Denver Dad

Play Dates & Guns

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My lovely sister-in-law sent me an article today. It’s not new, but becoming more relevant for this little family as London nears the age where somewhat unsupervised play dates will occur.

As soon as I saw part of the title: “The question I asked before any play date,” I knew it was going to be about guns. Sure enough, “Do you keep guns in the house?”

I am not going to pull quotes from the article, because you should read the whole thing. It’s short and sweet. 

My take: if you have guns, I want to see the safe they’re in before I’m hanging out in your house and especially before my daughter has a play date with your kid.

Hiding your gun isn’t enough. Okay, I’ll paraphrase one stat from the article, that 8 out of 10 first graders (first graders, people) know where their parents hide the guns.

Well done, America.

Emails and Poetry

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I rely on my parents to send me inspirational emails every so often. Yesterday, on my 33rd birthday, I received such an email. My mom encouraged me to go to a blog she regularly reads, to read a specific poem, and to listen to a hymn.

The blog is Barnstorming.

The poem found in this post is “Sure On This Shining Night” by James Agee

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground. 
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth. 
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
 ~James Agee
The hymn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wio1hcuAAAk
I found the poem and the hymn deeply moving. I wrote my mom back and thought I’d share that note on here:

 

Truly loved that poem, but especially the song. It reminds me of the Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity album from the Cambridge Singers. I found the song on iTunes and bought it already.

It made me think of the the 29th of January two years ago. As Kate and I went to bed on the 29th just a few days ago we quietly talked to each other about how London’s birthday celebration will always start on the night of the 29th because that’s when our miracle started. That night is so fresh and raw. Anytime I dwell on it I immediately start weeping, for several reasons, but maybe most of all because of what we have now, a boundless, healthy 2-year-old, which seemed to be outside the realm of possibility on that night two years ago and for many months afterward.
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
Love you,
Bryce

How to Help a NICU Parent

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A friend recently asked me for some advice. She knows someone who just IMG_3089_127883had a preemie at or around 26 weeks gestation and wanted to know how she could help them out, what to say, what not to say, etc. She gave me permission to post my response to her. It follows:

I am happy to share my advice. Some of it will be based on the assumption that you are in the same town as your brother and Erin and their new daughter, Harper.

Well, having a kid in the NICU is the most exhausting thing Kate and I have ever been through. Very important question: is this their first kid? If not, well, it’ll be even more exhausting than our journey. Anyway, exhausting, so the last thing I ever wanted to do when getting home from the hospital every day was cook. It’s sort of become a cliche, but cooking for them would probably be a huge help. I don’t think Kate and I went to the grocery store for 3 weeks after London was born. Without all the meals we received, we couldn’t give London as much attention as we did. We had one less thing to worry about and that was huge because having a 26-weeker is an all-consuming worry.

The first few days of NICU care are possibly the worst. Once the baby makes it a week, things can start to get a little easier. So now could be the most terrifying of days for your brother and his wife. It all sort of depends on Harper’s situation. Was this an emergency c-section? Did they have 24 hour notice so they could get some steroids to Harper before she was born? London did not have the benefit of steroids before she was born, which really set her back for some time. She was on the ventilator for nearly three weeks, if I’m remembering correctly. I’m not sure what I’m getting at here, but maybe it’s just that I know I was very open about London’s health and situation throughout her NICU stay. I sent out near-daily email updates to a large group of people. I would have never been able to tell all those people independently. So if your brother is open to the idea, I’d recommend that. Or if someone in the family wants to keep other family members and friends dialed into the situation by doing email updates then that would be a big help too.

I’ve completely forgot to mention that it’s so great they named her. I know that naming her is a commitment of the heart and soul that you resist when you see such a small and fragile human being. But it’s a big step and it might bring them some hope. I remember when London was just ten minutes old and being transferred from the OR to the NICU while Kate was still on the operating table, the doctor asked me what her name was, and I was just put on the spot and had to say it loudly enough that everyone in the OR could hear it. I didn’t know it then, but in hindsight, that was a pivotal moment of accepting as truth something I still couldn’t believe was happening.

In terms of what not to say, that’s always tough to answer. You know? It depends on the person’s tolerance of the cliche, like, “Everything’s going to be alright.” We heard that a few times and I may have even said it later on in London’s NICU stay, like in month 2 and 3, but I did not like hearing it in the first few days or couple of weeks even. I just wanted to know the specifics of London’s situation and all I wanted to share were the specifics. I didn’t want to speculate with family members and friends. I just tried to avoid the “what ifs”, so maybe help them do that.

I’ll stop writing after this next point. At three months early, Harper is going to be in the NICU for a long time. It’s important for your brother and Erin to get time away from the NICU. That won’t be right now, obviously, but later on it will be. As a NICU parent you feel the urge to be at the NICU as much as possible, but it is essential to get away from time to time. We wanted our health and our sanity while London was in the hospital and I think we may have lost both if we stayed there round the clock for the first month. Our NICU nurses were exceptional in that they all encouraged us to take breaks from being at London’s bedside. Clearly, we still went to the hospital every day for 109 days, but the time away from the hospital was almost as important as the time there. We needed a chance at rest and revival before facing the NICU’s minute by minute ups and downs. So, when it’s time, encourage your brother and Erin to get away, even if it takes you spending some hours by Harper’s side. Perhaps they will be uncomfortable with it at first, but they will appreciate it.

How’s that for a disjointed email? I mean, there are so many things that come to mind. Please, let me know if you have other questions. Sorry they are going through this. I hope Harper is doing well.

*All names in this post have been changed. 

The Skinny on Milk

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Milk is near and dear to my heart, but not all milk. You may as well use water if you’re having your cereal with skim milk. I have loathed the fat-free version of milk all my life. The taste and the color is not anything close to the real McCoy. To make things worse, when I was growing up and was served skim milk at a friend’s house I would have to endure some lecture about how it is the smart, healthy choice when it comes to milk. I have never bought that BS so, naturally, I was delighted when I flipped open New York Magazine and read their food science article on milk.

The skinny:  Research shows that whole milk is the healthiest milk for a baby, a kid, a teenager, an adult male, or a woman trying to conceive. This, of course, was presented in a neat chart that can be found by clicking this link. For adult females (not trying to conceive), fermented milk products have been shown to be the healthiest. And for retirees, no more than a glass of milk per day for you.

Those in favor of whole milk say:

It may be high in (still controversial) saturated fat, but whole milk is also 40 percent unsaturated fat, which has been shown to improve blood-cholesterol levels (thereby reducing the risk of heart disease). And whole milk keeps you feeling full longer than milk with less fat, which some recent studies suggest may help keep off the pounds. The weight control may also be due to “bioactive substances” found in milk fat, which changes the way our metabolism functions, allowing us to burn that fat for energy instead of storing it in our bodies.

So, if you’re drinking skim milk, you are more likely to be hungry sooner and guess what is most likely consumed next in that scenario? According to Dr. David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, it’s processed carbohydrates. Michael Pollan even says the best milk to drink is organic whole milk from grass-fed cows.

What to do next? Well, if you’re sitting there with a glass of water that someone has spiked with a few drops of white food coloring and called it milk, it’s time to move on. 1% fat, 2% fat, or all the way to whole, the closer you get to the real deal, the better the milk is for you. Of course, moderation is always a necessary ingredient. Cheers.

Pictures of Christmas Past

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Today, I decided to take a look back at Christmas photos since Kate and I were married in 2007, and after looking through them all I had to pick out a few to share on the blog. It’s amazing what can happen over the span of just nine Christmas holidays together as a married couple. I’m feeling very grateful for all the great people we have been able to celebrate Christmas with over the years and in all the beautiful places those celebrations have happened in.

2007

Just a couple of spring chickens here. 24-years-old. In Milwaukee for our first Christmas. Kate’s family drove out from Wyoming to join us. Very memorable. It was MKE’s snowiest winter ever recorded. Thanks for that welcome, Wisconsin.

2008

At the end of 2008, a very tumultuous year politically-speaking, I laid out a year of Newsweeks on the floor of our apartment and stood on top of our coffee table and took several pictures of them. My camera was actually on the fritz this year, so I don’t have that many in focus pictures, this one among them, but I still enjoy these photos, even though Palin can be seen off to the right.

Again in 2008, the Bradleys drove all the way from Wyoming (with the dogs) to have Christmas in Wisconsin. Here, Kate cuddles up with Molly and Max.

2009

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Christmas in Farmington, NM. However, this picture was taken in Durango the day we flew back to Milwaukee. This was my parents’ first Christmas in New Mexico. It was very special to be with them for that, as it had been an especially hard couple of years for them with unforeseeable and massive changes in their lives. Missionaries.

2010

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The first Colorado Christmas as a married couple. Here, we have some of Kate’s family celebrating the New Year at our high-rise apartment in Denver. Kate and I were actually alone on Christmas Day this year. We went for a walk at Wash Park because it was 60 degrees out. The day before we drove up to RMNP because we could.

2011

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All I can say is, it must have been a very good year because we ordered 25 lbs of Wisconsin cheese to be shipped to our Colorado address. ‘Twas a bit excessive, but we loved every bite and we gave away at least 10 lbs of it.

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I am incredibly blessed to have spent many Christmases with my grandparents as well. This Christmas dinner I was in charge of cooking the prime rib. I followed my mother-in-law’s standby recipe and things went perfectly. But then I goofed up and made a rum cake with Bacardi 151. It came out a little stronger than normal. Instead of a nice hint of rum taste with your cake, rum taste was all you got.

2012

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Kate’s family in town for this Christmas. This was also the only time I’ll sit in Row 1 for a Denver Broncos game. ‘Twas sweet.

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Per the usual, at a Bradley Christmas there were so many appetizers that I was left asking myself and others, “Why are we cooking dinner?”

2013

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Back in Farmington, NM we were for Christmas 2013. It had been a very long time since my dad and I had been photographed right after a Christmas Eve service so we took care of that and what a sweet picture it is.

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This is such a unique Christmas in my mind. We had just bought our first house. I had still somewhat recently graduated from DU and was looking for work in Denver. And we thought our first baby was five months away. London arrived just one month after this photo was taken.

2014

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For 2014, Kate’s family was in Denver again. We exchanged gifts. I got some great stuff, but the only thing I needed was London by our side, healthy, and off oxygen. That is exactly what we got and it was the best gift I have ever received.

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My beauties on Christmas morning.

What Lies Beneath

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London had just peed out her diaper. I thought it was odd since London had not peed out of her diaper in months. It could have just been that whoever changed her diaper last did not get a good seal.

I couldn’t quite believe it so I dabbed my hand on the big wet spot on London’s right pant leg. This was not some ordinary pee. This was some extremely sour-smelling stuff. As I brought my hand to my nose I finally realized it wasn’t pee.

Let me back up thirty minutes. We were all finishing dinner when London tooted. And by tooted, I mean it lasted five whole seconds. Then a few seconds later, another long toot. A few seconds after that, one more small blast. Kate and I looked at each other and sort of laughed, but London’s toot was not too extraordinary. She had done this before, but it had been a very long time.

We moved into the kitchen. Tonight, we kept London in the high chair as we cleaned the dishes. She kept snacking some, but seemed particularly moody so we decided to get her out of her high chair. And now, we are all caught up to the moment when it dawned on us that London, for only the second time since we brought her home from the NICU, had a poop blowout.

Luckily, we could tag team this. Kate grabbed some plastic bags. I carried London a good two feet out in front of me as we went upstairs to the bathroom. Once there we did a cursory examination of what was in front of us, deciding on how we were going to approach this horribly smelly and pasty mess.

To our benefit, London was wearing a onesie, which she just barely fit in, one that we weren’t particularly attached to. Scissors it is, but first we had to peel her pants off. As we did so little pieces of poo fell to the tiled floor. I could feel the extra weight of the pants as I moved them aside.

Once I returned to the bathroom with scissors, I held London and Kate cut down the back of the onesie and it fell to the ground inside the plastic bag London was standing on. Next, the diaper. A new bag for London to stand on. We just loosened the velcro-like straps of the diaper and let it fall off London. Pushing that mess aside, I grabbed the bathmat for London to lay on while Kate cleaned London up a little bit. She was not nearly clean enough to sit in a tub.

Kate asked, “What about the pants?”

“Oh, I’ll clean out what’s in there and I think they’ll be fine.” I picked them up, started to turn the oozy side inside out and immediately gave up. “They’re done for,” I said, as I plopped them into the plastic bag with London’s onesie.

Kate got to giving London a bath. I thought I’d check out the high chair because I knew it was going to be messy. I had seen some remnants in the seat before we went upstairs, but I didn’t really know how bad it was. First, I attacked it with bleach wipes, a lot of them. It looked good to me after that. Hold on, what’s beneath on the reverse side of the high chair cushion? Well, it was a brown stain bleeding out from the hole in the cushion, which part of the buckle slips through.

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Breakfast cereal, quesadilla, and a little bit of everything else.

I took the cushion off, flipped it over, and hit it with some more bleach wipes. The tag of the cushion read, “Do Not Wash. Hand Clean Only.” Throwing it in the washer seemed necessary at this point. Costco bleach wipes can only do so much. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but that sour smell was still there.

London was out of the tub by now and getting dressed, so I took the cushion upstairs, filled the tub with scalding water, and put in enough laundry detergent for several loads. I threw the cushion in the tub and made sure it was waterlogged before I left it there.

Back downstairs there was one last mess to clean up. I hadn’t fully cleaned London’s high chair in months so when I took the cushion off I discovered a pretty thick strip of food. I saw fossilized quesadilla, Crispix, Cheerios, and other food ground down to unrecognizable particles. I was going to vacuum it, but Kate told me to just dump it in the backyard. I lifted the chair up and out the backdoor and flipped it upside down once I was over the grass. Success. No vacuuming necessary and the lawn got fertilized with breakfast cereal.

The high chair cushion took two days to dry out in the backyard, but now London’s high chair is as clean as it was when we first got it. And, we only lost a onesie and some pants.

The Derailing of a New Year’s Resolution

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Things were going well. I was on track to read 12 classics in 2015, but then I set my IMG_6671eyes on The Executioner’s Song. Heck, Dave Eggers said it would be the fastest 1000 pages I would ever read. He wrote it on the back of this book. He was wrong, but that does not mean the book isn’t any good. It’s excellent. Every time I pick it up I am instantly drawn into Gary Gilmore’s story.

But the book is still 1000+ pages. No matter how excellent it is, I still have a baby at home who is sleeping less during the day than she used to and it’s the holidays so, naturally, there are more domestic duties to undertake in the short breaks I get while London is sleeping. There’s Christmas shopping (online), Christmas card and calendar building, and I’ve also spent the last few days frantically clearing the basement so our remodel can start this week.

I think I realized about two months ago that 12 classics in 2015 was not going to happen. I am pretty sure I won’t finish The Executioner’s Song in 2015, but I will finish it. I am enjoying it and it’s the first work by Norman Mailer that I have read. I just wanted to publicly confess to not achieving one goal for 2015. I am already thinking about a 2016 reading goal: No New Books. I have to finish all the books I have started, set down, and never gone back to. And when I’m done with those, I can start on books I already own, but have never read, which are quite a few.

Pictures of Preemies

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London. 8 Hours Old.

A Canadian photographer and father to two preemies, Red Méthot, has a popular project in which he photographs preemies holding their own baby pictures. I first saw this on Facebook and thought I should share it here. Follow this link to the Unworthy post.

This link leads to Red’s Facebook page, where you can view all of his photos in this project.

Particularly of note for me, were the two preemies photographed who are still on oxygen as toddlers. One of them was born at 23 weeks and the other at 26 weeks. Both boys. Kate and I are tremendously blessed that London, born at 26 weeks, is now 21 months old and approaching her one year anniversary of being free of oxygen support. Here’s hoping the two boys pictured with oxygen can lose that cannula for good sometime soon!

Millennial Parenting

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Yesterday, I sat down to read Time‘s cover story about millennial parents. Before starting out I made a few predictions. One, I would bring my palm to my face on more than one occasion. Two, I would read about a kid with a ridiculous name. And three, I would hear the same old stuff about one generation thinking the way they parented was the best and younger people parenting differently are just wrong.

Well, prediction one and two came true in the first paragraph. First facepalm, when I saw the vegan dad who is raising his kids vegan wearing a t-shirt, which simply said, “VEGAN.” This reminded me of the best joke I have ever heard about vegans. File this one away: How do you know someone is vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

As for prediction number two, let’s just say that right away there was a name that, in my opinion, seems like a classic case of millennial desperation to make everything about their kid unique starting right away with the name.

Prediction number three was also accurate, although there was not as much worrying about millennial parents as I expected there to be. The article mostly detailed the differences among parents from three generations: millennial,  gen x, and baby boomers.

The author made a few lazy assumptions about millennials. One was right there on the first page, “And they continue to build vast archives of selfies.” Not true in my case. Maybe that is because I am just barely a millennial parent, but it is mostly true because I strongly dislike selfies. I take them, when no one else is around to take a picture of London and I, but that is out of necessity, not because I need to Instagram a selfie right now. Another prediction: if your Instagram profile is chock full of selfies we probably won’t be good friends.

One of the best points in this article was that, due to nearly universal use of social media among millennial parents, it is far easier for us to compare our parenting or family to some other family. The Facebook and Instagram posts often present “impossibly pristine, accomplished version[s] of their family lives on the web.” That is one of the more accurate statements about parents all across social media. We are highly selective about what we share. I am guilty of this so in the margins of the article I wrote, “write about the dirty, time-consuming tasks…Instagram them too.” A couple of nights ago I had the best opportunity to do this. London had vomited all over the couch, Kate, and the floor. Next time, that is going on Instagram.

The author later writes that “millennials say infighting over topics like breast-feeding and vaccines has driven them from online groups.” I haven’t experienced too much of this, but in some cases I have encountered parents of preemies who almost advertise the complications of their kid’s prematurity in their IG profile, Facebook page, or Twitter account. I have certainly shied away from groups or users like that, much in the same way I unfollow people on Facebook whose posts are always political.

A teacher interviewed in the articles makes the point that social media “is leading the children of millennials to form stronger social bonds than previous generations, because they’re in contact with one another more outside of school.” Is this a good thing though? Doesn’t it breed traits into our children such as the need to always be connected to the internet or to always have a smartphone nearby? Are these kids able to be alone? Will they be able to enjoy silence?

The last scrawl in the margins of this article I made was about kids being unique. A mom is quoted as saying, “I just want them to be unique.” Aren’t they unique in your own eyes? That should be enough. My kid or kids will always be unique to me and that is all that matters. Most importantly, I want them to be happy. I know that if they are happy, they will encounter people in their lives who consider them unique. These people will become their friends.

I think there is some urge in millennial parents for their kid to be unique in the eyes of the world, not just their eyes, like we are all trying to raise the next prodigy, celebrity, or savant. If there is a concerning theme in this article, that would be it for me.

A discovery about millennial parents that is particularly promising and hopeful to me is that parents in this generation favor more unstructured playtime and are more encouraging of kids to explore on their own, to be on their own. This, according to the article, is a move away from the helicopter parenting of Gen X. In my experience, this is pretty accurate.

If you are interested at all about Time’s take on millennial parents, then I encourage you to check this article out. I just tried to link to it, but was told that the page is only available to subscribers of the magazine. So it might necessitate a trip to the library or a little more sleuth work on the internet. The title of the article: Help! My Parents Are Millennials.

Becoming a Playground Aficionado

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London has discovered playgrounds. The closest one is just up the street. We went IMG_7500there months ago. I have the exact date written down somewhere, but since then, we have had to expand our known playground universe. Throughout the process, London has seemed to enjoy every playground we have been to, but I quickly developed preferences and discovered things about playgrounds that are quite different since I was last climbing around one.

And, of course, some things about playgrounds are still the same. For example, I am still too big for them just like I was too big for them when I was 12.

IMG_7504But the differences are many. Sand is often isolated to a small area of the playground or simply nonexistent. As a parent, I absolutely love this. London would probably prefer more sand, but she has tried to eat it and it has the potential to get places I’d rather not find sand in later in the day. Thus, I love it.

However, the common sand replacement is wood chips. In my opinion, better than sand, but not the best surface. There is a potential for slivers and, apparently, spiders. Spiders like wood chips. London likes the wood chips. Like sand, she has tasted them, but it is loads easier to get wood chips out of a baby’s mouth than sand.

So far, my preferred playground surface almost looks like concrete, but it’s soft and coated in rubber. It’s springy enough to ease a fall, but firm enough to support easy walking and running.

I think it is safe to say that London and I prefer Kompan playgrounds. They build some really sweet playgrounds. They aren’t the playgrounds of my late elementary years, which were starting to be too safe as our society became more litigious. Kompan playgrounds seem to have taken steps back from that fun-sapping trend. So far, our time on Kompan playgrounds has been plenty safe, but I love that they incorporate a lot of ropes and tall playground equipment. I love the potential for injury and risk, even if I still don’t fit well on most of their contraptions. That’s okay! London fits just fine and  every week we are trying out new playgrounds across Denver and finding out that our favorites consistently have Kompan printed all over the playground, a welcome site for this playground duo.

Those First 20 Months

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Don’t run. Don’t run from this. I know, you had these grand plans. Fatherhood doesn’t mean those plans have to be scrapped. Modified, perhaps. Delayed, most likely. But scrapped? No.

Impending fatherhood can do some crazy things to you. A part of you might want to tuck tail and run. We are selfish beings after all. In the moment, it is all too easy to see the coming changes as the way you are going to lose your freedoms.

I won’t lie. Some freedoms disappear. Some just temporarily. Some other freedoms for a little while longer. But as you wade deeper and deeper into fatherhood, those freedoms will come back. Normal will be erased, redefined, and can slowly return to something resembling a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

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You won’t get to help complete her first puzzle.

But first there will be dirty diapers, lots of them. Also, there won’t be sleep, at least not restful sleep. Your life will be interrupted by a baby and within that interruption, there are hundreds more interruptions, coming at the worst moments after just two hours of sleep, or at 4 am, or in the middle of a book, or in the middle of a job when you are facing a deadline. And your checking account will take a hit. Even if you get a ton of gifts at multiple baby showers, you will think there is a leak in your bank. And in the toughest moments, you might mourn the old you. Where did that carefree you go? You thought you had to be responsible before? Huh, you will say out loud, I wish I could talk to that old me and let him know how easy he has got it.

You could just remain that person. After all, many people shirk the mantle of fatherhood. I don’t recommend it though. I have only been a father for 20 months, but just in case you decide to take even just the first 20 months off, here is some of what you will miss.

Your daughter’s first smile. Her very first laugh. Her. First. Laugh. Isn’t that amazing?

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You won’t get pictures like this.

You won’t get to teach her one of her first words. You won’t get to cheer her on as she makes her very first army crawl across the living room.

You won’t get to pick clothes out for her. You won’t get to dress her in a new outfit for the very first time.

You won’t get to look at her in awe and start to see her become something that resembles a little of you and a little of the woman you loved long before your daughter was even in your imagination.

You won’t get to hear her say dada for the first time. You won’t get to hear her say your actual name for the first time, like I did today.

You won’t be able to scoop her off the ground after her first fall. You won’t get to have a hug from her. Those hugs, well, there is nothing like them.

The firsts don’t end at 20 months. They keep on going and going and going. Never in my life have I heard someone speak highly of a father who skipped out on those firsts. Can you even be a father if you skip this? Maybe. Eventually. But that road back is going to be a lot more challenging than just sticking this out.

If you could talk to your future self, say twenty years down the road, regardless of that person’s decision, I am confident he would say the same thing. You should be a father and a husband first. You will find out that all the other titles, adventures, and stories out there, although great they can be, will fade away once you embrace the most important role you will ever have. Father.

Dads Saving the Day

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I saw these videos of dads who have saved the day and had to share them on here. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but number 5 is a very solid effort. The first time I watched it I thought the dad was sprinting after the girls on the Little Tikes car, because putting two girls on a car like that and pushing it down a hill just seems like a bad idea. But the dad is actually saving another kid from being run over by those girls. Another great video, number 2, which is the most casual, but still quite impressive, save on the list.

Watch the videos from Buzzfeed here.

I saw these videos a while back, but I thought of them again on Saturday. We had just arrived for brunch at a restaurant. I was standing and holding London on my left arm/hip waiting for the high chair to arrive at our table. I was looking to my right, when I felt London’s weight shift in my arms. She had started to lunge out of my hold, head first. My right arm swooped around and saved her from sailor-diving into our brunch table. There is no video of it, but there was definitely some daddy-pride in the aftermath of that moment.

Music Class in my Active Wear

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After music class this morning, this video is absolutely spot-on.

SAHD Guidelines for Music Class

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Yesterday was my first music class with London. I need to write some things down so I remember them for the next nine classes to come…

Try as hard as you can to act like there is another dad in the room. You are the only one, but be as comfortable as if there were three other SAHDs present.

Try not to sweat when you’re feeling like all eyes are on you because all eyes aren’t on you. It just feels that way because you’re the only SAHD there. IMG_7217

Just in case you do sweat a lot like yesterday, wear a darker shirt. Yesterday you wore a light blue shirt and within ten minutes you had a band of belly sweat visible on your shirt and by the end of the class it was impossible to hide the fact that you were pitting out.

Don’t drink a venti iced coffee from Starbucks right before music class. Trying to pee while holding London is not as easy as it once was. And yesterday you had to do it twice, right before class and immediately afterward.

Take pride in the fact that the first toddler on toddler assault yesterday was not London’s doing, but don’t forget to corral her if she starts winding up for a nice slap across the face, her customary greeting for babies.

If the opportunity arises, share London’s age. From past experience, I know there has to be someone there wondering why there is a three-year-old acting like a sixteen-month-old. Well, let them down gently, it’s because she is sixteen months old.

Also, be kind to anyone if they assume I am babysitting. Just because I am a dad and I am here with my daughter does not mean I am babysitting. I am parenting. No parent should feel like they are babysitting their own kid.

Do not assume a child’s age. Yes, he or she might be significantly smaller than London, but they might be six months to a a year older.

Just try to fit in. Try not to think of yourself as the pariah. You won’t be if you remember these things you’ve written down here. Oh yeah, and don’t sweat as much.

What Makes You Happy?

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With encouragement from my wife, I am very slowly reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I have enjoyed reading about Rubin’s year-long journey to a happier life.

The book includes a nice mix of practical and philosophical advice for a happier life. In Screen Shot 2015-09-06 at 11.59.48 AMthe last chapter I read, Rubin spent a fair amount of time writing about what makes her happy. She kept asking herself, am I happy doing this? She asked her readers, what makes you happy? In response, Rubin and her blog readers concluded that what truly makes them happy is not always what they wish made them happy. For example, Rubin might be happiest being at home reading a book without interruption, but in her mind she is tormented by the thought that she might be happier on a hike even though she knows perfectly well that is not going to make her as happy.

Since reading the chapter I have been thinking about what sort of activities make me happy. At this point in my life, being able to do something without interruption makes me happiest. It does not really matter what that something is. If I can sit down and watch a movie without interruption, I am thrilled. Read a chapter of a book without being interrupted? So refreshing and invigorating. Refinishing an end table for our living room without an interruption? This actually give me a strong sense of accomplishment, which combined with the effort it takes to refinish furniture, gives me a lasting happiness that helps me through the menial tasks of SAHD duty: diaper changes, bottle service, dishes, laundry, house-cleaning, etc.

So, today, I set out to do a few things without interruption. One, go to Novo Coffee and read a couple of articles in Vanity Fair without interruption (done). Two, write a blog without interruption (currently in progress). Three, go home and eat lunch while watching an hour of television without interruption (coming soon). Four, work on refinishing an end table without the worry of being interrupted (also, coming soon).

Time for number three.

The House Is Not For Sale

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The last time I had a garage sale I priced every item, including the house. There were no takers that day. And on Saturday, when I finally had another garage sale this house was not for sale.

Instead, this garage sale was one in a series of steps we needed to take in order to finish the basement. There is a lot of stuff down there that we do not use and no longer have a need to hold onto, such as English class notes from UW, which I mentioned a couple posts ago.

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Ready for the deals!

Saturday was a huge success for us. At the end of the day we did not move that much stuff back into the basement. The majority of goods we sold and then we had one carload of them left for Goodwill.

Among the items, which did not sell, is a dining room table with two leaf inserts and six chairs. Interested? Leave a comment because this thing is going up on Craigslist for a sweet price. There were some leftover books, a few from my grad school days at DU. It wasn’t all that surprising to know the demand for The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security is not that high, but why not try? But my two copies of Goodfellas on DVD (one of them unopened!) didn’t sell either. Are people insane? Have they not seen this movie? One of the all-time best. Watch it. Tonight.

One of the puzzling things about garage sales is what sells and what does not sell. A sturdy, still-in-good-condition wingback chair from the American Revolution did not sell, but someone bought Gone In 60 Seconds (eww, 24% RottenTomatoes score) for a dollar? This does not make sense. And that chair, well, it’s not quite that old and it found its way back into the basement. I had a collection of Pepsi cans for the last 16 years. It was a set of 24 collector cans from the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. They sold for $3 after pricing them down from $10. Although when I was 16 and collecting these cans I had a fantasy of selling them for a couple hundred dollars sometime in the not-too-distant future, but by 10am on Saturday, selling them for three bucks was one of the best moments of the day.

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Tired now. Ready for a snack!

After the early rush of professional garage sale shoppers, who show up early or even before the sale starts, lump everything they want to buy in a pile, and then ask you what you will part with it for, there was quite the lull. I think we didn’t have any interest for an hour. This cute little lady came by with her push toy looking for some deals. She found some shade instead and a granola bar.

After the lull, the stragglers seriously impressed. One of them bought my Pepsi cans, size XXXL standard issue sweatpants from the University of Wyoming athletic department, a Starbucks shirt from my barista days, and Unbreakable on DVD. One big ticket item was left, my mountain bike. It was time to clear space in the garage for my next bike, which will not be a mountain bike. Plus, these are just some of the repairs the bike needed: new rear tire, new rear wheel, new disc brake pads, new bike seat, some spoke fixing on the front wheel, and a thorough tuneup. After a few hours, I did not think it was going to move. Right about the time we were thinking of packing everything up it sold. I was a little proud of the bike in this moment and of how I had kept it together for so long, even when it meant using gorilla glue to hold the spokes in place.

Now that the bike was gone and it was going on 12, we started packing up. A couple lucky shoppers got an old digital camera for free and a copy of Command and Conquer: Generals for nothing!

But still, the table and chairs remain untouched. Someone still has yet to get that lucky!

The Next Book For London

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The next book I read to London has impossibly big shoes to fill. What can knock Screen Shot 2015-08-11 at 4.39.35 PM4,100 pages of Harry Potter off the top? Well, it isn’t Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything or ASHONE for short. That’s right, I went full nonfiction science writing for the next book. I needed a change of pace and I am quite sure London won’t notice, except for the expanded vocabulary in Bryson’s work compared to HP.

I love Bill Bryson’s writing. Somehow I had owned ASHONE for ten years and had never read it. London and I cracked open the book a couple of weeks ago, validating my purchase of this book in a Borders (remember them?) in Longmont, Colorado all those years ago. We are only a hundred pages in, but I’ve found that I am not enjoying this as much as his travel writing. There just aren’t as many opportunities in science writing for Bryson to add his signature humor. That said, it’s still an excellent book. Bryson makes the hardest of subjects accessible by writing about them in the common tongue.

One of my favorite passages early on in the book is from chapter two:

…it isn’t possible, in any practical terms, to draw the solar system to scale. Even if you added lots of fold-out pages to your textbooks or used a really long sheet of poster paper, you wouldn’t come close. On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand feet away and Pluto would be a mile and a half distant (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway). On the same scale, Proxima Centauri, our nearest star, would be almost ten thousand miles away. Even if you shrank down everything so that Jupiter was as small as the period at the end of this sentence, and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, Pluto would still be over thirty-five feet away.

I absolutely love reading about how huge space is. And this is just our solar system.

I always think about God when I think of space, its scale, its never-ending mysteries, because for me, space has always been one of those things in which I see the presence and power of God. Pure awe.

I’m looking forward to the rest of this no-longer-dusty Bryson book.

DVDs $1, Stories Are Free

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This house and its occupants are prepping for a garage sale this week. London’s help is extremely limited to nonexistent. She takes a long time examining every little thing we hand her, so she won’t be determining what we are getting rid of and what we are saving. She is most helpful when she decides to take a long morning nap on a Sunday so we can dig through the basement for potential hot ticket items.

We found lots of things to sell yesterday and just as much to throw away or donate. I discovered I had three copies of Goodfellas. (Hey, if there’s one movie to own several copies of it’s that one.) I have a DVD player to sell, but I can’t seem to locate the power cord or the remote. I am finally going to sell my Star Wars Pepsi can collection from one movie, which was both the most anticipated movie of all time and the most disappointing movie of all time, The Phantom Menace. But this can collection? Pristine. Complete. It represents a lot of work. It represents a lot of soda drinking.

For some reason I still had the majority of my class notes from the University of Wyoming. I chucked them all, but kept a few stories to possibly share on here. I threw out two boxes of old New Yorkers, magazines I had been saving because there was at least one tantalizing article in each magazine. I had lofty visions of getting to all of them some day, but having so many magazines and books I want to read around the house can really stress me out. It almost leads to less reading because I see the stacks everywhere and just think, I’ll never make it, why start now?

So, to those stories. I’m going to close this post with one. Please note, these are not my words. It was an assignment in an undergrad writing class for which you had to use a minimum number of sources to build one story or essay using nothing but quotes, a literary collage. And, here it is…

What I recall isn’t pain but a sense of jarring reversal, as of all motion, sound, and light encountering their massive opposites. I felt grass and dirt against my cheek, and sorrow that Dad was shot, and confusion that I couldn’t reach him. (1)

As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and had time for meditation before I opened another. (2)

I shut my eyes, the old morte settled its grip, and the next country gathered itself under my feet. (1)

The grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise. (3)

I waded ashore with measureless relief. The bank was an even slope of waving knee-high grasses and I came up into them and turned to look back. It was a wide river, mistakable for a lake or even an ocean unless you’d been wading and knew its current. Somehow I’d crossed it and somehow was unsurprised at having done so. (1)

There came into view a man, or so it seemed. (4) He had a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. In his hands he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of white water-lilies. (4)

“This is what we all find when we reach this country. We’ve all been wrong! That’s the great joke. There’s no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin living.” (5)

The words uttered by the person without, affected me as somewhat singular, but what chiefly rendered them remarkable was the tone that accompanied them. It was wholly new. I cannot pretend to communicate the impression that was made upon me by these accents or to detect the degree in which force and sweetness were blended in them. They were articulated with a distinctness that was unexampled in my experience. But this was not all. (6)

“We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” (7)

It (the words) imparted to me an emotion altogether involuntary and uncontrollable. When he uttered the words my heart overflowed with sympathy and my eyes with unbidden tears. (6)

He sat down on a rock and swung his feet in a stream–it was deep and swift; it would take him in a moment. I seized his arm. Please, I said. Soon, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. Very soon! he added, clasping my hands; then unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy going for the first cold swim of spring; and the current got him. (1)

Is there a single person on whom I can press belief? No sir. All I can do is say, Here’s how it went. Here’s what I saw. I’ve been there and am going back. Make of it what you will. (1)

 

Sources:

(1) Enger, Leif. Peace Like a River. Atlantic Monthly: New York, 2001.

(2) Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories. Penguin: New York, 1978.

(3) Tolkien, J.R.R. Return of the King. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1955.

(4) Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1954.

(5) Lewis, C.S. The Great Divorce. Harper: San Francisco, 1946.

(6) Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland. Oxford: New York, 1994.

(7) Hebrews 6:12. Bible.

 

12 Classics in 2015: The Stranger

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I enjoyed picking up another slim volume, knowing I would finish this next book in two or three sittings. The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is a study of the absurd arc of all lives. It focuses on one man, Meursault, who kills a man on the beach in the first part of the book. Meursault’s trial constitutes the second part of the book.

Meursault, to me, felt very little emotion other than his lust for Maria, his girlfriend and, possibly, future wife. And although I saw some justification of him shooting the man on the beach, Meursault seemed to hold none of the same justification. He seemed only to defend his atheistic beliefs, and nothing else. He is a sad figure, not because I am a believer and he is an atheist, but because he seems utterly defeated by the absurdity of life. He refuses to use religion or the legal system to comfort or free himself because he recognizes the futility in prolonging the truth: that we will be born, we will die, and then no longer matter. All of us.

Meursault is a Debbie Downer, but Camus channels his philosophy quite well through Meursault’s actions and words. Interestingly, Meursault becomes happiest when he gives up all hope of a life, long or short, and accepts that any path he goes down ends the same.

I certainly don’t see eye to eye with Camus on this. I recognize that life can indeed be absurd and it will yell at us again and again, “resistance is futile,” but resisting is one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of life. It amplifies everything, the valleys, the peaks, the springs, and the winters of our lives. I believe it makes for a richer life, which looks better to me than Meursault’s fate of a jail cell and decapitation.

Parents on the NICU and their PTSD

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Over a month ago, I read and posted about an article in the New York Times about 22 weeks gestational age being the new definition of viability (for some doctors). In the sidebar I noticed another article under “related.” Its title: For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last. As soon as I was done reading about the viability of 22 weekers I clicked over and read about PTSD in NICU parents, which I had blogged about once already.

I have not read a more accurate article about parents dealing with the NICU. The first parent’s story is more stressful and scary than ours was. For example, I never got to the point where I was sleeping with my shoes on, but on more than one occasion I expected the hospital to call with horrible news. And I was and can still be easy to anger as a direct result from our NICU experience. I mentioned that back in October as well.

This NY Times article was first published in 2009, citing a new (for then) study about PTSD in NICU parents:

A new study from Stanford University School of Medicine, published in the journal Psychosomatics, followed 18 such parents, both men and women. After four months, three had diagnoses of P.T.S.D. and seven were considered at high risk for the disorder.

In another study, researchers from Duke University interviewed parents six months after their baby’s due date and scored them on three post-traumatic stress symptoms: avoidance, hyperarousal, and flashbacks or nightmares. Of the 30 parents, 29 had two or three of the symptoms, and 16 had all three.

One of the NICU parents quoted in the article hits the nail on the head:

“The NICU was very much like a war zone, with the alarms, the noises, and death and sickness,” Ms. Roscoe said. “You don’t know who’s going to die and who will go home healthy.”

I haven’t said it better myself. As a parent, even after months in the NICU, I would find myself wondering if we were ever going to make it out whole, meaning all three of us. Perhaps the most revealing statistic shared in the article is this:

The Stanford study found that although none of the fathers experienced acute stress symptoms while their child was in the NICU, they actually had higher rates of post-traumatic stress than the mothers when they were followed up later. “At four months, 33 percent of fathers and 9 percent of mothers had P.T.S.D.,” Dr. Shaw said.

It’s easy to picture stoic fathers in the NICU, but what most of them are really doing is repressing so much intense fear and anguish that once the drawn-out trauma of their child’s NICU stay is over they burst. I was stoic from time to time, but I certainly was not afraid to show emotion during London’s stay in the hospital. Crying in front of nurses was not something I was above. This helped.

One NICU survivor shares this in the NYT article:

In her book, Ms. Forman wrote: “From the moment my twins were born, I saw potential for tragedy wherever I turned. It would be years before I stopped thinking that way.”

This is probably what I struggle with the most now. It’s beyond worrying, it’s an all-consuming conviction that something horrible is going to happen. Prior to my trip to DC, I had a really hard time shaking the feeling that I wasn’t going to see my family again, I wasn’t going to make it back from DC, or maybe I was never going to make it there in the first place. Before the NICU, I was not wired to think this way, but now a part of me is. The other part is fighting for balance. Like Ms. Forman, maybe it will be years before hope and the safety I knew become my heading once again.