Things I know about John Elway, The Greatest QB of all TIME:

1. He's extremely fast.
2. He's extremely tricky. Flea Flicker anyone?
3. He's awesome with the pump fake.
4. He's got laser perfect aim.
5. He has two superbowl rings.

So last night, at 3 am I'm all groggy, complacent and feeding Charlie when I discover a stinky diaper. I decided to change it. Then the following happened.

1. I place the new diaper under the old one and clean him off.
2. As I move the old diaper out of the way, he poops again. I rush to make sure there's no blast radius by blocking with the new diaper.
3. I reach for new diaper #2 while suddenly coming to the realization that I have not covered his junk. I reach for a pee pee teepee.
4. I turn back around and he's managed to use his laser perfect aim to pee in his own ear, and all over his pajamas. He got me with the pump fake.
5. I give him a championship ring for fastest pee-er ever.

I'm even more resolved to beat this kid at his game, but you win this time Charlie, you win this time. By the way, when you get older, don't try that on the football field. It could end badly.

Traveling to Netroots Nation this year was a ton of fun and as always an educational experience. I'm sad to see that Gina is retiring as director, but hopefully there will be much fun next year in Pittsburgh. Things I learned at the conference:

• Being away from my kid and wife now officially is a bowl of suck.
• Joe Trippi can look un-disheveled.
• I miss my kid.
• Old friends are good to catch up with.
• I perpetually wonder if I'm missing something cool that my kid did every minute I'm away from him.
• A lot more people than just my immediately family read this blog. I had no idea that many people were interested in poop.
• I can not handle booze like I used to.
• I can beat the smartest lawyer ever at poker.
• I often miss my wife.
• The Alamo Drafthouse is everything I hoped it would be and more.
• I like not being peed on.
• I was really excited to get 5 full nights of sleep. Too bad I still only got 1.
• I can not handle booze like I used to.
• Sometimes things I think will be exciting are in fact incredibly boring.
• Sometimes things I think will be boring are in fact incredibly exciting.
• Tearing up after watching a video of my kid yawning does not make me lame...I think.
• Sometimes, there can be such a thing as too many parties.
• I really can not handle booze like I used to.
• Austin is a awesome place.
• If you sponsor an event, the chance of you hearing your company get a shout out works in direct correlation with your inability to hold you bladder. The more you leave an event to pee, the more they will say your name without you there. If you stay in the room they will conversely refrain from mentioning you at all.
• Charlie and Heather can apparently function without me. That's disconcerting as everything is supposed to be about me.
• Everybody wants an Advoshirt.
• Being away from my kid and wife now officially is a factory of suck.

Can't wait till next year.

While I was gone, Charlie decided he wanted headshots for his upcoming career as a stage baby. While I wasn't comfortable with all the fame I achieved acting, he apparently is hungry for his 15 minutes. I will be actively pushing to quash his dreams of stardom, and encourage him to go into a more subdued and professional career like extreme sports or politics.

Regardless, a new friend of ours, Andrea Johnston took some awesome pictures. Charlie was already cuter than your baby, but she has now turned him into the George Clooney of babies. Suck on that, other parents who reads this blog. My boy just out cuted yours!

Time for a CUTE OFF!!!, originally uploaded by Advodude.

I'm trapped in humid humid austin this week, while Apollo and Charlie compete in mortal combat to determine who is the cuter Mordecai.

Two will enter, only one will leave!

Begin MORTAL CUTEBACK!!!

*queues the mortal combat themesong*

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The Diaper Genie is not a magical man in a lamp that will grant you 3 baby poo wishes. No, instead the diaper genie is a poorly made plastic craptastic trash can of doom that will make your life a living hell or awesome depending on its mood, and it will rob you and take your wallet after it ransacks your nursery and dumps baby diapers all over the floor.

All of our parental friends sung the praises of the diaper genie as a life saver, as it seals all the diaper smells into a hermetically sealed sausage of plastic. We took their advice, but we took it to the next level and got the Diaper Genie II, supposedly the next evolution in the fight against the robots for the future.... er wait, in the diaper smell protection racket.

After about a week with the diaper genie, things were going smoothly. The DG and I had an understanding. Charlie would crap his pants, and I would take said pants and shove them into DG. DG would then protect us from Charlie's sulfuric discharges. I would then empty DG of the diaper sausage it had created and prep it for another round. However, newer isn't always better.

In the middle of the second week, apparently I angered DG and it broke on me, trapping a bunch of diapers above the seal, and a bunch below. I looked under the hood, and realized I had no idea how to put the contraption back together. A spring had popped off and some plastic pieces that I had no idea how to rearrange were laying on the inside. After a frantic search for the original instruction on using it, I found a picture that explained how it was put together. After an hour or two of futzing, I had apparently appeased the DG, as it went back to working as it was supposed to. All the extra diapers were stuffed into the top of a sausage wrap and my need for a hazmat suit was temporarily sated.

Cut to week 3. It broke again. And this time I noticed something fun. A little tiny plastic knob that was sealed onto the base of the genie had snapped off, causing it to perpetually break after 2 days of use. Rage filled my soul as I realized I was going to be trapped in a endless loop of sausge repair and toxic fumes, defeating the very purpose of the DP. I was determined to poor all my anger into the fine customer service representatives at playtex, the makers of the diaper genie. After finding no warranty information online, I assumed the worst about playtex. I predicted a phone call where I was put on hold for 30 minutes, and then they would decline my request for a replacement genie.

So I called them, enraged. After pressing a billion numbers to find a live person, I was put on hold. I knew it. They were gonna screw me. 18 minutes later, I finally got ahold of one of their evil service representatives. We'll call her Sharon. Sharon was appallingly nice, frustratingly understanding, and was unnervingly responsive to my issue. I had no way to channel my rage into her. She disarmed me, and offered to send a replacement genie immediately upon my sending in the old one with the free shipping label they send to me, and assured me that my experience was not the normal diaper genie experience. Additionally, she's sending along some coupons for DG sausage liners for my troubles

So maybe the diaper genie can still be magic. I'll keep you posted. In the interim, pray Charlie doesn't poop much.

Apollo is hungry...for love, originally uploaded by Advodude.

Miss Sarah Avery has been staying with us all week, taking care of us, feeding us, feeding Charlie at odd hours of the night. Apollo has fallen in love with her. But strangely that love only extends to the borders of the kitchen. Don't know what that's about.

This is an Open Letter to my son, to whom I have to apologize for my behavior as of late. Before I get into the actual letter, I'd like to call Sarah Avery, my fellow insomniac who I chatted with tonight, OUT, for declaring that the Beastie Boys suck, when they are indeed RAD, AWSOME and PWN the music scene. They are keeping me company tonight as I write this letter, with their awesome Fan concert documentary, "AWESOME! I SHOT THAT!" Shenanigans, Avery, Shenanigans. In the words of Adrock:

If you try to knock me you'll get mocked. I'll stir fry you in my wok. Your knees'll start shaking and your fingers pop. Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock.

I'm just gonna put this out there now, I nominate Adrock for Poet Laureate of the United States in the Obama Administration. Now to the letter (pardon the morbidity, I just have to get it off my chest):

Dear Charlie,

I'd like to apologize for all the sleep I have been interrupting of yours as of late. You see, for some reason, I can't accept the fact you are actually a functioning normal baby, and as such have to poke and prod you at all hours of the night to make sure you are, in fact, still alive.

You clearly have proven, time and again, that you are totally capable of breathing on your own, without my help. And yet, I still feel the need to poke you in the face to make sure that you are, in fact, still around. You see, I am worried, that you could have SIDS, even though SIDS doesn't even begin to appear until after you are a month old, and even then only happens to .0005% of babies. Science says the odds are clearly in your favor, by a ridiculous margin. But surely, you could be the first case in history of a baby suffering that fate before being a month old. So I have to continue poking you in the face.

Additionally, occasionally, if you refuse to sleep in perpetual motion, I will have to flick your earlobe to confirm that you are still mobile. I do not have a small enough mirror to put under your nose, and you seem to breathe far too shallowly, regardless, for me to prove that you are indeed ok. As such, finger on the ear is gonna have to happen.

Rather than listen to you breathe with a stuffy nose, which is clearly an indication that you are about to collapse, I plan on staying up late at night and get even less sleep so as not to disturb your slumber. This will occasionally cause me to be slightly irrational and grumpy, and I apologize for that ahead of time, but if I don't, I will slowly go crazy with the not knowing if you are indeed still acting like every other baby on the planet.

Also, every once in a while I am going to have to shake your foot. Sorry, but you have no LCD screen that tells me your current status, so that's the only way I have of knowing that you haven't forgotten to breathe. I know you aren't stupid (in fact you are probably the smartest baby ever if my instincts are correct), but there's a part of me clearly screaming that you are incapable of doing the most basic human things for yourself.

I am a new father, and as such, I'm not terribly bright. The sleep deprivation and mother nature have conspired to make me worry 24 hours a day that you will never get a grasp on that whole breathing and surviving thing. Science is just a theory and not a fact, so there's a chance you will fail at these things and prove me right. As such, I will continue to not sleep, and interrupt yours, just to make sure I am not insane.

Again, my bad. I have no control over this.

Tired and awake at 3:07am.

Sorry,

Your Dad.

Mission Objective: Keep Paternal Needs Conceirge (PNC) awake so as to meet my needs.

Mission Report:

8:10 am: Maternal Needs Conceirge (MNC) delivers me to PNC at NC slumber location, so that MNC can manufacture more liquid food that I ordered her to provide me.

8:12 am: PNC's eyes remain closed. Commence mission objectives.

8:13 am: I hit PNC in the face with hands. He remains undisturbed.

8:14 am: I kick PNC in the chest with hands. No response.

8:15 am: I grab PNC's lower lip. He opens his eyes. They then return to closed position.

8:16 am: Drastic measures required. I commence pants poop.

8:17 am: PNC wakes. Sighs in disappointment. Goes back to sleep.

8:18 am: I grab PNC's lower lip and poop my pants again simultaneously. He grumbles, wakes, then goes back to sleep.

8:19 am: I punch PNC in face, and poop again. Still no response.

8:20 am: I grab PNC upper and lower lips. I then kick him in chest. Then I poop. He wakes up. Pats my head. Goes back to sleep.

8:24 am: I poop 3 more times. Insolent PC disregards.

8:25 am: I commence measure of last resort and proceed with operation cry. PNC finally rises to do as I tell him.

End Report

You know your life has changed when you are sitting outside a hospital and your wife is inside at a lactation support group discussing mamory glands with other women, all of whom have sore nipples. I watched as almost every one of these women was dropped off by tired men in cars. And even though nobody else on the street knew anything about these ladies nipples, I was in on to their little secret. It made me feel sort of guilty that I had this knowledge. But the guilt is currently being overwhelmed by the sleepiness that I feel.

The first week of having a kid, we had a fabulous night system worked out. If it was feeding time, Heather would get up and feed, and I would sleep. If it wasn't feeding time, I would get up and figure out the issue and Heather would sleep. Fortunately for me, Charlie mostly only woke up if it was feeding time, leaving me to enjoy my slumber, while Heather slowly grew more tired and exhausted. It was great. Until this week.

Charlie, you see, has been a very bad boy. We explain to him over and over again the proper way to latch on to Heather's breasts, and yet he seems stubbornly determined to do things his way. And though we have repeatedly lectured him on manners and good behavior, he ignores us completely. Kind of reminds me of my brother (please let that not be true.) So thanks to his shoddy attitude, Heather has had to pump rather than feed, which means I have to feed rather than sleep. Which means I get tired and exhausted and Heather gets some rest. How is that fair?

Last night I got 2 hours sleep. And while getting to feed your kid from a bottle while he stares at you as though you are the king of all yummy milky goodness is a wonderful feeling, the shine has sort of wore off, what with my newfound irrational grumpiness, blackouts, paranoia and brain delirium.

Now I know what you are thinking. "Poor Adam. Heather has it so easy now, and you have it so hard." You are insensitive for thinking that. The truth is, its getting even worse for Heather, because even though she is getting more rest, she is now subjected to the inhuman requirements of a breast pumping machine. They attach to both your boobs and suck for 15 minutes. For that 15 minutes you don't feel sexy. You feel the opposite of sexy, you feel like 1970's vegas Elvis. Heather was used to feeling sexy about 99% of the time, or 1960s Elvis. And now she's having a 4% per day reduction in feeling sexy, all thanks to the little rhythmic noises of a breast pump. But do have pity on me as she gets 4 HOURS OF SLEEP a night, to my 2.

Go to hell, soul & milk sucking machine, go to hell. Nobody messes with my Heather.