Snipped

As far as birth quips go, after Liz's 14-hour struggle I will agree that "that's why they call it labor," as the saying goes. But let me tell you, there's a reason they call it "circumcision" too. It is because no father would ever consent to the custom if they called it "pecker trimming." As Liz put it yesterday afternoon, a circumcised penis is one angry-looking entity.

Yet by the time I saw him, he was a happy little guy, eyelids peeled and alert, squirming around in his swaddle.

He and Liz both continue to thrive, but I never would have guessed the method the former employed to utterly delight the latter before bedtime last night. The nurse had been waiting for urine all day, and waiting, and waiting, but none had come. Liz had her fingers crossed during her post-dusk feeding, but all we got was a poop. Inspiring in its own right, no doubt, but not the proverbial pony she'd wanted for Christmas. I changed his diaper and Liz went for one more stroll around the ward, after which I went to refill her water pitcher.

And oh, the joyous noise that greeted my arrival back in Room 455! "He peed!" sang my wife, whose competence has been certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. "He peed everywhere! All over everything! Look at his shirt -- his blanket!"

All covered in liquid glory. A triumph indeed, one that I soon found myself proclaiming at the nurses station. So there you have the time it takes for a modern American adult to begin cheering numbers one and two: 50 hours. And to think of the ecstasies potty training will bring.