TMI Thursday: When the shit hits the… me, actually

It’s TMI Thursday again…

The tradition of TMI Thursdays is the brainchild of LiLu at livitluvit.com. It is typically introduced as follows: ***Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!***

Read on at your own risk.

Read Full Post »

Ear infection ftl

Today you were going to be entertained by a guest post from fellow blogger FrancoBeans. However, prep for this event was trumped by our dealing with Sick Toddler.

Looks sick running around grinning like that , doesn’t he? I can assure you, though, that is a bona fide pediatrician’s exam room in the background.

Poor little guy has an ear infection, and this led to much much screaming both during last night and on waking this morning. We have ear drops and Motrin and antibiotics, though, so hopefully he’ll get a better night tonight.

I’ve also been battling a nasty virus of some description (and D has too), but other than being majorly tired, I seem to be doing better for the most part.

So yeah. There will still be a guest post from FB sometime in the near future. Watch this space! 🙂

Read Full Post »

Great Moments in Parenting

Parenting isn’t easy. Some days you just feel adrift in a sea of tantrums and teething and stanky diapers, with no end in sight.

But there are also moments when you realize it’s all worth it.

Read Full Post »

Signing with Kids

For a long time, I’d been curious about learning American Sign Language; I enjoy learning spoken languages, and something like ASL represented a different dimension to that.

However, unlike living in Italy, working in France and Holland, visiting Japan and taking Spanish in high school, I had no real impetus to get the process into gear. As such, I’d learn a sign here or there, and most likely forget it again. So most of the signs I actually retained were the ones used for communicating with incompetent drivers with whom one is forced to share the road.

Along came L – a seemingly very bright miniature human. Learning to talk is a fairly slow process for the vast majority of miniature humans. However, he is in possession of increasingly fine motor skills. We learned that most babies can sign words before they can say them. And so there was a reason for the whole family to learn to sign together.

A friend of ours recommended the Baby Signing Time series of DVDs, and we picked up the first two. L now watches one of these each evening, and has amassed a healthy sign vocabulary. We just ordered the third and fourth DVDs, and I hope there will eventually be more in the series. Each DVD is a series of catchy songs written so as to teach a set of signs, and since we have been watching them so often, it is fortunate that the songs are sufficiently interesting and well-written as to not drive us crazy!

L’s most frequent signs are to ask for milk or food – very often ‘more food’ – but he also signs ‘all done’, ‘drink’, ‘sleep’, ‘please’, ‘hat’, ‘wash hands’, ‘brush teeth’, variously ‘signing’ or ‘time’ (when he wants to watch the DVDs) and a few others. He will often combine them in a logical fashion (the other night, when he was tired, he signed ‘please sleep’ at me). He has also signed ‘daddy’, ‘sorry’, ‘where’, ‘ouch’ and a few others, but only once, so it’s hard to say whether those were more than just coincidental… but he’s definitely able to express way more than he would be with speech alone by this point.

I’m immensely proud of my little boy, and I cannot recommend these DVDs highly enough. Hopefully I can keep up with him as he learns more and more signs!

Read Full Post »

I was nearly eaten by an alligator!*

*This is for a very broad definition of ‘nearly’ and a purely theoretical definition of ‘eaten’, but the alligator part is all true.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we briefly escaped the ice and snow of Rochester for a week in Fort Myers, Florida. Although more than 3 hours’ drive from Disney World, the place still has a vaguely unreal aura, at least for those of us unaccustomed to bright blue skies and 81° weather in late January.

See the difference?

Getting to see family again was great – and L got to meet his new cousin for the first time!

Also, there was an alligator.

There will be more to write about this later.

Read Full Post »

What’s in the stocking?

Let me just say here that Wii Music is awesome. I haven’t explored the depths of what it’ll let me do yet, but it looks like there’s a lot of that to explore.

Super Mario Galaxy is also pretty darn awesome, as are iTunes gift cards, chili-imbued chocolate, specialty coffee and a variety of other rather nice bits and pieces.

L, as the baby of the family, made out like a bandit this year, with all manner of wild and wonderful toys and clothes. This is of course twelve days after his birthday, and nine days before a trip to Canada where we will receive many hand-me-downs. L’s going to start to expect this sort of thing every couple of weeks…

Read Full Post »

What about Dad?

Laughable though this may sound, this blog is by a married, heterosexual white male, and I’m pushing for some equality around here.

I am blessed with a three-month-old son, in whose life I am extremely involved. I love every moment of being his Daddy – notwithstanding the occasional screaming, the loss of sleep and the sometimes very icky diaper changes. As such, it has become very bothersome to me that so many businesses out there are catering to mothers with babies. Parenting magazines advertise their contents as being the things Mom needs to know, cafés have facilities for diaper changing in the ladies’ room only, books and DVDs and baby-care advertisers all target Mom as the primary decision-maker and nurturing influence in baby’s life.

What about DAD?

There are single fathers out there doing the best they can in a world which barely admits their existence. There are couples out there including loving dads like myself who genuinely want to do their share in raising their children. There are moms who need a break sometimes and need Dad to be able to take over. Maybe it’s time to reward the people who support the role a father can play, if only he is allowed to do so.

Read Full Post »

I’m a dad!

It is a widely-held opinion that few places in the world are as depressing as hospitals. Like the sick-houses of centuries past, these largely unlovely buildings are a refuge for the infirm, a reminder of one’s own susceptibility to any of a million accidents and ailments. And yet, it was in the depths of a local hospital that I experienced one of the most profoundly joyous events of my life, an event the memory of which never fails to fill me with love and hope.

Let’s rewind a bit.

It wasn’t long until Christmas. Night had fallen just a few hours prior, signaling the end of Hanukkah. A season of celebration was in full swing, and so it was that D and I were visiting with dear friends. At this point, D was nine months and four days pregnant, in defiance of over three weeks’ worth of “any day now” pronouncements by the doctors. Games were played, good food was enjoyed, and the air was filled with music and laughter.

It was in the midst of this, at around 8:30, that D took up pencil and paper and developed an intense interest in the clock. What she was feeling now was in sharp contrast to the Braxton-Hicks false alarms of the past few weeks. This was more pronounced, more acute. Smiles flitted from face to face as it became obvious what exactly she was timing. Could this be it?

Nevertheless, the soiree drew to a close with no particular regularity in the times yet. The drive home yielded a few more numbers for the pencil to mark, and the preparations for going to bed did likewise.

I had been sleeping in the next room, such that my oft-lamented propensity for snoring would not deprive D of much-needed sleep. And so it was that I slept as D shuffled down the hallway to the bathroom, confirming the news to which I would awake minutes later: her water had broken.

Let me jump out of the story for a moment; I would like to mention to any readers currently childless that there are very few pieces of news which can bring one from “deep slumber” to “fully alert and on one’s feet” quite as fast as hearing that one’s child is announcing his imminent arrival.

The news which so set me afire was delivered at 4:12 on the morning of December 13th, 2007. And like a motion picture cliche, the flurry of activity that followed took us through the collection of our necessary belongings and across town to the hospital, where we arrived at 4:58. Forty-six minutes. I may never have moved so fast, and may never again.

In the Triage room came the fluid check (sure enough, that’s amniotic fluid, your water has broken!); the cervix check (you’re at 5 centimeters, coming along nicely); and we again heard the little heartbeat on the monitor, heard the little feet kick at the sensors with uncanny accuracy. The contractions were not yet regular, but since the water had broken, D was admitted.

And so, here we were. It was time. Calls were made to our nearest and dearest. D’s Mom set out from Ithaca to Rochester, and our local friends likewise converged upon us.

The birth team being present two hours later, little had changed. After the initial race, the pace had backed off and we settled in, waiting to see when it would happen. To help move things along, D took showers, walked laps with us around the birth center, and any other suggestion provided by the ever-helpful staff. Ten o’clock came and went, as did eleven. At this point, D’s OB/GYN paid us a visit and performed another check. Six centimeters. I would say as slow as molasses, but even the most sluggardly molasses on a cold day can cover a centimeter in six hours.

Options were discussed. Doing this with as little chemical assistance as possible had been our plan, and as such when the dreaded P-word was first mentioned, the idea was rejected. If this could happen without a Pitocin drip, then we wanted to let it. So it was decided that we would wait a while longer for there to be progress. We could not wait too long after the water breaking, but we could give it a little while. So we waited.

And we waited.

At around 2:30, we decided with some regret and trepidation that perhaps the Pitocin would be a good idea after all. Of course, this meant being hooked up to an IV drip, so no further walking around the birth center. None of this being what we had imagined and hoped for. Nevertheless, while this development muted it to an extent, my excitement was still building.

The Pitocin was given at the lowest dose first, with tiny increases every 15 minutes. It took some time, to be sure, but it seemed to be getting the job done. The contractions grew closer, and more regular. Each so often – though infrequently enough to minimize any risk – there would be another examination, and the numbers grew – this far dilated, that far effaced. The hours crept on.

It was getting late in the day, and the contractions were starting to hurt more. To take the edge off the pain and allow D to get some sleep, the nurses put some Nubain in the IV. And so there was sleep.

At 9:30, perhaps a little later, D told me, “I have to push now.” As had been described in our birthing class, this was an urge both imperious and imperative, a compulsion which could not and would not be gainsaid. At that point, she was at nine centimeters, so close and yet so far. The last centimeter came soon, though, and I stepped out to the nurses’ station and told them simply, “It’s time.” In they rushed for one last check – yep, most definitely time.

The doctor joined us to see D through the culmination of nine months of preparation. Pushing began, and I had my first glimpses of my little boy’s head.

From here on, much of the experience was simply so wondrous as to defy verbal description, even by an author far greater than myself. I will, however, do my best. Knowing that we could see something seemed to help D bear down and give her renewed strength for the pushing. She asked if the baby had hair, a question we could now answer with an emphatic yes. I think, over the course of her pushing, she asked this question several times – perhaps also for the same inspiration.

For 45 minutes she pushed. Only briefly did she surrender to the difficulty and say “I can’t do this”, and with the reassurance of her team and the onset of the next contraction, she continued pushing.

At this point, one of the nurses handed me a pair of latex gloves so that I could catch the baby. My hands covered, I made ready to do just that, and then held D’s foot briefly to help her stay in position. So, of course, out came a second set of gloves and a rather sheepish expression on my face. This time, I relinquished foot-holding duty and focused solely on being ready to catch the baby.

At last his head was out, and it was time for the final push. With a noise I could not possibly describe – but “splorch” comes fairly close – out he came into my waiting hands, greeted by a sea of beaming smiles and no small number of tears. Next came the cutting of the cord. I viewed this with a great deal of trepidation – for nine months, this cord had given my baby life and sustenance, and now I was being asked to sever it, for ever. Nonetheless, I comforted myself with the thought that there are almost seven billion people out there who have been detached from their mothers in just such a fashion, and they seem to be doing pretty well. So. Snip. 10:46, just over 26 hours after D had started timing.

And with that, it was done – he was washed clean and measured and weighed, and I got to see him again. All of the names we had considered for him flew through my head at this point, and one settled upon him, seeming just right. He will henceforth be referred to in this blog as L.

Read Full Post »

On impending arrivals

Baby. This has, unsurprisingly, been very much at the forefront of my consciousness of late. Not necessarily anything specific, just Baby.

All things considered, I’ve been dealing with the impending changes pretty well, making sure that things are in good shape ahead of time. I have occasional moments of Eep, particularly when there are new developments – sharper contractions and the like. And I know that at this point, most events are going to be in the ‘new developments’ category. So there will probably be a little more Eep to come.

I can’t say I’m completely unconcerned – I sometimes wonder about the what-ifs. What if there are complications during childbirth and something happens to either D or to the baby. I can comfort myself with statistics showing how unlikely it is that any given thing will happen, and with the knowledge that so far there’s been no indication of anything negative, but such questions do still flit across my mind. I want to be prepared for absolutely everything, and not all of it can realistically fit in my head – or anyone’s.

The idea of being a parent is also a little daunting at times. I wouldn’t go so far as to say scary, but definitely daunting. There’s a lot that I don’t know – indeed, that I can’t know – and a lot of situations to come wherein I will have to make on-the-spot decisions about what’s OK and what’s not, things where I won’t have time to Google things and do a bunch of research. Sometimes I worry about missing ‘firsts’. First steps, first tooth, first words… so many things that I feel duty-bound to be there for, and I worry that it’ll happen when I’m not there – even if I’m just taking a shower or something. I can handle things like feedings and diaper changes and so on, but missing a ‘first’ would make me feel terrible.

I don’t have as much as I would like in the way of a frame of reference for fatherhood. My Dad is a wonderful guy, but in order to make sure the family could have everything they needed, he worked long hours and traveled a lot. There were school events that he missed, there were times when I’d have liked to have him there and he wasn’t. The gift of a new toy at the end of his being away for three weeks in Japan was a neat thing at the time, but in the long run it didn’t make up for him not being there. Nowadays, I understand why he worked the long hours, and I have nothing but respect for his dedication to keeping food on the table and allowing us the luxuries we enjoyed, but I don’t want to short my son on Dad-time to do the same. I want to know that I can be there for everything, and still not neglect other responsibilities like working. If he plays in a Little League game, I want to be sitting in the bleachers cheering him on with all the passion of being at an England soccer game at Wembley Stadium, and yet with that much more because That’s My Kid Out There. If he’s in a school play or playing kiddie songs in a piano recital, I want to be there enjoying it like the greatest Broadway show, and yet that much more because That’s My Kid Up There.

I want to be able to guide him through the traps and pitfalls of growing up, and find a balance whereby I’m not overbearing and making him resent that I’m not letting him do things for himself. I want to keep him safe from injury, but not deny him the right to go out and climb a tree with his friends if he so wishes. I want to show him that I’m proud of him without embarrassing him by making too big a deal of things. I want to allow him to push his limits and be experimental, and yet watch like a hawk for anything that might be bad for him. I want him to succeed, but I don’t want to push him so hard that he ends up hating me for it.

Ultimately, what this amounts to is that I feel like I’m walking a tightrope, but he’s the one who’s going to fall off if I lose my footing. And logically I know I can’t do everything, that there will be some mistakes and missed opportunities, some things I’ll say or do that I wish I could take back, some times when there’s a right thing I could say or do and I don’t. Every parent has moments like those, and it’s not realistic to expect that I won’t. But I still want everything to be perfect, because That’s My Kid In There, and this is not something I can get a do-over on.

Basically… I want to be a great Dad. Not just an OK Dad, or even just a good Dad, but a great Dad. And I fully believe I have it in me to be that, but I worry about goofing it up. I also want to continue to be as good a husband, friend and employee as I can be, as applicable, without that taking away from Dadness.

Those of you reading this who are parents are probably chuckling at this point, and have probably all felt this way and wanted everything to be perfect. And each and every one of you seems to be a great parent. I just want to be sure I can be a part of that too.

Read Full Post »