As I sit and write this Rhys is being comforted by his mother in the bedroom. We haven't been able to get him to go to sleep for about an hour. He doesn't seem to have yet learned that he is being rude. In addition to his ill manners his behavior is extremely non-apologetic, one could say. He still seems quite oblivious to our lives, perhaps like an exchange student might in the first month or so of moving in.
I'm not sure what I expected at 2 1/2 weeks but I finally now get what every parent seemed to be trying to convey to me. The loss of sleep is brutal and quotidian. Infants are like very demanding narcoleptics. When they are awake they want to be fed and they'd like you to clean their diaper, one after the other perpetually. Then without warning they fall asleep on you, no matter how much you want to interact with them or take a picture of them, they sleep about 25 - 28 hours a day. The rest of the day is pretty much spent contemplating more eating. Evidenced by a crescendo of demands starting at gurgling noises to an outright wail of dissatisfaction. Then when he is satiated with breast milk he relaxes a bit by pooping his pants.
Last night my friends Lisa and Matt were over. Lisa mentioned Charles Chips and having them delivered to her house when she was younger. I looked them up online to see how this company was doing in these tough economic times and voila... last month they were revitalized and brought back into existence, just in time for their 70th anniversary. This is a potato chip company whose niche in the market was delivering metal tins of potato chips to your door. Well, it turns out that is still their niche and they plan on exploiting it to the full in these neo-kitschy times. This is an exciting epoch for potato chip eaters. The company is almost Amish in structure. The company picture only has 7 people in it, totaling 6 mustaches. Not sure who the new guy is...
Somebody sent me an article that seemed to suggest that Newt Gingrich had once tried to get a bill approved that would have made the death penalty an option for anybody caught bringing about two ounces of marijuana into the country. Seemed unlikely but then I got a vaguely sickening memory of the Newt Gingrich from the 90's , when he was Speaker of the House. I seem to remember him pushing for extremely limited appeals for death row inmates, though I forget whether he succeeded in pushing the bill through or not. He wanted an express lane installed. I don't know why he didn't just suggest having the defendants sit in the electric chair while they're on trial. I remember that it occurred to me then that only a monster could fight for such a bill when there is so much evidence showing that occasionally wrongfully convicted inmates were on death row. What would stop this guy from putting to death a few hapless potheads if he was given the chance. This plan seemed to kill two birds with one stone, if killing birds with stones interests you at all, etc. He seems more like a well read executioner than a president. But Nixon appeared as that or worse, just not nearly as well read.
Ok, it is time to get the family up and caffeinated.
