An initial impression

So the Cubs are gone from the baseball playoffs. Given their recent performance during September, we all had high hopes for their prospects in the playoff series. But things didn't work out as we hoped, so they're gone. As are the Phillies. Which removes the threat of an inter-family National League rivalry in the division series, but also means that there isn't a clear team to root for on the NL side of the playoffs. Arizona Diamondbacks? Colorado Rockies? I'm not sure I even know where those teams play (their general geographical affiliations notwithstanding.) Luckily, I have one remaining team for which my allegiance is clear - the Cleveland Indians. My dad's side of the family lives the Cleveland area, and my first baseball games involved trips to Municipal Stadium - the "mistake by the lake" - with my Uncle Mike to eat hotdogs and watch the Tribe play random teams in a gargantuan, but often nearly empty, stadium. The stadium was so empty that you could literally hear individual hecklers yelling. The end result is that I'll be rooting for the Tribe for the rest of the playoffs (although things don't look good after their performance earlier tonight.)

What the heck, you ask, is this garbage? You show up looking for a post about the new kid, or perhaps the older kid, and instead you get a lot of mumbo-jumbo about baseball. The Cleveland Indians? Who the heck cares?

Note first the change in the name of the blog. The web address is still the same, but now, while there is still the dog and us, we have kids. My goodness. Just a matter of time until we end up driving a mini-van. NEVER! (I recall a friend of mine from college who had long hair and vehemently, passionately, absolutely insisted, under pressure, that he would NEVER cut his hair. I saw him at a wedding a year ago at which point I asked him whether, given his current short hair, he remembered our discussion about his allegiance to his previous haircut. Apparently he did not, and he didn't seem too concerned about the changes in his world view. So one never knows.)

I have lots of stuff running around in my head regarding the recent addition to the family, but I'll pass along my current impression of him: he's pretty easy baby. He doesn't fuss much. And when he does fuss, he's not very loud. Contrast this with his sister. By the time we left the hospital with Margaret, we had experienced at least a half-dozen or so episodes of bright red screaming which we had no idea how to fix. But Teddy will whine a bit, grunt, perhaps yell just enough to let us know that he's unhappy, but then he'll close his eyes and go back to sleep. This does cause some problems for feeding since we have to tickle, poke and prod him to make sure that he doesn't doze off while eating, but it also makes for a generally more pleasant baby experience. Perhaps it's us. Maybe we know how to deal with a fussy infant and/or we don't get as concerned when he starts to wail. But I can clearly recall early episodes with Margaret in which she was howling at the top of her lungs and no one, not us, not the nurses at Sibley, no one, had any idea how to stop it. So far, Teddy has been the complete opposite. When I mentioned to one of the nurses that he didn't seem to fuss very much, she said that he did cry a bit when she weighed him. Which involves stripping him of all of his clothes, tossing him on a cold scale, and generally causing him extreme discomfort. But if that's the threshold that's required to get a fussy response from him, then I'm fine (although he's currently complaining upstairs as I write this.)

To see the difference between Teddy and his sister, check out the following video. Teddy is just chilling out in his bassinet in the hospital. In a similar circumstance, his sister would have been howling.