A Good Father Would... Pt. II

A good father would not lose his temper and yell at The Toddler when she spits milk all over the kitchen.  Good fathers do not have tempers.  Good fathers do not yell.  Good fathers know that yelling is almost always the worst reaction to any given situation.

A good husband would not be resentful when The Wife wakes him at 4:00 a.m. to put The New Baby to sleep.  A good husband would remember how hard his wife is working with The New Baby, and he would realize that he slept soundly from 10:30 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. and he was able to do that because The Wife was keeping The New Baby happy and full.

A good father and husband would not need to take a nap.  A good father and husband would know everything that needs to be done around the house and he wouldn't rest until it was done.  A good husband and father would remember that last night wasn't so bad, and he got good enough sleep to get him through the day without needing to nap.

A good father would not be terrified of being left alone with The Toddler and The New Baby.  A good father would be prepared, would have a plan for every contingency, and would be able to execute his plan without misstep and without losing his cool.

A good father would not react to his toddler screaming at him.  A good father would just roll with it.  He would recognize that losing his cool or reacting in any way will just reinforce the behavior.  A good father would know his toddler is just pushing his buttons, looking for a reaction, and he would be able to ignore it and give his toddler only positive attention to reinforce good behavior.

A good husband would take care of his wife who just a month ago endured a successful VBAC.  He would anticipate her needs and give her what she wants without her asking.  He would never be resentful if she did need to ask for something.  A good husband would never put his own needs above her needs.

A good father would not miss his life without children so much.  He would know that children are a blessing.  He would know there are too many people out there deprived of that blessing, some of whom would probably be better parents than he.  He would never make tasteless jokes about taking his kids to the fire station.

A good father and husband would not be threatened by his wife, who somehow never loses her temper, even with him when he loses his.  He would appreciate that she seems so put together and top of herself rather than resenting her for it.  He would never, ever, ever, take for granted that such an amazing woman chose to spend her life and raise her kids with him.

On Halloween

Last night was Halloween.  Since The Toddler is too little to really understand the holiday, and since it's butt cold outside right now, we stayed in and handed out candy.  The Wife, who is 38.5 weeks along at this point was adorable dressed as Winnie the Pooh, and for a party last weekend, The Toddler was even more adorable as Piglet, and I was along for the ride as Christopher Robin.  If I wasn't next to both of them, I just looked like another dad without any fashion sense.  Image search Christopher Robin and you'll understand.

So we stayed in last night.  The Wife and I love Halloween.  We love handing out candy.  We love seeing all the creative costumes.  We love the polite kids who are friendly and thank us, and we love the parents out there doing their best and yelling, "SAY THANK YOU!" from the sidewalk.  We also love scary movies. 

We decided yesterday afternoon that we'd hand out candy until 8:00 or so, when it's mostly over anyway, and then go watch Rosemary's Baby.  Neither of us had ever seen it and it's a classic horror movie for a reason.  8 rolls around and we still have a lot of candy, so we say to heck with it, put a stool out on the steps, put the bowl on the stool, leave the lights on but lock the door, and we head to the basement to watch the movie.

Mistake 1:  DO NOT WATCH ROSEMARY'S BABY WHEN YOUR WIFE IS PREGNANT.  I loved the movie.  Loved it.  It scared the shit right out of me.  But geez, aside from the being-raped-by-the-devil thing, it includes a lot of the crazy emotional shit that happens during a pregnancy.

Mistake 2:  Leaving the candy out in the bowl.  Some little asshole stole our bowl.  This isn't that big a deal, but it's really disappointing and annoying.  I mean, it was part of a set.  Now we have an incomplete set and what are the chances of finding an individual replacement bowl that matches the rest of the set?!  We're gonna need a whole new set!  Life can be really hard sometimes.

So Halloween was OK.  And I'm certain that two days after we buy a new set of mixing bowls, we'll the find the stolen one thrown in the bushes in the neighbor's yard or something. 

On Shame and Guilt

Yesterday was a tough day.  I just felt down.  Can't figure any way of describing it any more poetically than that.  Up is up.  Normal is in the middle.  Down is down.  It's not really depression.  To describe it as such would be an insult to the truly depressed and what they deal with.  At this point, I think you know what I mean, so I won't belabor the point.

I spend a lot of time metacognitating i.e. I like to think about my thinking.  I like to try to get to the root causes of feelings.  It goes back to the first therapist with whom I worked, Jack, who recommended to me a book - Focusing, by Eugene Gendlen.  I haven't read it in a loooong time, but my enduring understanding is that by talking through a feeling and trying to label it pretty specifically, you will eventually understand your feeling, and there will be a release of emotion, often accompanied by tears.  If Jack had just told me about it before he'd worked through a few sessions of focusing, I would've thought it really cheesy, but damn if it didn't work exactly like that for me.  Anyway...

I spoke with The Wife about it last night.  There were tears.  It made me feel a little better, but there's more work to be done.  What I've concluded is that I'm feeling all the things a SAHD feels from time to time.  I'm tired and I feel run down, but because The Toddler is a pretty easy kid, I don't feel I deserve to feel that way, so I'm ashamed.  Shame is a seriously powerful fucking emotion, and is interwoven through all my issues.

Right now, I do everything around the house, something I do by choice and about which I'm proud.  I will reiterate: I take pride in making the choice to, and putting forth the effort required to keep the house running.  I cook and clean and mow and take out the garbage and pay the bills and weed the garden and on and on.  I'm proud because it sounds like a lot, but it's a lot of tasks, not really a lot of work.  I mean, some weeks it is, but I still *regularly* take a nap in the afternoon.  When people talk about how hard it is to be a stay-at-home parent, I wonder if they have more difficult kids than mine, because I've never had any other job that allowed me to pretty much stay on top of my shit AND take a nap a few days a week.  BUT.  I do a lot of tasks, and despite me knowing full well that The Wife works harder than I do, I get resentful.  On Tuesday nights, when I've got the kitchen cleaned up and my bowl of ice cream and we're sitting down to watch House of Cards and I then remember that it's fucking garbage night, I sometimes want to ask her when she last took out the garbage.  And then I remember that she worked a 14-hour day, same as she did yesterday, same as she will tomorrow, and I instantly feel guilty and ashamed.  A Good Husband would not think things like that.  A Good Husband would know how good he has it and would just grow up and take out the goddamned garbage.  And I do, but the guilt is still there.

So we talked it through, and The Wife was wonderful and supportive as always.  She reassured me that what we're feeling (because, as it turns out, I don't have the market cornered on resentment) is totally normal and to be expected.  She is exhausted, but feels the guilt typical of a working mom - does she spend enough time with The Toddler?  Does she contribute enough around the house?  The most puzzling piece of all this is that we really do work to support each other.  I try so hard to show her how much I appreciate everything she does, and she does the same for me, but it just doesn't always sink in.  Again, I think that's pretty typical.

Where does that leave us?  I don't know.  I think a lot about a marriage counselor.  Not because our marriage is bad, but I'm a believer in emotional maintenance rather than fixing emotional crises.  Our marriage is really strong, but as I said, guilt and resentment are seriously powerful, and the issues that bring those feelings out will not go away, ever.  I need to get out our old copy of The Five Love Languages.  As I said, I try to show her how much I appreciate her, but I also know I could do more and do better.  Sometimes I feel like I don't have any idea how to express my appreciation to her, and guess what?  Guilt and shame.

So that's that.  Another post with no conclusions.

On Self Doubt

I kind of have an anger issue.  I'm incredibly self-conscious about saying that, because I know how it sounds, and I know the images it brings to mind.  So let me be clear: I am not violent, towards myself or others.  To my recollection, I haven't raised my voice to my wife or daughter.  I did yell at our old dog once, and I felt horrible about it.  It's not the kind of anger that you think of when you hear someone say he has an anger problem.

My anger is more like extreme frustration and exasperation, all wrapped up in guilt and shame.  It often doesn't have an object other than myself, which I'll get to.  After The Toddler was born, I realized this anger was going to be an issue, so I talked to a guy, and he helped me through some things, and tried to give me some tools (cognitive behavior therapy or CBT) to deal with the feelings when they came up.  Problem is, CBT takes a lot of work to be effective, and it takes a lot of practice to get good at it, and in the meantime, you're trying to extricate yourself from a hot situation to work on it with your tools, and it feels like the worst time to try to extricate yourself from a hot situation.  I know I'm making excuses.  My point is, even with the best intentions, I realized I was unlikely to get good enough for CBT to be a good resource to deal with these feelings (and, I know.  The work is the point.  The work is the tool.  The work is the CBT is the work is the CBT... I know).

So I thought maybe I'd think about the anger and try to understand it, in the hope that by understanding it, I could steal its power.

The Wife and I are planning a kitchen renovation.  We had a small misunderstanding, nobody's fault, but it made me mad.  This was one of those situations where my anger had no object other than myself.  I was just mad.  Mad at myself.  Mad at being in that situation.  Mad that I got mad.  I didn't, and don't, understand it.  It brought me down for a couple days, thinking about it.

I wonder if maybe I'm angry because I thought I'd finished all the hard work of growing up.  For a while, I felt like a real man, and a real husband, and maybe I thought that would automatically make me a good father without needing to do any more growing up.  Maybe, but that doesn't feel exactly right.

I have this misconception that I've worked really hard to get where I am (I haven't), and to be reminded that hard work never ends makes me angry.  The relentlessness of needing to be a better person than I naturally am.  The realization that you're not nearly as good a person as you thought you were.

I watched an episode of The Sopranos and then I wrote a bunch of this shit down in my journal yesterday while The Toddler napped.  Dinner was leftovers and I had no ideas for the rest of the week.  I felt guilty because instead of watching TV and writing, I should've been cooking and meal planning.  Every day, there are a thousand moments when I know how I would act if I was just a better husband, father, or friend.  The Toddler is throwing food on the floor or licking the toilet.  Those are teachable moments.  Those are moments when if I just had a little more patience, or a little more understanding, or a little more energy, I could decide on one of the many correct courses of action.  Many times, I do what I should.  Too many times, I don't.

I didn't know that the hard part of marriage and fatherhood would be dealing with the relentless march of moments during which I would need to decide to be better than I really am, and then summon forth the effort to act better than I wanted to be.

But how do you balance the ideal with reality?  Most of the time, the way I should act is selfless and the way I want to act, or the easy choice, is selfish.  Instead of watching TV during nap, I should cook.  But I'm not capable of always making the selfless choice.  Nobody is.  How do you know if you're living selflessly enough?  How do you deal with the doubt and shame of feeling like you should do better?  Thoreau wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  I wonder if he was talking about the doubt?

Or was he talking about the guilt of asking the question, and then doubting the motive for asking?  Do I really want to work to be a better person, or am I putting this out into the universe because I know one of my friends will read it and tell me I'm a good person?  Am I asking this question because I really wonder?  Or to absolve myself of the guilt of reaching out for reassurance?  YOU CAN SEE WHY THIS SOMETIMES GETS ME DOWN.  :-)

I got no answers.  If you do, you should be writing the blog, and books, and making bank off chumps like me who sometimes have a hard time getting out of their own way.  All I know is, I'm coming to terms with the reality:  I am not as good as I could be, and to be as good as I could and should be will take a lot of work, every day, for the rest of my life.  Or until I'm old enough that I can be that grumpy old man with no fucks left to give.  Today was a much better day.  I know what we're having for dinner.  I finished the laundry.  I made good progress on a woodworking project that had stalled for a couple weeks.  The sun is shining.  It could be, and has been, so much worse.

Am I Crazy? Or Is The Toddler Possessed?

Like many, The Wife and I sleep with a fan running in our bedroom.  I've slept with a fan on for as long as I can remember.  We just like white noise when we sleep.  We also run a fan in The Toddler's bedroom because it adjoins our living room and because we were so paranoid about her sleep when she was little that we did every possible thing in our power to convert the nursery into a womb short of spraying it down with warm goo.  And we would've done that if the floor had a drain.  Anything to make a baby sleep, amirite?

The Toddler sleeps really, really well now.  Me?  Not so much.  I wake feeling rested, but gone are the days of my head hitting the pillow and waking eight hours later feeling as if I didn't move an inch the whole night.  I toss and turn.  My back gets tight.  My temperature is all over the place.

And I hear things.

Because The Toddler sleeps well, and because her bedroom adjoins our bedroom, we turn the sound on the monitor off at night.  In the rare instances she's really upset, she has no problem waking us up.  Last night I woke two or three times sure I'd heard The Toddler making noise.  When I checked the monitor though, she was sound asleep.  After one of these instances, as I lay there trying to go back to sleep, I noticed the sound of the fan, kind of, maybe, in my mind, sounded like some of the sounds The Toddler makes...  I've talked to friends who've experienced this exact thing, so I know I'm not alone.  It makes you feel crazy.  Or illustrates that you are crazy.

So when I woke up, I had an idea that this should be a movie.  First-time parents are struggling with all the things first-time parents struggle with after bringing baby home: sleep deprivation, low self-esteem, sleep deprivation, loneliness, sleep deprivation, sleep deprivation, etc.  All parents understand the mental fragility during this phase of parenthood.  During this phase, the parents start to hear things through the baby monitor.  Or do they?  Was it just the fan?  Or did the baby make a noise and go right back to sleep?  Are the parents crazy?  Is the baby possessed?  Is the house haunted?

Possible Plot Elements:

• Mom and Dad are cautiously optimistic as they sit down to eat after putting baby down.  They think they hear a noise and check the monitor.  Baby is totally motionless, staring at the camera with her beady black shark eyes.  (This happens ALL THE TIME in real life)
• It's 9 o'clock.  Baby has been waking a lot between 9 and midnight.  Parents are exhausted and feeling that terror that only parents feel wondering how bad the night is going to be.  They hear something, but baby seems asleep.  Is she still asleep?  Then what was that noise?  IS SHE STILL ASLEEP?  FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE LET HER STILL BE ASLEEP.
• They keep hearing the baby monitor, even though the sound is off.  Dad starts compulsively changing the speed of the fan in the bedroom, convinced he can find the right frequency to quiet his mushy brain.
• They hear a noise and check the monitor.  Baby seems sound asleep, but the rock-n-play is rocking.

The title of the movie would be The Monitor.  It could be a comedy, though if it was done honestly, there wouldn't be a goddamn thing funny about it.  It could be a psychological thriller, but again, if it was done honestly and was successful could singlehandedly torpedo the birthrate of any city showing it.  It could definitely be a horror movie, because babies alone are fucking terrifying, let alone when they're possessed.  So, do any of you know how to get in touch with Damon and Affleck?  I need to get a screenplay written.

Do We Lack Time, or Control?

We started Daddy & Me class this week with an interesting question: What would you do with 10-15 extra minutes?

My first response was another question: Do I answer what I should do, or what I would do?  That got me thinking more about what the question was really asking...

Responses were predictable.  Play video games.  Take a nap.  Get caught up on chores.  I answered that I would read.  Like I said, predictable.  But we got to the second to last dad in class, and he answered, "I don't really know how to distinguish "extra" time.  I'm a SAHD.  All I have is time.  Time is my only commodity."  I've been thinking about his answer ever since.

I'm still totally stoked on my kid.  She is fucking awesome.  She eats well.  She's happy.  She almost always takes a good nap in the afternoon.  She goes down at 7:30 and sleeps until at least 6:30, and if I don't feel like getting her up until 7:00, she chills quietly in her crib.  She's just rad, so most days, I'm with this dad - I have a ton of time.  I have time in the morning before I get her up.  If I need time, she entertains herself well.  I have time while she naps.  I have time after she goes down at night.  I have time.  But on "bad" days, why does it feel like I don't?  What's different on those days when she's not feeling 100% and needs more attention, or when she takes an unusually short nap?

I'm still fleshing this out in my head, but I think what's different is my perception of control.  On days when she's "normal," I know what to expect.  I can expect her to give me time in the morning, or to entertain herself while I cook breakfast, or to take a good nap so I can relax or accomplish something.  Because her behavior conforms to my expectations, I feel like I'm in control of her behavior, and thus, our life.  On bad days, there's nothing really bad.  It's just that her behavior isn't conforming to my expectations, which makes me feel like I'm not in control, and when we don't feel like we're in control, it means we are no longer in control of our priorities, and that, I think, is what the question is really about.  The question is not about extra time.  I think the question is about control.  We're not really talking about what we would do with extra time, we're talking about what we would do with time over which we are totally free to prioritize.

As a parent who knows I have control issues, this seems like something I should keep in mind on those "bad" days.

Why I Dress Up For Daddy & Me Class

Like everybody, I have three or four levels of formality in my wardrobe, from my PJs to a nice suit.  Most days, I wear what I think of as "relaxed casual" - jeans and a t-shirt of some kind.  I also have "dad formal" which involves things like chinos and shirts with buttons.  I mostly like how I look regardless of which level of formality an event requires, and in these days of "athleisure" wear, I really could leave the house wearing my PJs and it wouldn't draw any stares.

The Toddler and I go to a class every Wednesday morning, and I noted this morning a trend.  Rather than my usual relaxed casual, I always dress dad formal for class.  It's not because the event demands it - these are all SAHDs, and attire in the class runs the range from dad formal to PJs.  So I wondered this morning why I always make sure I'm dressed well, shaved, and combed for class.

I've always thought of myself as an underachiever.  I did well in high school, got a good score on the ACT, did really well at a college where that wasn't so hard, and convinced myself that that was evidence I was destined for greatness at something.  It turns out my 4.0 GPA in college was my peak; I've never achieved anything like that success (success being defined as being better than my peers) since then, and depending on where I was in life, it's really, really bothered me.  What happened?

I've thought about it.  I've written about it.  I've come to very few conclusions.  But I do know that when The Wife got pregnant, and I knew I would be both a father and SAHD, I told people how excited I was, because I felt like I would be better at being a father and a dad than I'd been at any of the stupid shit jobs that had occupied my time since college.  I really thought of, and still think of, fatherhood as my calling.

Now I think (worry?) that I view fatherhood as a way to redeem myself, and I think (worry?) that I look my best for class because I've defined success as being better than my peers and I want to be the best, most-put-together dad in class (which is impossible, because Stylish Dad is way put together).  It's a competition, and I want to win at being dad.  I'm pretty sure that's not healthy.

In Which I Live Blog My Daughter's Bowel Movements

Below are a series of posts I put up on Facebook.  They were my first attempts at openly dealing with the normal challenges of parenthood with humor.  As you'll see, it started when The Baby was going through that life stage where she stopped pooping.  This was what lead to Poopmageddon that I wrote about previously, and which is referenced below.  I'm just putting them here for posterity - Facebook is an OK way to connect with and stay connected to people, but it's not a great place to write if you want it to stick around, and I definitely want The Baby to read this when she's old enough to be absolutely mortified by it.

Captain's Log 18 Mar 2016: Six days and still no sign of the enemy, Poop. The troops are, understandably, becoming restless. Our last battle at 30,000 feet is still fresh in our minds and we fear the Poops may be stronger yet this go round. We've contemplated fortifying our defenses - towels, rubber sheets, possibly a gutter and hose. Make no mistake - we will endure. We just wonder at what cost

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016 09:59: Nap 1 complete and still no sign of the enemy. It is tempting to cancel all plans for the day, but then the bastards have won. The troops are even more restless. I've started trotting out tired old cliches in an attempt to keep morale up, but it can only work for so long. WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF. AND POOP.

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016 11:19: The troops were shaken by two false alarms of such volume and stench as to defy belief. It set us on edge, but we had no choice but to commence nap 2 without engaging the enemy. We are twitchy, changing diapers often and double checking our fortifications. We must remind ourselves that this battle will not be won with diapers, but with perseverance and handful upon handful of wipes. I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY AND IT IS US. AND POOP

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016:  I THINK THIS IS IT! STAY STRONG!!!

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016:  Oh the horror, oh the humanity!

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016:  IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER!!! Today marks a great victory over the forces of poop. It threw everything it had at us and we had not a blowout nor need to use an excessive number of wipes. Now a good commander knows better than to take too much credit when he knows luck was on his side - if she'd been asleep, or doing anything other than tummy time when the first salvo hit... Well, I shudder to think of what kind of damage we'd have been cleaning up. So we will take this victory but stay humble, ever vigilant against the forces of poop

Captain's Log: 28 Mar 2016 09:40: I fear we've become complacent. Lazy. After our handy win last week, we had a series of skirmishes - human-scale poops two days in a row that were neatly handled by the diaper. We naively believed it might be the dawn of a new era, an era in which we no longer need to live in fear of the Blowout, brought about by our dabbling with solid foods. Alas, it has been several days with no sign of a poop, and my fear of a blowout is rising. I must rally the troops and remind them to be vigilant

Captain's log: 28 Mar 2016 21:29: Once again, we've prevailed, but it was in spite of my dereliction of duties. As I feared, we had become complacent. Throughout the day the Forces of Poop toyed with us, sending false alarms that, while no longer unusual, were still staggeringly loud and noxious. I thought little of them. Too little. Naps came and went and still the poop refused to show its hand. Finally, this afternoon, when I least expected it, they struck. It was again sheer, dumb luck that prevented a blowout. I take no pride in this, but there is some consolation in knowing that on the battlefield, luck can be as important as skill. Staying vigilant this week will be a challenge

Captain's log 31 Mar 2016 07:53: It is with a heavy heart that I write of today's crushing defeat by the Forces of Poop. We were caught totally unaware, only realizing we'd been attacked when we picked baby up to say goodbye to Co-Captain Mom. It took only a moment to understand what had happened, but by then extensive damage was done, stretching from knee to armpit. Casualties included all clothing, the play mat upon which the battle was waged, changing mat, sheet on changing table and dozens of wipes. We were finally forced to retreat to the bathtub. Thankfully, the baby seems unaffected by any of this. Indeed, she seems to take a perverse pleasure in our discomfort and expressed it by splashing gleefully in the bathtub. I will never understand.

Captain's log 2 Apr. 2016 08:05: There was a minor skirmish last night while we slept. Once again, my luck held, as the damage was contained and there were no casualties. I am, however, vexed by a singular problem: The Forces of Poop are the product of a sixteen and a half pound baby, so how is it possible for that body to produce 20 to 30 pounds of poop, which is what I estimate lead to our defeat earlier this week. I put the question to my top scientific advisors, but they have no answers. Indeed, they feel the explanation lies outside the realm of science, and if I want answers, I may end up meddling with dark forces whose power I cannot comprehend.

Captain's log, 23 April 2016: An entire can of pumpkin pie filling.

Captain's log April 25, 2016 11:07: Our foe, The Forces of Poop, are changing tactics yet again. They were successful with their use of overwhelming force in the past, simply throwing more at us than our defenses could handle. We countered by sizing up and going with an "Extra Protection" diaper. It worked. They tried, but we suffered no casualties, even when they attacked at night. Now it seems they are trying to break us with chemical warfare, using a noxious gas that seems to be equal parts mustard gas, spoiled Indian food, and dead animal. It was like being slapped in the face with a rotten side of salmon. I am not ashamed to admit it: I gagged. But that is all they will get from me! We shall prevail!

Captain's log May 14, 2016 18:06: Reporting a most unexpected development. For nearly as long as I can recall, the Forces of Poop have been our foe. We have fought valiantly, winning some, and losing many. Never did I realize that we and the FoP exist in a delicate equilibrium. We hadn't seen an attack from them for several days, despite clear evidence that they were ready. It appeared some force was holding them back, and it was then we realized it - we need the FoP. We quickly deployed prunes and it seems to have worked. We've had a few skirmishes and we seem to have achieved equilibrium again. Thankfully, these skirmishes have ended in our favor, with no casualties. The Baby also seems to be relieved.

Captain's Log, 2 Feb 2017: After 15 months of land-based attacks, our foe capitalized on our complacency and launched a devastating attack in the bathtub. Co-captain Wife was on point during the attack and, while casualties could have been worse, she was still shaken. She evacuated Cadet Baby (pun not intended) immediately which certainly saved the cadet's cleanliness, but I fear her dignity may be irreparably harmed, as we will remind her of this for the rest of her life, most likely at any and all of her graduations and possibly her wedding, lest we grow complacent again. Stay vigilant my friends.

My Family or My Ideals

As you could see in my second-to-last post, I'm pretty bummed about our political situation right now.  I think we'll be fine, but I've never been more concerned about the environment than I am now, and I don't think those fears are unfounded.  This has caused me to reflect a lot about how I live my life.

A lifetime ago, I was an embarrassingly idealistic biology major at an ag school in Wisconsin.  I was going to teach high school science, and I was going to change the world one student at a time.  I believed this hard.  At one time, right after I finished watching Patch Adams, I turned to my parents, and with utter sincerity said, "I'm going to change the world."  I can only imagine what an insufferable little prick I must've been (I mean, even more so than I am now).

My god, what an unbelievable, unrepentant idiot I was.  I thought changing the world would take no more effort than it took to get As at a school that didn't give a + or -, so a 90% was good enough for an A.

As I got older, I realized that I don't have what it takes to change the world, but I still wanted to live my life such that I felt I was doing more good than harm.  I rode my bike everywhere.  I joined a CSA and bought local and organic.  I composted what I could, recycled what I could, and grudgingly threw away the rest.  I tried to fix rather than replace.  Of course, the cynic (realist?) in me knows that even at my best, we'd need 6 or 7 Earths to sustain that way of life if all us Earthlings lived as I was living, but I slept ok at night.

Flash forward to today.  I'm happily married, with one kid, and The Wife and I are talking about thinking about talking about Baby 2.  I love my life.  But when the snow fell, I stopped composting because shoveling a path to the compost bin would be too much work.  We drive an SUV.  We booked a winter vacation which will necessitate our 6th or 8th flight in the last year or so.  We still eat red meat on the regular.  After Baby 2, we'll pretend that our current house is too small and we'll look for something bigger, that will take more energy to heat and cool.  We'll probably shop for a bigger vehicle, or maybe a second vehicle.

I want to be the first to say, "BOO FUCKING HOO."  I try not to take what I have for granted, and I know that bitching about my CO2 emissions in the context of another vacation is insulting.  I know.  But this is my life and these are my thoughts.

These choices do occasionally keep me up at night.  The Wife is a willing partner in all these decisions, good and bad, but this will cause some fights in the future.  She will likely want a bigger house than I will.  That's a battle I'm willing to pick, but how hard should I fight?  There's nothing unique about it; you can argue that marriage is nothing but a series of battles exactly like this and you wouldn't exactly be wrong.  But it's like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) says: "A good compromise leaves everybody mad."

My Baby Made Me an Asshole

I maybe mentioned elsewhere that, before baby, I thought of myself as a pretty easygoing, laid back kinda guy.  Patient.  Some time in the last 14 months, that guy turned into kind of an asshole.

I used to be generous with my time.  Now, if The Baby is asleep, it's My Time and woe unto the poor soul who asks anything of me during that time.  The Wife just called me from her office to ask that I find an official document for her, and I was wildly disproportionately annoyed by the imposition.  All I had to do was walk to the kitchen, the next room over, and look at a piece of paper for her, and I was pissed.  All I was doing at the time was reading the newspaper...

I used to be really laid back, going with the flow, up for whatever life had to throw at me.  Some of that is still there, but if anything messes with my routine, I am again disproportionately annoyed.  So The Baby decided to nap long, or short, and all of a sudden I need to change when I go to Trader Joe's?  OH HELL NO.

Some of it is lack of sleep.  I just don't sleep restfully anymore.  I know this isn't unique to me; I just didn't think it would happen to me.  The Baby sleeps great.  Down for the night at 7:30pm, sleeps straight through until at least 6:30am.  At least one good, chunky nap during the day.  But I toss and turn at night.  I wake before my alarm and can't get back to sleep.  I have one great but very specific responsibility - keep The Baby alive - but all the other stupid shit runs through my head.  Is the snow blower ready to go?  Did I get the garbage out?  What are we gonna get the in-laws for Christmas?  All this stupid shit that, while too important to ignore, is not nearly important enough that it should keep me awake.  But it does.

Anyway...  Pity party for one, now service this pathetic asshat.

What Just Happened?

Long time no talk.  The Baby continues to be good.  She's taking her sweet-ass time walking.  She's 14 months old, and will only pull herself to her knees yet.  We can get her to stand with assistance, but she hates it.  I've never worried too much about milestones, but this delay has gotten even me down.  The Wife is worried.  But we've got her set up with a physical therapist through our local school district, which is awesome, and brings me to the real point of this post - politics.

What the fck just happened?!

I really tried to dislike Hillary.  Failing that, I tried to understand the hatred for her.  Because people don't just dislike her policies.  They hate her as a human being.  And that I just cannot understand.  I have friends who are against Hillary, and to hear them speak about her, you'd think she had personally killed their dogs and stolen their homes.  Despite my best efforts, I just don't get it.

I really tried to like Trump.  Ah, that's bullshit.  I've thought Trump was a walking, flesh-colored pile of shit since I was old enough to know who he was.  But I did try to understand the reasoning of the people who do support him.  I've really tried.  I have quite a few relationships whose health depends on my gaining some level of understanding of why seemingly-reasonable people support him.  So far I'm failing.

Since the election, I've been way down.  Enough that I've considered getting back in touch with my therapist, but I don't know what good it would do.  Rereading that sentence makes me think it really would be a good idea - "what good would it do" could be the motto of the depressed (and I've tried to be up front that what I'm feeling is not Clinical Depression, or anything close to it).  Today has been better.  The Baby has been cheerful, and she's napped well enough that I could make what I think will be a kick-ass pie for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  I try to remind myself that it won't be as bad as we fear it will be; it never is.  I've thought about the various ways Trump could bring down civilization as we know it, and while I still think they're all scarily plausible, I'm trying to remember that A) Trump isn't the first president, even in my lifetime, whose policies were opposed to my beliefs, B) those turned out OK, and C) there were millions of people who felt about Obama the way I feel about Trump.  I don't understand exactly why, but I can appreciate feeling like you've been steamrolled and railroaded for 8 years.

Anyway, this will never be a political blog - I'm not smart enough to argue.  But this is just the first of many times I'm worried about The Baby's future.

The Family Gets Smaller...

We had to get rid of our dog, The Dog.  My heart is broken.  We got her two years ago, and she came with some baggage.  She was a rescue, brought up from Georgia as far as anybody knew.  Despite her baggage, I worked with her a lot.  We took a couple obedience classes, and we had fun with it.  She made a lot of progress, and given that I worked from home, she was a really good dog.

When we brought The Baby home, it was OK.  The disruption to any semblance of a schedule was tough on her and there were some accidents.  We got through the worst of it, but she was never the same dog after The Wife went back to work.  She was always a nervous dog, with a little bit of separation anxiety, but it got worse.  She'd overreact to movements and sound.  This was all before The Baby got mobile.

So The Baby is crawling now, and she got underfoot while I was making dinner the other night.  I scooped her up and set her down in the living room.  She and The Dog tried to go through the door into the kitchen at the same time, and it was too close for comfort.  It was like The Dog looked over and thought, "OH SHIT WHAT'S THAT THING DOING RIGHT THERE?!!!"  She barked and nipped The Baby.  Game over, no more dog for us.  I called the rescue society from which we'd got her the next day.

I know we did the right thing.  Hell, it's not even really a choice, is it?  I love that dog so much.  We were inseparable for the first year we had her.  But I can't risk the health of my baby girl, and I can't keep the two of them separated and hope for any quality of life for The Dog, and it will be years before our kid (kids if all goes according to plan) are old enough to understand how to act around a dog.  So it's not a choice.  The Dog needs a calm, quiet house and a routine.  We don't have that now, and we won't for a long time, if ever.

So David French, How Strong Do I Need To Be To Be A Man?

You fucking idiot.

But I digress.  I'm writing today, of course, in response to this whole diatribe of douchebaggery: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439040/male-physical-decline-masculinity-threatened

Go ahead, read it.  I'll wait.

Preface: I'm a liberal.  I used to be an apologetic liberal, because the rest of my family leans more conservative, but I'm done apologizing.  I'm a proud liberal, but I don't want to plant myself in an echo chamber, constantly listening to the soothing murmurs from NPR that tell me exactly what I want to hear about the world.  I did that for a while, appropriately enough when I was in grad school, and then I started disagreeing more and more with my dad, who is conservative and leaning farther and farther right the older he gets, and then I realized that his primary news source is FOX News, and I thought, "Well that's bullshit.  All he's gonna hear from them is the conservative view."  And it hit me that me listening to and reading NPR and not much else is no different.  So I started reading The Atlantic and National Review and The Wall Street Journal in an effort to better understand where the other side is coming from.

Most of the time, NR and David French are conservative viewpoints I can understand, if not occasionally respect.  But he lost me big time on this one.  There are many reasons that physical strength as a prerequisite for masculinity is such bullshit (how strong do I have to be to be a man?), but I want to get right to the point.  I think it's this kind of toxic masculinity that breeds "men" like Dylan Roof, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, etc.  There is no answer to the question of how strong a man needs to be.  There will always be a stronger man out there, so if you measure manliness by strength, you will always be found lacking.  To an insecure young man, that really fucking sucks.  Maybe you've got understanding parents who support you through this, but maybe you've got a big strong macho dad like David French who tells you if you're not strong you're not a man.  Maybe your dad is so macho he verbally or physically abuses you because he knows that's the best way to toughen you up so you can be a big strong man.  Maybe you get shoved in lockers or pissed on in the showers because you're not strong enough to physically defend yourself.  Maybe the girls laugh at you as you're walking through the halls at school because they found out the big strong macho men peed on you in the shower.  Or maybe none of this shit happens, but you still feel horrible and weak because you just can't figure out how to fit in.

What do you do?

Thankfully, most guys just get through it, somehow.  Positive friends, a hobby, burying their noses in books, listening to death metal while they scream into a pillow, whatever.  But maybe none of that works.

What do you do?

What's the most powerful tool easily accessed in America?  The tool that instantly equalizes all physical limitations, assuming you have use of at least one of your hands?  If you're an insecure you man, feeling like you don't have a place in the world because you're "weak," what do you do?

You get a gun.  Because nobody is weak if they've got a fucking gun.  What's the most powerful thing you can do with a gun?  You can take the life of another human being.  Call me weak now bitches!  BANG BANG!

Weakening grip strength is not what's killing masculinity in the US of A.  It's this toxic idea that you can't be a man if you're not strong.

Sigh...

So much for my seemed-reasonable-at-the-time goal of posting something, anything, at least once a week.  Sigh...  Life and stuff.

But I was corresponding with an old friend of mine, a new mother herself, and she asked if I had any tips, since with my 10 months of experience, I must've figured something out by now, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

The dearth of posts is due to one big thing and a billion small things.  First, things are really, really, really good right now.  The Baby sleeps great.  She wakes at 6:00 or 6:30 and stays happy until 7:00 or so when we get up.  Goes back down for an hour around 9:00 and takes a good long nap around 2:00.  The house is clean, meals are still mostly cooked by me in our kitchen, the yard and garden are in OK shape.  We're doing good.  No, Superman does good.  We're doing well.  Thank you Tracy Jordan.

Anyway, when things are good, I don't write.  I think I mentioned how there's no way to write about the joys of parenthood without sounding trite.  BUT LOOK HOW SMALL THEIR HANDS ARE!!! MY HEART FEELS SO FULL I'M AFRAID IT'S GOING TO BURST!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's all true, but geez, let's try harder to express how wonderful it is, eh?  To that end, I'm not feeling particularly poignant or original this morning, so I got nothing.  Except when I look at The Baby and make her laugh, it really does feel like my heart is gonna explode.  Goddamn I hate being trite.

I really did try to think about what I might've figured out though, and I could only come up with two things.  The first is to do your best to live in the moment, because they all, good and bad, pass so quickly.  The bad ones don't last forever, so don't let them get you down too much, and the good ones don't either, so enjoy them when you can.  I've really been trying to appreciate how good we have it right now, because it's only gonna get harder, even if that too will pass.

The other is the idea of holistic familial health, which I've talked about elsewhere.  I can't blame my postnatal depression on being so focused on The Baby's health that I neglected my own, but there was a correlation there and I knew I couldn't be a good father or husband if I was angry and sad all the time.  I needed to focus on myself for a little while to figure my shit out so I could get to a better place mentally, at which point I was able to focus on being the father and husband I needed to be.  I can happily say I think I'm there, but it's like a marriage - every day I need to decide to be that husband and to be that father, and it doesn't happen automatically.  Wake up to find The Dog has peed on the bathroom rug again?  I need to decide to pause, check my emotions, think about what I'm feeling, think about how I want to react, and then think about how I should react.  And being pissy with The Wife is not how I should react.  Well that got a little rambly and tangential.  My point is, don't forget to take care of yourself if it's going to increase the wellbeing of the family as well.

That's it, in 10 months, that's all I've figured out.  Oh wait - also, check the diaper for poop before you undo the tabs, and if there's poop, lay out your wipes.  Because when you're trying to keep your little shit factory's hands out of their poopy privates, you don't want to be struggling to get a wipe out of the container.

Travels with Baby 4: Poopmageddon

Sorry for the radio silence.  We've settled into a nice rhythm, and since things are good and mostly smooth right now, I've been enjoying myself rather than writing.  So, without further ado...

Poopmageddon.

Last time we talked, I was telling you about the stress of traveling and the fear of being judged a "bad" parent.  The important question by which to judge all travel stress is, "What's the worst that could happen?"  Some may argue that a screaming baby is the worst that could happen, but unless you've got a colicky baby, it's more likely your little one will tucker him/herself out at some point.  And if you're flying with a colicky baby...  God help you.

I maintain the worst that could happen is having your baby puke or shit on a total stranger.  This...didn't happen to us.  So the second worse thing happened to us.  Poopmageddon.

Our stay in California was wonderful.  Nice weather, relaxing, and The Baby was pretty darn cooperative.  We didn't really start to worry until the two days before our flight, when we realized it had been a couple days since The Baby had pooped.  No biggie.  She'd gone three or four days in between poops in the past, and we were confident we'd see some action before the flight.  Day before the flight - still no poop, but still not too worried.  Day of the flight - no poop, getting a little worried...

For some reason, I was still confident though that our beautiful little daughter would never do something so cruel as save up four days' worth of shit just to let it fly during a full flight.  I am a stupid, stupid man.

The Wife is nursing The Baby when she feels a sudden and unexpected warmth in her lap.  Her hand comes away smelly.

FUCK.

Our sweet little shit factory had given us a Level 3 Code Brown.  (Level 1 Code Brown is a minor breach of the diaper; confined to the waistband and/or leg holes.  Level 2 is above the waistband but below the armpits.  Level 3 is armpits.  Level 4 is neck.  Level 5 is hair)

Thank god our neighbor was a flight attendant who was deadheading back home.  She figured out what had happened and investigated the bathroom, and lo and behold, it had a changing table!  This was the first plane upon which I'd flown to have a changing table in the bathroom.  We took our little shit nugget back and worked on a plan.  Onesie was a total write off - we stripped it from the neck down.  I started grabbing handfuls of Kleenex and wiping the bulk of it off.  At this point, I looked around and realized what a horrible, awful mess it would make to try to use the plane's garbage, which features a spring-loaded door that swings closed strongly enough to trap you like a weasel.  I poked my head out and asked a flight attendant for a garbage bag.  Onesie and soiled Kleenex went in the bag.  Then I went to work with wet wipes.  Wipe after wipe after wipe until they started coming away clean.  All into the bag, which I then tied up.  A smart man would've just thrown the whole thing away, but as I mentioned, I'm not a smart man.  I'm a stupid, stupid man who cannot bear the thought of throwing away a five dollar onesie just because it'd dirty.  Plus it has little popsicles on it!  The bag came off the plane with us and I later donned rubber gloves and separated that onesie from the disgusting jumble of wipes and Kleenex and washed it.  Did I mention I got the flu the day before we left?  So I was feeling great.

So that was Poopmageddon, and is realistically the worst thing I can imagine happening on a flight.  And you know what?  It wasn't that bad.  We got far more sympathetic nods than dirty looks (we didn't get any dirty looks as far as I could tell).  The onesie came out clean, The Baby still wears it to this day, and I've got the perfect story for her wedding day.

Travels with Baby 3: What's the Worst that Could Happen?

This post isn't actually about our flight home, during which we endured Poopmageddon, which probably is the worst thing that could happen, but about the stress of traveling with a baby - what causes it and what I did about it.

I thought a lot about the stress of traveling.  A lot.  I didn't quite obsess about it, but close.  I was afraid.  I was afraid that The Baby would be loud and obnoxious.  This is what we all fear when we think about traveling with a baby, right?  Or any kids for that matter.  I don't think these feelings will magically go away when The Baby turns five or something.  So I thought about what would be happening if The Worst happened and our baby was the obnoxious one ruining the flights of dozens of people around us.  What would be happening?

It's not that I'm worried about the actual health and wellbeing of my child.  At worst, she may be obnoxious because her ears hurt, and that's pain and it's real and as a parent, I will never want my child to experience pain of any kind.  But it would pass, and she would be ok.  So I'm not stressing about doing harm to my baby.

Without question, we would be making those around us uncomfortable, and for that, I would feel bad.  We might get dirty looks from people.  A monumental asshat may even make some comment, maybe ask us to move elsewhere in the plane?  I mean, let's be real - unless your kid actually shits or vomits on a stranger, that's about as bad as it would get, right?  So I thought, "well that's not that bad."  And if it's not that bad, why am I so worried about it?

And it finally hit me: the stress is because I worry people will think I'm a bad parent.  I worry that too many people, those without kids or who were magically blessed with easy babies, don't understand that you cannot, CANNOT, make a baby sleep if s/he doesn't want to.  You can trot out every soothing technique ever devised, and none are guaranteed to work.  A screaming baby is one of those things over which you only have so much control.  So I worried that if my baby was upset, people would think it was my fault and that I was a bad parent.

Once I realized this, it got easier.  I know I'm a good parent.  Some days I'm only good enough, but a lot of days I'm a really good dad.  So I'd tell myself that and it made me feel a little better.  And you know what?  When Poopmageddon happened, we got far more understanding nods than dirty looks.  Stay tuned.

"A Good Father Would..."

Or, "a good husband would..." or, "a good dog owner would..."

Pausing my sure-to-be-award-winning series on traveling with baby because yesterday was Not A Good Day, which is not as bad as a Bad Day, but on that end of the spectrum.  The Baby has been...off...this week, which is to say she went from being a really easy, predictable baby to being a little less easy.  Nap times are off, nap quality is off, and she's been eating a TON.  We assume she's gearing herself up to do something amazing.

Coincidental with that is The Wife is working one of her most demanding rotations.  Without a fair amount of effort on our part, it would be very easy for her to see The Baby for 10 minutes in the morning.  And that would be it.  10 minutes a day.  I know for some that's just reality (and if that's you, I feel for you; there is nothing easy about it), but with some effort, we can make lunch visits work, and with a lot of effort, she can sometimes make it home for bedtime.  This week, we tried getting The Baby up a little earlier so she could breastfeed.  Normally we are absolute, no-holds-barred, over-my-dead-body strict about never waking a sleeping baby, but with the scheduling demands this week and since The Baby usually sleeps fitfully at best starting at about 5:30am, we decided it was worth a try.

So yesterday we got The Baby up at 6:00.  She's usually good for an hour to an hour and a half before her first nap.  Yesterday, I pushed it to 7:45.  A good nap is an hour and a half to two hours.  A bad nap is 30 minutes.  First nap was a bad nap.  No biggie.  I'm proud to say I no longer live and die by the quality of any single nap on a given day.  We got up, ate, and as expected, she faded faster than normal and was looking for nap two way early.  On a normal day, nap two starts any time between 11:00 and noon.  Yesterday I put her down at 10:00 or so, confident that as tired as she was, this would be a good, long nap.

It wasn't.

Nap two was also a bad nap.  So now we're way ahead of schedule and while I'm not worried, I'm thinking about it.  We run some errands, walk the dog, and I'm hoping that she gets back on track with nap three.  Nap three is actually pretty good, but not good enough.  She wakes from nap three at 3:00pm, which puts me right in the proverbial pickle.  There's no way she'll make it to our desired bedtime of 6:00-6:30 without some kind of a cat nap, but she won't be tired until 4:30 or 5:00, which is a pretty late nap.  No matter.  Yesterday's motto was, "we do what we gotta do."  So I put her down for a fourth nap at 4:30 and got her back up from that at 5:15 or so, hoping that it would keep her happy until 6:30 which would increase the odds that The Wife could make it home in time to say goodnight.

Not happening.

By 5:45 it was clear bedtime was going to be 6:00 or I would be in danger of putting my head through a wall.  So mom doesn't get to say goodnight, which sucks and which makes me feel bad, The Baby is losing her shit, and when the baby loses her shit, it makes The Dog lose her shit, and when The Baby and The Dog lose their shit, it means I'm hanging on by a tiny little shred of sanity.

I lost it a little and yelled at the dog.  She's a sweet, spunky little rescue dog and she's sensitive, so her tail goes between her legs and she starts trying to crawl under the furniture.  I instantly hate myself for this.  There are dozens of potential ways of handling a stressful situation like this one, but losing your cool and yelling is probably among the worst.

I start slipping into my shame spiral.  A good father would've had his daughter in bed before she lost her shit.  A good husband wouldn't have watched TV while The Baby napped; he would've finally gotten around to cleaning the floors.  A good pet owner would not have yelled at the dog.  And so on.

I've talked with my therapist about these feelings, because they're there a lot.  Being a good husband, a good father, a good dog owner, and a good caretaker...  These responsibilities are not only my job right now; they are, according to my opinion, the most important responsibilities I've ever had.  Failure is not an option.  We may dig into this more deeply in a future post, but when I envisioned being the SAHD, I pictured being the perfect SAHD.  I would keep a spotless house.  The dog would get at least two walks a day.  The Baby would be happy, healthy, stimulated, and hitting every milestone.  There would be a hot meal ready when The Wife got home every night, or at least tasty leftovers.  When I write it out or say it, I hear how ridiculous it is.  It's just not realistic.  But I'm having a really hard time letting that ideal go.  I need to get comfortable with the idea that I don't need to be a perfect SAHD.  I need to be a good-enough SAHD, and for now, I am.

Travels with Baby 2: Baby in a Hotel

Baby's first flight was OK.  Thanks to the easy availability of food and comfort in the form of breastfeeding and some work on my part shushing and bouncing her, she stayed mostly quiet and even slept a little bit.  If you want to be realistic, I think that's about as good as you can hope for.  That's certainly as good as you can expect.  If it goes more smoothly than that, good for you.  And of course, this experience will be vastly different given even a month's difference in age (The Baby was 5 1/2 months old for this trip).

We arrived in San Diego, put The Baby into the carrier, collected our bags, made it to the rental car place, got the car seat installed and made our way to the hotel, all without incident other than at this point The Baby is about four hours behind on sleep.  She was more or less delirious, but she was hanging on and being a pretty good sport about it.  She would've fallen asleep in the car, but the hotel was really close, so she didn't have much of a chance.

As soon as we got to the hotel, we called down to have them send up a pack and play.

Tip #5:  Call the hotel and tell them you'll be staying with an infant.  Most will have pack and plays and other infant products that guests can use for free.  We'd planned to rent a pack and play until a friend told us to talk to the hotel.  Easy peasy.

Here's a tough question then, assuming you're not staying in a suite: where do you put the pack and play?  If you put it in the bedroom, you're consigning yourself to many hours of sitting in the dark reading quietly.  Or you can do like we did and put it in the bathroom.  Problem there is...  What do you do when you need to get ready for bed or take a poo yourself?  On the balance, I think the bathroom is the smarter move, but you literally need to be more prepared.  Before putting baby down for a nap, make sure you've done your business.  At night, before you put baby down, plan it out so you have access to your bedtime products in the bedroom so you can pop into and out of the bathroom as quickly and quietly as possible so as to disturb baby as much as possible.

There is a third possibility depending on your hotel room: if the closet is big enough, you can put baby in there.  This would be the best option, providing a quiet, dark place for baby while still giving you access to the bathroom.  The closet in our room wasn't big enough for us to be comfortable with this, and it may sound strange, but remember what makes for a good place to sleep - quiet and dark.  Closets are good for that.

The next few days, while not as relaxing as a pre-baby vacation would've been, were really pretty smooth.  We did our best to respect The Baby's sleep schedule.

Tip #6:  Respect your baby's sleep schedule.  I know, I know.  There are all these fun distractions right next to your hotel, and it's so easy to pop over for an appetizer or a drink or whatever.  You know what you're like when you're tired, and you know what your baby is like when he/she's tired.  If you want to push it, that's your business, but prepare yourself to deal with a tired, cranky baby.  For us, it has as much to do with "doing what's best for baby" as "just not wanting to deal with a crabby little shit while in public."  We pushed it one night.  There was a good Mexican restaurant across the street.  We thought we could put in an order to go and enjoy a quick beer while we waited for the food.  We ended up tag-teaming The Baby; while one of us sat nervously at the bar, drinking alone, the other walked around outside the restaurant doing our best to keep her quiet.  Just the kind of night you look forward to on vacation!  You can respect the schedule without being a slave to it.

I thought I'd get to thoughts on Being Thought a Bad Parent, but this ran on longer than expected.  Next time.  Also, stay tuned for Poopmageddon!

Travels with Baby 1: Flying with Baby

As I may have mentioned, The Wife is a physician and one of the perks of her position is a good travel budget to encourage her and her colleagues to attend and present at various conferences.  She had a poster selected for presentation at a conference in California, and it just so happens that her grandfather, The Baby's great-grandfather, winters within a couple hours of where the conference was.  So we decided to make a vacation out of it.  We'd go to the conference and then spend a few days with great-grandpa.  GREAT!...

When it comes to travel, I am a minimalist and poor planner.  The Wife is the opposite.  Historically, we've nicely balanced each other out, but when traveling with a baby, minimalism goes right the hell out the window.  YOU BRING EVERYTHING.  Nuks?  Check.  Rags?  Check.  Book that The Baby cannot understand and has looked at twice since birth?  Check.  Toy that The Baby has never shown the slightest interest in?  Check.  You do this because you will do anything, and I mean anything, to keep a child occupied during a three-hour flight.  What silly objection could you possibly have to bringing along that stupid stuffed animal that's she's never played with?  You don't want to take up the space?  You want to *look* like one of those couples who has it so together they manage to travel with a baby but without checking a bag?!

You're a fool.  So you bring it all.

We got the packing taken care of with little stress once I let go of my silly objections to taking a bigger suitcase (I mean honestly, what was I thinking?).  We did a good job of tempering our expectations.  This would not be a vacation by the definition that existed pre-Baby.  No lounging by the pool sipping drinks.  No luxurious dinners out.  In fact, while the conference was on, since we were still going to make breastfeeding happen, it wouldn't be a vacation at all - we'd have to work to make that happen.

Tip #1: Temper your expectations.  Your days of relaxing vacations are over.

Once the packing is done, the next thing to worry about is moving all that shit plus The Baby.  With curbside check-in, this really turned out to be a non-issue.  We dumped the suitcases, unhooked the baby seat, dumped it into its nifty red "GATE CHECK" bag, handed that over, put The Baby into her Ergo, and hit the line for security.  This would be the first time of many that my blood pressure spiked and I thought I would get an ulcer, but security was amazingly, remarkably, mind-bendingly anti-climactic.  The truth is, I don't give The Baby enough credit.  If she's comfortable and full and has things to look at, she'll stay happy and quiet for a long time, and she proved it in that security line.  The other amazing thing is, people LOVE to see a dude wearing a baby.  This is one of the first examples of sexist unfairness with being a SAHD that I noticed.  When my wife wears her, it's no big deal; just another lady with her kid.  When I wear The Baby, everybody smiles, including TSA.  We got a special card so we didn't need to take off shoes and went through a separate line so we didn't fry The Baby with microwaves or whatever the hell those new scanners use.  Easy peasy.

We boarded the plane and did our best to stick to a schedule that would have The Baby nursing during takeoff, but she had other plans.  This would be the second time my blood pressure spiked.  You can see people taking stock of their seating arrangement as they board the plane, and you can see them see a baby, and you see them slump.  They know.  They know this flight could be a living nightmare, and YOU know it could be the fault of your precious little poop factory.  That's a feeling I dreaded, so much so that I actually brought ear plugs for our neighbors.

Tip #2: Bring ear plugs for your plane neighbors.  Nobody will take them, but you offering them communicates the following: "I know my child may make this an uncomfortable experience, and for that, I'm sorry."

Tip #3: If possible, time it so your baby is nursing during takeoff and landing.  The sucking will help his/her ears equilibrate, which will reduce crying, which in turn will decrease the odds that the flight attendants will through you off the plane or put you down with the baggage.

As I said, we tried to time it right, but The Baby had other ideas and was finished nursing by the time we took off, which also ended up being not a big deal.  If her ears bothered her, she didn't show it.  After that, it's just a constant battle to keep the kid occupied and/or asleep.  This isn't easy, but it's also not anything you haven't done before.  Just like you brought every fucking baby accessory in your house, you also need to bring every soothing tool you've acquired since birth.  I hadn't shushed The Baby for months, but I shushed the shit out of her on that flight, and it sort of worked.  I hadn't stood and bounced her for even longer, but that worked too.

Tip #4: Do whatever it takes to get your baby to sleep.  This may mean standing with the baby back by the bathrooms, which will make you feel like a total creeper, but if it keeps the kid quiet, nobody will care.

In the next installment, we'll talk about fears of being thought a Bad Parent, then we'll tackle how to stay sane in a hotel with an infant.  Oh, and at some point, we'll talk about Poopmageddon, or The Terror at 30,000 Feet.

Peace Like a Hallmark Card and Final-ish Thoughts on Sleep Training

As you may have surmised from the dearth of recent posts, things are really good with The Baby right now.  This has allowed me enough slack in my mind space to really start to appreciate this fatherhood thing.  I'd heard and read that it can take fathers longer to bond with their children because we don't have the immediate intimacy of breastfeeding.  When I laid eyes on my daughter for the first time, I thought buuuuuuuuuuull shit.  My feelings of love were immediate and real.

However.

I think I kinda sorta get it now.  My wife has been working evenings this week, which means I'm the sole proprietor of bedtimes.  The Baby has always been OK with a bottle, but now she's a pro, which means she doesn't fight it, is cleaner, and we just don't struggle the way we used to.  I've actually started to enjoy feeding time, and even more so bedtime.  Earlier this week, I was feeding her, and she kind of nestles into my armpit when we feed, and with my non-bottle hand, I work on keeping her hands from disrupting the process too much.  So she's eating, and she's kind of stroking my hand and holding onto my fingers, and she's looking up at me with those perfect blue eyes (that will be the death of me when she's older and knows how to use them), and dammit if I didn't just about explode.  And I thought, "This is it.  This is what The Wife experienced from the very first feeding."  I know our relationship will be evolving for the rest of my life.  I know we will drift together and apart and together again over the years.  That's the nature of a human relationship.  This was just the first time I recognized and felt us drifting together.  That feeling is what I was looking for from parenthood.  Feels really good.

The slack in my mind space has also allowed a lot of time to reflect on sleep training.  I hope to put more of these down in the future, because there is so much baggage that goes along with sleep training you could write a book on it (which of course many have).  Bottom line is, things got markedly better as soon as we started and have continued to improve since then.

But why?

This question is a rabbit hole down which you can go really, really deep.  Did we really sleep train The Baby?  Or was she just ready to sleep better?  Is she really sleeping better, or did we just decide to stop agonizing and obsessing over her sleep?  Did we really do it for her own good, or were our motivations more selfish?  The truth, like most reality, is it's likely a combination of all of these.  She is sleeping better, but I don't think about her sleep much anymore either.  Obviously, good sleep is essential, so doing what we thought we needed to do to get her better sleep was for her benefit, but I'd be a big fat liar if I denied how important getting time for myself back has been.  For now at least, I feel like I'm back on top of my life.