The little guy (and, of course, a story about his big sister)

We have been very cautious about making any determinations or inferences about his personality at this early stage, mostly because we don't want to jinx what seems to be more and more clear by actually saying it out loud. By saying that he does seem to be quite a bit, how shall we say, less intense than Ruby.

He certainly hasn't been, up until this point, inconsolable in the way that she was as a baby. The other issue that has led to our reluctance to make any calls about his personality is that he is the age today that she was on the day she came home from the hospital, so comparisons are a bit difficult.

Yet, we are tentatively coming to perhaps, maybe, possibly let ourselves believe that he'll be at least somewhat mellower. He does seem to be going through the standard "witching hour" in the early evening, but it is basically a fairly tiny bout of fussiness, where he generally doesn't scream, just won't go completely to sleep for a long stretch all by himself.

Natasha will have to fill you all in about how he is doing at night, but during the day, he is sleeping pretty well. The standard technique, at this point, is to swaddle him, then walk him around for about five or ten minutes until he falls asleep, then put him into his little vibrating chair. He will sleep there for up to a couple of hours, until he gets hungry. Ruby, by way of contrast, would not let us put her down for any length of time, under any circumstances.

Speaking of Ruby, I took her out for a quick beer this afternoon, like old times, just me and her. She loved it, because she got my undivided attention, and I loved it because they happened to have one of my all time favorite beers, Russian River's Beatification. When the check came, Ruby insisted, as she always does, on giving the money to the waitress. When Ruby gave it to her, the waitress inquired, "Do you need change?"
To which Ruby replied, "I'm not poopy!"
Needless to say, the waitress stumbled away from what seemed to her a very awkward and confusing situation. When she walked by again at some point during the proceeding 20 minutes it took us to get ready to actually leave, I explained that the word "change" to Ruby meant "diaper change", and she laughed. Still, she seemed a bit confused, embarrassed, and a tad uncomfortable.

Welcome to the world of a toddler's parent.