Belief (Another Cart-Before-The-Horse Post)

I don't keep close tabs on who reads this blog, I know a few gaming dudes do, and a few close friends do.

I'm a somewhat hard-core atheist.  My parents, though divorced, are both pretty fundamental (southern baptist style) Christians.

For the record, I don't have a problem with Christians, my problems are with some of the more binary and closed minded parts of the faith.

Since I like to think about shit way ahead of time, I've tried to figure out how to approach religion and such with my daughter, and managed to raise more questions than I have answered.

It is worth mentioning that I'm not "out of the closet" to my parents.  Maybe they're more clever than I give them credit for, but as best as I can tell, they figure I'm a god-fearing, non-church-going sort of christian.  Heck, "Christian" is my middle name - seriously - but that's another story.

So I assume that at some point something is going to give.  Either Mom will want to take Piper to church, or something similar.  Maybe I'm wrong though - could be that Piper will be three or four years old before she catches wind of religion.

I take a pretty skeptical view of religion, but I try to be pretty tolerant.  I figure if you choose to follow a religious path, it is certainly your choice, and I'm not going to knock you for it.  At some point, religion is going to come up, and I'm going to have to offer some opinions or explanations or options to a young girl.  I don't mind if she goes to church, though I'd plan to go with her.  One of my big gripes against the "mainstream christian church" is its dogma, and how binary things are.  I'm open to Piper forming her own opinions about things and such, but I will have serious issue with the "heaven or hell" approach.

In fact, we've discussed doing Religion 101 with her... when she becomes aware of religion, helping her to attend a christian service, a  muslim service, a buddhist service, etc.  I think that religion is a matter of personal choice, and anyone who advertises it differently is dangerous.

So yeah, as an atheist, I'm not opposed to my daughter adopting a faith or religion, but I'll encourage her to apply critical thinking and free thought to it.

And back to the topic of this post:  my folks are pretty mainstream Christians.  As I said before, they may be more clever than I give them credit for, but I am anticipating some friction from them, especially my mother.  She tries to be open minded, but when she hears that her granddaughter is being raised by atheists, I wonder how her evangelical-ism will play out - whether she'll be able to respect people's opinions and philosophies, or whether we'll have a blow-up of sorts.

That's all I've got.

The best thing in the world, Ever.

The best thing in the world, Ever, is coming home from work and walking in the door, and saying hello, and having your daughter look up from all of her fun toys (or her screaming tantrum) and lock eyes with you, and smile as wide as she can and reach her hands out toward you.

Best. Ever.

Santa Claus and such things.

I have a tendency to worry about stuff. "is that enough of such-and-such?", "is that too much of so-and-so?".

Santa Claus has been high on my list of Things To Worry About When Raising A Kid. I've got tons of opinions, you might have heard some of them. I'll come right out and confess that I'm a little anti-Santa Claus. But I'm putting the cart way before the horse.

See, Santa Claus gets to go in the same boat as Pretty Unicorns and Really Awesome Faeries - both of whom I'm pretty cool with. I certainly do not yell at two year olds who like unicorns: "There's no unicorns and your parents lied to you and probably hate you!!" Yeah. Because unicorns are cool.

I'm assuming that in a couple of years, this battle won't even be in my hands, I'll be a General sitting on the couch, blissfully unaware that a battle is even being fought. And I'm not trying to call myself out as a hands-off parent, I'm just saying that Santa is pretty ingrained in our Middle-America culture, and unless I set out to make a Big Freaking Deal about it, I'm going to have to let a little Santa in.

I figure I'll be 'honest' about it and carefully sidestep issues about Santa's realism until we get to an age where that is relevant.

Look at me, taking a chill pill.

Howdy Santa. I think you're bogus, but if my little girl thinks that you're cool, I'm okay with that.

Update!

I always wondered why bloggers with babies didn't seem to post as frequently as I expected.

Now I know.

Time sure does fly. Piper is 8 months old now. She's got two teeth, and I'm sure more pretty shortly on the way. She's pulling herself up to standing, and is just on the verge of starting to try to walk a little. She smiles when you entertainer her and play with her. She is working on words, with lots of "mamama"'s and some "dadadada"'s and lots of other "boblebobleboble" here and there. Our favorite toys are some simple plastic colored 'envelopes' that came with a fisher price mailbox, and the TV remote. She turns to watch when Yo Gabba Gabba comes on. She seems to have "finished" in sign language - she's been doing it for weeks now, not especially articulated, but when she'll wave her hand around and refuse to eat more. We're still working on "hungry". She likes to clap her hands together, and sometimes to grab our hands and clap them together. She's a big fan of buttons and any small detail on something, she'll pick at it, fascinated.

We had our first big headcold-funk. She and Krissi both got it, and I had it a little bit. Piper sounded terrible, coughing and all stuffed up. We kept an eye on her and they're both doing much better now.

She's been a real champ when it comes to most foods. We've been really ambitious when it comes to giving her 'real' food to eat. I made some chicken soup from scratch the other day, and we puree'd some of it to feed to her. She's had bits of chicken, turkey, banana, avocado, beef, potato, carrot, and sweet potato.

My brain keeps yelling that I should format this post better, or gussy it up somehow, instead of just letting it be a weird list of stuff that Piper is up to. But that's all I've got. See you next time!

Catching up - September

Wow, so quick, and I'm already terrible about updates.

Piper is almost six months old.

We've been doing tons of playing and laughing and jumping and such. She's nearly mastered the 'low crawl, and soon we'll be actually crawling. We laugh pretty regularly, and have gotten the hang of sleeping through the night. We did baby-food green beans the other day, and we weren't very crazy about them, though we did five or six bites. Imagine the expression you'd make if I fed you a spoon full of cold mud. Hers was much the same. Day two was much the same, Uck. But day three was completely different, and we decided that we liked green beans just fine. Piper seems to inherit the "Yes I'll eat some of that" trait from her dad. Day four of green beans went pretty well too, and soon we'll be moving on to sweet potatoes and squash.

As I keep saying, its funny to watch her develop over weeks and months. She's gone from a tiny little thing who barely opens her eyes, and does little aside from cry or squirm, to someone who sits constantly poised to grab the brightest (or least-kid-friendly) object in reach. I've joked with Maddie that there must be gravity wells around dangerous things, because if you set a bucket full of razor blades on your living room floor, your kid would surely disregard all manner of brightly colored or shiny objects, and make right for the bucket. Piper is in "grab mode", I've had to take to wearing my glasses on top of my head, or taking them off entirely, when playing with her, otherwise they end up in her grasp, and in her mouth.

She's on the very cusp of crawling, and can raise herself up on her hands and knees, and frog/bunny hop forward a bit. Or the belly-crawl that I mentioned earlier. The dogs and the cats have yet to know the terror that is being chased by a seven month old.

She likes to talk. Not all the time, but pretty regularly we get "NOM NOM BABA BABA BABA GAB GAB GAB MAM MAM MAM". Sometimes while a toy or someone's finger is in her mouth, being chewed on.

You might have seen the animals we painted on the nursery walls. Sometimes when its almost time for bed, I carry her to the bedroom and we say goodnight to Tori the Tiger and Giselle the Giraffe, and others. If I hold her close to the painted animals, she'll reach out to them, interested in the borders, her fingers reaching for their ears, or their eyes, or their smiles.

She sleeps through the night now pretty regularly. She still cries out from time to time, but if we wait, often its just a short cry or three, and she's asleep again.

I love how happy and cheerful she is when first waking, either first thing in the morning, or fresh from a nap. She'll make noise, and if we go in there, we can often see a head up in the crib, and as soon as she lays eyes on one of us, or we speak to her, she smiles really big and starts to have an absolute wiggle tantrum, often accompanied with giggles and laughs.

Oddest thing - she's CRAZY SUPER tickling on her sides, like on her ribs under her arms, and on her tummy and chest. Her sides especially. Consistently, if she's tickled on her sides, she SCREAMS OUT LOUD, and every single time we check to make sure she's not hurt or upset, just find that she's grinning with a few fingers in her mouth. She loves it.



Krissi and I still have some worries about what the future holds. We're still not 100% certain on a second child. We've still got some very serious financial hurdles, and some pretty high goals when it comes to Piper's education and such. But I feel awfully optimistic about things, which is a little odd for me.

Odd too, because I'm a worrier. I sometimes stress about things that the far future holds.... "what if she doesn't wear her seatbelt while driving?", "what if she makes terrible career choices?", etc. Which strike me as very adult middle-class things to be worried about.

She's a fairly cheerful baby, only making a fuss when she's hungry or desperate to be picked up, or very sleepy. Sucking our thumb has become a pretty regular thing, mostly when sleepy, but sometimes just because.

Driving with her in the car is.. funny.. she sits in a rear-facing carseat in the back seat in the middle... and she's reached a point that sometimes she'll crane her neck to look for us, so its fun/distracting when she looks for one of us.

Lots of things have been on our minds lately... We've been very fortunate that my mother comes by at least once a week and hangs out with Piper, and my dad comes by rather frequently as well. Krissi's parents are in Virginia, but try to visit when they can... her brother is here, and that's been a benefit. Jobs are tough in this area, and we've considered looking in other parts of the country, but we have friends that are easily as close as family, and so its hard to even consider moving away.

[why can't I end these things on a more upbeat note?]

They Grow Up So Fast

Pictures follow, all pulled from here, but put into a fun sorta time lapse :)








































note that image #3 and the very last image are her in the same outfit

How about side by side :P

It's so easy to fall in love

Looking at a little screaming baby as the nurses and staff are cleaning her up after delivery - as I've said here before - is a weird, surreal experience.

I can't speak for anyone but myself. While I certainly loved the baby that we met in the hospital, and then brought home with us, it's wild to keep falling in love.

I keep saying that she's "becoming a person", and I mean that we're seeing her personality. She laughs when we play with her, and it's AWESOME.

When a sequel to one of my favorite computer games came out recently, I figured I'd spend loads of time on it, but I found myself sitting there with Piper, playing games with her to make her laugh.

I find that I miss getting to interact with her in the morning if she's still asleep when I leave for work. So I love mornings like today, when she's awake, and we can get her to do that silly little laugh that she does.

*sigh*

How many peas in a pod?

We've been chatting lately about whether we want to have another child or not.

We'd both been operating with the plan that we'd have two. Now we're not so certain - we're wavering in the middle, looking at it from both angles.

For starters, one child costs less money than two. Honestly, since we're not exactly rolling in cash right now, this is a serious consideration.

On the other hand, Krissi and I both have siblings. Its what we're accustomed to, based on our own childhoods, and so its easy for it to be a default conclusion.

We don't have to make our decision right away, we've got time left before we'd even try to have another. But it seems like a tough decision.

Long and Short

It's funny, how long and how short four months seems.

Just the other day I was bringing a new baby home from the hospital.

And forever ago, she was a tiny thing that just slept and ate and pooped.


I rarely can go to bed without sneaking quietly into her nursery and softly stroking her head before I go to sleep myself. She's just amazing.

Time Flies

Yeah, time sure does get away from me.

Piper will be 16 weeks old this Friday, I believe.

Nearly 4 months. Wow.

So much changes over the days and weeks. Changes that seem at once both small and large. The way she interacts with objects. The way she turns her head to look at things. The way she seems so mobile in her crib. I'm sure I could find a few dozen things to list.

But let me try to talk about her milestones and things that she is doing.

She is no longer in love with the ceiling fan, and can spare it only passing glances now. Previously, it was the Most Fascinating Thing In The World. Now, she likes watching people's faces, and the cute baby she can see in the mirror, and anything brightly colored or moving - she likes the little orange frog that sits on the green tree on her activity center. Sometimes she watches one of the animals for a moment. She's often completely fascinated by the television.

I'm a little torn on TV right now. She will often lock on to the screen, and it often calms and distracts her. I'm pretty sure that in her stage of development, its just a case of "ooh moving lights and colors and faces", but I worry a little. Parents and People Who Know Things love to debate about TV. We've recently added the Sprout channel to our frequent channels, its got tons of kid friendly stuff. We've also started to try to get into the habit of turning the TV off when we're not watching it. Krissi and I are kinda TV people, even though we like to claim sometimes that we're not. In the past, its often on the in background, even though we may both be engaged with reading or computer. It was background noise. I guess that I think some TV is okay, but I don't want her, or us, to develop a habit of relying on TV for anything.

She's continuing to develop more motor control, her head and neck control is getting really advanced, and she's developed some torso control. She has no problem turning her head to look at things around her or above her. A few weeks ago when we'd put her in her activity center, she didn't have enough torso strength to keep herself quite upright in it. Now, though she's still working on it, she can sit upright pretty much on her own in the activity center. She loves to look at the bright toys around her, attached to the activity center. She flails about some, grabbing or bumping toys. Still seemingly right on the cusp of just reaching out and grabbing them. In fact, as I laid her down in her crib last night, I dangled some plastic rings over her, and she reached up and grabbed them. She's still working on finer motor skills, but she sure is getting there, and its fun to watch her grow and develop that way.

She loves baths. We set her in the baby tub, and she kicks her feet in the water, and smiles and wiggles around.

Rolling over is something that we've got down pat. She rarely is content to lie on her back, and will almost immediately flip over on to her stomach. She can push herself up and look at the world around her. Sometimes when we set her down on her back, especially if she's at an incline, she'll grimace and strain, and I can tell that she is trying to do a sit-up. In fact, in the bathtub the other evening, she'd grabbed onto the lip of the baby bathtub, and was sitting at about a 45 degree incline, and managed to pull herself up into a sitting position. We all applauded h er.

She does some babbling and 'talking'. She's still getting there, and hasn't quite gotten to the point of engaging us in full conversation yet.

Breast feeding is still going well. Krissi is still pumping and storing, and sometimes feeding her milk from the bottle, but also direct breast feeding. Piper has gained weight and bulk. She was 13 pounds at her last cardiologist appointment.

Speaking of which, the doc says that the ventricular defect is still present, that is has gotten smaller, and is not a matter for concern. He says that it is not a risk to her health at this point, and is likely to close on its own.

We've got another baby doctor appointment in about two weeks, after which we'll probably be starting to put a little cereal in her milk. Woo!

Amazing Changes

I'm continuously amazed at the changes that happen from week to week with Piper.

It is awesome to reflect, just on the last three months, at the baby who spent most of her time sleeping, sometimes even while eating, and now - the baby that spends a great deal of time awake and hanging out with people.

Piper is a bit over 12 weeks old right now, and its really awesome. She slept through most of the night recently, sleeping fully from midnight to 6am, which is a first for her. Krissi and I have moved back to the bed, and have been putting her down in her crib in the nursery. She still sometimes ends up in bed with us in the morning after an early morning feeding, but I'm totally okay with that.

She is the smilingest and laughingest baby in the world. (Though to give a little credit where credit is due, Maddie & John's babies are awfully smiling and laughing too). Piper is super awake and cheerful, and super morning-person. When she wakes up she's all smiles and grins and laughs.

The first time that my daughter broke my heart was when she laughed while I was singing They Might Be Giants, a few weeks ago. Guys, I nearly cried. It was just SO. AMAZING.

Krissi and I did a bit of shopping over the weekend, along with Piper. In addition to replacing a refrigerator that has been slowly dying, we bought an Excersaucer - which is a baby activity center that they sit in, and has a plastic saucer built onto the bottom of it. She's just a bit early for it - she's on the cusp of being able to grab toys and such. As is, she focuses and follows things, and loves bright lights, music, motion, colors, etc. She'll grab onto things, but somewhat inadvertently, she doesn't reach out for things yet, instead, she sometimes grabs something while flailing about, and then holds it firmly, then drops it randomly, later.

And now, a terrible movie is on on Comedy Central, and it is distracting me.

Next up, abstinence and sexuality, my obsessing, WAY ahead of time.

Fast approaching ten weeks!

Time flies when you're having fun.

Piper will be ten weeks old this coming Friday.

I'm going to start sounding like a broken record, everything is going really well. She's still developing, getting more and more aware of and interested in things around here, and more sociable. She loves the changing table, and we can spend ten minutes on it just hanging out with someone, laughing and cutting up. She likes her activity mat, but even more than that, she likes the mobile in her crib, which rotates. She's a big fan of the bright orange monkey on the mobile, but also the yellow giraffe on her activity mat.

She's getting stronger. Her head is still sorta wobbly, but she is able to lift it and look around when she's lying on her stomach. Last night I was holding her in my lap, with her on her back and reclined at about a 45 degree angle, when she started working on stomach crunches, trying to get her head and neck and even shoulders up. She's getting there.

She enjoys bath time. She hangs out and looks around and tries to stick her fist in her mouth. But seems to be having a good time.

Evenings are tough for us, and by us, I mean all of us. She gets cranky, and Krissi and I get frustrated. Some evenings are better than others, but usually around 6PM, she decides that nothing is good enough, and will cry. The only two things that somewhat reliably work are putting her on a breast - a bottle won't do, or walking around holding her - standing or sitting won't do. But if we can all survive until 9 or 10PM, we're good, and she'll usually go to sleep, and we can all settle down. She'll wake up around 1 to eat, and get changed if necessary, and then again around 4. So she's relatively consistent at night about a 3 hour feeding schedule.

Krissi is still breast feeding, and also pumping and storing. She's eating directly from the breast about 70% of the time, and we're warming up breast milk in a bottle the rest of the time. This feeding routine has a couple of odd quirks. It seems that Piper will eat more via a bottle than she will via the breast. She'll suck down three or even four ounces, easy, from a bottle. But on the breast, she'll work at it and then nap or just stop. Of course, then she's crying ten minutes later because she's still hungry, and we either have to give her a bottle, or put her back on the breast. On the other hand, nothing quiets her down like the breast. She'll scream right into the nipple on a bottle, while she'll settle down with the breast and eat some, then drift off, usually.

Oh - her favorite, even more than the activity mat and the crib mobile: the ceiling fan in the living room. Yeah, no I'm not kidding. She'll lay in someone's arms and stare up at the ceiling fan like it's the coolest thing in the world. The other day she twisted her whole head and neck around when I was holding her, so that she'd be able to see her friend, the ceiling fan. We think its pretty funny.

That's about it, that I can think of right now. See you in a week or two!

Seven Weeks

Piper is seven weeks old, as of this past Friday.

Time flies.

Krissi and I are still sleeping on our couches. I don't know if I'd mentioned that here. When we came home from with our newborn, we slept in our bed, with Piper in a little cosleeper dealie between us. We quickly learned that while she would cry if we set her down on her back to sleep between us, if we held her while we slept, she'd sleep fine. We stayed in the bed for about two weeks I guess, before moving out to the couches. The couches made it easier on Krissi to get up and breast feed at night. And I still think like a seven year old sometimes, and so the novelty of slumber party in the living room was enough for me. And we've tried moving back to the bedroom once or twice, but with Piper still needing to eat a few times during the night the couches still work better. And we've completely spoiled her. She sleeps on one of us. Sometimes I'll set her on her back in the crook of my arm, other times she goes to sleep on one of us, stomach to stomach. I know- we're terrible people for letting her sleep not-on-her-back. You're welcome to come to my house and tend her while she cries.

Piper loves being sung to, or read to, or talked to. Sometimes (not all of the time) it will even quiet her if she's fussy. Over the weekend we threw in our They Might Be Giants, "No!" album, and sang to her, and she loved in. In fact, my heart nearly broke into a zillion pieces Sunday morning when we woke up at 8 and Piper was fussy, and I turned on the CD and started singing to her and she smiled and giggled like I was the funniest dude in the world. Oh man.

She's getting better and better about being aware of her surroundings. We can get fifteen minutes, sometimes more, out of the mobile above her crib, or the animals on her swing or activity mat. She's been either oblivious to them, or uninterested in them previously, but now she sees them, and sometimes smiles and makes noises at them. Inevitably though, she gets bored or frustrated or hungry and play time is over.

She'll make eye contact consistently, and watch you, whether during bath time, or on the changing table, or when just hanging out. She's just starting to respond to stimulus, turning her head to see you when you make noise to attract her attention.

She's still making little noises sometimes, not quite consistently yet. But it is mighty cute when she coos at one of us, or at a bright stuffed animal.

We've begun to outgrow some of our outfits, much to Krissi's chagrin.

Four Weeks

Well, we are just over a month along.

Things are going pretty well.

We weighed in today, and she is at 10 pounds, 4 ounces. Growing like a champ.

Its funny to see how she changes. Every week its something a little new or a little different. She's awake and alert even more. She locks in on things a little better, and now has begun to start verbalizing more. Where before she made some baby noises, they were mostly seemingly inadvertent gurgles and such. Now, in very small amounts, she's making little noises. She's given Krissi a few happy squeal sounds. And we've had just a few grins.

We were in to see the pediatric cardiologist today over the small hole in her heart. Its called Ventricular Septal Defect. They told us about it when she was born, and so of course we worry over it. We went in and were hoping that they'd tell us that it was cleared up and apparently gone, but the doctor says that it seems to have gotten smaller, but is not gone. We'll be back in two months for scans and so forth to check on it. The doc said that it was not something to be especially concerned about, and he says that he feels that it will take care of itself within the next few years. Still, we worry over it. We'd far rather she had a 100% clean bill of health.

Oh and in other non-meh-heart-related-stuff, we're up to size 1 diapers now. And our eyes are still rather dark, and so its hard to be sure, but I'm thinking that we'll have green eyes, or possibly hazel.

Almost Three Weeks

We're still working on the sleep thing, and will be for some time, I have no doubt.

Last night we just all slept on our comfy couches. Piper actually slept most of the night, broken up only by two feedings between midnight and 6 AM.

We're still trying to get the hang of things - partly, understanding her and what she needs. We've had a few instances of screaming-crying fits. We change the diaper, we burp, we hold her, we hold her a different way, we check the book and see that she's just eaten 30 minutes ago, but nothing will quiet or calm her. "She just ate! We could try feeding her again.... ", and she latches on and is good to go.

Duh.

I don't know why it takes us 15 minutes to realize it sometimes.

When she sleeps in the little chair thingy that we put her in, she sleeps WITH COMMENTARY. Serious. Just nearly constant little noises from her. Squeaks, sighs, groans, etc. I can sleep through it, but that's what ends up keeping Krissi awake. And I figure it indicates that she's not sleeping very soundly, but I'm just guessing on that.

We got to do some Gaming With A Baby yesterday, which was fun, and mostly worked out. Again - it took us 30+ minutes to figure out that we needed to feed her if we wanted her to not SCREAM BLOODY MURDER at us. Actually playing while holding her is totally doable (once she quiets down), just a little tricky. I'm totally down with making the effort though. Part of being able to drag Krissi and the baby out of the house to go play games is me being responsible enough to take care of her, and not just pass her off to Krissi.

We're feeling super adventuresome apparently, because we're planning to take her with us to the Zombie Walk this Friday. We have some mild anxiety about keeping her fed and happy while we are out, but we'll manage, and we can always pack her up and roll if we have to. We're not going to go all out like we usually do, but we'll be undead nonetheless!

Ahh, and Krissi just informed me that her belly button scabbie has fallen off. Woo!

Next up (maybe), the ongoing struggle with regards to ear piercings and Santa Claus! (that's two separate arguments, not how the two relate to each other)

Female Role Models

Sorry, this is going to be somewhat rambling and maybe grouchy.

I don't think that women get a fair shake in popular media. Movies, books, etc. I'm painting in broad strokes, and I'll gladly acknowledge that there are exceptions, in fact, I'll go even further and try to identify them. But for the purpose of this gripe, I'm working on the premise that men get to rescue fair maidens, kill dragons, drive fast cars, be crazy popular and have flocks of women swooning over them. While women generally get to be rescued, ride in the passenger seat, and swoon over men. They're always second fiddle, at best.

I'm sure that I am not the first new parent to think perhaps overly much about how things affect a child's outlook on life and the world, and their role in it. Naturally, I want to expose my child to things that will teach her in positive ways, introducing or reinforcing positive qualities, and minimizing negative ones. I liked the Little Mermaid, but by my recollection, its a terrible story for little girls. When you find a man that is dreamy, give up everything that you treasure for a chance to be able to follow him around all moon-eyed. While Mulan, or Belle from Beauty and the Beast seem like more positive female role models.

And don't misunderstand, I'm absolutely not opposed to a girl's right to be a princess, or to dream of growing up and marrying and having a family. I just think that princesses deserve to be in the spotlight too, and kill some dragons, and save some knights, and drive some fast cars. I'm not trying to make them into men with breasts either though.

Which leads me to ramble right into violence. I've recently started tuning in to discussions about exposure of children to violence and other 'non kid' themes on TV and in movies and books. I had a conversation that went something like this: "You know, Kill Bill is a great movie, and I wonder at what age one can introduce a kid to it. Beatrice is a crazy strong female role model. The movies are crazy-wild-over-the-top violent, *almost* enough that I'm like - yeah! my seven year old should watch that! - though certainly there are other themes in the movie that may not be appropriate. Anyway, I guess I'm beating around the bush to say that I don't know how much to or not to expose my kid to violence in media. I don't know how thoroughly to sanitize stuff." And so forth. I chatted about this with Maddie, and we compared our own childhood experiences. She had little or no supervision and could watch anything at all, while I was not allowed to watch the He-Man cartoon, and at one point was briefly banned from watching GI Joe. And we both turned out alright, I think.

I think I need to talk to some people, and read some books or studies or something. While I am not trying to say that I want my kid drenched in blood and gore from the get-go, I don't know what is right with regards to sanitizing violence. And I think its a more complicated question - because I think that simply parking a kid in front of tv, and letting them be exposed to tons of violence is not a good way to go without the parent/teacher being involved, and communicating. I dunno - I don't want to teach my kid that violence is an answer, but c'mon, violence is crazy entertaining. (don't hit me, that sortof an ironic jest)

So, who are popular but terrible female role models, and who are popular (or unknown/unappreciated) *good* female role models?

Anyone care to add anything?

Two Weeks

Piper is two weeks old today.

Its wild how quickly she changes - just like everyone who's had a kid says. Last week she was all sleep. She'd mess up diapers, and yell to be fed, but the rest of the time she slept. This week she has times of wakefulness, where she just looks around. I'm no expert on the subject, but I think that she still can only make out things a few inches away, and still seems to be largely unaware of our attempts to entertain or interact with her, but its still pretty cool. She does seem to enjoy being read to. I've been reading out loud, and she seems to focus on me for brief periods.

Krissi is having trouble getting good rest. She is a very light sleeper, and Piper sometimes sleeps deeply and quietly, but other times makes tons of noise while she sleeps, or wants to be awake, and refuses to be put down to go to sleep. We've been working on getting naps in for Krissi when Piper is sleeping, with mixed results.

I'm back at work today, and next week. I'm so not ready to be away from my little family and my vacation. While to some extent, I welcome a return to some normalcy and a schedule, I so don't want to be away from that cute little baby, and being available to help Krissi, and- to be honest, sitting at home reading books, watching TV, and playing computer games. Its been a good two week vacation.

I wondered to myself why I've got two blogs. Who needs two blogs? And I thought about merging them into one, but I'll run with this for awhile. Its not like I've got a commercial blog and a personal one, or something. I dunno, at the time it seemed like a great idea to have them as separate entities.

I neglected to mention that at our doctors appointment the week after she was born, we got a clean bill of health, and weighed in at 8 pounds, 7 ounces. So we're well on our way to becoming a big fat baby, it looks like.

Sleep

Constantly, people are like "Oh! Enjoy sleep while you can, and get as much as you can right now, cause you won't be sleeping later! OH HO HO HO HO!"

And of course they are sortof right. Babies want to be fed every two hours or so.

Yesterday we started a day/night strategy. We feed her frequently during the day, as often as she'll take it - every hour and a half, give or take. Then at night, she'll feed less frequently. According to our plan. And it seems to have been somewhat successful. We fed about every hour and a half. Our last feeding before heading to bed was at 9:30, and then we all slept until 12:30. Then we had three more feedings before 7:30. So Yay. I'm hoping that this will help us to be able to get some sleep at night.

Also, I sleep like the dead. Last night I hopped right up out of bed at 12:30 to help change a diaper and get everyone setup to feed. While Piper ate, I opened up The Graveyard Book, and read some. But then at the next feeding, I was COMPLETELY INCOHERENT. Krissi wanted me to hop up and change the diaper. I stared at her for a moment, and then at Piper, and asked, "Okay, so you want me to swaddle her?". It goes on like that. Hilarious, I'm sure.

So things are going well. We're all trying to get into a routine and pattern. Krissi is doing pretty well. She is very mobile, despite the incision. She's still got some pain though, and is on medicine for it. We've got a followup appointment on Friday. Breastfeeding is going very well, which I was quite concerned about. But baby and mama seem to be picking it right up.

Yazhi is hilarious. When we lay the baby down in bed, Yazhi puts most of her body on the bed so that she can sniff the baby and hover over her some. She's so interested, and seemingly motherly/protective. She carefully watches over the baby. Its cute and funny.

Day 2!

Well, everyone who reads this already has all of the happy news. Piper was born at 7:41AM on April 3. Baby and mom are both doing very well. Krissi's C section went well. It was weird and a little tough to see her all done up on the operating room table, but I got to be in there, and even see a little bit of the action, and soon enough the doctor was wrestling a baby out of her. She's 8 pounds even, and 20 1/4 inches long. Like most newborn babies, she's pretty much interested in sleeping and eating. I'm very pleased that we seem to be doing great on the breastfeeding angle. She's doing a great job of latching on, and drinking. She's a pro at pooping, and we've had at least 4 muconium filled diapers. Disgusting, but fairly easy to clean up, and no smell. The day passed somewhat in a blur for me, and for Krissi as well. We had a large part of the afternoon to ourselves, and then family and friends all showed up in the early evening and so we got to show her off and make introductions and so forth. All of our friends and family, both local and far away, are amazing folks. Its funny to watch people with the baby, my brother James seems completely moonstruck, and our friend Beth seems to have baby powder all over her (that's code for Seems completely taken, and just about ready for [another] one of her own). It was great to visit with everyone. Around 8 or 9 everyone cleared out, and we got to try to get some rest. Piper, who had pretty much slept ALL DAY, was a little more active in the evening, so we did a lot of changing sleeping positions and so forth. We fed fairly regularly, every two hours. Krissi and I were both pretty exhausted. I can't imagine how Maddie and John did it with two. We slept off and on until early morning, when we all got two good solid naps in between 4am and 8am. It was good, deep sleep, and felt really refreshing.

So things are going really well. Krissi has some pain associated with her c-section, but nothing out of the ordinary. Getting to the bathroom and such is an ordeal though. But each day she will get better, and the pain will decrease.

Our one matter for minor concern is that the baby has a bit of a heart murmer, which is apparently not abnormal for a newborn. The pediatric cardiologist had a look at her, and said that she's got a tiny hole in her heart, which again is not especially unusual. He said it usually closes in the first month or two as the heart develops, but we'll be taking her in after a few weeks for him to have another look. Crossed fingers.

So I could probably go on and on, but I'll try to wrapup. A few random thoughts and then I'm done.

We brought the laptop with us, and the hospital has free wireless access, which is GREAT. We've used it to stream classical music, and it has helped to relax us and make the hospital room slightly less hospitaly room-y. Also, I've been able to upload photos (---> here <---), and keep in touch with far away friends. I also am inclined to mention the convenience of twitter and facebook on my blackberry. I was able to keep our far away friends up to date on what was going on by sending out twitter updates. In brief, I was very pleased with being able to do that. It makes me feel connected to my people.

Blood and guts are scary. While in the OR, I was put in a chair by Krissi's head, with a large surgical sheet up in a partition, separating her head and shoulders from her lower body and all of the action. Maddie was in there with us as well, and urged me to stand up and look over the sheet. I told her no at first. I've seen blood and gore before, and felt that sudden weak-kneed light headedness, and did not really want to pass out in the OR, but I stood and looked, and got to see the whrilwind of activity, as our doctor tugged the bottom half of the baby out of Krissi (and the gush of bright red fluids, mostly amneotic and waters, but still scary looking), and then wrestled with the upper half of the baby, having to do some wiggling and tugging to get her out. I remember thinking about how sore Krissi would surely be, despite the cut. Quickly, the baby was out and handed over to the folks who cleaned her up in another whirlwind of medical efficiency. I recorded a few short video clips, and Maddie took bunches of photos. It was totally weird, standing there, looking at this little screaming baby on the heater, working through the flood of emotions, both heartbreaking love, but also "Who's baby is on the heater? I don't know this kid..". Then I'm picking her up and showing her to Krissi, and holding this little tiny baby. Its just really really surreal. And then, the baby and I are whisked out of the OR to drop the baby off at the nursery, and them I'm back in the hallway in Labor & Delivery. It really really felt like standing outside the exit of a bizaar and surreal amusement park roller coaster: RUSH RUSH WOW ADRENALINE HOLY CRAP WOW WOW Please watch your step as you exit the ride. Heh. Krissi was off to recovery, and after finding my people, we hung out for a few minutes. Family was hanging out the waiting room and got to see her through the nursery windows. After a short bit, I got to sneak back to recovery to visit Krissi, as she lay there, tired and spent on the table. She was all stitched up and fixed up and covered up, and again it was kinda surreal. All of the 10 months, the time, the energy, the twisting and thrilling emotional roller coaster, and then there we are hanging out in Recovery, no more pregnant belly. Soon, she was out of recovery, and fairly soon after that, they brought our little baby out to us. We had a moment early on in the afternoon where it was just the three of us in the room, Piper in the basinet, Krissi and I chilling out, when Piper made a noise, and we both started, having momentarily forgotten that there was a baby in the room with us. I'll say it again. Its surreal.

The hospital staff has been largely excellent, and even though they'll never read this, I am very grateful to Dr. Whaley, and the excellent L&D staff, Penny, Lori P., Shaune, Adrienne, and then the post-partum staff and nursery staff, Sam, Cheryl, Irene, and even our nurse trainee, Meredith. Even the housekeeping staff and food services staff have been friendly and downright awesome. And even though I already mentioned it, BIG BIG BIG thanks again to our local friends and family who came to see us, and to our long distance friends who texted and tweeted and facebook'd and so forth, sending us well wishes and totally making me feel warm and fuzzy and loved.

So, now this has gotten all crazy long winded, and I could probably keep going, but I suppose I need to leave something for tomorrow.

Hope you all like baby pictures, cause I'll sure be taking them and posting them.

Last post befire the big event

Whew.

I feel like I should say something profound.

Tomorrow, Friday, we go in for a C-Section at 7:30AM.

I felt like I had some stuff to say when I started this post, but then I had to run around here at work trying to get stuff in order.

Boy, its terrifying. And exciting.

This time tomorrow, we should have a baby.

If I have cell reception, I'll be making updates on my facebook page, and on http://www.twitter.com/xjermx

Breech?

We're at 39 weeks.

Dr. Whaley thinks that we're head up, which is disappointing, and sent us into a mild panicked frenzy. Krissi is working on Downward Dog type stuff right now.

She wants a head down vaginal birth, and is SO NOT interested in getting cut. But it is what it is. There's only so much that we can try to do at this point. At the end of the day, as long as we've got a healthy baby, either way will work fine for us.

Still, neither of us are excited about the prospect of a longer and more difficult recovery period associated with a C-section.

Keeping my fingers crossed though. Sometimes babies will turn, even at this stage.

Parental Advice Paradox

Hearing from other parents is often a strange paradox, because they seem to be sending two very different, seemingly incompatible, viewpoints.

"Oh! Having a child is a wonderful experience! It will change your life for the better! There's nothing in the world that is as fun and exciting!"

And then

"And you can kiss sleep goodbye. You won't have any free time for any of those hobbies that you love. They're wildly expensive. Sometimes I just got *so* stressed out."

I suppose both are equally valid and true, and apparently somehow compatible.

Counting Down

So I hate to keep popping in here to say that nothing is happening, and everything is proceeding as normal, but that's kindof the case.

Krissi is at about 36 weeks now. If she starts, they won't stop her.

We've got everything that we absolutely must have, plus some. We had the baby shower last weekend and it was fantastic. We got loads of stuff from a bunch of awesome people.

Krissi is just about done with being pregnant. She's recently started to get swelling in her feet and ankles. Her legs and back are sore. But she's been in great spirits all along, and coped really super well.

So, we're still here, counting down the days.

Baby Registry Gripes

Apparently part of having a baby in middle class America is creating a baby registry. We've been slowly working on one, but have been somewhat unsure about some of the things to put on it. Baby socks? Do you put baby socks on your registry? How about nursing pads? Receiving blankets?

We started trying to create a registry at Target online, but quickly got frustrated by the seeming lack of selection. We hopped over to Amazon and created one there, and added some stuff to it. Soon after, we developed some concerns about people being able to find and then use the Amazon registry, so we have experimented with going back to the Target registry. We went to Target yesterday and grabbed a scanner, and set off to scan baby stuff. What a pain in the ass. They had the Pac'n'Play that we were thinking about, on display. But apparently not for sale. Not to be found on the shelves, not even an item sticker thing with a bar code or anything on it. Just an out of place item on display. Then we got back into the smaller baby stuff, clothes and blankets and the like. And everything was on clearance. Apparently stuff on clearance means that its going away, never to return, and so registering for it would be a potential exercise in futility, since it would no longer be available for purchase by the time someone tried to purchase it.

Plus, for some reason, I've developed this weird sensation where it makes me a little anxious to ask people to buy stuff for me (or for my kid).

Painting Progress!

I was finally able to make some progress with painting in the nursery. Woo!

Click here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/xkrissix/Nursery