If you enjoy my writing here, you should know I’m just doing my best James Lileks impression. He’s a newspaper columnist in Minneapolis who, on his personal website, often writes about raising his daughter in such a way that you can’t help but laugh and go, “dyawww,” at the same time. He’s just written a review of a video called, “Photographing Kids,” which you might enjoy. It starts off thusly:

When they’re born, they just look like beets. When they’re very small, they look squished, or like strangely over-inflated gnomes. Everyone always says they’re cute. Half the people are lying, and the other half are women. By the time they look like something you’d take home, let alone photograph, they’re two, and by then you’d best have taken lots of pictures. But how?

The rest is here.

Last weekend was Shannon’s baby shower, and the house was filled with women. It was just me and Gandalf the cat versus seven: Shannon, her mom and sister, Chloe the cat, our friends Maya and Tonua, and our soon-to-be sister-in-law Michelle. Fortunately for Gandy and me, they’re all pretty cool ladies, so we didn’t mind.

Not wanting to sully a feminine ritual with my dirty, dirty boyness, I made myself scarce for most of the actual shower part. I got back just in time to put the stuff together.

And what a pile of stuff it is. A bassinet, car seat, a stroller, a diaper bag, a pack-and-play (pack my butt, the thing weighs a ton), several swing-type-things, a toy set, a bunch of diapers, clothes, little bitty socks, and who knows what else. The packaging alone is going to be an adventure to dispose of. I imagine there’ll be a big sigh of relief when the cardboard shows up at the recycling center: oh, so that’s where it all went.  While we were putting it all together, I had flashes of Christmas future, I think, and I’m starting to acquire the sense of foreboding all fathers have for those three little words: some assembly required.

Still, even the assembly was fun.  It was a wonderful, busy weekend, and a good time was had by all.