. I'd just come in from work, so my dirty hands juxtaposed with the clean baby had the potential for some decent pictures. She took quite a few pictures and do you know how many turned out? One. And it was of Grady's feet. It seems that our little guy got at least one trait from his old man, the ability to wreck any photograph.

We're okay with it; he's a handsome devil and gets cuter by the day. We figure that he'll be as good looking in pictures as his sister soon enough (thank God for Regina's good genes). Until then, we'll keep snapping shots of our beautiful little Goomba who will be half-asleep, daydreaming about macaroni and milk.