I am so sorry to see that so much time has passed since I wrote last. The heavy lifting of the baby's ongoing every-maintenance -- almost entirely borne by K -- takes so much of the time that the simplest tasks are seemingly insurmountable. We have no excuses. We just didn't do it.

That is sadly the story with much. The baby wants for nothing. But the dog could use a walk, the house could use a wipe-down, the desk could use some serious organizing, don't even ask about any of the rooms upstairs and I haven't been to the basement in weeks. The baby soils clothing, the clothing gets washed. The baby needs diapers, the Peapod man brings them. I imagine (blissfully) that he thinks the whole world is as tailored to his whim as the home in which he lives. Meanwhile, K and I go from inspired meals when the kid gives us (her) a break to dismal repeat viewings of macaroni and cheese and Chik Nuggets when everyone in the house would rather sleep than do anything else. We grump and grouse when the boy, all of 7½ weeks old, wants neither a bottle, a breast or a pacifier. He receives none of our ire. Instead, we bombard each other with questions, "What does he want?" "Honey, I gave him a bottle and a pacifier and he spits everything back at me. You take him."

Now the worst of these mid-level maladies of early life has come to pass: I got sick. Just a head cold. Nothing to worry about normally. Maybe a day off work, if I'm feeling particularly rundown, but honestly, just something I would casually drill right through not missing a day at work.

But a sick adult in a household with a nursing baby and a mom who doesn't want to get a cold is a bad, bad thing. And I am a bad, bad man.

All reports are simply that there is no way to avoid K getting sick. I went to work Monday of this week, carrying my illness and dragging slowly through the halls. I was unprepared, unenthusiastic. The weekend was a little hard on me, because I try to take as much as I can off K, wake up with the boy early and get him full of pumped milk so she can sleep in. As a result, I was weakened, useless to fight off infection. My throat started to hurt, and my eyes were watering, and suddenly, a half-dozen sneezes later, I was totally crapped. Back from work Monday, I felt like the bottom of a shoe. I went to bed at 9 and slept ten hours. Still a wreck Tuesday, I couldn't go to work, instead choosing to drive K crazy and trying not to make everyone sick.

I failed. By the end of Tuesday, K was sniffling, and I was skulking around the house (still sick) like a dog trying to pretend I hadn't eaten an irreplaceable check from Ed McMahon and left the tattered remains in the middle of the living room. K shoots me the evil eye. I vowed to go to work the next day even if I needed a heart-lung-liver-skin transplant.

Here I am, but K is too sick now to care if I'm home or not. Her nose is stuffed and her eyes are watering. I'm dead meat tonight when I get home.

I've wanted to try this for a while now, but I finally got the whole works assembled to give it a try. Reid and I went to the farmer's market this morning.

On weekend mornings, if it's possible, I like to try to give K a little time to recharge her batteries. It isn't much, compared to how much she is awake all night every night and all week long, but it is a little something. Before the baby, I can safely say that K's favorite thing was sleeping in on weekends. I would often wonder how she could just let that time just pass without bothering to wake up, do things, occupy the time, use the time.

She would say that she was using the time. Using it for sleep.

The weekend before last, Reid and I puttered around the house one morning until about 11. K woke up feeling like a new woman. She was very happy.

This past weekend, we tried, as I said, going to the Market. Our friend Josh works a stand there, shilling delicious greens and some strange little purple potatoes as well as tomatoes and other goods. We like to visit the market to stock up on vegetables, most of which we then let rot while wholeheartedly meaning to use it in something grand.

But that's not important. Reid was up mighty early this Saturday, hours before the market opened, so we read the paper on the porch and shouted at nothing at all (Reid's favorite hobby). Our dog also enjoyed sitting on the porch wondering when she will get to walk around the neighborhood again.

Then we went to the market, loading up the various locomotion devices that make baby-ownership so very exciting. Reid is so very wonderful on these trips. He is a patient shopper. His father is not a very good planner, though.

With our baby-storage and travel system, things click into each other with a rewarding "snap!" and that's how you know that your baby seat won't come shooting out of your stroller or whatever. However, the baby seat-stroller combination blocks access to the convenience little under-baby basket, where a thoughtful parent might want to store the things he buys at the market.

Not me! No, I don't think about this until I'm trying to maneuver a stroller around a crowded market with pounds of fresh produce hanging off of both my wrists like some sort of medieval punishment. I was constantly fighting the shear and yaw as the mesclun mix bounced off the fresh spinach and forced me to make a correction, ramming the white lady peaches into the fresh cinnamon crumb cake. It was a nightmare.

In summation: use the Baby Bjorn when going to the market, or at least wake your wife and bring her.

Let me tell you how it is sometimes. Sometimes, I come home from work and K and the baby are there, feeding or something. And the baby gets done with the feeding and I scoop him up into my arms and he nestles in there a little bit, because he's got a full belly and it makes him sleepy.

On these nights, the boy and I foster a connection because I can talk to him and gently bring him out of his sleep. Since his belly is full, he doesn't mind waking up and eyeballing everything around us for a little while. At six weeks, the boy has a wry grin like he's certain someone is trying to put one over on him. He shoots this grin around and then makes a surprised face while he stares up at the ceiling, near the lights and then looks back at me to see if I'm as interesting as everything else in his little world.

Together for a while we play little games, planting little zerberts on his feet and belly. He's not quite laughing yet, but he smiles and me makes an excited face if he's happy with what's happening.

If we have time, Reid and I sing and dance together. This is mostly me holding the boy and carefully jiggling around the room like a cautious dervish. And the songlist hasn't yet slid down into the world of Songs for Kids® because Reid is still so young. When he was in K's belly I would sing songs to him and we both agreed he was enjoying it. So now we sing whatever comes into my head. Last night we dredged up "Steven's Last Night in Town" and had a great time with the clarinet sounds and the long sustained notes. We ran around the house, the boy staring at the passing scenery and watching the big lips of his father waggle away endlessly. The third verse momentarily escaped me, though, and the delay was enough to shatter play time with a little shouting. We adjourned to the kitchen for a warm bath.

Shortly after the bath, we headed upstairs. With the boy in my arms, I experience everything slightly altered. All parents get frustrated, especially when their child is vexing them with any of a million unexplained behaviors (buy all the books you want; you won't believe a word when your baby is sitting there shouting and you don't know why). But frustrated or not, I sit there and hold the boy (shouting, squirming, crying, spitting up, whatever) and I think to myself, "Take care of your son, man." I know K does the same. You want to make him happier, calmer, sounder, safer. You're tired of the shouting, and there's exasperation on your face. But you just persevere.

Last night, after some initial unexplained shouting and a steadfast refusal to eat, things settled down. K and I were concerned that he wasn't eating. It was she who realized that by this age he could start going longer without eating (ideally during the sleeping-time, but that's a tough window to coordinate), and it had only been about 5 hours since his last big meal (he's a snacker most of the time). He was completely safe and just not hungry.

Once we realized that, we had a nice goodnight. Sometimes it's like this: I sit with the boy in the gliding rocker in the nursery. I hold him not too tight and try not to stimulate him with too much play. Our goal together is to get to sleep. He looks at me and yawns a beautiful yawn, because he wants to get some shuteye, even though he could just as easily shift into full-shout at a moment's notice. But his little yawn and my slow rocking pace are our non-verbal agreement: Let's get some shuteye, dad and son together. An hour of rocking, slow and steady like a ship at sea, and the boy seems asleep.

Sometimes, he really is, and down he goes into the bed that looks so big for him right now. Under the covers, making little noises of sleep and respiration, Reid ends another day on earth and prepares for the next. Sometimes, it is like that.

Sorry I've been out of touch lately. Things are just skirting completely overwhelming here. The boy is amazing, as I've told dozens and dozens of people, but there was a week or two there when it just felt like there wasn't boundaries on the days and nights. The boy wasn't awake all the time, just often enough that you were kept entirely off guard. I sought to deflect as much as I could from K's duties. That meant bottle-feeding, and trying my best to struggle through until 2 or 3.

But sometimes I couldn't.

And lying there in the bed, I just couldn't do it. I had my eyes closed and I was lying there, and I just couldn't get up.

K is a superstar. She has entered into a fugue state where she functions with the boy, connected through the obvious ways and also through more subtle ways. When I call in the middle of the day they are laughing and engaging in activities like playing with colors and singing songs.

All I do at night, sadly, is hold him in my arms while he sleeps, then stick a bottle in mouth when he cries. His growth is amazing. He is spanning his bassinet, so he's moved into his own room, in a crib. He's shouting, I feed him, he's shouting, K feeds him, I never play with him. He wears me down, and he's made us his food and warmth delivery-systems.

At work, everyone knows that the kid is kicking my ass. They wonder about how such a little man can kick such a big man's ass. I wonder how he does it, too.

My mom, Reid's grandmother, visited us this weekend. Joining her was my grandmother, Reid's great grandmother. Awesome multigeneration photographs await!

There are new photos of Reid, from which the bathing picture above is drawn, available here and here.

Today marks Reid's first month on the planet. He has had quite a first thirty-one days. He's has learned the subtle joys of sitting nude in the kitchen sink. He has conducted extensive double-blind research studies on sleep deprivation, with two subjects. He has branded each of his outfits with his special, um, mixture. He has brought an amazing sense of wonder to at least one jaded man who was sure there wasn't much to experience wonder about. He has made our lives suddenly seem meaningful in a way they weren't before. He is nine pounds or more now (the only method we have of weighing him is to get on to the scale holding him and then without holding him), and in all of 24 inches he has become our entire sun and moon. He is everything to us. Happy first month, Reid. Hundreds more to come, each better than the last.

Okay, don't mess with the frenulum.

Actually, the frenulum was snipped yesterday afternoon. The doctor held it between two q-tips of topical anesthetic, then pinched the part with a hemostat and snipped it loose. Reid cried over the strain and confusion of having two or three non-nipple-related items in his mouth, but didn't seem to mind or notice the actual cutting of a very small part of him. He is an amazing boy, of course, and we didn't expect him to do anything but finesse it perfectly. And that's exactly what he did.

So we're not exactly overwhelmed with the results of this particular procedure yet.

I know it's early, but as of right now, K is reporting that the boy, who fed strongly last night, is still taking about 1:25 to get through both breasts. Now we've discovered that this whole tight frenulum thing could be part of a bigger problem. K may just be overachieving in the milk production department. This abundance of milk could be causing Reid to match this disturbing but not alarming set of symptoms:

Babies whose moms have too much milk will often exhibit symptoms such as fussing, pulling off the breast, colicky crying, gassiness, spitting up, and hiccupping. They may want to nurse frequently, and they may gain weight more rapidly than the average baby (who usually gains 4-8 ounces each week during the first 3 or 4 months), or they may gain weight more slowly than the average baby. Their stools may be green and watery, and their bottoms may be red and sore. The mother’s letdown reflex may be so forceful that the baby chokes, gags and sputters as he struggles with the jet of milk that sprays too quickly into his mouth.

It was disturbing because it describes Reid's feeding experience to a T. He eats often, punctuated with pulling off, passing gas, spitting up and getting the hiccups. He cries (we call it cranks) during the feeding, usually when you move him after he's pulled away from the breast and closed his eyes. Literally, he matches this set of symptoms perfectly.

So we're taking appropriate action. But this is the whole parenting thing in a nutshell. You try something, it isn't what you needed to do at all. But you couldn't have known, couldn't possibly have anticipated that each course of action -- with it circumstances and unexpected benefits -- would lead to this next step. You just keep trying stuff. Don't stop.

I think I stated to post something about young master Reid's frenulum, but I dropped it, sometime last week. Last week was rough, with work crashing into baby-raising, but we're recharged after the weekend, ready, at least for today, to think coherently and take on the world at large.

So the frenulum. This is the small flap of skin that, apparently, links my son's tongue to the floor of his mouth. Most people's frenulums are anchored conveniently far back to allow us all to do the things we like to do with our tongues. One of those first things may have been breastfeeding, and that's where little Reid has run into some obstacles. (You can read about short frenulums here.) Tomorrow, we're heading into an ear-nose-throat doctor to have the little guy snipped.

It isn't vascular and it doesn't have nerves, so no worries about that. There is some kind of brewing controversy about it, which I thought was pretty funny. Apparently, this condition is also known as "tongue-tied" and I myself have a pretty robust frenulum, which I've only noted prohibits me from extending my tongue to Gene Simmons levels of lewdness. This has not been a big problem.

It turns out that some kids with short frenulums in fact breast feed fine, while others have a tendency to get tired, break the latch with the breast and bring a whole load of crankiness to bear when feeding with the short frenulum. Reid appears to fall in the latter camp, with feedings sometimes going great and other times becoming huge three-ring circuses of sleep, slurp and shout.

Therefore we are here, talking about short frenulums. You can read about how they passed from favor some time in the past over here, but you may want to skim over the part about how the midwives once kept a long, sharpened nail to slice right through them after a baby was born (shudder).

So tomorrow, frenulum snipped, and hopefully, smooth breastfeeding ahead.