Daddy's log: Day 3

Baby's in bed, Mom's doing a Sitz Bath for her stitches, time for reflection.

3-days-old, and he just keeps getting better. In fact I think this may be his best day so far. Today he wasn't traumatized by being born, he didn't have part of his boy parts removed, he didn't get a single shot, and he started eating like a king. He did pee on himself a couple times, but today it didn't go in his eye (that wee blocker I mocked so heavily is looking better by the day).

People say being a baby is great, all you do is eat, sleep and poop. . . All I can say is when you don't really know how to do any of those, eating, sleeping, and pooping must be tough.

One thing experienced parents can laugh at me for—aside from the peeing in the eye—I'm annoyed that he poops and I change him and he poops again 30 seconds later. We went through about 15 diapers in the first 24 hours. And for some reason the geniuses who make changing pad covers make them in 5 colors all of which are pastel so they will show pee and poop stains like crazy. First diaper change at home, he peed all over the thing. Second changing after we washed it? He got poop on it (see my previous statement to see how).

After a little while we gave him his first sponge bath tonight. . . he screamed. He doesn't like being naked. So above you saw a picture of his first bath. This is my first step towards keeping this blog going in parenthood and trying not to make too much future embarrassment for him. So from now on, names will be used, pictures will be shown and I'll see where it takes me. . .

EDIT: I'm now deciding to remove names, but keep pictures.

P.S. Moms-to-be, if you do a sitz bath at home for your stitches, use your baby's new bath thermometer to make sure the water is OK for you too, no reason he should get all the use out of it.

Miricle. . .

At 11:33 am yesterday (October 26, 2007) we welcome our little man into the the world.

At 3:30 this morning my wife's water broke, we got to the the hospital (St. Joseph's) an hour later, they started giving her pitocin at 7:00, the contractions started getting bad about 10:00, the epidural went in at 10:45, and the baby emerged at 11:33. (Yes I know the time on the above image is wrong).

We slept, poorly, but we slept last night. Any pregnant person reading this. . . let the nurses tkae him. If you're nursing they'll bring him in when he needs to eat. You may be uncomfortable on that fold-out chair guys, but you get to sleep soon enough. Ask a nurse if they have a fold out cot instead. I got one this morning to use tonight.

We don't have an internet connection in the hospital like I thought we would so I'm sorry this took so long to post, I'm only home to shower now. Mom and baby are doing good. Hopefully I'll be back in time for his birthday. . . I promised I'd be back in time for the next feeding at 11. So gotta go. I'll post more soon, but here he is. . .

3-2-1 Baby. . .

We have lift off. My wife's water broke about 15 minutes ago. We're on our way to the hospital right now.

Wish us luck. I'll keep you posted.

Like a broken record. . .

After a week of panic we survived to see another doctor's appointment. For the first time we were actually ready with a list of questions (we even wrote them down). We almost forgot to ask any of them as the doctor checked out my wife's cervix and emerged saying "I'd say, you'll have this baby in 7-10 days."

So we get a stay of execution. The doctor still insists that she still has 3 days left from her last prediction. Of course all I can think is 10 days means Halloween.

The doctor did touch the little guy's head, and when she was out she grabbed him again through my wife's belly to see which way he was facing. . . yeah, he didn't like that. She put the doppler heart monitor on him and his little heart was racing (170 bpm). After about 5 minutes it slowed a little, but according to his mother he was moving around all night.

So he's squirmy and can hold a grudge for a surprisingly long time (for a baby). . . we're in trouble.

Ticking time bomb. . .

We spent all day yesterday sitting around think every little hiccup, every pain, every urge to pee was the baby on his way out. We've packed the bag, get everything ready that we can, and got everything ready at our places of business. . . all in an effort to jinx ourselves. If we're completely ready he won't come.

Silly huh?

Anyway the countdown is on. . . even more so than before. It's getting crazy to believe that we'll be past the pregnancy stage and onto the parenting stage soon. Not sure if I'll keep this blog up after that. I've heard arguments about not sharing too much about your children online (most recently on an episode of Jumping Monkeys). Once our little guy hits high school he may not look too kindly on having embarrassing baby pictures and stories on the internet. His future girlfriends may enjoy how cute he was in the picture of his first bath when we sit her down to show her his baby pictures, but she shouldn't be able to set it as her screen saver. . . will people even have screen savers then?

Surprise

See that fetus with a countdown to the right?. . . it lies!

Today we went to see the doctor and got some shocking news. Mom's 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. She then announced that she predicts that, at most, we have 2 weeks left.

Are you shitting me!?

As you can tell by the post below we were already a little freaked out by a month left, now we have half that time. All the leave plans all out the window, because the impatient little man in my wife's belly wants to come out and see what all the fuss is about. . .

Good news is he's pointing down. He also has a full head of hair. . . either that or he has a really hard, hairy butt.

Wait, What?. . .

Wait, the baby's due when? A month? Just a month? Like a 31 day month? OK at least it's not a February.

A month!?!

You'd think the carseat in my car, the crib, and clothes, the diapers (never had any of those in the house before), the toys and other assorted baby paraphernalia would have pushed me over the edge of readiness, but nope. . . still not even close to ready. I suppose you never can be ready, no amount of preparation or planning can get you truly ready for a baby.

"We don't know what to do you do with a baby!" my wife said this morning. She's right.

I'll start with the birth plans. So we had it easy with the doctor. "When should we go to the hospital?" "If your water breaks or if your contractions are 3 minutes apart and 45 second long." "OK great. Just so you know we're at your mercy in the hospital, neither of us wants to witness the actual birth, no mirrors, and the dad's not watching." It was easy.

Now we're planning maternity/paternity leaves, and finishing up projects at work. No problem, we can handle our jobs well and making plans for when we're gone hasn't proven to be too stressful.

Then the problem. . . One week after the baby is due we have a major holiday normally involving family dinners and gatherings. So we have to figure out how to make family functions flexible. Then we'll have to show off our week-old, amateur parenting skills in from front of the people who raised us. . . no stress there. Plus one side of our family is not very helpful when it comes to planing family gatherings.

I don't normally get stressed, but I'm getting a little now.

Old story. . .

One morning my wife woke up and told me about her late night encounter. She was woken in the middle of the night (while laying mostly on her back) by a slow repetitive thumping on her left side. She told me she was laying there thinking the baby was chanting "1--2--3 Heave!" to try and get her to roll over. She rolled over on her left side and the thumping stopped. . .

He quite the little puppet master.

Baby stuff

The baby's room looks like a Babies-R-Us exploded in it. Bedding and toys and bottles and diapers all over the place. We sorted a lot and did the some assembly required thing (for some reason the convenient , easy-to-use pack and play took longer to put together than ll the other thing put together). I can't believe the amount of stuff you need now for a baby, and we didn't even get some of the silly stuff (e.g. the Wee Blocker).

It's wonder we survived as kids.

1's and 2's for the 1's and 2's. . .

One of my concerns with becoming a parent has been about music. I think my wife and I have good taste in music, and I have a hearty appreciation of music that I don't even like much (zydeco, blue grass, indian, japanese pop, etc.). I grew up watching a lot Looney Tunes and anyone who grew up doing that can sing or whistle many classical pieces without second thought. . . I was lucky that I joined band—and later orchestra—where I learned what these pieces were. I also learned a lot of jazz standards this way.

So one of my "things" has been finding music for the kid to listen to.

I've come across a few good sources. . .

• Rock-a-bye Baby: Music box versions of popular bands including Metallica, Tool, The Cure, U2, Bob Marley, Green Day, Nirvana, No Doubt, and many more.
• Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child: A weekly, 2-hour radio show out of Northampton, Mass. that rebroadcasts as a podcast. Hosted by a lawyer and his daughter Ella. Things like They Might Be Giants, the Hip Waiters, Opus Ditty, Gorillaz; some recorded specifically for kids, some just music that is kid appropriate.
• Sounds in My Head: specifically for kids (and some not at all), but a good free music podcast to get some ideas of kid friendly music.
• Ritmo Latino: Spanish language music from Germany and originally broadcast in Guam. . . don't ask. With an increased focus on teaching Spanish to children at a young age, this podcast has some great sounding music. Can teach different culture sounds and get them used to the sounds of the Spanish language.

So not all children's music, but good music for children or parents, and all but the first are free.

If nothing else it gives me hope that maybe the little monkey will grow up to have some decent taste in music. Short of that it's music that doesn't come out of a purple dinosaur or from those four freaks from down-under.