Family fun time

It is still odd to me that I have a family.  I mean a legitimate, parents and kid, family.  The title of this blog reflects my belief that no single element of my life up till now has been sufficient to make me feel "all grown up".  I used to fantasize as a, younger, kid about what I would be when I grew up.  The thing is, I still do.  Sure I have a doctorate and a smancy job... but I'm certainly not grown up!

Well, my feelings on the matter have settled into the following incongruous facts.  I am the father in an amazing cute family, and I am definitely not grown up yet.

The photo below is from the other day.   The squeaker of the house was fussing in her swing while Marin and I were laying on the floor.  I grabbed her out of the swing and put her between us, where upon she calmed down and acted happy.  She just wanted to be with us.  What a fantastic feeling.

These boots weren't made for walking

I told ya the cute summer baby outfits were coming.

Two of my favorite things

A dark beer in the afternoon, and my cute baby.

A hike.

We headed over to Tory Pines for a hike today.  Marin pushed the stroller up a huge hill.  I'm really impressed.  If you had drawn and quartered me to yank a tiny human out of my belly I'm sure I'd still be crying and mildly catatonic.  But she charged up a massive beach side hill pushing a big Bob stroller.  

It was rad.  I need to figure out a way to be on paternity leave forever.

It's getting hot in here...

Brace yourselves, summer is coming.

That means lots of fun girlie baby outfits.  Like this awesome sundress and sweet yellow sandals. 

I'm a little surprised, and not at all embarrassed by, how much I enjoy playing dress up with the squeakness monster.  It's the best, like Christmas morning, when I realize she has grown enough to pull a new outfit into the rotation. 

I need to find some baby board shorts :)

7 - 11

Tiny miss poo pants has 3 basic modes:  Sleeping, eating, and balling.  Outside of those three there really isn't much... Except each morning between 7am and 11am.  That's the witching hour.  That's the time to hold baby, because that's when she is happy, smiling and awake.  She might dose a bit, but she is almost always pleasant through this period each day.

Luckily that's also the time I watch her so Marin can get some sleep.  

This photo is rad

The Reverend Horton Squeak has been a fussmonster recently.   I don't know if I would say colicy.  She is consolable, but it is hard back (and elbow) breaking work.  (Can you get baby elbow?... like tennis elbow?... I am fairly certain I have that)  My dad arms are getting a workout. Ill have intimidating dad strength in no time.

We are removing dairy from our diet.  Hopefully that helps.  Also we got some medicine from the doc to help with upset baby tummies.  Hopefully that kicks in.   Fingers crossed anyway.

There is a first time for everything

Last night was the first time our collective baby knowledge was insufficient to assure us the odd baby behavior we were watching was normal.  So we did what all reasonable parents do... freak the f$&# out and spend all night in the ER.  (So far baby is doing great.)

Jabberwocky SuperCry started making a new wheezy sound yesterday.    She has been a wheezer for a while now, so we have grown comfortable with a wide range of grunts and moans.  This new noise was different, louder, and we observed a distinct sucking in about her lower ribs when she was breathing.  This happened twice, and lasted only a few seconds.  It was scary.  Those few seconds were enough to drive 2 new parents over the edge and into the ER.

Things don't move that fast in an ER.  We were there for about five hours.  I personally had never been in one, it was nuts.  Our doc said one of the hardest nights of his career.  While there we got a chest xray, a glucose check, weighed, measured, and poked.  Andie never did the scary wheeze for the ER folks, and she is other wise the picture of health, so eventually we went home. 

The silver lining is that both of us are professional at not sleeping at this point.  So im happy we went and I did not mind the wait near as much as I would have 6 weeks ago.

And I have learned this... being a dad is not for the faint of heart.  I expect my sanity will be slowly torn apart by constant worry over the next 18+ years.  I just hope I have the grace to hide it until I'm grey up top and being crazy is cool.

On another note, baby Grindle is 6 weeks old today.  And aside from last night's adventure she is doing great.  We love her to bits.

Nicknames

I want to give Andie a solid nickname.  When I went off into the world I didn't come with one premade.  So when I grew up, my "friends" had to make one up.  I ended up with "Rybread" and "Ryan the Lion".  As I'm not Rastafarian, I was never a huge fan of either.

So here is my working list of possible nicknames.  Please chime in if you have some good ones we should consider.

Chairman Baby
Kim Dung Smell
Tiny Gorbachev
Fussles VonCrapinpants
Dom Deloise
Growley McJowley
Baby the Hut
Young Wheezy
Princess ButterCup
Groovy Boobie Soothie
Capitan Grunty
El Chupa Boobies
Missy Smelliot
Snoozey Babels
Teenie Wahine
Hunnie PooPoo
Wolfgang Spitzer
...

Its a working list mind you, and I am still working on it.

Bum Genius

Andie is finally big enough to wear her reusable diapers.  Its gonna be an adventure in poo scrubbing from here on out.

I can haz uncle

Uncle Kyle made the trip down from SF to visit the fuss monster.  It was great to see the look on his face when he saw the baby for the first time.  I dont know if it was amazement for her sake, or incredulity for my having reproduced, but it was a great moment. 

When he held her, Andie wouldn't cut him a break, she showed him her full force fuss. 

I remember the first time I held my nephew two+ years ago. Marin's brother Dan just stuck him in my arms.. "hold this"... that baby could have been an octopus and I wouldn't have been any less uncomfortable.  So, looking back to my prebaby baby interactions, I have to give Kyle high marks for his first baby handling.  He did a great job.  Hopefully the first of many many visits.

Don Babino

The Don wants to make you an offer you cannot refuse.... that is, unless loud baby shrieking doesn't bother you.

Baby Uncle Andie

Our nephew Evan is rad.  He is a great little guy who is so great and gentle around Andie. 

And he calls her "baby uncle Andie".  Evan does have an uncle Andy...  So, when a new Andie showed up in his life the uncle title came along for the ride.  It's pretty much adorable.

Morning strolls

My new favorite time of day is the morning.  It was my old favorite too, but now I have a new reason.

Each morning Andie and I go for a quick coffee and a surf check.  I plop her in the ergo baby and we take off for about an hour, strutting our stuff through the neighborhood.  This is fun for me, and it has the added benefit of letting mom sleep undisturbed for a hour.

It's a really special time, and Andie digs it I think because she sleeps the whole time... Or, maybe I'm just boring?

PSFFMM

The pint sized fuss face milk monster (psffmm) is getting bigger.  She is over eleven pounds now!  According to Marin, eleven point something.  How specific!

She seems to be learning to sleep better.  (Knock on wood).   Last night we had a couple 3 hour sleeps in a row.  It was glorious!

Our new mission is to get the psffmm to accept a pacifier.  For the sake of Marin's nipples we must succeed.  Wish us luck.

Fashion baby

Marin is clearing all the newborn sized outfits out of the drawers this afternoon.   Its crazy how fast they outgrow this stuff.

While going through the inventory Andie had a little baby fashion show.   This outfit wins the day.

Uncle Noah

Our maid of honor made the trip down from SF to visit baby fuss-monster.  It was a great day.  

And then last night Andie slept for more than 2 hours, 3 times in a row!  Icing on the cake.  Lets hope this good sleeping pattern continues!

Tummy time...

We decided this morning that it was time to really start having tummy time.   We have had some tummy resting, the occasional tummy moments, a tummy tester maybe,  but no purposeful tummy times.

So we gave her 5 minutes of tummy time.   From the photos I am sure you can easily tell,  she loved it!  Tummy time is the best!   Baron VonFussfusshausen was screaming the whole time,  in what I can only assume was jubilation!

A 1 month old baby!

Andie is a month old today.   It has been really great watching her grow.

An hour with no moms

Marin had a doctor's appointment today.  For herself, captain fuss face is doing great.   Since we still are not using bottles, this pending mom baby separation posed a problem.   What to do with baby? 

Andie has her fussy moments,  but a boob will always do the trick to calm her.  Occasionally we get some crazy goat baby crying when Marin is in the shower,  or the wc.  But this is only ever a 10, maybe 15, minute ordeal.  

The doctor!... that could take hours!  And so I had another adventure in dadering.

Our solution, I drove Marin to the doctor, and then entertained baby in the parking lot of the doctor's office.  Thus we are as close as possible to boobies should a meltdown occur.   First me and micro Gorbachev tried just chilling in the car, that lasted about 30 seconds.  Next we went for a walk around the entire Kaiser complex. (twice!) This was good enough for an entire album,  Andie was chill as long as the tunes were playing.   Once the album ended and I had to restart,  boss baby let me know her displeasure.  (Pandora next time! )

Our final stop was the corridor outside the pharmacy, were I learned I am not special.  That place was a newborn nexus.  Dads with babies,  moms with babies,  babies with babies.   All pacing the corridor.   It was like an infant mardi gra parade.

The point of all this is that today, baby and mom were apart for over an hour,  and I survived.   These are the new accomplishments of my life.

Grandparents house.

There are many great things about going to the grandparents house.  Some that you might not expect.

For example, due to both guest beds being twins; mom, dad, and baby do not all fit in one bed.  Thus,  mom and baby get one bed, while dad gets another.   The unintended consequence of this,  I promise it is truly unintended, is dad is now out of mom's reach and thus mom has a much harder time waking up dad to change baby in the middle of the night.  In fact,  she might not be able to wake him at all, despite many yells and text messages.  (Nothing beats a good tap/shove)

The result of all this is that I got my first full night of uninterrupted sleep in almost a month with only a small measure of guilt to pay for it.  (It was unintended after all.) 

There are many, many other great things about the grandparents house.   Loving grandparents,  family time, free food, a well functioning heater, the abilty to be in different rooms, and on and on....  But nothing, nothing,  beats the happy accident of a full nights sleep.

I am sure I will need to make sure my cell is at full volume and taped to my face to avoid such happy accidents in the future.

Snaps suck. Long live zippers

I don't have a picture to make my point on this,  nor do you want one,  but trust me.  At 3am the last thing you want to do is snap up the onsie of a screaming, wiggling, pint sized milk monster.

Who in the bloody hell thought snaps were a good call? And why do 9 out of ten baby outfits have snaps? It crazy, the snap lobby must be incredibly powerful.   There is a better way people.    Vote with your wallets, support the zipper.

Baby Fat Face

I think chubby babies are the cutest kind of babies.   Andie isn't quite plump yet,  but she is making good progress. 

Marin is cooking up the good stuff day and night, and boss hog baby is slurping it up fast.   I think we will have a little squeaky pork loin in no time.