11 months

Today is the 11th month of my daughter’s life.  It has been a heck of a time so far.  I figured it’d be a good idea to update people on how she is doing, if you don’t follow me regularly on facebook or something.

So at this point, she is eating solids for 3 meals a day, plus snacks.  She still breastfeeds a few times a day, but she’s slowly lowering her intake of breastmilk, by herself it seems.  She just drinks progressively less and less each time it seems.  This coincides with changes in her digestive system, which any parent will know is an… interesting time.  For those who aren’t parents, lets just say you don’t care and don’t really want to know. 

She’s standing frequently now, and taking a few steps, although she still uses assistance.  Not that she necessarily needs it, because she has a tendency to stand on her own, unassisted, but once she realizes that’s what she’s doing, she’ll immediately sit down, normally with a rather loud thud right on her butt.  It’s very cute, very funny, and a little frustrating, because I would really like her to be able to stand and walk a little on her own.  Can’t force it, but it’d be nice if she got over the fear.

She currently has three teeth, with a fourth just about ready to burst through the gum-line.  This has led her to have a very adorable toothy grin, which she readily shows off.  It’s accompanied by a very funny face scrunch, so that all you see are gums, the teeth, and what can only be described as a “HEEEEEE” face.  I do everything in my power to get her to make this face as often as possible, because it normally comes with a laugh that makes my heart melt.  These are the moments that parents look forward to, and make all the difficulties of having a child worth it.

Speaking of difficulties, her fingernails grow at roughly the same pace that sharks replace missing teeth, and are about as sharp.  In fact, today, she used her fingers to show me a new defensive move.  It involved taking her finger, and jamming it in the space between my eyeball, and the edge of my eye socket, through the skin.  I didn’t realize this was possible until today, and I have to tell you… it hurt like a son of a b*(&^.  In fact, it STILL hurts now, and it’s been about 7 hours since it happened, so I’ll have to remember that should I ever have to defend myself.  It’s effective, and it doesn’t destroy the eye, which is good for me, cause squished eyeballs make me queasy.

Her eyes seemed to have settled in color.  Amazingly, despite being half my child (half-asian) she doesn’t have solid brown eyes.  Her eye color shifts slightly between a light brown and an olive green.  It depends on the lighting, and the clothing she wears, as well as just the day in general, but her eye color isn’t typical, which I think will lead to a very dramatic look for her when she gets older.  It has a very nice effect, and I can’t wait to see how it develops as time goes on.

She’s still not forming coherent words yet, although every now and then, it seems that she’s imitating enough sounds to form words.  She does babble a lot more now than she used to, and she’s not afraid of making those sounds around strangers now, which is good and bad.  Good, because it means she wants to talk.  Bad, because it means she won’t be automatically quiet in public now like she used to be.  She’s still pretty well behaved in public though, but every now and then we have to shush her.  No big deal though, since everyone gives her a pass cause she’s so cute.

That’s really all of the relevant things going on with her.  I’m excited about her getting to her one year birthday, just because it means she’s been with us for a full revolution around the sun.  Also because it means I’ve been able to keep her alive for a full year, which for me, is a pretty good accomplishment.  Heck, I’ve never had a pet I was able to keep alive by myself, so that says something.  Must mean I love her.

But seriously, I do love her a lot.  She’s been an absolute treasure to me since she was born, and every day, she just makes me that much happier to be her daddy.  I honestly never thought I would be capable of that kind of love, and yet I keep surpassing it with every day.  It sounds cheesy as hell, but it’s true.  I’m sure I’ll look back on this when she’s a teenager and cursing my name, and go “Man…I wish for those days” but I get the feeling things will be ok.  Guess we’ll see.  Look for a future update called “13 years… can I quit now?”

Time Passes By Far Too Fast

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted on here (as I usually go through periods of just not wanting to write) but some big things have been going on, and I felt it was time to do an update.

We are 5 days away from my little girl hitting 11 months. It has absolutely astonished me at how quickly this time has gone by.  We went from a helpless little baby, who would just lie there, not being able to move in any way, unable to pick things up, completely reliant on her parents for everything, to a toddler that can crawl, stand and walk with a little assistance, pick up her own food and feed herself, and even starting to form words, and it all happened in the blink of an eye.

I’ve been there every step of the way, and I still scratch my head wondering how and when it all happened.  I still find it hard to believe that I’m actually a father, but to realize that I had a healthy hand in getting her to this point in her life… I’m still amazed that I didn’t kill her during the first week I was alone with her.  She seems healthy, happy, energetic, and sweet beyond words. 

I know there’s still a lot more to go, but I really do have to take a minute to step back, take a look, and give myself some kudos for taking care of my little girl.  I’m not going to pat myself on the back too hard, but it does mean something to me that I went from being completely inexperienced at handling children, to regularly feeding, cleaning, clothing, and entertaining my daughter, and have her come out through all of it quite healthy. 

There are still many challenges ahead, and there are still times (plenty of times at that) where I question whether or not I’ll be able to meet those challenges, but up until now, I’ve done alright.  I may not be the best dad in the world, since I know I get wrapped up in my own stuff sometimes, to the point of annoyance for my wife and probably even my daughter now and then, but I’m fortunate that my little girl still seems to like me, where she’ll cling to me if she doesn’t see me for a little bit. 

That being said, I’m looking forward to her first birthday.  I want to do something special for her, even if she doesn’t really remember it when she’s older.  Unfortunately, I kind of suck at that kind of thing, so I really don’t know what to do. I hope it comes to me though, because I really would like to make her as happy as she’s made me.  It may not seem like it most of the time, but I am actually very happy since she’s been in my life, my depression notwithstanding.  It’s a constant battle between those two feelings, and she’s the main reason the depression doesn’t have a permanent hold on me. 

Well, I’ll try to update more often, as I haven’t gone into any real detail for some time.  Her development will be picking up again soon, and I look forward to being there with her, every step of the way.

Course Adjusted

Being a stay at home dad was never in the cards for me growing up.  I always had that old fashioned model in my head where the man went to work, and the wife would stay home and take care of the house and the kids.  The dynamic has changed where a two person income is almost necessary, but I was pretty determined to make it to a point in my life where I could provide all that we needed so that my children would always have a parent at home to watch over them.  Daycare and nannies were never on my mind, it was always too impersonal.  I always felt that though it was becoming the norm where the children spent more time with strangers than with their own family, I didn’t want that to ever happen.  Little did I ever realize that while I would indeed have a parent to stay home to watch my kid… it would turn out to be me.

That being said, there are so many little things that have happened while taking care of my daughter that I would never have experienced (or at best would only have seen a repeat performance of) if I was the one who was the working parent.  Those little accomplishments that we as people take for granted that are so amazing when we see our own children do them for the first time.  Things as simple as grasping onto your finger, pulling something off from their face when it’s being covered, picking up their head, or (in my opinion, the greatest moment) when they laugh for the first time.  When I get to witness these moments for myself when they’re a first for Rinny, it makes my heart just overflow.  It’s funny how something so little can make you feel so happy.

I spend most of my free time now trying to make her laugh.  Most of the time it backfires, because she makes me laugh a lot more than I make her.  She has these ways of looking at me, or making just the right face at the right moment that just makes me crack up.  Of course, I keep on trying, and the reward of her laughter makes me all giddy. 

Over the course of the last five plus months (wow… has it been that long already?) I have really re-prioritized how I spend my time.  When she was first born, I was still struggling with trying to juggle the time I spent on myself opposed to the time I spent on her.  I hate to say it, but I would get annoyed when she would be demanding of my time, even though it’s not like it was on purpose.  Admittedly, I can be selfish with my time, because I like to do what I want to do for myself, and I hate to be interrupted, but with a baby, there’s no chance of that.  She requires quite a bit of attention, much more than I felt I was willing or able to give, and that was just pulling me apart.  On the one hand, I know that her needs have to be met, especially if I want to raise a well adjusted child, but on the other hand… I really want to have a few moments to do what I want so that I can have a clear head.  Whether it was talking to friends, playing a game, reading something, or really anything, it all had to be stopped at a moments notice if she needed something, and that was just really hard for me to adjust to.

Now though, I think I’m much more willing to step away from what I am doing to attend to her needs.  The good thing about this is that I think we’re forming a stronger bond.  She responds to me pretty well, as she reaches for me quite a bit, and I can regularly calm her down if she’s fussy with other people.  I think I’m slowly becoming a true safe spot for her, regardless of the circumstances, and that makes me happy and proud.  If I can always be her port in the storm, then I know I’ve done my job as a daddy. 

I love that I can hold her, hug her, play with her, and just sit with her, and it’s comfortable.  She grabs onto my hand, my shirt, my face, my mouth (sometimes my eye… ouch) and is smiling and giggling.  I know when she’s happy or frustrated or cranky just by listening to her subtle noises.  Every little thing that I realized I have picked up along the way makes me happier, because it means I’m actively learning about my little girl.  Some people might say “Well duh… you’re supposed to” but you’d be surprised how many dads don’t know squat about their kid.  Hell, how many parents in general.  I just want to make sure I know as much about her as possible so that when the time comes, I can be there for her no matter the situation.

Being a stay at home dad has been frustrating at times, but it has also been very fulfilling too.  To be honest, I still can’t say it’s the thing for me, because I still feel frazzled with her in a way I’ve never felt while working at a job, but just knowing that I have been somewhat capable so far has shown me that I’m better at adapting than I thought I was.  Hopefully, this also means that I’m raising her to be a good person.  It’s still early, but I think I’m doing ok… time will tell I suppose.

 

Growing Pains and Personal Growth

I really have to write more often…

My daughter is now only 4 days away from being 4 months old.  It may be cliché to say that it feels like it was just yesterday when we brought her home from the hospital, but the time really has just flown by.  Every day, it seems like my little girl has hit a new milestone, and it’s exciting and scary all at the same time.  The latest forward step for her is she can now pick her head up pretty much fully when placed on her stomach.  It’s a big step, because that means soon, she’ll probably be able to sit up unassisted, and that means we can start bringing her places on the bike instead of being confined to only walking.

As anyone with children knows, whenever the child hits their growth spurts, they experience some aches and pains as their bones and muscles begin to stretch.  She has gone through her fair share, as there are several growth stages this early on.  What was unexpected for me has been the personal growth I’ve been experiencing.  Priorities have shifted quite a bit from before she was born.  I should have expected this, but I’ve always known myself to be painfully stubborn.

I look forward to my daily interactions with my daughter.  Sure, there are times she frustrates me, mainly due to a lack of communication, but as soon as I get her to giggle or even just smile for me (or at me if we’re really being honest) it kind of washes away all of the other annoyances that can crop up when dealing with a baby.  It feels easier lately to just spend time with her, and play with her, and all of the other things that come along with watching after her day to day. 

This isn’t the most in depth update, as I honestly haven’t had much in terms of brain power to process everything that has been going on.  We are preparing for a big trip soon to see my wife’s side of the family in Hungary.  That will be a test of my little girl’s patience, as that will be a LOT of hours spent on trains and planes.  The longest we have spent on any sort of transportation so far has been on a shinkansen to Osaka, which was only about 2 hours or so.  The flight to Hungary will take approximately 17 hours one way.  I’m not really looking forward to it, but only due to the flight part.  I hate long flights, and this is already the 6th such length trip in the last year and a half.  Prior to that, I had never been on a plane longer than 10 hours, and that was to Hawaii. Hopefully, my daughter has her mother’s tolerance of planes.  I hate them, but they’re a necessary evil until they somehow develop teleportation or portals.

Shift of focus

The one thing I was told repeatedly, and that I always wanted to avoid, was that your conversations as an adult change dramatically after you have a child.  I’ve run into a lot of new parents in which the only things they can talk about after the birth of their child… is their child.  Whether it’s something cute that they did, some new illness to watch out for, or any number of things, I was always wary of speaking to people with children.  I found myself wondering why that was all they seemed to be able to talk about.  Now I am a parent myself.  Guess what?  Yep… I find that all of my conversations revolve around my daughter.

The reasons for it are pretty obvious though, once you’re in it.  As the stay at home dad, there is literally nothing else for me to talk about.  Many of my previous interests and hobbies have to be put to the wayside in order to focus on my daughter.  In order to make sure she is healthy and happy, anything else that I was interested in, at least for the first few months, are inconsequential.  I find that any time I would try to pick up these hobbies again, something would come up with the baby that would break my concentration.  She’s hungry, she needs her diaper changed, she needs attention, she just wants to cry… I don’t know about you, but I hate doing something in starts and fits.  I like a focused and continuous time period to do anything, and anyone with a child will know that it’s near impossible with a newborn.  Hell, from what I’ve seen from my friends with kids, it’s near impossible until they move out of the house.

That being said, the content of my new conversation, at least lately, centers on the least appetizing part of being a parent.  Poop.  Seriously… poop.  That or pee.  That’s about it.  I’d say roughly 80% of my conversations with other adults recently is how much or how often my daughter poops or pees.  And it’s very frank and blunt conversation. I won’t go into details, as really, you don’t need or want to know them, but these conversations just get strange.  The funniest thing is that when you talk to other parents about it, they will happily engage in that conversation.  You will get commiseration, funny anecdotes, factual data, or just knowing nods, but other parents of children (primarily babies) will gladly involve themselves in conversations about your child’s waste extermination without hesitation.  Sometimes it makes me wonder about the sanity of parents during those first few months.  Since I’m currently engaged in it though, I try not to dwell too much on it.  I already know I’m a bit loopy… might as well not add to it.

Now, after all of that, you must wonder if I’m actually for or against having a child.  “He sounds like he’s kind of miserable, since he’s complaining about talking about poop with other people.”  Admittedly, there are times I sit there after a conversation about said topic and scratch my head.  Then I return to my daughter, and she proceeds to pee or poop herself, and she’ll make a face.  Of all of the faces that I have made or seen in my lifetime, I find hers the funniest.  I probably can’t do it any justice by description, but her eyes tend to cross, her face sort of elongates, and she forms a small “o” with her lips and just generally looks really confused.  Anyway, I see this, and I just burst out laughing pretty much every time.  Then I realize, “Oh… this is why people like kids.  It makes them happy.” 

It’s a stupid realization to make, and I make it basically every time, but it’s a welcome break from my usual downer state of mind.  She consistently makes me smile, even after she’s spent a full day crying, fussing, and generally causing me a headache.  There is something healing about the look a happy baby gives you when she sees you as the source of her happiness.  And I realize that’s why that’s all parents can seem to talk about sometimes is their kid.  They fill up so much of your heart that there really is no room for anything else.  Nothing else is really important comparatively.  I don’t think it’s something that can be understood until you have one of your own. 

(As a caveat, be sure you’re ready to have one, and not having one just because you want something to love you unconditionally.  They’re a LOT of work, and if you’re not ready to give of yourself, you won’t get anything back)

I’m watching her sleep right now, and maybe it’s just cause I’m tired, but in all honesty it’s probably just because I love her so much, but I teared up a little.  It amazes me just how strongly I feel for her, and how much I want to make her happy.  Yeah, there are times I want to put her out on the balcony when she’s crying for no discernible reason, but when I come back to my senses, I realize that she does that because she needs me, and it makes me feel good about myself when I can actually serve that need and make her happy again. 

Anyway, the point of all this was that since having her,  I’ve fought against falling into the conversation trap that is being a new parent.  It has caused some problems for myself and my wife, as being torn between being an individual and being a parent can lead to serious friction.  I’m working at being better, but there are always dips.  Ultimately, her happiness should be my goal, and anything else on top of that is just icing on the cake. 

Unprepared

So I know people always tell you that once you have a baby, that you will no longer have free time.  However, it never really hits you until you go through it yourself.  It just hit me.  It kinda sucks.

I love my daughter, and I will do whatever it takes to keep her happy, but it’s amazing how much of your time is devoted to just keeping the baby from crying.  She really does cry over everything.  Hungry, tired, cold, hot, gassy, need a diaper change, need some attention, and any number of unknown factors that would cause her to cry.  Heck, I’ve heard that they just cry to cry. 

As a first time father, that’s a little disconcerting.  I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time telling any of the cries apart, so the time is always spent doing EVERYTHING to get her to calm down.  From step A to step Q, you have to just keep going until something you do calms her down.  And sometimes, you get to Q, and it STILL hasn’t worked, and you either have to come up with a new one, or just start all over again, because you don’t know if you soothed the first thing, and something from one of the earlier things popped up in the meantime.  All this happens while you’re trying to deal with your day to day things, and trying to find SOME time for yourself so that you don’t feel like your entire self-identity has been subsumed by this little crying bundle.  When you finally get her calmed down, you get set to go do something, and she might start right back up again.  It almost feels like I’m back at my tech support job.  The only difference is that at least my daughter is cute.

But seriously, it is tiring.  It feels like you’re constantly fighting an uphill battle, trying to keep yourself calm and collected while dealing with a little flailing, crying, upset baby.  This can fray your nerves, and make you snap at everyone around you.  I mentioned before how my relationship with my wife has become a bit strained at times.  They say that most marriages feel a loss in satisfaction with the relationship after the birth of a baby.  I can completely understand that.  I’m not saying that I’ve reached that point, but there are points where I feel some pretty negative feelings towards my wife, and she towards me, because we’re just too frazzled to see that we’re both trying our best to remain ourselves while taking care of our little girl. 

After experiencing all these things for myself, I don’t understand how some people can believe that having a baby will somehow save a relationship.  The time and energy needed to take care of a baby, the emotional investment, it’s HUGE.  It is probably the roughest period for a relationship, because you have no time to concentrate on each other whatsoever.  If you want to be a good parent, you have to devote all of your energy into your child until they are at least a little self sufficient, which definitely does not describe an infant.  So you’re looking at, at least, 2 years where you’re just going to be drained emotionally.  That doesn’t speak well for a relationship.

Not to say having a child is a bad idea.  There is a sense of fulfillment when you see your child being happy.  The payoff takes a little longer than most of us might be used to, but as that old cliché goes, anything worth it usually takes longer.  The sacrifices necessary to raise a child are worth it if that child grows up into someone you can be proud of.  At least, that should be the goal all parents aim for.  It really is all about them, not yourself.  I just think you have to be ready for that, as much as possible.  Of course, I don’t think anyone is ever fully ready.  There’s always that learning curve at the beginning.

Diaper Duty

As I mentioned before,  I’ve never changed a diaper prior to having my daughter.  Now that she’s been here for a while, boy has that ever changed.  There are some pretty funny and interesting things that you learn when you get into the habit of changing diapers.

I doubt it’s specific to me, but I swear my daughter waits until I change her diaper to poop.  She’ll have on a diaper for a few hours, and happily pee into it until it’s completely soaked, but that’s all.  As soon as we switch her to a new diaper, you’d hear her fart and wham, poopy diaper.  The funniest thing is while I’m changing her, I’d swear she’d smirk at me…

It’s also strange to me what you can get used to after changing diapers for a little while.  While I’m still not all that pleased about the smell (despite my wife insisting there’s no offensive odor about it) I’m nowhere near as grossed out as I used to be.  I won’t describe color, texture, or consistency, but let’s just say that newborn poop is not what you’re used to.  However, I have grown used to it, and now I can clean up my little girl without gagging at the first moment I open the diaper.

In fact, since we’ve recently changed to cloth diapers (more like reusable, since cloth is far to simple a term to use for these things) I’ve had to hand wash her diapers after she’s used them, and let me tell ya… that’s an experience.  Having to scrap that stuff off into the toilet is… not fun.  I use a tissue, so I’m not poop diving, but for anyone who has ever picked up after their dog on the street (and that should be everyone who owns a dog) it’s an unpleasant feeling when you feel the heat coming off of that stuff.  However, you do eventually get used to getting the stuff on your hands and not freaking out and having to scrub your hands until you’re bleeding.  I can’t imagine how anyone with OCD can be around a baby.

That’s probably the most amazing thing about all of this to me.  I went from never having changed a diaper to hand-washing reusable diapers, and I’m not freaking out.  It was a pretty seamless transition.  I still make weird faces whenever my daughter poops, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.  I still love her though, I still give her plenty of kisses.  I just have to remember to wash my hands thoroughly after changing her.  Otherwise… pink eye.  Blech.