Can't Win

So, now that Zoë is finally asleep it's hard to concentrate because I keep wondering if she's still breathing.

Sometimes things come back to haunt you

I have this rather clear memory of being in a store that specialized in inexpensive Swedish modern furniture and being less than happy with the asking price for the furniture (especially since it was all fiberboard).



Which eventually resulted in a fairly nice pair of solid wood bookshelves (and the purchase of about $350 in tools).

Of course, now that we're going to be needing more furniture.



I guess I'll be looking for a surface planer on craigslist.

The changing priorities of parents

Conversations with my baby

"Far!"

Walk close enough to touch noses.

"Near!"

Take 4 steps back.

"Far!"

Repeat until baby stops giggling.

Also Important

When posting pictures of your baby, make sure embarrassing objects are cropped out. Nobody's going to believe that the pump bottle is full of clear "hand lotion".

Through the woods

I don't know what other people's experience has been, but there was a really rough patch between 1 and 3 months where sleep deprivation just made everything blur together and it was a miracle that the bills were paid.

But we've made it through and we're rolling with the punches. Speaking of punches, Zoë's latest trick is to brighten up when I'm singing to her and then turn sour faced when I stop. It's like an anti-encore. She's booing me until I start singing again.

Baby Yoga

Today was Zoë's first day of baby yoga. It's also about a week since Kate's gone off of dairy in an effort to help Zoë be less gassy. Also, Zoë seems to be feeding like crazy in preparation for another growth spurt.

These things happen to be related.

After Kate went off dairy Zoë became generally less gassy (we'd like to think those two things could be related), and stopped producing poopy diapers. It isn't unheard of for babies to go a few days without pooping, so we weren't too concerned as she was both happy and extremely well hydrated.

In any case, apparently there's something the yoga class teaches that's called "digestion massage". It helps with the end part of digestion. This is generally a good thing, except that Zoë had a bit of a backlog which was rather accelerated to where it overflowed her diaper, her onesie, mom's pants, mom's shirt, a changing pad, and a packet of wipes.

I'm told there was a nice shower once everyone got home.

Running tally for the evening

As of 10:00pm

1 fuzzy blue bathrobe (baby poop)
1 hair towel (baby poop)
Carpet near bathroom (dog blood)
1 button down shirt (baby poop)
1 baby bathtub (baby poop and spit up)
1 Penny Arcade "Div" t-shirt (spit up)
Carpet near bed (dog blood)
1 pair of pants (spit up)
1 pair of jeans (shower nozzle overspray)
Purple wrap (spit up)
Carpet near dresser (dog blood)
Top blanket for the bed (baby poop)
Brand new nursing tank (spit up)
Liver (bourbon)


(the dog is fine, he had a minor altercation involving the cat's claws and his ear)

Silly doggy

New Rule: baby wipes go into a container that Porter (our black Labrador) can't get into.

Porter tends to walk when he poops, and my wife's taken to describing his current predicament as "diarrhea odysseys".

IC Tots

It's official.
My kid's swing is now lame.

Pandora Fail!

I generally like Pandora. It was a godsend in the hospital as my phone effectively contained several thousand hours of music and good music made the hospital room seem a bit more like home.

But every once in a while it falls down.

I'd created a station that typically plays music that's good for falling asleep to (started with Dead Can Dance and Loreena McKennitt). This worked pretty well until we added the Twin Peaks theme and one or two tracks off the Edward Scissorhands soundtrack. Suddenly, Pandora decided that any movie soundtrack was fair game.

King Kong? Exciting! Thumbs down.
Avatar film score? Not relaxing. Thumbs down.
Lord of the Rings soundtrack? Bombastic! Thumbs down.
(Also, why isn't there a "This song belongs on my other station" button. It's not bad music, just completely wrong for the station)

Regardless of how many we gave a thumbs down to it kept digging up new movie soundtracks.

After Kate was woken up early this morning by the theme to Star Wars I have removed all the soundtrack entries from the station.

Update:
I've been informed that Pandora does now have a Move-To-Another-Station button! Did they add that when I wasn't paying attention or did they always have that?

Perhaps I should seek psychiatric help

Am I the only one who finds it kind of satisfying when you see your baby spit up a whole lot. Not one of those dainty spit-ups that you dab at with a burp cloth, but one of those outfit soaking fountains. No? Maybe it was because great-grandma was the one holding her at the time.

Lies, Damn lies, and Babies

A few baby related things I've found to be less than true:

"Cats will suffocate/eat your baby."

I'm not sure where this anti-cat sentiment came from. Given some of the bizarre cat myths I've heard over the years I'm inclined to believe that the same traits that lead to cat hatred also lead to making up stories about your opponents. Feel free to extrapolate this to which ever political groups you hate.

So far our cat has sniffed our baby (with disdain) and has occasionally had to be removed from various pieces of baby furniture. Given the high price and low quality of most cat furniture I'm seriously considering getting an extra foam changing pad for a cat bed.

"Your car seat is easy and intuitive to install."

Apparently this is only true for certain models of SUV in the 2015 model year. It was most certainly not true for our 2001 model year car (sorry, we're bad consumers who buy long lasting cars and then perform maintenance on them. I know it's really terrible that we're doing that to the economy and it would be better for everyone if we bought a car that would need replacing in 5 years. If it makes you feel better you can come over and have some of my homebrew beer that I've made with money I wasn't spending on car payments).

"You can soothe a child and type at the same time."

Ok, this is one I keep telling myself. It totally does not work. My wife's holding the baby as I type this.

"Once your infant is fully asleep with floppy limbs it will be nearly impossible to wake her"

Lies! Any attempt to fool around with mommy instantly wakes up the baby.

And now:
Gratuitous adorable baby picture

How to change a diaper

• Wake up.
• No, really. Wake up.
• Sit up.
• Have the wife explain that the house is not, in fact on fire.
• Resolve to not sleep on my arm again. Flex hands and arm until I'm pretty sure I won't drop the baby.
• Don't ask what time it is. There is no answer that will improve the situation.
• Take baby, put baby on changing pad.
• Search for the wipes.
• Look for the diapers.
• Search for the wipes, become confused when they're already in my left hand.
• Attempt to open wipes.
• Swear at whoever invented the EZ-Open latch on the wipes.
• Contemplate getting a pair of pliers to assist with opening the wipes. Gleefully think about tearing the lid off of the wipes. Frown as the lid springs open.
• Put diaper on changing pad, put clean wipe over diaper, put baby on clean wipe.
• Undo dirty diaper.
• Marvel at the similarity between an infant's poo and curry. Wonder if this will put me off Indian food.
• Move dirty diaper far enough down the changing pad so that baby won't put her foot in it.
• Pull out fresh wipes. Try not to feel too weird about cleaning my daughter's genitals.
• Make up for weird feelings by mentally rehearsing scary and pithy things to say to the first boy who seems overly interested in touching my daughter's genitals.
• Put dirty wipes in dirty diaper.
• Discover baby has gotten better at kicking. Wipe off baby's foot and move dirty diaper farther down the changing pad.
• Lift baby's legs and get that last bit of poo that's smeared on her backside.
• Hear baby make a cooing sound as she pees and soaks through to the clean diaper.
• Count to 10, watch baby poo out a fresh supply of poo (Ha! I win this round, baby).
• Swap newly dirty diaper for next clean diaper.
• Re-clean baby.
• Try to remember how tightly the diaper is supposed to close.
• Realize that it doesn't really matter, the baby's started kicking and any tightness is fine provided that it doesn't fall off.
• Admire handywork. Decide that diapers that are twisted at crazy angles will probably leak. Re-adjust the diaper until it looks more like a garment and less like some fashion designer's "creation".
• Pick up baby (baby will now be crying).
• Swing baby back and fort until arms feel like they're going to fall off. Marvel at her pretty smile up at top of the swing.
• Try to imagine that swinging a baby will somehow build massive back and arm muscles that will have women ogling me.
• Stop swinging baby, experience total lack of surprise in how she goes from happy to fussy in less than 3 seconds.
• Spend 30 minutes doing a bouncy-walk up and down the hallway.
• Listen to one perfect contented sigh as she truly falls asleep.
• Give baby back to wife.
• Collapse into bed, sleep.
• Wake up.
• No, really. Wake up.

Milestone Seven

The baby is a week old today.

So: seven things I've learned as a new dad.

1. Babies are easier to pose when they're asleep.
2. My singing is soothing to my baby. Also, (unlike her mother) she doesn't complain when I'm off key.
3. Car seat instructions are a pack of lies.
4. The 'Hush Little Baby' lullaby is more fun when you make up the lyrics as you go. Especially when you're overtired and don't particularly care about being family friendly.
5. I can sleep through earthquakes and other natural disasters, but my daughter's crying wakes me instantly.
6. People will want you to take photos of them holding your baby. They'll want you to do this with their point and shoot camera under lighting conditions that require a flash. They'll always be surprised when they don't look good in these photos.
7. When the attractive doula asks my wife to get into bed and take her top off it means I'm about to hear a bunch of technical details regarding how milk comes out of a boob and goes into a baby.

Also:
8. My daughter is an evil genius and is trying to take over the world.

Helpful suggestions for being helpful

If you'd like to help a couple with a newborn here are a few things to try:

• Bring food.
• Bring beer (or whiskey).
• Offer to help with cooking and cleaning.
• Change a diaper.
• Go home.

You will notice that one thing that's not on the list is: hold the baby.
Many newborns are sleepy little angels during the day (typically when you're visiting).

They're resting up so they have energy to cry at 3:00am.

This isn't to say that it's never helpful to hold the baby.  When I'm running on 2 hours of sleep I find it's better to have the baby far away when attempting to cook (which seems to involve setting the stove on fire while slicing into my finger). Also, I still haven't figured out how to juggle the baby and the toilet paper.

But, that two hours you spent holding the baby when she was asleep? Please stop kidding yourself that you were being helpful. That's like eating the custard filling out of my donut and then explaining how it's awesome that I can now eat more bran flakes.