Fatherhood

Turning One Again

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May 4th. May the Fourth Be With You. It’s Star Wars day.

And it’s also one year from London’s due date. It’s her one-year birthday (developmentally). It is a significant milestone, but I think May 19th will be more of a celebratory day because that will be the one-year anniversary of London’s homecoming.

This time last year we were going through a stressful stage of London’s NICU stay. We were hoping to have her home by now, but we were hitting really big snags regarding London’s energy. The journal entry from May 4, 2014 reads:

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May 4, 2014.

Eileen and Megan (nurses) are very uncertain about why you are so tired all the time. Will ask questions with docs tomorrow. For now, starting 24 hours of all tube feeds.

I remember crying after being told of London’s lack of progress and of a new battery of tests to be performed on her in the coming days. My chair was backed up against the window in London’s pod and I numbly stared out into the rest of the NICU as Megan explained what the next steps were going to be. Kate held London. I let the tears drop out of my eyes without blinking. I was in a dark, sad place, and so surprised that we were still in the NICU with no set discharge date.

So much can change in a year. As today’s afternoon thunderstorm rolls across Denver, I am reminded of the first couple of weeks London was home. There were storms every afternoon, including several tornado warnings. London would fall asleep in the middle of the living room while hailstones hit the windows. I’d try to fall asleep wherever I could too, but couldn’t pull it off quite like London. Kate and I lost massive amounts of sleep all over again for the same baby, but we eventually found our groove. And London did too. She’s right where she should be for a one-year old.

Happy Birthday again, London!

London’s First Cry

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London was on a ventilator for the first three weeks of her life. This meant that we didn’t hear a peep from her all that time. We could see from time to time that she was crying, but there was no noise to accompany the cry. It looked so odd, different than any other baby cry I have ever seen. Finally, when London promptly freed herself of the ventilator we could hear her cry. This time it was unlike any baby cry I had ever heard. Intubation can damage the vocal cords of preemies. The damage, in London’s case, was only temporary, but for a while her cry sounded like this. I described it to someone as sounding like a goat. It’s heart-wrenching to hear, then and now, because I just want to pick her up, cuddle, and rock her, but back then that was never an option. And now that it is, London doesn’t cry. Decent trade off.

The Apple Watch, A Screen Too Many

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…And I’m not buying it…

The Apple Watch is not for me. I know, I know, a lot of people said the same thing about the iPad. Who needs one of those? But the two are not the same. When I want some actual peace and quiet, I enjoy storing my computer away, setting aside the iPad, and taking my phone out of my pocket and leaving it somewhere out of reach. I don’t want to take my watch off every time I want some peace.

It matters to me that the watch, like the computer, iPad, and iPhone, is another temptation to go down the rabbit hole of the internet, whether that is compulsively checking emails or entering the time suck known as Facebook. The internet and the screens on which we access the internet are only good in moderation. I feel a noticeable difference in mood when I shed myself of access to the world wide web. I relax a little more than I can if every one of those devices is pinging me with notifications and breaking news.

For me, truly cutting away from all that technology means I have to physically remove it from anywhere within reach. It’s an out of sight out of mind thing. If I keep my phone on me when I would rather be writing or reading then I will inevitably take a lap around the internet on it, making me less productive and having a negative effect on my mood. The watch would just be another temptation to do all that. I have a hard time envisioning someone with the Apple Watch regularly checking the time and doing nothing else with the gadget.

Now that I am a dad, ridding myself of screens has become much more important. I still catch myself looking at my phone a little too much and not at London. It breaks my heart when I think of giving more attention to my stupid gadgets than to the beautiful baby I spend every day with. Having a mini computer on my wrist is the last thing she wants and I agree.

I just can’t imagine having an Apple Watch and not increasing the amount of time I look at screens, which I think is more than enough already. And it makes me feel ill when I see toddlers walking around connected to their iPad already. The absence of a screen on my wrist will be another attempt to shield London as much as possible from lesser forms of communication than what we were made for.

She Sneezes Into Her Hand As Well

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She sneezed into her hand five minutes after it happened. I shook my head in disgust and in further disappointment in myself for not stopping her five minutes earlier.

We were all out at one of my favorite restaurants, the Bull and Bush, having an excellent weekend dinner. London was in a high chair eating off of the disinfected table. She wasn’t too enthralled with the food. It was great, but there was so much to look at so sometimes she just wouldn’t eat what we were offering her. When that happens we always set the food in front of her.

London is finicky about when she wants to feed herself versus when she wants us to give her food on a spoon or with our fingers. Right before our server walked up to the table London turned away from a piece of food Kate was offering her. Kate placed it on the table in front of London, knowing that London would pick it up eventually and feed herself. But there would be no time for that. The server picked up the piece of food and fed London right off her finger.

I was so freaking surprised I froze, didn’t say anything, and looked at Kate. Did that just happen?

Kate’s eyes answered back, yes, yes it did. 

Okay, I thought. It’s probably not that bad. Wait, who am I kidding here? That server just fed London like she was her grandkid (interestingly enough, she was plenty old to have a few) without any knowledge of London’s past. And we have no knowledge of where her hands have been. Does she wash them as much as she should? Not sure, but I found out she prefers to sneeze directly into her palm.

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Our old lofty perch, from where the Bull and Bush was within walking distance.

I thought about saying something to her or writing on the receipt, but the damage had been done. If she had some disgusting bacteria on her hand she had already gifted London with it. I know very well that at some point I will transfer a bug to London, but that’s the right of the parent to do. Plus, I know I have big pump action bottles of hand sanitizer on both floors of the house. I know my hands get dry and cracked from using so much of that stuff. I have the cleanest hands I have ever had in my life.

Yes, I was mad at the server, but I let it go. I was mostly disappointed in myself. We were both trying to be so nice that we didn’t say anything at all when it happened. And it happened so fast. If we were going to say anything at all it would have needed to be pretty blunt like, “Stop! What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I vow to never let this happen again, but I also don’t expect to come across too many servers who feel like they can hand feed my baby. If they do, I’ll throw being polite right out the window.

Graduating to a Bottle

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Last week I uploaded a video of Kate and I feeding London 1 ml of milk from a very tiny syringe. Though it was a long, long time until London could move on up to a bottle and I took many videos between that syringe and the first bottle, I wanted to skip to a video of an early bottle feeding.

In this video nurse Eileen is giving London a bottle. It was during a time of London’s NICU stay in which she was particularly stubborn about wanting to drink at all. Sometimes she was a champ, drinking her whole feed, but at other times she drank 5 ml and looked at us like, what? I’m done. Just gavage the rest and get on with it.

I think I had been trying to feed London and handed her off to Eileen, hoping London would cooperate a little more. She does in the video at least, but I can’t remember if she finished that particular bottle. Most of the time she did not. Thus, when it was time for London’s NICU discharge she came home with an NG tube.

One thing you see here in the video of London is the pacing that we had to do for quite a long time before London had the energy and the skill to take a constant flow from the bottle without choking and also learning how to breath properly during feeding. We would give London some flow from the bottle, for three seconds about, and then tilt the bottle back and let her catch her breath and finish swallowing the milk. It seems simple enough, but you also had to keep her body tilted to the side as well. And after that, you had better familiarize yourself with London’s cues…or else a nurse might give you heck from the other side of the pod, “And dad’s just choking the baby over there.”

When my sister visited London she was eager to give her a bottle. I felt bad, but I just had to say no. I went on to explain that it wasn’t like giving a full-term baby a bottle, at least not yet. After watching me feed London, my sister acknowledged that it looked difficult. I’m glad she did. At that point, I was only willing to hand London to someone other than Kate or a nurse if all they were going to do was sit with her.

I remember the day I discovered that I did not have to pace London’s bottle anymore. We were waiting for a ROP exam, and she was a little moody so I brought out a bottle and I tilted it up so the milk started flowing and I did not tilt it back down again until the bottle was empty. I was astonished and looked from the bottle to London’s happy, chubby face and back to the bottle. I knew we had reached a milestone in London’s feeding progress. But back down to earth we came, for the ROP exam was next.

The Mountain Buggy

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I never expected to receive a stroller as a surprise birthday gift. Nor did I expect to be happy when receiving a stroller as a surprise birthday gift. When both of those things happened, I knew I had fully arrived as a SAHD.

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With the latest edition to the stroller stable.

The picture here is just moments after I came in the door to find London locked in and ready for a stroll in this Mountain Buggy Terrain, the tallest, most beautiful jogging stroller I have ever pushed around. We had thought about making this stroller our everyday stroller for a while, but after using it for nearly three months I am glad we did not. To be clear, the Terrain is amazing. At its tallest, it’s actually too tall if I want to run with it. (I love having something that’s too tall). The stroller is rock solid on bumpy trails and there is more than enough adequate storage below the seat and in pockets on either side of the sun shade.

But the thing is a beast! When collapsed it barely fits in the back of our Toyota Highlander. It’s no light stroller. Lift with your legs, not with your back. Lugging it around for everyday tasks and errands would have been a hassle. I am still ever so grateful for our Uppababy and the Chicco umbrella stroller we now have.

Again, the tall strollers are consistently one of the most expensive models in the market. However, our Terrain was a spotless floor model so it was discounted nearly $200. Phew.

I’ll never forget the first time I took London for a run in the stroller. She started giggling as soon as I started off on the trail. She kept laughing so that in ten minutes she had worn herself out and was snoozing. So even on gravel, the Terrain provides a smooth enough ride for the occupant.

I had given the Uppababy some stroller love on this blog back in September. The Mountain Buggy is worthy of the same praise. If you’re tall and want a jogging stroller, look no further.

I Hear Old People

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It was one of those freak, 65-degree days in January and I had ventured downtown with London. We were at REI and I had just sat down at a patio table at the Starbucks there, overlooking Confluence Park and the South Platte River and Cherry Creek.

Our table was in the sun and London stayed in her stroller, which was positioned just right for her to eye every person walking by her on their way to get a coffee. Babies love people watching and London was clearly into it.

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The scene of the crime.

I pulled out my phone and casually checked my email and did a quick scan of Instagram. It was about two to three minutes of screen time before I heard an old woman speaking. She was seated with her husband, I assume, at a table directly across from our table, with the path for patio customers between us. I had started to eavesdrop because I heard her say to her husband, “Don’t you wonder about kids these days and what their vocabulary will be like as they start school?”

I couldn’t hear what her husband said in response. I continued listening, positioned in a way that I was facing London, now giving her a bottle, but I had my sunglasses on so my eyes were fixed on this lady and she could not tell.

What she said next made me freeze. “Well, that dad over there has said all of three words to his daughter since sitting down. He’s been playing with his phone and not talking to her at all.”

In that moment, I’m pretty sure I wanted to huck my iced coffee at her face. But she went on, bemoaning the sad state of parenting because of parents like me who look at their phone in the presence of their baby. I continued my stare, amazed that she could not see my eyes through my sunglasses and astonished that she would choose to say such things at all about someone sitting right across from her.

The old couple’s conversation eventually shifted to a different topic.  Where I sat I did not need the hot, January sun to keep me warm anymore. My blood was boiling. For the next ten minutes I sat there thinking about what I would say to this woman, if anything at all, and how would I deliver the message? And every word I spoke to London I second-guessed, am I saying this to London just because of what that old lady said?

Was this a moment to hold my tongue and be the bigger person? Or did this justify letting this old hag know just how much her assessment of modern-day parenting was incorrect? I admit, normally, I would have let this lady walk by without saying a word, but I had never had my parenting called into question like this. I am no perfect parent, but speaking and reading to London is where I excel. I decided I had to defend this.

The couple had stood up, gathered their biking gear, and were making their exit, forced to walk right by me. My eyes did not leave that old lady as soon as she starting moving. This time she noticed my stare and as she was right by my table I said, “I heard every word you said about my daughter and I. I really didn’t appreciate it and wanted to let you know that you are wrong. I have read thousands of pages to my daughter and I think she’ll have a fine vocabulary.”

Old lady, immediately apologetic and surprised, “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

No response from me. London stared at her and made some noises. “I can tell she’s trying to talk,” the old lady said.

“Yep,” I said, a little on the curt side, but hey, I think it’s pretty clear that I didn’t strike up this conversation to be friends with you so move along.

She felt like adding one more thing, “Well, it wasn’t like I was broadcasting it.” I did not acknowledge that and she got the hint and moved on. All the while her husband was a little behind her and I am pretty sure he missed the whole exchange. I gave him a wave and said, “Enjoy your ride.”

“Thank you,” he said, and walked on, completely unaware of what went down.

It was so liberating to let that woman know just how wrong and mean her comments had been. I watched her at a distance now, as she was getting onto her bicycle. There was a part of me that was hoping she would feel like an ass for the rest of the morning.

I think what that old lady said to her husband that day is so characteristic of some older or elderly people. It’s this feeling they sometimes get (or always have) that everything used to be better and now everything is going to shit, including parenting. As many people grow older the list of things they dislike and bemoan grows longer and longer. Eventually it is so long that most of the sentences coming out of their mouths are complaints. The worst of these are the most negative people to be around. This is a trait I loathe and one that I hope does not follow me into my golden years.

As a younger person it can be discouraging and exhausting to be around people who think everything is going to hell. I know it is very hard to be positive sometimes. And it is hard to hope. But try. Promise me that. And I’ll promise to read to my daughter today.

Early Smiles

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London’s early smiles were one of the first signs of how happy a baby she would become. At first I thought the flashes of a smile I saw were just the typical baby imitating the adult’s facial expressions, but by the time this video was taken on her two-month birthday I had changed my mind.

You can see London try to look up at me. The comfort of knowing that dad is holding her breaks through those hiccups and appears as a smile on her face. And then, back to hiccuping. Kate says, “She smiles a lot…”

She did then and she still does. She is constantly reminding me to be happy and then to stay happy. Even in those most frustrating moments of parenthood when I am in grumpy land and want to stay there, her joy cracks the scowl on my face and I surrender to her smile.

We are blessed and spoiled with such a happy baby, who continues to amaze the most weathered parents, grandparents, and great grandparents by her no-fuss, ebullient temperament.

Too Many Journals

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I would think twice about giving new parents a journal. Chances are, they already have three…at minimum.

They don’t need but one place to write their thoughts down about the expecting, the arrival, and the aftermath of their first child. We were lucky and probably only got about five journals, enough to record every minute of IMG_6093every day for the first three years.

Among people who journal, my devotion to it is moderate and, still, I am considerably disappointed by my lack of devotion to it. After all, it’s what writers do.

I’ve got a bookshelf of empty journals and I bet quite a few people can say the same, long before they have kids. For me, the site of an empty journal, which has been on my bookshelf for a decade, can be a consistent reminder of failure. (Note to self: move all empty or one-tenth-completed journals to box in basement.) Perhaps it’s the same with the people you are giving that journal too. Perhaps it’s not. But before you go ahead and give them that new-parent journal you better do a journal inventory of their bookshelves (in all rooms) and then assess whether these parents need more blank pages in their house.

If you do that assessment and you decide to still get a journal, I have a recommendation. It’s called Mom’s One Line A Day. It’s my favorite journal with the crappiest title. It offers six narrow lines of writing space for each day for five years. On each page you can see what you were doing on the same date in a five-year span. Now that’s a crapload of journaling, don’t get me wrong, but at six lines a day, even if your handwriting is small, it fills up fast.

Even with that knowledge, I fail to write in it half the days, but since Kate and I have used this journal for over a year now we have a considerable record of London’s first 15 months (nearly).

More momentous are some days than others, but I have found it helpful even to write down the seemingly mundane. Example: April 21, 2015 – 2 naps still. Read HP (book 6) out loud to you and some of A Game of Thrones. Outside in backyard you watched as I planted some herbs.

And right above that entry, I can see that on April 21, 2014, I wrote: Dad started reading The Hobbit to you today. You can’t truly follow the story but you know my voice and somehow you can tell when I start reading each day because you smile every time. It’s truly amazing.

So, if you must, pull the trigger on the Mom’s One Line A Day journal. It’s just the right dose of urging the parents to write about this spectacular time in their lives.

The Complicated Age of Preemies

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Home at last. London’s 4-month and 1-month birthday.

“How old is she?” The simplest of questions for parents of full-term babies to answer, but not so for parents of preemies because there are two answers for this one question.

At some point, a baby arrives so early that their actual age is going to be different from their developmental age. For example, my daughter, London, was born at 26 weeks gestational age, three months early. Her birthday is January 30, 2014. Her developmental birthday is May 4, 2014. This means London’s adjusted age is 11.5 months, even though she’s been with us for 14.5 months.

So how do I answer the question, “How old is she?” Well, sometimes I lie. If the person asking is asking because they are wondering why London is not walking and or talking because she’s the size of some two-year-olds, I lie and give them the adjusted age. By doing so, I direct the conversation toward the obvious and usually hear something like this: “My God, what a big baby.” I would much rather talk about how big my baby girl is than tell the person the truth and then have the conversation inevitably slide toward how London is, developmentally speaking, three months behind.

That said, I think most of the time I tell the truth and answer, “Almost 15 months,” because most people, whether they dwell on my answer or not, just aren’t going to say anything else. But I know, because I’ve seen it in their eyes, that when I say London’s real age some people look a little confused. I don’t know what they are thinking exactly, but it’s something along the lines of:

“Shouldn’t she look older?”

“She should be crawling by now.”

“She should be walking by now.”

“She should be talking more by now.”

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At seven and four-months old.

When I feel this reaction in people I know I could take the time and explain London’s two ages, but somehow just saying, “She was born three months early,” sounds cheap because I’m taking this huge, scary part of our lives and trivializing it in six words. Plus, the majority of people will not be able to comprehend what those six words truly mean. Getting stranger after stranger to comprehend that over and over again can be exhausting. I know, because I would make a casual effort to explain London’s prematurity to nearly everyone that asked. This was right after she came home from the NICU. Still on oxygen. Still rocking cheek patches. NG tube still snaking across her face. Understandably, those people who asked how old she was back then knew they were probably going to get something more than, “3 months.” But after a while, parents of preemies tire of going into the explanation thing. So, like parents of full-term babies we get back to basics with a simple, short answer, “Fourteen and a half months.”

Or am I going to say, “Eleven and a half months,” this time?

Oh hell, maybe I’ll just split the difference.

“Thirteen months.”

Wage Equality

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Every year someone at the Oscars uses their acceptance speech as an opportunity to get up on their soapbox. And every year people in the media, politicians, and sometimes people in your own living room get slightly irritated to irate about these moments when someone “supposedly” strays off topic, like the actor should not have the freedom to do anything but praise the cast and crew of the movie they starred in and, of course, thank their parents, wife, husband, and/or kids.

This year, as you may recall, Patricia Arquette used some of her time at the mic, while accepting the award for best supporting actress, to give a little speech on how important she thinks wage equality is. Here’s a little excerpt:

To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s time to have wage equality once and for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.

I was surprised this year at the uproar over Arquette’s speech and her backstage comments as well. It’s like every year people forget that some celebrity is going to stand up and fight for what they believe in or what they want others to believe in. And then when it happens again. Outrage. Shouts of, “Get on with the show.” Etc.

What I did not expect is for people to get all pissy about a call for wage equality. As a husband to an amazing woman who is the primary breadwinner in this family (always has been, likely will be for years and years to come) and as a father to the most precious girl I will ever know, wage equality is extremely important to me.

Someone promoting wage equality at the Oscars isn’t going to bother me.

I’m not going to be bothered if a pastor ends his or her sermon with a call for wage equality.

I would be delighted if I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone outside calling for wage equality.

A call for wage equality is just never going to bother me and I will never understand why this year it irritated so many.

Nana Remembers London’s Birth

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I’ve been meaning to share this comment since it was left on January 29th, when I wrote this post. The comment is from my mom, recalling the night and early morning of January 30, 2014.

I have been thinking all day about the phone ringing this night a year ago when we were sound asleep. Groggy and confused we listened to you tell us Kate was in distress, the docs were monitoring her and you would keep us posted. We hung up the phone, prayed through our tears thinking how can a baby live at 26 weeks? And we called her Grace not knowing you’d give her that moniker as her middle name. Your next call came to say Kate was about to undergo an emergency C-section. More tears and ongoing prayer. I remember my heart was beating so hard for what seemed like hours but you called again less than two hours later to say “London Grace” was here. Dozens of doctors and nurses were looking after her and Kate was in recovery. Then you asked, “Do you want to see a picture of her?” And so it began.

Still, I can’t read this without fighting back some tears. I had sort of forgotten that I asked my parents if they wanted to see a picture of their granddaughter. Such a question seems a little odd, but in the moment it was not an unusual precaution. The one picture I had of London at that point was graphic, for lack of a better word. She was vulnerable and the picture succeeded in showing that. I must have thought that maybe they would not want to see a picture of her until she stabilized some. Had they felt that way it would not have bothered me. Obviously, I was still protecting myself, but I also thought about protecting others and this was a way I tried.

I have known for a long time now that there was no protecting me or anyone else if things had gone horribly wrong during those first days. I was in shock and still under the illusion that I had any control over what happened next.

Baby in the NICU, Phone Always On

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I love having my phone on silent. Even though my phone is consistently within reach, having it on silent makes me feel a little more free of it and maybe even a little disconnected. So when my grandma called me this morning it was only by chance that I noticed the iPhone’s screen light up, catching it out of the corner of my eye.

Of course, when your phone is on silent there are missed phone calls and missed texts. You sacrifice a little instant communication, but you gain some uninterrupted down time from the phone. It has become habit for me to switch my phone to silent while I am winding down for the night. At some point the next day, usually, mid-morning, I’ll turn the ringer back on.

Switching my phone’s ringer on this morning after my talk with my grandma made me think of that first night Kate and I were back from the hospital after London’s birth. I had reached over to my phone on the nightstand and switched it to silent. That immediately felt like a dumb thing to do and it slowly dawned on me that as long as London is in the NICU, my phone will never be on silent. It will rarely be anywhere other than my pocket. Its volume will always be at least 3/4 of max.

For 109 days, I did not want my phone to ring because a call, I assumed, would be bad news. But for 109 days, it was also imperative that I never miss a call or a single text message. If it was the NICU calling, then I could not afford to miss whatever breaking news they had to tell me, no matter how dire it may have been. Nowadays, the smartphone is a natural accessory to our everyday lives and, while we were living out a hyper-alert and worried stage of our lives, it made sense to make sure all avenues of communication stayed open.

When London did come home, I vividly remember taking great pleasure in muting the ringer on my iPhone that first night. It was ceremonial. A little victory. And in the morning, a big victory, not having to hop in the car and drive to the hospital in order to see my daughter.

Have Preemie, Will Not Travel

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Oh, the places we’ve been since London was born.

From January 30, 2014 to May 19, 2014 I left Denver once, for a quick trip north to Fort Collins. I was there for six hours. Since London was born I have spent three days outside of the state, not too far away, in Green River, WY. It took me two minutes to draw on a map where I have been in the last 14 months.

Having a baby will naturally limit your geographical existence. Having a 26-weeker will completely shut your travel down. From what I have heard about other parents who had a very early baby, we have been ambitious in our reach across this relatively small map. I have heard of parents who will not take their baby outside the house but for walks. These parents have decided that taking their preemie to the grocery store, the shopping mall, or to Target, puts their preemie at too great a risk of getting seriously sick and going right back to the hospital. My family did not make it out of the NICU without receiving such advice, from a nurse nonetheless. We were blown away by the severity of such restrictions and quickly conferred with other nurses that we did not have to stay under house arrest with our preemie until flu season was over.

We have followed certain recommendations such as, do not fly anywhere with your baby until flu season ends. Locking baby inside an incredibly small area for two hours with 140 other strangers sounded like a really bad idea to us as well. Not flying anywhere for such a long time (our last flight was in mid-December 2013) has been incredibly weird and challenging, but also much better than having a very sick daughter back in the hospital.

The feeling has been similar to putting travel and adventure on probation for over a year. Localized adventure has still been possible and we have taken advantage of that with trips to Wyoming, Breckenridge (twice), Steamboat Springs, and Estes Park. If it wasn’t for weddings, I am not sure we would have made all those trips, but thank God for weddings because these short getaways have quenched at least a little bit of our thirst for travel.

Flu season is almost over. Besides the obvious, this means as a family we are free to move about the country. And again, weddings will be the catalyst of much of that travel, but instead of weekends in the Colorado mountains we will get a weekend in southern California and Nashville, with some excursions in between. The destinations are exciting. The process of getting there, i.e. flying with London and bringing all the baby stuff along with us, does not excite. However, if London’s behavior as a baby can be a predictor for how she’ll be on a flight, I can say she probably won’t put up much of a fight. It’s her 40 lb. car seat that will.

The Troubling Loss of the Car Seat

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Fully functioning baby in the now retired car seat.

I felt the familiar bite of envy today when I saw a dad walking into a bookstore carrying his baby in a car seat. Oh, those were the days. Yes, they were.

But wait, you might say. Aren’t you excited for your baby to grow up? To walk? To be freer? Of course I am. She is crawling right now, but all she wants to do is stand at the coffee table and cruise around. In a little more time she will be walking with me, but right now we are in a cumbersome interregnum between the too-big-for-the-car-seat size and the not-yet-walking stage.

Benefits of the car seat era include easily carrying baby during any errand, including, but certainly not limited to, a stroll through the bookstore, a coffee run, and going to pick up a book at the library. Also, easily transferring baby from house to car, to inside bookstore, back inside car, back to house, and up to room if baby has fallen asleep in car seat. All this used to be done with one convenient baby bucket (receptacle or repository I like much better, but it just sounded weird, “baby repository”).

But now upon arrival anywhere we must transfer baby from big, new, giant booster-type seat for extra-tall babies to the stroller, also great for extra-tall daddies.

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Fully functioning much bigger baby in the new, custom-built-for-huge-people, booster seat.

The other option, and this is a big ask, is to carry her sans stroller. Since she’s 25 lbs and 31 inches, one better hope the errand does not take longer than expected if you spring for this non-stroller option, especially if you have already lifted weights that day.

This might be the first of many posts in which I sort of (or jokingly) mourn losing the conveniences of the infant, but also recognize the perks of getting older and growing bigger, like her booster seat (which is one indestructible gadget) and her current obsession with pulling to stand. These are great things.

But the other point of this post is that I cannot shake the memory of the days when I could carry London around in her car seat, sometimes with just a few fingers wrapped around the handle and the other two fingers carrying a six-pack. The ease. The comfort. The convenience. Oh my.

 

 

Waking Into a Nightmare

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When the doctor ordered a head ultrasound on you to finally put to rest any doubts we had about your head size I was comfortable with the call. Why not just check? I felt confident that nothing was going to come of it. However, as the day of the ultrasound approached I had this horrible feeling. I probably only have my imagination to blame. I guess I got hung up on a worst-case scenario and dwelt on it too long.

You did wonderfully during your head ultrasound. Your arms were flailing a bit and we had to hold them down, but you did not mind the cool gel in your hair or the foreign environment. We were there for less than an hour and went home awaiting results. We did not expect to get results that night while we were finishing dinner. Mom answered her phone and I did not think anything of the conversation until she pulled the phone away from her ear for a second to tell me it was your doctor calling. I knew a 7pm call from the doctor the day of your head ultrasound meant only one thing, he saw something he did not like. I sat at the dinner table and stewed, bracing myself for the next punch to the gut. What am I about to hear? I looked at you on the living room floor, trying to get mom’s attention while she spoke to your doctor, wonderfully out of touch with the news being delivered to us.

Mom told me that the doctor was concerned about the size of your ventricles. Out of caution, he recommended a consult with a neurosurgeon, which would most likely be preceded by an MRI. Mom explained all this news about you very well, even trying to calm me as the doctor tried to calm her, explaining that large ventricles may not mean anything right now. The consult and MRI are out of caution so we can really see if something is not going as planned in that big head of yours.

As Mom called her parents and delivered the news, I had to lie down on the floor with you. I clutched you as you crawled over me, not even taking my hand away to wipe the occasional tear from my face, letting them slide down my cheek and drip onto the carpet. I wanted to cuddle with you. You wanted to play. I had to call my parents too so Mom took you upstairs and you fell asleep on her.

Going to bed that night I was wishing I would wake up and remember that this was all part of a bad dream. I guess that is the great thing about having a bad dream. You wake up and there is an instant when you think the dream was real, but then you really come to and you remember with delight that none of that bad stuff you dreamt about happened. But the next morning it was the opposite. I came out of a great night of sleep and then as soon as I remembered the new reality I wanted to go back to sleep. I wanted to forget again. It was so good, that peace I had during sleep, and now it had slipped away and I did not want to face the day without it.

To be continued…

2 lbs, 8.5 oz

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I decided to post another original entry from our NICU journal. This is unedited from one year ago today.

Day 13 – February 12, 2014 – Wednesday

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February 12, 2014, one day after we got to hold London for the first time.

London had her PICC line pulled today. As well as her IV. So she is a lot freer today.

Tomorrow is London’s 2nd head ultrasound.

Today was a tough day, though not for you, London, but for your parents because the baby across the hallway from us was dying. This baby arrived around the same time you did, but we had noticed its condition was declining. When we saw both of the teenage parents sobbing today and calling in relatives we knew it was bad.

I had gone to return a pump and overheard docs saying that the chaplain had arrived. As I later stood at the sink washing breast pump parts, not more than 8 feet from where the baby was dying surrounded by family, I couldn’t help but cry. I don’t know this baby. I don’t know its parents, but I know what they went through to make it to this point and to face the truth that not all babies make it out of here was gut-wrenching.

The baby and the family were moved to a private room for the baby’s final hours of life. Now their pod is empty, lifeless, and being mopped by a janitor who hasn’t a clue what happened in that space just an hour earlier.

There is an amazing disconnect between some hospital employees and the patients and stories contained within the rooms of that hospital. I will never quite get used to it.

Today, London, you weighed 2 lbs, 8.5 ounces and it dawned on me that I weigh 100 times as much as you do.

12 Classics in 2015

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In 2015, like in 2009, I am reading 12 classics I have never read before. The first book, Moby-Dick, is almost out of the way. I am on page 430 of 624.

There are quite a few things I did not know about Moby-Dick, but two of them stand out. One, the length. I was thinking of 400 pages max. When I had seen the book on shelves it never looked quite this long. There are lots of words on each page. It takes a while to just read two full pages, especially when there are two paragraphs on each of those pages. The text is consistently all the way to the margins. I know, I sound like a middle-schooler after being presented with his first giant book with no pictures at all and small print.

And two, I was unaware of all the diversions Melville takes throughout the book. These chapters vary widely on topics, but all are pertaining to the whale. There were several chapters on the classification of whales. There were a few more on the accuracy and inaccuracy of depictions of whales in drawings, paintings, and sculpture. There was an ode to the whale tail. As annoying and out of place as these chapters might seem at first, they become enjoyable when Melville continues with the Pequod’s story and you, as the reader, have the whaling knowledge necessary to easily follow the what, why, and how of the whaling profession.

I hold Moby-Dick responsible for my lack of blogging lately. I am now quite invested and interested in the remaining pages of this book. With every bit of free time I feel the need to knock out a few pages because I just never know exactly when London is going to wake up. And, of course, the end of this book is in sight and I have other books stacked by the window tempting me with their perfectly square corners and pristine pages.

Did it go by fast?

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Did it go by fast?

That’s what everyone asks when we tell them London is turning one this week.

Like all new parents we have been very busy this last year. That’s what happens when you have kids. Life speeds up as you nurture another life. Everything takes longer from getting out the door to eating a meal to loading a car full of stuff for just six hours away from the house.

Time goes by quickly when everything takes longer. Maybe that is why everyone seems to have that feeling that the first year flies by.

But the answer is no. This year did not go by fast.

We just visited the NICU on Tuesday. We saw a few nurses who took care of London. The front desk staff recognized us as we were walking up the hallway toward them. “You guys look familiar,” one of them said, motioning at my height. IMG_2912

Standing there while London smiled and giggled at everyone who stopped to say hi, I had this overwhelming feeling of gratefulness. To think of London’s days in the NICU I feel like I need to look much further back in time than one year. Sometimes it feels like two years ago. Sometimes it feels like it never happened because that time was so different than what our day-to-day routine is like now.

Walking those familiar hospital hallways, making that familiar request to get through to the NICU, seeing the nurses, and hearing the distant beeps and alarms from the monitors in the NICU pods reminded me of how routine the NICU became. I forget it, but this place was our home for 109 days. Our house was just where we slept, but our lives unfolded in this little corner of the hospital.

I don’t know if you have ever had to visit your baby in the NICU. If you haven’t, let me tell you those days don’t pass quickly by. Since we almost spent a third of London’s first year in the NICU, a third of that year dragged on with countless questions, tests, consultations, laughs, smiles, and tears.

When I woke up this morning I glanced at my iPhone like I always do. The little white icon for the calendar app displayed “29.” I froze and stared at the number. London was not born until the 30th, but the 29th, January 29th, is when her early arrival started. To me, January 29, 2014 was the beginning of a miracle, so it holds a very special place in my heart, second only to January 30, 2014.

One year ago tonight we exited the elevator on the 4th floor. Our hearts remained there until May 19th. The time in between felt more like a year, which also feels like it took place years ago.

No, it did not go by fast.

January 28, 2014

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As London’s one-year birthday approaches, January 30th and the days preceding it are becoming clearer and clearer in my mind than at any point since.

Today, I am thinking of January 28, 2014.

I was in a bad state of mind that day, one day before Kate went into labor three months early. I had graduated with my master’s degree in International Studies six months earlier. I had spent summer, fall, and winter looking for meaningful employment in Denver and had found nothing.

On January 28th, I was at a coffee shop continuing my job search, but I was easily distracted and frustrated with so many things in my life. I was a few days shy of turning 31. I started to write my stream of consciousness down.

A wasted mind.

A wasted education.

Greatest accomplishment this year will be fatherhood.

Exciting that is, but I want something else.

Maybe staying home with the baby is the best.

But I’ll never know unless I get a job and can live the other side of things.

Since London was born, I have come back and read these lines a few times, but in a different mindset than when I put them down on paper. I no longer feel like my mind has been wasted. Of course, when I was in the middle of a fruitless job search it was easy to feel that way. It was easy to question my decision to go to grad school in a completely different field (IR) than my undergraduate studies (English). It was easy to get really depressed about having debt for the first time in my life, and all because of this damn master’s degree that I am not doing anything with.

A year later, the bit about the debt still angers me.

“Greatest accomplishment this year will be fatherhood.” On January 28th, I did not know a thing about what fatherhood would mean to me, thus thinking it would only be the greatest accomplishment that year. A day after writing this I was in fatherhood with no idea if my new duties would last a week, but I already knew that what I was doing during those days, what I was going to do in the days to come, would be the greatest accomplishment of not just the year, but of my lifetime.

In a way, I still want something else. I love my job. I am very happy with it. I know it will eventually change and I will be free to live the other side of things, but no matter what that other side is like, I will never get the sense of importance from it as I get from my current job. I did not know that on January 28th, but knowing it since has made all the difference during the seven months I have been a full-time SAHD.