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12 Classics in 2015: The Old Man and the Sea

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Reading 12 classics in 2015 would be a lot easier if you could knock out each one of them during a flight, like I did this short book on the way home from DC. In order to read some of the longer books I have selected for this task, such as Moby Dick, Midnight’s Children, and The Executioner’s Song, I needed to select some very short works.

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2013. Cayucos, CA.

The Old Man and the Sea is a delightfully simple plot that I will not rehash here. A warning though, it being such a short book most of the plot will be revealed by merely writing a few paragraphs about it.

While I read this book I thought about chasing goals, the way we chase them, and the people we leave in our wake while we chase those goals. Once the old man, Santiago, commits to catching the giant marlin he has hooked, there is no turning back. However, along the way, on nearly every other page, the old man thinks of the young boy, his apprentice Manolin, who had fished with him in the past and regrets his decision to not take the young boy out with him this day.

Pride and the necessity to make a living pushes the old man out to sea, the catch seeming impossible for hours and then days, but finally the marlin weakens and starts circling the boat. At this point, the old man’s energy and hand strength is somewhat revived. He pulls the marlin in against all odds and lines up the eighteen feet of marlin next to his boat. What a prize! Bask now in the glory of your catch because it will be rotted, decayed, or poisoned by the time you expect to reap the bounty.

Indeed, by the time the old man gets to shore, he has eighteen feet of skeletal remains alongside his boat and the old man himself is nearly dead. Would the ending have been different if the young boy had been allowed to fish with the old man on this journey? I think we are led to think that way. The victory for the old man is that he made it home at all and he can now take Manolin out fishing once again. Together, perhaps, they will catch a big marlin, but the biggest catch of all was lost. Be it pride, stubbornness, or just a foolhardy decision to go for the big prize, the old man did it. Better to try and fail than to not try at all. For if the old man had cut his line after the marlin towed him out to sea for a day, the decision would have eaten at him for the rest of his life.

I revere Hemingway’s writing. It’s the stuff I will aspire to for as long as I write. I will never get there, but it is fun to imagine. I will also never get to the point where I will shoot myself in the head with a shotgun. Exquisite writing and shotgun-assisted suicide I leave to you, Ernest.

One Year Ago Today, We Left the NICU

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London’s first night home. I already look horrible.

Today is the one-year anniversary of London’s big move from the NICU to her new home. Reflecting on that day a year later, I think I made the right choice by not overthinking what a big change it was going to be for London and for us.

I knew it would be an exhausting transition, but my thinking was that I would roll with the punches, get knocked down a few times (which I did), adapt my style (easy, give up sleep), and then hang on for dear life and at some point in the future I would come out a practiced and knowledgable parent (still looking to the future on that one, at least in some regards). To me, going through that process seemed easier than trying to be ahead of the curve. Plus, that would take time to read and figure out what I was doing wrong. After 109 days in the NICU and then starting parenthood all over again when London came home, we did not have time for that.

Learning London’s cues taught me nearly everything I needed to know about taking care of her this last year. A few cues are exclusive to taking care of a preemie, like knowing when to stop the bottle feed and move forward with the tube feed, or knowing when 1/8th liter flow was not enough or if it was just right. I relied on London’s pediatrician, her nurses, her physical therapist, her occupational therapist, and both sets of grandparents to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

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Today. Playing with her Little People farm.

A year later, London is far easier to take care of than she was with all the accessories she came home with. And, I am far more rested than those first days and weeks she was home. I am still tired most of the time, but I have coffee for that.

London’s first year home bears the mark of many a preemie: daily doctor’s appointments at first, then weekly, and then gradually monthly, with some major scares along the way. I hope and pray her second year at home will be smoother than that, that it will bear more marks of hope and promise than it will remnants of her harrowing beginning.

I’m a Cheerios Vacuum

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When London will not eat one thing I give her, Cheerios save us. They are like little life preservers floating about on the table top, saving her because they give her sustenance, saving me because she is actually eating something. 

I’ll hand London some Cheerios wherever we are. She drops half of them on a good day and 75% of them on all other days. 

I can’t let them go to waste. I will eat them off the carpet, the kitchen floor, from the couch cushions, from the bottom of her activity saucer, and from inside her onesie. 

There are two places I won’t eat Cheerios from. One, the bathroom floor. This has only happened once as I have never fed London Cheerios in the bathroom, but I mush have carried one in there on my clothing. I found it today. 

And two, from inside her diaper. Found one of those yesterday. 

And you can forget about the five-second rule. I am confident I have eaten Cheerios that were several days old, maybe a week. It’s easy to tell when you get one of those. They have entirely lost their crunch. 

My Cheerios consumption is up 1000% over last year. I suspect that as London grows older it will steadily decline from the current stage, which, I would guess, is at peak Cheerios flow. 

Sidebar Additions

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Hi People.

There may not be time for me to write a more substantial blog than this today, but I just wanted to alert you to a few sidebar additions to the blog. There is now a Facebook like button. So, if you haven’t, get on that button. There’s also a link to my Instagram account and a preview of some of the most recent photos I have posted there. Lastly, there’s a button you can click to follow the blog via email.

Now, I must attend to packing for my trip. I still remember how. I think.

DC Bound

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The last time I was in DC, I didn’t know how to operate any sort of camera, so I share this picture from London in 2012, the last time I was there.

A couple of months ago Kate secretly arranged for me to have a vacation.

I am actually going to travel out of the state. On. A. Plane.

I am heading to DC on Thursday for a four-night stay. My mom is helping out a ton by driving from New Mexico (again) to hang out with London while Kate is working.

When Kate first told me I was excited, but at once sort of terrified of leaving London and being away from her for four days. I have spent only one night away from London before and, even then, I was in the same city.

I am sure when I am dropped off at the airport I will have a little slice of adulthood immediately come back to me, the no-strings-attached freedom to move about as I please without a diaper bag, stroller, and a pretty big one-year-old baby. It will just be me. That will feel weird for a time.

As excited as I am for the vacation, I find myself already looking forward to coming back to Colorado and being reunited with my family. I have never felt that way before. It is one of those new feelings, that I can only ascribe to the love I have for my budding family.

Surviving at 22 Weeks

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“Do you want us to save your baby?”

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London at one-day old.

That’s a question you may have to answer if your baby is born earlier than 24 weeks, the current gestational age of viability. In fact, you may not get that question at all. Quite a few NICUs do not have the means to even attempt to save a 22 weeker. And, from the sound of an article I read in the NY Times yesterday, some doctors will not try to save a 22 weeker if they aren’t breathing on their own. And the chances of such a preemie breathing on their own, if the mother didn’t receive corticosteroids, is extremely slim, if it’s possible at all.

Yet, there are some 22 weekers who have made it, as detailed in a recent study, from The New England Journal of Medicine, mentioned in the aforementioned article.

The study, one of the largest and most systematic examinations of care for very premature infants, found that hospitals with sophisticated neonatal units varied widely in their approach to 22-week-olds, ranging from a few that offer no active medical treatment to a handful that assertively treat most cases with measures like ventilation, intubation and surfactant to improve the functioning of babies’ lungs.

The study involved very premature babies, those born at 22-27 weeks. Among the 22 weekers, there were 78 cases:

18 survived, and by the time they were young toddlers, seven of those did not have moderate or severe impairments. Six had serious problems such as blindness, deafness or severe cerebral palsy.

7 out of 78. So at 22 weeks, there’s less than a 10% chance of surviving without any severe, lasting impairments. Survival rate at 23 weeks was about 33%.

The article detailed the varying strategies used by hospitals around the country. Some hospitals are very ambitious and with the parental approval, go after all 22 weekers. But, understandably, some hospitals stick to the 24 week line as the viability tipping point. A doctor describes his hospital’s strategy this way:

At his hospital, “we go after the 24-weekers,” he said. “If it’s 23, we will talk to the family and explain to them that for us it’s an unknown pathway. At 22 weeks, in my opinion, the outcomes are so dismal that I don’t recommend any interventions.”

At 22 and 23 weeks, I am glad that parents are asked the question I opened this blog post with. After having experienced the emergency delivery of my daughter at 26 weeks and then the following 109 days in the NICU, I would hesitate to answer yes in a 22 week or 23 week situation. My gut tells me at 22 weeks, I would say no. At 23, I’d have to think about it a lot more. It would depend on whether or not my wife received steroids. There was no time for steroids in London’s case, and that set her back significantly even at 26 weeks, nearly a month older than the earliest babies in this study.

It was a fascinating article to read. Here is the link again. I am amazed that 22 weekers can survive, but blindness, deafness, and severe CP are not minor complications. And those are the 22 weekers who make it out of the hospital.

 

Another Day, Another Echo

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Two days ago I posted “Turning One Again“. In that post I mentioned that this time last year London was going through a bunch of new tests to find out why she was so tired. Actually, “new tests” is incorrect. By May 4th, 2014, London had had several echocardiograms, she was just going to have another. I thought I would share a video of the last echo she had in the NICU. Kate had stopped by London’s room on the way to work (in the building next door) and had wound up getting to see the echo.

I do not expect you to be interested in watching a baby get an echocardiogram. The event is not spectacular or rare at all if you have had a preemie. But what is exceptional about the video is how London is so cool with it. She yawns in the middle of the video, like, c’mon, get this over with…it’s not my heart that has an issue.

Kate sent me the video that morning before I had made it to the NICU and it warmed my heart. This was classic London–so extraordinarily comfortable with another intrusive procedure in the NICU–that it did not surprise me all that much. London remained unperturbed throughout this test and others. Over the course of 109 days in the NICU London’s attitude absolutely rubbed off on us. We were never happy to have to sit through another echo or eye exam, but seeing how tough London was through it all made us roll with the punches like old pros. You will stress yourself to death if you can’t find a way to cope. Looking to our baby for strength proved to be one of the best strategies to weather the storm.

I just realized I posted this video on the blog already, but it was months ago and in a different context. Thanks for stopping by!

The Story of London’s Birth

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This picture…because it’s Cinco de Mayo!

A few months ago I wrote a post linking back to the story of London’s birth, the first posts on this blog. It had been a while since I had mentioned them and wanted to make sure people were aware of them, especially since they were now buried in the archives.

I have finally done something I should have done months ago. I have posted links to London’s birth story in the About the Author tab of this blog. I encourage you to read those posts if you have not.

In the meantime, happy Cinco de Mayo! I made a margarita last night following this recipe. It was delicious, but to make more tonight I had to raid the limes at the grocery store today. You will need a lot of limes. Enjoy!

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.

At Home With London is on Facebook

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Hello everyone.

Just a quick word here about the blog. If you’re on Facebook, give us a follow at this link. You’ll get all of the updates in your news feed, but you’ll still have to click over to the blog to read the whole post. And, if you feel so inclined, share the page on your own Facebook page.

Again, the blog is on Facebook. Like the page HERE. Thanks.

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.

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.

A 1 ml Bottle

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A long way from a full feeding, but a good start.

There were about two months of training from the day (February 27, 2014) I took this video of London until she could take a crack at an actual bottle. What an amazing step for her this was. A 1 ml syringe holds quite a bit more milk than that cotton swab we used to put in her mouth. We were thrilled in this moment.

I have posted very few videos on this blog so far, but I have so many I would eventually like to share and perhaps write about. Plus, on days I don’t have a chunk of time to write at length about raising London, sharing a video is a great option.

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.