Nearly a full week has passed since Baby Cooper joined us and the verdict is in: He's awesome.

Mom's been breast feeding him every two to three hours or so, he's only cranky when he's hungry or gassy, but that's pretty much universal for all babies. At nighttime he's been doing a surprisingly good job. The last 3 nights he has had his last feeding at 11:00 or so and slept 'til 4:30-5:00 in the morning, which is awesome for Mom (Dad pretty much sleeps right through it).

Cooper has succeeded in peeing and (nearly) pooping on Dad already. I got to change the very first diaper, which is always the thick black tarry (thankfully not smelly) meconium. He's since moved on to nasty stinky poop and a couple of days ago wasn't quite done filling his diaper when Dad went to change him.

As for who he looks like, for now the overwhelming consensus is me.

Today is a bit exciting, because my wife's younger sister who had to leave and go to gymnastics camp in Wisconsin on the day Cooper was born is coming home today and gets to see Coop for the first time. He was born at 11:02 and my sister-in-law had to leave the hospital to catch her boat in Ludington at 6:30.

Cooper already has a couple nicknames, the aforementioned Coop and the totally unforeseeable "Pooker". Our twin nieces are nearly 2 and are building a vocabulary, but are a bit sticky with the pronunciation of certain words; one of them being Cooper which comes out as Pooker. Suggested nicknames that were rejected and forever forbidden are CJ (his middle name is my name, Jared) and Mini Cooper.

As for life outside of the baby, there isn't really much. Which is fine. My wife is on 12 week maternity leave and I was already back to work on Monday. I pretty much had to be or else shut the shop down. It's just the two of us and my business partner's back is, to put it bluntly, effed up. He's largely immobile and when he does move, it's not very well. He's on Vicodin, Valium and Ibuprofen for the pain and it looks like he's going to need surgery of some sort. He'll see the doctor to determine exactly what they have to do on Tuesday.

I'll be getting some more pictures up of the little guy soon and more often. Word on the street is babies change very quickly and that you should take lots of pictures. Will do.

Take it easy, everyone. And Happy Father's Day early to anyone who applies.

Just dropping in to say that our baby boy finally arrived late Saturday night. 8 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches. His name is Cooper. Mom's doing great and the baby is very healthy after spending nine extra days in the womb. Obviously sleep has become a commodity around here, but the reward heavily outweighs the consequence. I'll be getting around to some pictures sooner or later, but for now I just wanted to make the announcement.

Take it easy.

It's late Friday night, the wife is in bed, the Tigers are on, I can't sleep; great time to write a blog, eh?

The 'ol due date is quickly approaching. My wife has had a couple of baby showers thrown for her already and the newly finished nursery is already packed to the gills with ungodly amounts of baby stuff. And she's still got two more showers to go. She's handling the pregnancy thus far like a champ. The little guy is a constant mover and shaker. He's kicking, punching, jiving and shaking constantly. No doubt his moves are from his mother. I only deal in good looks, wit and charm.

Went to another Red Wings game a few weeks back. They lost to the Islanders 2-0. But my brother-in-law, some friends of ours and I had a good time. Ended up at the Greektown casino and watched the last 10 minutes of the Kansas/Michigan State game in one of the bars.

My wife wanted to go to a Tigers game this year before the baby comes, so we're going with my parents in a couple of Saturdays to watch 'em play the Indians at Comerica. So glad baseball season is back, and that the Tigers haven't started 0-7.

Purchased me some Guitar Hero drums a while back. As a newcomer to the drums and lacking in any kind of rhythm, I do alright. Songs I am familiar with I can handle fairly well on Hard, otherwise I can pretty much nail everything on Medium. Now that I've had Rock Band 2 for a while, it's definitely superior to Guitar Hero in every way except the on-disc song list. I don't listen to a ton of music, but I know and enjoy 60 to 70% of the songs on GH, but I can only say the same for about 30 to 40% on RB. Though RB's DLC is head and shoulders above GH's.

I'm not a bad person and neither is my wife, but lately we're guilty of simultaneously busting up laughing at the Sam Bernstein ads on TV. Some background: The Bernstein Law Firm is local here in Michigan so I'm not sure if any of my non-mitten/midwest friends have ever seen his ads before. Anyway they're incredibly cheesy and generally laughable, but recently Sam's three lawyer kids have been featured in his ads and one of his sons is, ah, slightly visually impaired. No biggie, I don't hold it against him. At first in the ads he faced the camera normally as if to say, "Yeah, I know I've got a wicked cross eye, but this is how I bring in those big ol' settlements." But either the Bernstein camp has become self conscious or the ad agency stepped in. Now whenever our cross eyed friend is featured he is shown in profile with the good eye towards the camera. It's so obvious that it's even more of an attention getter than the old ads where he looked dead at the camera (and off to the side simultaneously). Anyway here's a current ad. Chuckle with me so I don't feel like too bad a guy.

Game's over and we've got a birthing class tomorrow morning at 9, so we'll so you later.