Fatherhood

Someone Else’s Hot Take

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I have not taken the time to sit down and write about the election results. I am still in the process of getting through the shock, absorbing the news, and watching Stephen Colbert’s Election Night special on Showtime. But there are quite a few politicians and journalists who have sat down in the aftermath to record their thoughts or to share a story and some advice. Today, I share with you one letter of note. “A Letter to Young Women: How We Will All Move Forward Together Now.”

So how do you cope with how you feel right now?

First, don’t be destructive: Don’t burn a flag, don’t be vitriolic. Anger will give you a worse hangover than cheap tequila.

Second, you are allowed wine—preferably to drink with friends because I know how lonely you are feeling.

Third, find your thing. Find your cause, and get back in the game. Be a mentor or volunteer. Remember every priority of Secretary Clinton’s and dive into one headfirst. Most importantly, bring your friends.

It’s our responsibility to form a tribe unlike anything that’s ever been seen before—one that is stronger, louder, and more ferocious than ever. The suffragettes didn’t win us the right to vote by walking down the street with headphones on, reading Twitter. We cannot let this happen again.

It’s a short, passionate letter. You can read the rest by Alyssa Mastromonaco at Broadly.

A Vote For Decency

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For the last three election cycles I have heard, “This is the most important election in modern history.” The first two times I did not believe it. If anything, in 2008 and 2012, it was political hyperbole from both major political parties, expressing fear of their opponent winning and desperately trying to spread that fear among on-the-fence voters, hoping they would agree and fall in line.

This time around, I believe this is the most important election since I have been voting. (I am 33.) It has come down to the most unpopular nominees since polling began, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. One nominee, from a political powerhouse, the Clintons,  wildly adored, untrusted, and loathed by huge swaths of American voters. The reasons for which I will not get into because there is nothing I can add to the discussion to persuade you one way or another and the other reasons were fomented in the editorial room of Breitbart (which is now, figuratively, the same thing as Trump HQ) or in the dark, hideous pulse of a Trump rally.

The Clintons are indeed measured, calculating politicians. This election cycle, when Hillary stands up against a know-nothing, fascist sociopath, her deserved or undeserved labels pale in comparison to Trump. She is at least sane. And that is what this election has come down to. Sanity.

In 2016, a vote for Trump or, just as bad, an abstention, is a vote for insanity. It is a vote for a person who is “characterized by a disregard for the feelings of others, unchecked egocentricity, and the ability to lie in order to achieve one’s goals.” It is a vote for a need for stimulation, a need to live on the knife’s edge of nuclear warfare. It is a vote for conspiracy theories. It is a vote for having no concern about wrecking others’ lives and dreams en masse. It is a vote to affirm the idea that since you have spent the last four years watching cable news or reading jingoistic slop disguised as fact you know as much about international relations or economic policy as someone with advanced degrees in such fields, or as much as a former Secretary of State.

It is a vote for a bleak and volatile future, one that I, voting now as a father for the first time, am terrified for my daughter to possibly have to face.

In the last three presidential elections, I at least had the comfort of believing that our liberal democracy would continue if my candidate did not win. I cannot say the same this time around. Trump is not just a threat to his political opponents, but a threat to the idea of America, something that the five former presidents still alive today appear to agree with as not one of them supports Donald.

Hillary Clinton enjoys the support of some voters who would otherwise vote for the Republican nominee if said nominee was not a racist buffoon. That said, I have heard of too many Republicans drawing a false equivalency between the two big party nominees. Many of these Republicans are abstaining or throwing their vote away on Gary Johnson, a man who, in this case, they know only one thing about: that he will not win. Johnson provides an out for these aforementioned Republicans so they can say that they voted but they did not vote for Trump or Hillary, while simultaneously pretending that by voting for Johnson they have disguised the fact that they prefer Trump over Hillary. This is disgusting and fools nobody.

The same can be said for Bernie supporters who have refused to support Hillary and have thrown their support to Johnson or Jill Stein.

If a voter was already in the Johnson or Stein camps before the primaries concluded, then good for them, but all the latecomers to these alternative candidates are putting this country at greater risk than I feel they are aware of. A vote this late in the game for Johnson or Stein, or an abstention, is a vote for Trump and all of his rabid base.

I began this post weeks ago, intent on writing a lengthier piece on why I think Clinton is the best choice for this country. But since I started, even worse revelations about Trump have come to light, specifically his bragging to Billy Bush about sexually abusing women. I have heard this talk defended by Trump, Trump surrogate Ben Carson, and many others as locker room talk, with Carson going as far as telling Neil Cavuto that he has heard much worse in locker rooms. I have also witnessed the rape talk defended on Facebook under the ridiculous guise of “he who is without sin cast the first stone.” No one is saying we have not sinned and we have all made mistakes, but is there no expectation of decency in our leaders? Are there no standards? During the last week of the campaign these have become rhetorical questions.

I am quite afraid of the Trump base if he loses next month, but my greater fear is of a Trump presidency. If there were any doubt about Trump’s respect for his opponents, or simply ideas not one-hundred percent in agreement with his, the last week has certainly shown Trump’s true colors as he has admonished his own party’s leaders and veterans, threatened his primary opponent with imprisonment, lambasted the entire media establishment (minus Hannity, I guess), and had to deny multiple allegations of sexual assault, while implying one woman was not even attractive enough for assault to have taken place.

As a human being I am disturbed by the way he speaks about other religions, races, and the opposite sex. But I am not just voting as a human being next month. I am voting as a believer, as a husband, and as a father to a little girl. All of these roles have further convinced me that the most important thing we can do in November is to make sure Donald Trump does not become our next president. To vote for Trump would be to abandon all of those roles and everything I have been raised to believe in. Lastly, a vote for this man would be to abandon my human decency. Thus, I have had a very difficult time not judging those who are still standing with Trump, who are still abstaining, or who are still supporting Johnson. Because unlike in previous elections, these people are supporting a man for presidency who would have been fired from McDonald’s by now for the things he has said. Yet, these people think it is okay to give this man the nuclear codes merely because they have loathed the Clintons for decades? Or because they just cannot support a Democrat?

Just swallow your pride for once and keep this country alive. Then, in four years, you can have another go, but if Trump wins, I am not sure America’s future lasts that long and that will be on you.

Put Down Your Phone

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It is such a joy to be able to read Andrew Sullivan again. Last week’s New York Magazine features a lengthy article about Sullivan’s rehab from blogging and his sustained connectivity to news, devices, and the internet. fullsizerender

I know from time to time I am on my phone way too much, especially in front of London, so reading this gave me several pangs of guilt, but it helped. Since I finished it I have been more aware of my screen time throughout the day and night. I have tried to cut back, but I also know that the lessons learned from reading Sullivan’s latest piece will likely fade. This should be on an annual required reading list.

The Body-Shaming Candidate

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During the last two presidential campaigns I wrote blogs primarily about politics.

So far, in 2016, I’ve stayed away from blogging political on here. But election day will be here very quickly and I need to say a few things about this election, specifically about one of the candidates. I’ll get around to posting my thoughts on Mr. Trump, but for now I wanted to share this one commercial with you. It is made by Donald Trump himself, but it is an ad paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump merely provided all the material.

As a father of a beloved, precious little girl, Secretary Clinton could not have produced a better commercial. When you’re running against a candidate who thinks of women “as a collection of sex toys” (Comedian Samantha Bee’s words) reminding all the fathers of little girls all over this great land of Trump’s distaste for women is the most powerful message you can send.

Stay-at-Home Dads and Depression

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I shared this article on Facebook a couple of days ago and I must share it here as well. It really is one of the most honest articles I have ever read about the stay-at-home dad life.

The reality of being a stay-at-home dad is that strangers are suspicious, our friends are patronizing, and stay-at-home moms—the one group you might actually expect to have your back—often won’t let you into their club.

Bradley Egel, who has been a stay-at-home dad for the last decade, told me when he first started taking his son to the park, he felt ostracized by the other moms.

“There was this group of moms who were extraordinarily cold to me. Sometimes to the point where they would just leave [when I arrived],” he said. “Then, after a year, this one woman—I guess she was like queen bee—walks over and says, ‘We’ve been noticing that you come to the same park all the time. What’s your deal?’ I was like, ‘I’m here with my kid. The same as you.'”

Read the rest of the article, “Why So Many Stay-at-Home Dads Are Depressed.”

Gun Violence

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So much gun violence out there and so few rational voices who are willing to admit there needs to be a change.

Here’s a link to one of those few:

“Why Gun Nuts Lie — I Know From Experience.” – by David Smalley

Drinking on Monday Starts at 8…am

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For the last ten weeks I have been training for the Bolder Boulder.

This running thing is pretty new to me. I competed in my first 10k on Thanksgiving day last year. Since then, I’ve tried two 5k races and another 10k.

Before those races, I ran in one 5k at the Milwaukee Zoo in 2008. That race doesn’t really count. Between 2008 and the turkey trot in 2015, running was not a hobby. I still hit the pavement every once in a while, but it was merely for cardio.

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The start of the A Wave at the Bolder Boulder. Just looking at this gets my heart racing.

Part of the reason I have kept on competing since the turkey trot is because the racing conditions were so horrible then. It was 32 and raining and the trail was 2-6 inch thick mud. My time was awful. The last three miles of the race were run in 7:50, 9:53, and 7:24. Can you tell which mile I fell twice on, nearly impaling my hand on a very narrow tree stump?

I think it was soon after that race I decided I needed another shot at a 10k and I instantly thought of the Bolder Boulder. For much of my life I’ve lived within a 45 minute drive of Boulder and have never thought about entering the race.

The race is five days out and today I realized I haven’t trained this hard for a competition since training for my last swim meet as a collegiate swimmer in 2005. I am actually tapering off of what was, for me at least, a tough training schedule. I’ve even shunned a daily beer or beers for all of May, which has been almost as hard for me to do as the running. I think I have had two drinks since the start of May. That Oskar Blues beer after I finish my race at Folsom Field is going to taste so good.

For many of my training runs I had to literally push my training partner. For London, it has been an easy training schedule. She gets a cushy ride in the Mountain Buggy, sips away at her water cup, throws it from the stroller when she decides it’s cramping her style, and kicks off her shoes whenever desired. Her stroller ain’t light and neither is she, weighing in at 35 pounds, but I was thankful to be pushing just one kid over the last ten weeks.

On Monday morning, London will just be having her breakfast when my wave (AA) goes off at 6:56. I get so anxious just thinking about it. I’m not sure what I will think of the crowd. I am hoping to just lock onto a group running my pace and zone out for four, maybe even five miles before I think about the rest of the ground to be covered.

My goal is to come home on Monday with one extra t-shirt, one that says Sub 40 Club on it. With luck, it’ll fit me.

Back from the Basement

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I’m back from the dead, I mean, the basement. For four months we endured one of the slowest basement finish projects ever taken on by man. It must be said that the aforementioned man and his pals worked maybe three days a week and a workday consisted of showing up at 10am and leaving by 3:30. Things got to a point where I did not want the man and his pals to work on anything else in the basement because every time they fixed something they broke or maimed some other fixture in the basement. The short list of fixes would grow from 5 to 40 in a week. I happily gave the man the check labeled, “Full & Final Payment,” knowing I was going to finish the rest of this basement myself.

Since then, I have spent every minute I had away from London in the basement. Even when she was awake I occasionally brought her down to the basement, installed her in the high chair, and queued up Sesame Street. I’d even push it to see if I could get her to watch two episodes in a row. I got pretty damn close a few times all without coating her with drywall dust, paint, caulking, and spackle. Success.

I had told the man that I could handle the painting of the walls,

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Kate enjoying an almost finished basement.

but somewhere along the way he thought that meant I was painting all the baseboard, trim, and doors. Rookie mistake on not clarifying that. However, after seeing how the man painted the ceiling, I felt quite confident I did not want him painting anything else in the basement. So, I took care of those things myself. The doors were easy, just time consuming if you want them to look good and show no roller or brush marks. The baseboard was a different story. I did not have the opportunity to paint it before it was flush with the hardwood floors downstairs. Painting already installed baseboard takes ten times as long as painting pieces of baseboard fresh from the hardware store. This is what really took up the majority of my work.

Other things we had to take care of ourselves: cleaning off the adhesive on the window frames left by this crazy,. strong, fireproof tape used to install insulation in the basement, installation of speakers in walls, caulking all trim/baseboard joints, filling nail holes, mounting doors, installing hardware, painting shelves, ceiling paint touchup, replacing a light switch, installing blinds, painting quarter-round trim, and finally, assembling Ikea furniture, which actually was given the final touch last night. All is not done. I have yet to paint a couple closet doors, paint the stairwell, install carpet on lower half of stairs, and paint an exposed I-beam. Kate and I agreed that when all that is done we will feel as though we finished a quarter of the basement ourselves.

Throughout this process I have been aware that we saved a substantial amount of money by using the people we used. We had expressed an interest in using the same people to finish the bathroom in the basement, but we will now be doing that ourselves. That will, undoubtedly, turn into a bigger project than it is in my mind and it will mean I may have to take another long break from writing, but this break may have been for the better too.

I’ve missed writing. Writing helps me destress. When I don’t have the opportunity to do it I have this horrible nagging sensation that if I were writing right now I would be writing some of my best stuff. Of course, this is not true, but it’s hard to ignore this voice, which always creeps into my life at the precise moment that sitting down for a couple hours to write something is an impossibility.

I promise no regular blogging at this point. I can’t even say for sure when I will write again. Like I wrote above, there are still significant projects to be completed before I can sit in front of a computer to write for even 30 minutes, but that time is closer now than it has been for months. I like that.

Prayers & the People

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While London was in the NICU, I listened to Coldplay’s Ghost Stories religiously. I spent a lot of time meditating on one refrain in a particular song called “Magic.” The lyrics read:

And if you were to ask me
After all that we’ve been through
“Still believe in magic?”
Well yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Of course I do

Although when I thought about the lyrics, I would replace the word “magic” with the word “prayer.” And I would ask myself over and over again, “Still believe in prayer?” With all my heart I wanted to answer with an earnest, “Yes,” and for a while I did not have an answer.

Why couldn’t I find that earnest “Yes”? I thought about that every day while London was in the hospital and nearly every day since. After all that thinking, I am able to point to a number of reasons.

I have written on here before that not all NICU stories have happy endings. It may come as no surprise, but while we were in the NICU we were witnesses to some sad stories. Within two weeks of London’s birth, the baby in the next pod over died. I remember hearing some of the father’s last words to his daughter and then needing to step behind our curtain because I couldn’t hold back tears.

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Praying over London. What else?

Throughout London’s NICU experience we had a tremendous number of people praying for her. We were praying for her. And when we would receive good news concerning London’s health, people would be quick to thank Jesus.

I know there were people praying for that baby next-door. But when she died, I don’t know if people were talking about how much they prayed for her. When prayers are answered, people are quick to heap praise on God, but all too often God doesn’t enter the conversation when prayers aren’t answered. There is just a deep sense of loss (in the case mentioned above, loss of a child) and betrayal.

It is the absence of God in conversation following something like a loss of a child, whose survival was clearly being prayed for, that really grates across my soul. And as I let it grate more and more on me, doubt about the fate of my own child crept into my thoughts. Doubt about the ability of prayer to reduce swelling in London’s brain. Doubt about the ability of prayer to make one medication work better than the next. Doubt about the ability of prayer to make London’s lungs flourish.

Yet, I prayed, even though what I had seen in the NICU was doing its best to give me a cynical attitude toward God’s ability to give my daughter a fighting chance. But as I stood next to Kate and watched London seize up, turn blue from head to toe, and watched a team of doctors rush over to her bedside, prayer was the only thing I could hold onto despite clinging to Kate. I desperately prayed over and over, “Don’t let my daughter die.”

Again and again, I was exposed to suffering. Much of the time it was parental suffering, the kind you would expect parents to go through when their baby weighs two pounds. And, at times, it was the raw exposure to parents suffering the death of a newborn, as mentioned above.

In a new way, I was becoming aware of the fragility of my own faith. I had reached the bottom of my soul and I had expected to bounce back and come out better than ever, but I had gone crashing through it, revealing new limits to understanding and faith. This surprised me because I had not lost anyone. Many people endure far worse before they reach the point I reached. However we get there though, we often discover the same thing:

…Suffering gives people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, what they can control and cannot control. When people are thrust down into these deeper zones, they are forced to confront the fact they can’t determine what goes on there.

Lack of control. I had felt it before in my life, but not to this degree so it was easy to say, well, if I don’t have control, and the nurses don’t have control, and the doctors with all their tricks and knowledge don’t have control, then nothing can have control over this.

But doubt is a two-way street. As I doubted in prayer’s ability to heal every last weak and broken thing in my daughter’s body, I also doubted my newfound doubt. I didn’t know for sure that prayer didn’t work. I have prayed all my life for all sorts of things. Some prayers were answered. Some were not. A voice in my head kept saying, why stop now? Because I was afraid, afraid of not having this prayer answered exactly the way I wanted it to be answered. That felt really selfish. It is selfish. But I had prayed this long, I wasn’t going to stop when it came to praying for my daughter’s health.

I guess what tragedy does to you, or, in our case, what a really long stay in the NICU can do to you, is to remind you, just in case you have forgotten, that you are not in control. You never were, despite how good things were going for you. And, you never will be. I felt like this left me with two options. One, surrender to God and put my faith in him because I have discovered how little control (read none) all of us have. Or two, abandon the idea of a God who hears our prayers and can intervene to answer them.

Days, weeks, months, and eventually a year passed, during which God eliminated option two. I had just kept praying. I would often express to God that I really don’t know if you (God) can help with this, because there are many more people in this world that need more help than my daughter does, but somewhere along the way, can you do this one thing for my daughter? Again and again, the answer has been yes. I don’t know why, exactly, my prayers have been answered while the prayers of others had clearly not been. That’s part of the mystery. Part of the faith. I don’t have the answers. But for me, one answer had changed.

It was over a year after London came home from the hospital when I was again listening to Coldplay’s “Magic” and thinking about it all–faith, mysterious, confusing faith, love, my daughter, who I know is a miracle, and my little family–when I finally could sing the end of the song and mean it.
After all that we’ve been through
“Still believe in prayer?”
Well yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Of course I do

*Block quote about suffering is from David Brooks’ column in the NY Times, “What Suffering Does.”

A Speech Worth Listening To

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Regardless of your NFL allegiance, or lack of it, I think this speech from Peyton Manning is worth listening to. Of course, Manning touches on his illustrious career in the NFL, but he acknowledges there is a whole new world of possibilities ahead of him and he is excited about it.

Most touching for me, was when Manning recalled the little things that over his 18-year career became the big things. He says that he is and will be teaching his children to enjoy the little things in life with the full knowledge that those things will mean the most to him and them when, decades down the road, he looks back on another career, that of being a father.

Two years into my own career as a father, I know that much to be true.  The moments such as the everyday walk to go get the mail with London, when she holds my hand and is so excited to be walking, to be alive, and to be with me. These are the moments that will mean the most to me when I look back on this career.

Thanks, Peyton.

Friday Humor

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I’m at home still waiting for a drywall inspector to show up and look at my basement. The inspector was supposed to be here between 9:30 and 11:30. It’s past 1 pm now and nothing. London is asleep. I’m not going to start in on writing something knowing that I’ll likely be interrupted by the inspector, so I’ll share someone else’s writing for now.

It’s a funny piece, titled, “Dumb-Ass Stuff We Need To Stop Saying To Dads,” found on the Huffington Post, which apparently limits their paragraph length to three short sentences. Three is to give the HuffPo too much credit. Most of the time it’s one sentence and done for a paragraph.

I hope you enjoy the read.

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.