Picture My World

And I don’t mean baking with their Easy-Bake Oven.

Apparently, this is still a problem (I thought I blogged about it a while ago, but can’t find it).  This SFGate article talks about the issue and includes tips so you don’t forget about your kid. Reading it, though, I have to wonder if the underlying cause of this problem is our crazy, multitasking lifestyle or simply… daycare.  Every example of accidental death cited was a parent forgetting to drop the kid off at daycare.

I could go on about how this article nicely summarizes so many underlying problems with our society, but I don’t have time.

Thanks for the link, Merlin.

It’s not that bad.

We’re travelling with a 3 year old and a 5 month old.  I’m taking the morning off and the rest of the family is at a friend’s house.

I was ready to write a rant about how tough it is to be away from home but, as I reflect, it’s really not that bad.  The worst parts, so far :), are:

• The baby starts to hate the car more and more as the day wears on.  There’s a lot of driving (we are in California, after all) and that’s a problem.
• Shula is a little home sick and asks to go home at least once a day.
• Eating out most of the time gets old and Shula doesn’t eat as well as she does with home cooked food.
• Good naps are hard to find.

However, the novelty of being somewhere else does keep things manageable.  Shula is turning into quite the park fiend — she loves new playgrounds.  The kids also did really well on the flights down here.

Speaking of flying — if you’re flying with a toddler, check out this harness from CARES.  It turns the airplane seatbelt into a 5 point restraint and means you don’t need to lug around a car seat.  Highly recommended.

I had forgotten just how much poop babies produce. There’s an amnestic quality to parenthood where certain, usually less… ummm… favorable, aspects of babyhood are forgotten.

At least I know I’ll soon forget this stage again.

Born December 18 at 1:14am after one of the nicest and driest days in recent memory.

She was a health 8 lbs and 21 inches long at birth (that’s 3.6 kg and 54 cm for the metrically inclined).

We had a home birth for this baby. I can’t tell you how much better this was compared to the hospital birth. Highly recommended if you’re a low-risk pregnancy.

Finally, the new baby experience is significantly different the second time around. I’m finding it harder to fully appreciate this new life when her older sister still requires our attention (and rightfully so). On the plus side, new baby is already getting used to Shula’s noise.

This fatherhood thing is tiring. I want to write something insightful or funny or otherwise entertaining, but I just don’t have it in me. My day today:

• 5:00 - Rise and shine
• 6:00 - After a leisurely breakfast (gotta read that newspaper) cycle to work
• 6:45 - Showered and working where I spend hundreds of dollars, work on projects, and have a 3 hours of meetings
• 3:45 - Cycle home
• 4:30 - Arrive at home, change, and eat dinner with family
• 5:30 - Spend the next 45 minutes convincing a 2 year old that she really does want to go to the park
• 6:15 - Go to park
• 7:30 - Return home and play requested Barney video
• 7:40 - Change remarkably passive 2 year old into PJs
• 7:45 - Steal some relaxation and read a bit of Shadow of the Giant as Barney sings and dances
• 8:15 - Is Barney over so soon? Story time!
• 8:50 - My shift’s over! Damn… time to go shopping
• 10:00 - Write a boring blog post

Jealous?

We picked up some new diapers for the girl.  They have Bob the Builder on them which makes them very attractive as she (the little one, not the wife) is a big fan.  What we didn’t know until ripping the bag open is that they are scented.  Really scented.

What’s up with that?  Is the smell supposed to mask other, supposedly grosser, smells?  Perhaps some parents just like their babies smelling like perfume and this is the easiest way to do it.  Either way, I can’t stand it.

Besides the fact the perfume smell just bugs me, but (and if you’re not a parent, you may not understand this) it’s much better to smell the poop and do something about it than missing it entirely.

Just say no to smelly diapers.

Last August, I mentioned a new blog titled Parents Behaving Badly.  I wasn’t too thrilled with it for the reasons I mentioned back then and didn’t give it another look.  It seems that the author came around to my way of thinking and has stopped blogging on that theme.  He writes:

I’m sick of holding myself up as if I’m better than these parents. I’m sick of looking down on them, sick of egging on others to mock them just so I can make myself feel good. I’m not helping anybody with this site. I’m just hurting them - and hurting myself.

Good for you, Jay (yes, another Jay).

Jay Allen at [The Zero Boss](http://thezeroboss.com/) has created a new blog called [Parents Behaving Badly](http://thezeroboss.com/pbb). Frankly, I don’t know how he does it. An entire blog about disgusting, sad, and pathetic cases of parenting gone horribly wrong? Sure, I don’t want to become that kind of parent, but I’d rather see positive examples, thank you very much.

That said, I had to laugh and agree with his comments in [this post](http://www.thezeroboss.com/pbb/archives/2005/08/to_prevent_kill.html).

Do all kids like to splash so much, or is Shula extra talented in this department? Whenever I bathe her we both come out all wet. There’s a splatter pattern on the cabinet behind me reminiscent of the scene in [Hero](http://www.miramax.com/hero/) with the hundreds of arrows impaled on the wall around a person’s silhouet.

I’d post a picture, but I don’t dare take my camera into such a hostile environment!

I’m reading Good Morning, Merry Sunshine by Bob Greene. Published in 1984, it’s Greene’s daily journal covering the first year of his daughter’s life. The quotes on the cover hail it as some revelation that fathers have feelings and really do understand their wives. As I read, I think it’s actually showing that fathers don’t really get what their wives go through during the first year. Many of his entries express his shock or confusion when he does or says something that raises his wife’s ire. He barely reports on what his wife does when he’s not home and I get the sense she doesn’t have much of a life.

I would never claim fathers should or could empathize with their stay-at-home wive’s experiences. How can you if you haven’t had to take care of the baby yourself for an extended period (i.e., more than a couple hours)?

My final observation is that on a normal day, he will write half a page or a page centred around his daughter. But, if he has an exciting story about work, he suddenly writes pages and pages. Remind you of anyone in particular?

**Update**: Isn’t this interesting. Bob Greene was fired from his newspaper (the Chicago Tribune) in 2002 after it was discovered that in 1988 he had some sort of sexual encounter with a 19 year old he had interviewed for a story. I’ll be reading the rest of his book in a different light.

**Update**: Chicago Magazine has a good article summarizing Greene’s career and life until 2003.

I can’t exactly remember what preconceptions I had about parenting. I suspect I thought that “good” parents doted on their kids, always providing them with something interesting and ensuring they were content and learning something. Sure, I knew that was practically impossible, but I’m a perfectionist so I can expect such behaviour of myself and others. Anyway, now that I see how I sometimes try to ignore Shula :o, I can admit it’s impossible to meet my previous expectations.

How do you ignore a ~9 month old\*? Distractions! The goal is to keep the kid occupied so they don’t cry or scream. Such noise is simply annoying and no one is happy.

• The ‘A’ number-1 tactic is to let the child play with a dangerous object. I’m not suggesting a loaded revolver, but the cat toy with the choking-hazard bell falls into this category. Warning: Keep an eye on the kid at all times while you write your blog entry.
• A close runner up is to give your baby an object that isn’t dangerous but an inconvenience to you. Examples include your cell phone (excessive drool will affect the phone), computer mouse and keyboard, and wallet.
• Let her play with the cat. Of course, depending on the cat’s disposition this may count as a dangerous object.
• Don’t underestimate the attraction of everyday, seemingly uneducational “toys” like a pile of to-be-recycled paper. There are hours of potential entertainment!

In general, it helps to play music at the same time (Raffi is the current fav as is Trio’s Da Da Da I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me Aha Aha Aha — go figure). As I figure out new distractions, I’ll add new gems to the blog.

\* If you have to ask “Why?” then you do not have kids yet.

FaceDrops
Originally uploaded by JZip.

When I look at this face, I wonder why we waited so long to have her.

This week was pretty rough. Shula’s sleep pattern is changing and we have no clue what it’s changing to. She isn’t napping well (the slightest noise will wake her) and, as a result, she isn’t sleeping well. She used to have a dependable 2 hour morning nap, but now she’s awake through the morning. She’ll wake up 3 or 4 times a night instead of 1 or 2. She’s more cranky with less sleep, too. We’re at a bit of a loss, and this is harder on Ema than it is on me, so far. The current plan is to avoid time-based commitments this week and map out her natural nap time(s) so we can better work around her schedule.

We’ll see what happens are report back later.

It’s amazing that babies (and kids) have trouble falling asleep if they don’t nap well. Even adults have trouble if we’re running short on sleep. But it seems to make more sense in our case since we’re often keeping ourselves awake with thoughts like, “If I fall asleep right now, I’ll get 7 hours which is just enough sleep to…” What are babies thinking to themselves? “If I could only fall asleep now I’ll be able to nap better tomorrow…”?

It doesn’t matter now. She’s asleep. Two walks totaling 1.5 hours later, anyway.

I really need an iPod. Send your donations…

Update: All that walking and she still woke up 10 minutes after I put her down. She was so deeply asleep that I was able to get her out of the sling without so much as a grunt, too. She fell asleep after another feed and was up for the morning a mere 8 hours later. Speaking of running short on sleep…

Shula’s been trying to roll over for a few weeks now. She seemed to take a break in the last week and a bit but started up again this morning. Rolling over is all about neck and back strength and control which is why babies can’t do it immediately. As I watch her try to roll over, it’s almost as if I can see what she’s thinking…

“I need to roll over. Maybe if I just look over there my body will follow… hmmm… not working. I bet it’s these darn legs holding me back. They’re usually out of control and flailing around. I’ll just hold them up and try to swing them to the side… I bet my body will follow. Hmm. That doesn’t work either. I need to help them out! I’ll grab one leg and pull it over. That’s got to work… Rats! I just made it onto my side, but that’s as far as I go. Ugh! This is so frustrating! Where’s my toy?!”

Of course, it could all be a ruse. She’ll roll over the moment we leave her unattended on the couch for 30 seconds.

Remember that post about Shula taking a bottle? We have since learned that babies may accept bottles early on and then suddenly stop. Shula is one of those babies. We tried giving her a bottle every day for a week with no luck. She’ll gum it and play with it but she won’t suck it. This has thrown us for a bit of a loop and put off my wife’s return to her master’s program.

One friend said we need to give her the bottle when Ema isn’t in the house. If she’s around the incentive isn’t strong enough. It’s on our list, but we haven’t tried it yet.

Shula’s just turned 3 months old and is doing all sorts of cool things. She can play with a toy with both hands. She just started to roll over half-way to the left. I think she’s discovered her feet. Her kick-start gym no longer freaks her out.

All of this means more independence is coming for her soon. And that means more independence for us!

One of the comments from this post on The Trixie Update is depressing. I can’t link to it directly, so I’ll quote the whole thing here:

This one has really has me thinking. Baby definitely makes marriage harder. But it’s usually moms complaining about it (not that you were complaining). The first couple of months after Sophie was born I found myself having an irrational and deep hatred of my spouse. It was freaking me out and then, when I was at a “mommy’s group” of a bunch of Park Slope yuppies I didn’t know at all, I had a Tourettes-like outburst, demanding to know: “Does everyone here hate their husband, ever since the baby came?” Everyone nodded politely and resumed coversation. I felt much better. As time wore on, the irrational hatred waned. The weird thing about the dynamic is that it’s a triangle b/c both parents love baby so much, more than anyone in the world, more than each other, so even when you’re not liking spouse, baby brings it back to love. Or trap, if you prefer. Of this love triangle, I used to believe that one of the things that keeps unhappy parents together is that w/o the other parent, there’d be no one to share all of the cute, inimitable things baby does - that no one else would want to wallow in how cute everything baby does is. Alas, TTU has proved me wrong - other people are perfectly willing to induldge. So, I guesss what I’m really saying is that a great blog could replace a spouse. Is that what I’m saying? I don’t think so, but it was a fun statemetn to make.
Hannah

(My emphasis.)

It’s depressing that this woman and a room-full of other new mothers feel this way about their husbands. Sadly, it’s probably the mens’ fault for not supporting their wives enough during the first couple of months. These first months are the toughest on whoever is the primary care giver since the baby needs almost constant attention. Without sufficient help, a new mother can barely take care of herself and that breeds all kinds of bad feelings.

Fathers! You need to adjust to the new reality. If you thought you treated your wife well before the baby, you still need to crank it up a notch!

Our marriage has been fortified by our little girl. I feel my wife and I are working together better than ever due the focus she brings to our lives. We’re now a family — not two individuals — and we need to look out for each other. If that involves spending more time at home and less time with friends for now, then so be it. I know that life will balance itself out later.

Learn to type 1 handed or maybe buy one of these. (No, I don’t have one…)

One of the truly amazing things about raising a child is witnessing them develop so many basic behaviours. Over the last few weeks, Shula’s been learning to trust. It’s easiest to see when it comes to feeding time. As a newborn, Shula would cry when hungry and nothing could stop her except a nipple in the mouth (or a finger, but that didn’t last long if she were really hungry). Now, at 2.5 months, her cry has changed to a distinct “I’m hungry” signal and she’s started to learn that we can understand the message.

When we “get it”, she stops fussing and patiently waits a hand-off to Ema (that’s Hebrew for “mom” and pronounced “ee-mah”). She anticipates meal time and trusts us to do the right thing. If we screw up, she lets us know by crying as if she just received word the world was ending. This usually happens when ema is already holding Shula and she gives subtle hunger signs. If Ema attempts to hand her off or do something else first, the big cry hits.

It always hurts at least a little bit when your baby cries, but it’s worse when you know you’re to blame. (Although, sometimes those little tricksters are incredibly subtle…) As bad as it gets, though, every crisis has a happy ending with a well-fed baby and relieved mother.