Friday, May 21, 2010

BABY TIME

NAME: Liam Lesniak Zyduck. ("Lesniak" (LESH-knock) is my wife's last name, but it's used here as a middle name, as was a custom in days of yore, rather than a hyphenated last name; "Lesniak-Zyduck" is just too Polish for one baby, and actually I think he works out to be a quarter Russian anyway. Also, you must agree that "Liam Lesniak" would be a good name for a late 19th century/early 20th century Irish bareknuckle boxer.)

BORN: Wednesday, May 19, 12:27 p.m.

WEIGHT AT BIRTH: 5 pounds, 4 ounces. He is, in fact, a tiny little man.

HEIGHT/LENGTH: 19 inches.

DAD WAS READING IN THE HOSPITAL: Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger when I needed something chewy and engrossing to get wrapped up in so as not to freak myself out worrying, and Essential Fantastic Four vol. 3 when I needed comfort food.

MOM WAS READING IN THE HOSPITAL: Ivanhoe. The resident who assisted in the delivery seemed to think this was funny.

DAD'S FIRST WORDS UPON SEEING CHILD: "Holy crap, it's a baby." (Shameful, perhaps, but true.)

MOST FRIGHTENING QUESTION ASKED BY NURSES: "Is there anyone who is stalking you or who would want to do harm to you or your baby?" (Standard security question we answered "no" to, but still...)

VISUAL AID: At birth he looked kind of like actor Wallace Shawn, but the pointiness of his head has gone down. Josh's speculative illustration is fairly accurate, although he was born with a porkpie hat and not a bowler.

Got back from the hospital today; at one point I was foolishly expecting, "Oh sure, we'll be out of there Thursday afternoon, no problem" (FALSE). Baby's mom is healthy after the high blood pressure concerns that resulted in the induced labor. Blogging will resume at some point, and I do not intend to gas on about ah, the dizzying highs and terrifying lows of parenthood to no end, but I am just having my moment right now.

7 comments:

Richard said...

Congratulations in every possible way, sir!

(Also...that question asked by the nurses? Christ on a crutch. If this is now to be considered a standard security issue, I'm glad for you to be out of there.)

Josh said...

Dude. Awesome. That is soooo rad. Congratulations to both you and alison. Looking forward to your following "oops I'm a daddy" posts.

One question though; what was the baby reading?

plok said...

WHOOOOO...!

Bill Reed said...

Aww, I had "Zebedee" in the name pool.

Justin said...

Thanks for the congrats, everyone!

RAB: Yeah, the maternity ward had a sort of "minimum security" vibe to it; I had to be buzzed in coming back from the cafeteria, and there was a HAL 9000-like security camera outside the entrance. In addition, my wife kept her last name, which proved a source of mild confusion ("So your last name is...and the baby's name is...?")

Josh: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." No, actually, I tried reading a bit of whatever I happened to be reading at the time aloud to see if the sound of my voice had any kind of calming effect. It worked to some degree, although some may consider me a bad parent for not censoring Salinger's liberal use of the word "goddamn."

Plok: I have passed along your message to the baby, at the volume implied by the capitalization and punctuation. You've never HEARD such crying...

Bill: A part of me wanted to push for "Zoolander Zyduck".

Colin Smith said...

Oh, how shamefully late my very best wishes are. And yet my very best wishes they surely are. I've been so caught up the business of my own family, and yet just knowing of your good fortune is absolutely inspiring!

Remember. Start him off with something simple. Then the day after that, in with the Grant Morrison!

Justin said...

That's the plan! I think DC/Vertigo is missing a money-making opportunity by not issuing a board-book version of The Filth.

"This is Greg. Greg is a dodgy bachelor. One day Greg's friend told him his name was really Ned, and it was time to play with a Soviet monkey assassin."