The Reward is Finally Here!

My daughter has become the carrot at the end of the stick.

If I am having a tough day at work, I think of her. I know once I get through the day, she is waiting for me, smiling and laughing. In fact, some days I even leave a little earlier than normal so I can see her sooner.

Yes, the REWARD is finally here. She finally knows who I am and smiles and laughs with me. I was a little worried for awhile. Drowning in spit up, living life in a sleep-deprived fog and holding my nose through bouts of explosive ass disorder, I was convinced this whole baby thing was not my cup of Similac. I kept looking at her for some sort of confirmation that she even knew I was her daddy, let alone that she wanted to establish a long-term relationship with me. All I got were blank stares and scream-cries. It was like telling Alec Baldwin to turn off his I-phone.

But now we have turned a corner. The Gregg household is looking up. Sydney is smiling and laughing. She particularly likes when I recite her ABCs to her or when I sing Christmas carols while forcing her to dance along. But her favorite is when I move her legs in bicycle fashion and sing a song about “riding the bike to see the daddy!”

Her smile melts my heart.

So, it is easy to think of her as I navigate through another work day. She makes it all that much easier.

It is not that I don’t like work. I have the work ethic of a pack mule. I earn two weeks of vacation a year and have six saved up as of right now. That means in the five years I have worked at my current job, I have taken less than a week of vacation a year.

It has been like this since I was 13 years old. Yes, you heard that right – I was putting in 60-hour work weeks when most kids were discovering their Atari video games.

We had a sweet lady in our neighborhood, Ann, who put a crew of kids together to help sell products made by the blind. These were brooms, lint brushes and ironing board covers made by blind folks that she would buy and then resell at a higher price, pocketing the profit. She supported people who needed it and made a living at the same time.

Members of her crew received $1 for every item sold. She’d pick us all up in the morning, drive to a random Ohio city within a three-hour drive and put us out for the day. We would walk the streets all day, going door-to-door and trying to convince little old ladies that straw brooms and silicon ironing board covers were exactly what they needed to make their life complete.

I set about every sales record that existed. I was a sweet little blonde kid with big blue eyes who had somehow learned the gift of gab at a young age. I averaged 30-40 sales a day when 20 was considered good. I once sold 60 items in one day working the streets of a town called Shelby! We did this six days a week, so I was raking in about $200 a week, tax free. I paid for everything myself. My food, my school clothes, my trips to Chi-Chis with my girlfriend. (What the hell ever happened to Chi-Chis? THAT was a good Mexican restaurant.)

So, Ann picked me up about 7 a.m. every morning and dropped me off at about 10 every night. That’s 15 hours, six days a week. My work ethic was formed in 90-degree summer days carrying brooms and lint brushes for blocks on end.

I could write a book about those days. Six teenage boys with raging hormones packed into a car all day. You can imagine the discussions and fights that took place. The crew would change off and on, but it was always full of characters. We actually had a kid who freaking shot and killed a girl! He didn’t show up for work one day and we were like, “Where is Harold?” Ann says, “Well, he was playing with a gun last night and accidentally killed a 10-year-old girl.” “Well that sucks. Can we stop at McDonald’s for breakfast?”

Seriously, we were a bunch of idiot kids whose biggest concern was getting a hot, bikini-clad 17-year-old to answer the door on one of our sales calls and invite us in, 1970s-porn style. Some of the things we said were extremely disrespectful to 50-something Ann. That poor, sweet woman eventually gave up on us and let her husband take us out.

He turned out to be one of us. He’d jump in with stories of his own youthful indiscretions, always one-upping us. And he was addicted to gambling. He’d spend $50 a day on the lottery! He even started playing it for us, taking our money and putting it down on our birthdays or whatever. I’m pretty sure that was illegal. Sure, I was only 15, but what the heck, give me $5 on 7-1-0. Too bad Powerball wasn’t around back then.

Bob was great. He even taught me to drive. But he eventually drove me out of the broom business. He got this idea that, instead of driving to a new town every day, we would rent rooms at a fleabag motel and stay somewhere for a week, working out of the motel. Think Bates Motel. Think roach motel. Think gunshot wounds.

Not only were the motels nasty, but this led to free time. We started playing late-night card games. I loved playing cards – until I caught Bob cheating! I caught him dealing off the bottom of the deck in a game involving 15-year-olds! Out of respect for him – and probably a little fear -- I never said a word. But I never played cards again and that was my last summer selling brooms.

But the hard work continued in college. I worked at a huge water park. It was a ski resort in the winter and then converted to a water park. We spent the first couple weeks of May getting the place ready for the summer. About two weeks into the job, I was using a sledge hammer to tear up concrete filled with ribar. Believe me when I tell you this is manly work, the kind of work your Uncle Phil does. The kind of work you went to college to avoid.

We were planning on going to an INXS concert that night and I wanted to get out early. The boss said I could leave when the concrete was ripped up. So I was working my ass off. The boss – an Uncle Phil-type -- even said something like, “You must really want to go to that concert, I am not sure I have ever seen anyone rip up concrete that fast.” I could tell he meant it. Now when a manly man tells that to a college kid, that is quite a compliment.

So, I am plugging away when the BIG BOSS drives up on his four wheeler. This guy was a NAZI who rode around the park all day yelling at workers to ensure everything was exactly as he wanted it. You know the type. We have all had them in our past. They are mad at the world and seem to get a kick out of bossing people around.

When he pulled up, I didn’t notice him. This happened to coincide with me needing a short break from the back-breaking work I was performing. So I stopped and leaned on my sledge hammer for a few seconds.

“You’re not going to get much work done standing there all day,” he said to me with his smug attitude.

Now, if you know me, you know I am the reason anger management classes were invented. I have a switch that goes from zero to 60 in a twitch.

I turned around and yelled, “Fuck you, Art! I have been working my ass off all day. You have no fucking idea what you are talking about.”  I glared, seething, waiting for him to say anything. Mostly I expected him to utter “You’re fired. Pack your shit and get out of here.” My weasly little boss – not Art, the middle manager -- just stared, his mouth agape. He later told me he was too flabbergasted to talk. 

Art stared at me but never said a word. He got back on his four-wheeler and drove away. I couldn’t believe it. My boss couldn’t believe it. Two hours later, I was singing along to Listen Like Thieves with Michael Hutchence and the band.

The next day, I found out I was banished to the campgrounds for the rest of the summer. Instead of a great job like handing inner tubes to bikini-clad water parkers, I would help build the park’s campground. I was stuck doing Uncle Phil-type work all summer. But I had legendary status among my teen-age co-workers as the guy who cussed out Art.

To this day, if I met Art out on the street, I am pretty convinced I would challenge him to a fight.

But not every job I have had has been back breaking or filled with long hours. One summer, my friend and I decided to drive to California and live for the summer. We had visions of Beach Boy songs dancing in our heads. We figured we would live with a relative for a couple of weeks until we found jobs and picked up our first pay checks. Then, we would move into a beachfront apartment.

Well, that happened. But not without a few detours.

We arrived in Burbank, California to find no beach in sight. In fact, it was all concrete jungle. We were staying with my aunt and grandma, sleeping on the living room floor. That first night, we went out for dinner and a few drinks to celebrate our safe arrival. The next morning, at 7 a.m., we were greeting by my grandma popping the tab on her Pabst Blue Ribbon and saying, “You boys better get up and get out there and get you a job. You are not going to be lying around this house all day.” Right. Our stay with grandma wouldn’t last long.

We somehow made it down to Oceanside, which had a real beach and looked like what you would expect of California. We picked up jobs as construction workers. The guy told us to show up at 8 a.m. the next day. So we happily drove the two hours back to grandma’s so we could get a good night’s sleep and a shower before starting our new job.

The next day, we left at 5 a.m.. Unfortunately, we had no idea about I-5 traffic. California is absolutely freaking crazy when it comes to traffic! Our two-hour drive took three hours and 15 minutes. We were 15 minutes late. We walk in and the guy says, “I have no work for you.” Welcome to the real world, college boys!

We decided to stay in Oceanside and find jobs. Grandma’s lectures were too brutal. We lived in our car, parking it at a busy rest stop. Luckily, it was one of those old 1970s models, so it was pretty big and had long seats that we could sleep across. At this point, we had no money, so a hotel was out of the question. In fact, just eating was an adventure. We found a place that sold hamburgers for a quarter and would order four for a meal. The rest stop actually had a food cart where the food was free. Well, they had a suggested “donation” jar, but I was sleeping in a car and washing my hair in a rest-stop sink, so they weren’t getting a donation from me.

My buddy, Kevin, found a job as a roofer. I found a job signing people up to be solicited to attend “college.” California has a million of those “colleges” that prey on people who don’t know better. “Get your degree from ITT!” “Learn to be a nurse in 13 easy years!” Holy Rosetta Stone, how do people fall for this stuff?

I worked for a company that sold names and phone numbers to those colleges, so they could call people personally and make their sales pitch. I earned $2 for every valid name and phone number I turned in. This is where my training as a broom salesman came in handy. All I had to do was get someone to trust me enough to give me their phone number.

I got the great idea that I would stand in front of the unemployment office all day. People actually thought I worked for the unemployment office, so when I asked, “Are you interested in a good-paying career? Let me sign you up.” they felt they had to say yes or they would lose their unemployment checks. Yeah, that’s right. I’m TRICKY.

Kevin would leave at 7 a.m. for his Uncle Phil-type job. I would leave at 8, so I was still sleeping when he left. When he got home at 4:30, I had already been at the beach for a couple of hours. If I didn’t collect a $300 paycheck every week, he would never know I had a job.

So yeah, I could write a book about my jobs. Nobody would buy it, but I could write it. Hell, Harold is probably doing time in some prison right now. I could probably sell one to him just so he had something to kill the time.

My point is, Sydney is a darling right now. If she is not crying because she is tired or sleepy, she is smiling and laughing. This is what I signed up for. Brooke kept telling me it would get better, and it has.

So, even though I am used to hard work and I enjoy the job I have now, I am finding my work ethic to be challenged by this little 12-pound spit-up machine. There are some days I can’t wait to get home to see her, so I might sneak out a little earlier than normal. That drive home is filled with anticipation of opening the door and taking her from my wife for those 15 minutes of “smiley” time that make the whole day worthwhile.

She’s the carrot that keeps this donkey pulling the cart.

The Night I Screwed Up

Ok, I did something this week that I had hoped I would never do as a dad. I seriously screwed up.

First, let me tell you that your emotions seem to grow when you are a dad. You feel things more deeply. When my little girl smiles at me, it melts my heart. I can’t wait to get home from work each day to see that smile.

Other emotions are more intensified, too. Particularly, the feeling of pain. If she hurts, I hurt. Believe me, when I tell a teenage Sydney “This hurts me more than it hurts you” as I punish her, she will scoff and call me a Mo-Fo under her breath, but it will be true.

I recently took her to the doctor’s for her monthly shots. I had to look away. I hate shots anyway, but this tiny girl barely has enough skin for a needle prick. I had to fight back the tears as they used her as a pin cushion.

Of course, Sydney did not. They heard her cries three blocks away. She has lungs like Bette Midler and the pain tolerance of Barry Manilow.

Have you ever really thought about the crying thing? I can understand crying from pain. But how do they learn that crying will get them fed or held? How do they know to cry those crocodile tears, the kind that pull at your heart strings and cause you to pick them up, which somehow miraculously ends the crying?  Do child care centers teach babies courses on parent manipulation?

My daughter is to crying as Herman Cain is to sexual harassment. A master. She will melt your heart when she sticks out her lower lip and turns on the emotion. She might be trying to manipulate, but daddy falls for it every time. When Sydney hurts, daddy wants to rush to the rescue.

Which makes what I did all that much worse.

Brooke was having one of those days. She deserves to have one of those days. When it comes to parenting, she pulls 85 percent of the weight around here. Part of it is my incompetence, part of it is my laziness. All of it is Brooke not trusting me to know what I am doing.

So it was one of those days. I was late coming home from work, so she had Sydney and dog duty to herself. She’d had some issues at work. She had more work to do from home. The house was a mess. (By the way, why didn’t anyone ever tell me that, along with a child, parenthood brings a house that perpetually looks like a tornado touched down inside?)

So when I do get home, she is starving. She puts a pizza in the over. As she is pulling it out to cool, the dogs surround her, bump her and she drops it on the floor. Pizza ruined.

For five minutes, Brooke becomes the Tazmanian Devil. I mean, she loses it. Not in an angry way, but in an I’m-so-frustrated-I-could-cry way.

That’s when hubby came to the rescue. I quickly seize my chance to be Superman for a change. First, I calmed her down. Second, I got dinner. Third, I offered to take Sydney upstairs with me for the night so she could finish her work and get a break. Reluctantly, she agrees.

So, I head upstairs and set Sydney up on the bed, propped against a pillow. I need to pay some bills, so I figure she can hang out next to me and watch television. For some reason, my daughter is fascinated with TV. I know…big surprise. But who would think TV watching would be an inherited trait? More likely, it is the vivid colors.

So I am sitting on one side of the bed paying bills. She is beside me. I get a little too interested in the bills and suddenly hear a PLOP.

Holy shit!!! My daughter has rolled off the bed!

Now, I generally move with the speed of a sleepy sloth, but I can tell you I would have passed Jamaican world record sprinter Usain Bolt if we had been racing to Sydney. I was there quicker than a Kardashian marriage and had her scooped up in about a tenth of a second.

But, this was too late. My wife had heard the thud and the immediate cries of her daughter, and she was standing in the bedroom yelling at me before I could get out the words “She’s OK.” She grabbed Sydney from me and rushed downstairs so she could comfort her away from my negative influence.

Now, the child was indeed ok. Thank God, she happened to land on a dog bed that is about four inches thick. It probably startled her more than it hurt her.

But I felt like the Jerry Sandusky of fathers. I had hurt my child! Like I said, your emotions are much stronger. I spent the next few hours mentally flogging myself.

Brooke made sure to rub it in. She claimed that Sydney’s inability to sleep that night was probably due to internal injuries. She made sure I felt like the Grinch who stole Christmas from Sydney Lou Who.

Side note: the night before, Brooke had cut Sydney while clipping her nails. The baby cried more from that then she did nose-diving off the bed. Did I make a big deal out of that? Well…yeah. But not as much!

She couldn’t make me feel worse than I already did anyway. This is one of the things I never wanted to do as a father. I know it won’t be the last time I screw up, but you never forget your first.

I hope she forgives me.

Say It Ain't So: My Life Has Become a Vacation Movie

My buddy, Joe Jones, once told me a man should be able to throw everything he owns into a duffle bag and hit the road at a moment’s notice.

I wish I could say it ain’t so, Joe, but those days are long gone for me.

A trip to see my family for Thanksgiving turned into one of those “Vacation” movies with Chevy Chase where everything that could go wrong did.

Let’s start with packing. Before Sydney, traveling was fairly easy. I pack my bag. Brooke packs here three. I pack some food for the dogs, put their beds in the back of the SUV and off we go. The dogs are in the back, the luggage in the back seat, Brooke and I captaining the ship up front.

After Sydney, life gets a little more difficult. Now, I pack a bag. Brooke packs ONE bag. Then she packs THREE bags for Sydney. Then she packs a breast pump. Then I pack a Pack and Play. Then I pack a stroller. Then I pack her bathtub. Then I pack food for the dogs. Then I pack the dogs’ beds. Then we pack Sydney herself.

What does the car look like now? Well, the dogs are still kings. They are lying in the back by themselves. Sydney is in her car seat. Brook is now in the backseat with her. We stuff a couple of Sydney’s smaller bags on the floor of the back seat. This leaves the passenger’s seat for our bags, Sydney’s stroller, Sydney’s tub, Sydney’s other bag, the Pack and Play and the bathtub. When it is all said and done, I can’t see the side view mirror over there and we have to rearrange everything just to be able to pull out of the driveway.

We hit the road by 2 p.m. Wednesday. I know this is the biggest travel day of the year, but I figure we are leaving early enough to make the 3 ½-hour trip in 4 hours. I am allotting a half hour for bad traffic in Columbus.

The first hour is uneventful. But as we approach Columbus, I can see the cars lined up, bumper to bumper, like they’re waiting for the start of the Indianapolis 500. Interstate 71 has become a parking lot.

Now, those who know me know I am not a patient person. If we go to a restaurant on a Friday night and there is a wait, chances are I am moving on. I absolutely won’t wait more than 30 minutes. It is not just that I hate to wait, it actually makes me angry. I will start to notice open tables and wonder why the restaurant has not hired or scheduled enough workers to open up the WHOLE restaurant. After all, that is there business, right? Friday night crowd catch you by surprise? Were you expecting around the same numbers you have on Wednesday mornings?

Talk about letting money go to waste. Can you imagine the Bengals or Reds telling fans they can’t come in because those 20,000 seats over there are being left open?

But I digress.

So, we are sitting in traffic for about 30 minutes before I proclaim that every Wednesday before Thanksgiving for the rest of my life will be a vacation day for me. I will NOT travel on this day again.

I get the idea to call one of my Columbus buddies to see what my options are on getting through Columbus on a route other than 71. He refers me to 315 and that looks like it is moving fairly well, so I hop on. And for about five minutes, things are going smoothly. Then I hit another parking lot. Have you ever been caught in traffic after a concert? Where you crawl inch by inch toward the exit for about a half hour? That was my situation.

To cut the suspense, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic for about two hours. We then were in slow-moving traffic for another hour. But that is not the interesting part of the story. Remember, I am traveling with a BABY.

Babies mostly sleep when they are traveling. But when a 3 ½-hour trip turns into a 6-hour trip, babies wake up. And they get antsy. And they get hungry. And they have to go to the bathroom. If all of this happens while you are angry about sitting in traffic and your two dogs are going crazy because they are cooped up in a small space….well, things can get a little tense.

Here, in no particular order, are the things that happened during our two hours of moving about 10 miles.

·        Brooke realized we were going to be in the car much longer than she had planned. She’s a breastfeeder. I don’t know the exact science behind it, but apparently you have to either feed or pump at certain times or you start leaking like the plumbing in a Section 8 rental property. She decides she needs to pump, because she doesn’t want to wake Sydney, and Sydney must remain in her car seat for safety’s sake. The problem is, we are sitting nearly still in traffic. It is bad enough she has to pump in a car, but nosy truck drivers can get a good show as they zoom by at 3 miles per hour.

·        Sydney woke up and screamed for food. Brooke gives her a bottle. She doesn’t want to drink a bottle. Sydney has a serious case of nipple confusion right now. She can go from meal to meal and change her preference, sometimes wanting the bottle, sometimes wanting the breast. This is particularly a problem when her dad is doing the feeding and she doesn’t want the bottle. Anyway, Brooke finally gets her to eat after much fussiness. Miss Crankypants returns.

·        Sydney spit up half her food. Now, this is not unexpected from Sydney, but it necessitated a outfit change, which was not easy to do in the back seat, but somehow Brooke managed.

·        The car filled with a horrible odor. I immediately accuse Brooke. She immediately accuses me. After quick denials, we look at the dogs. They are always likely culprits, but what if it wasn’t them? We have to check Sydney. A couple seconds later, I look in my rearview mirror to see a look of horror on my wife’s face. Then she starts gagging. It is clear. Sydney has experienced an episode of explosive ass disorder while we are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic with nowhere to turn off.

The highlight of the trip was Brooke changing Sydney while sitting in a back seat with a car seat, breast pump and several other bags stuffed back there.  It was as tight as my belt after a Sunday meal. She discovered that Sydney’s explosion had exceeded her diaper line and was actually half way up her back. Nice. Another outfit. At about this time, I say, “Honey, I wish I wasn’t driving so I could help you back there.” She shoots me a dirty look. By the time she is done, Sydney has poop in her hair and on her clothes, and Brooke has it all over her hands. And there is no bathroom in sight!

· Right about this time, the dogs decide they are too antsy and they need to get up and prance around the back of the SUV like reindeer on Christmas Eve. This was a great capper to Brooke’s diaper episode and she let loose her anger on everyone within earshot, including her innocent, just-trying-to-get-his-family-home-safely, nice-guy husband.

Suddenly, my impatience with the traffic was the least of my concerns.

About a half hour later, we had crawled close enough to an exit that I could take the whole family to the bathroom. Brooke cleaned up herself and Sydney, the dogs found a nice patch of grass in the parking lot of an office complex and I breathed a sigh of relief. We still had another hour in traffic and another hour and half of driving after that, but I had survived the worst of it. Even Chevy Chase never had it this bad.

I passed the next couple hours thinking about my buddy Joe Jones. I think he has a wife and two daughters now. I imagine he traded his duffle bag in for a Pack and Play a long time ago.

Rappin' Lullabies at 3 a.m.

The things I do when it is 3 a.m. and my daughter won’t sleep. My sleep-deprived mind searches for ways to remain sane. The other night, I made up a rap song to help Sydney sleep. The key is getting the cadence down, I guess. Yo, ya Yo, Yo, Yo….

My name is Sydney Grace,

I got spit-up all over my face,

But there’s no way that’s gonna keep me down

Someday I’ll own this Cincinnati town.

I may cry and scream a heck of a lot,

But chalk it up to being just a normal tot.

Life right now is full of drama,

Thorns for daddy; roses for mama.

But someday soon I’ll be all grown,

Preparing for college and taking out my loans,

And daddy will look back on these tough days,

Wondering if there was any possible way,

He could jump in a ship and go back in time,

When he was sleep-deprived and making up these rhymes.

Because he will miss his little princess girl

Who has finally made it in this world,

But I will never forget him, so he shouldn’t be sad,

Because he will always be the king of dads.

Life at 45: Hangovers Without Alcohol

My, how my life has changed.

Let’s look at a typical Friday in the life of Brian Gregg at…

Age 20:  Every college student who likes to get his “party on” schedules classes to end as early as possible on Fridays. If I could have somehow taken all the classes I needed to get my journalism degree on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would have.

I’d meet up with my roommates early Friday afternoon and bust out a “suitcase” of Old Milwaukee. Every group of young guys has that “go-to” cheap beer that they rely on when money is a factor. Old Mildoggy was ours.

If it was nice out, we played wiffle ball in the yard of our apartment complex while polishing off our brews. I was the king of hitting Bonds-esque homers over the building across the complex. Let’s face it, I had a Barry Bonds-like physique – at least in the later, blown-up, steroid-scandal, Michelin Man years.

Wiffle ball was always cool, but we mostly invented our own games to keep us occupied while drinking.  We had something called “handy ball,” which consisted of batting a Nerf basketball around while drinking.  Think volleyball without a net. The person who let the ball fall needed to guzzle.

In our dorm room, we invented a baseball game that used a crushed beer can as a ball. We wore real baseball gloves and used a makeshift bat to hit the can. It is amazing what you can do with beer cans. Someone I know made a coffee table out of Old Milwaukee cans. They also make great Christmas tree ornaments.

We’d jam Springsteen while we played. These were the years of Madonna and Prince, but my roommate, Pat, turned me on to Springsteen and I wanted to be a little harder than my 20-year-old counterparts. Material Girl, my ass.

About 11, we’d head to the bars. We spent part of our freshman and sophomore years doing cheap happy hours where we would drink 5-cent cups of Black Label (a Canadian beer, I think) for hours, but quickly realized this life was not for us after several nights ended by 11 p.m. with us lying in bed holding a trash can to our face.

Down at the bars, we’d make our play for “ladies.” This generally consisted of standing around talking to the few female friends we had (we rarely were bold enough to migrate outside our own circle) hoping we could convince one to go home with us. About once every two months or so, we’d get lucky.

On the way home, we’d spend our last $2 on a gyro from a guy who probably put three children through college by running a food cart outside the Kent State bars. Then we’d do an after party and drink Old Milwaukees until we passed out.

The next day, I usually had a hangover.

Age 25: This was my golden age. No longer bound by the constraints of money and not yet held down by the affects of age, I spent my 20s living a Hugh Hefner lifestyle. Blessed with a shift where I covered the police beat from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m, I was able to do all that a young man should do: get off work in time to go to the bars, party all night, sleep late and spend my mornings playing basketball and softball to stay in shape. I worked in a one-man news bureau my first year and even had a cot in the office so I could take a nap if I had a particularly tough night.

My buddies and I would spend our Friday nights at a place called the Quark, grooving to tunes that would make Springsteen cry. Hammer Time. Ice, Ice Baby. I like big butts and I cannot lie… Sorry, Boss.

Most of us would stand at the edge of the dance floor and hope some woman we barely knew would be drunk enough to take a liking to us. I hoped for slow dances, because my actual dancing resembled an epileptic seizure.

About once a month, we’d get lucky.

On the way home, we’d hit up Uncle Nick’s gyros to eat while watching late night television until we passed out.

The next day, I usually had a hangover.

Age 30: Age starts taking its toll on me here. I can no longer treat a weeknight like a Friday night because the next day at work feels like a ride on a Kings Island roller coaster. Also, despite my once-a-week basketball games, the pounds start to accumulate toward Michelin Man status.

I’m back to doing happy hours. That’s because I hope to be in bed by midnight, although most of the time I still see closing time. I’m mostly hanging in bars that play classic rock, because the music of the mid-1990s was horrendous. Mariah Carey? Celine Dion? The freaking Macarena??? Put a bullet in my head. 

I’m also back to primarily hitting on women who are somehow in my circle. Women at this age usually want to have some knowledge of who the guy is before they head home with him. I’m getting lucky about once every two months, just like in college.

On the way home from the bars, I stop at the sandwich cart for a barbeque pork sandwich, mostly to suck up the alcohol. I hit the bed as soon as I walk in the door and hope for the best the next morning. If I mixed in enough glasses of water throughout the night, I avoid the hangover.

Age 35: Girlfriends have always come and gone, but at this age, I am doing a lot more “dating.” Let’s face it, that is the only way I am getting lucky. Friday nights consist of a nice dinner, glasses of wine, maybe a trip to a comedy club or to hear some live music. I’m getting lucky almost every other weekend! Of course, with the same woman or two.

I don’t eat on the way home because I already stuff too many calories into this body. I’m usually in bed by midnight. Hangovers are rarely a problem.

Age 40: Serious girlfriend time. Dating a girl 15 years my junior. That means returning to my glory years. Pretty much guaranteed getting lucky every weekend!

I start each Friday with a pre-game at her or her friend’s house, drinking a higher-class beer than Old Milwaukee, usually some micro-brew that makes me look cool to her friends who are still drinking cheap beer because that is all they can afford. We head out to some dance club and listen to horrible music. Justin Timberlake? John Mayer?  Who the hell is Jesse McCartney? Was that Justin Bieber’s older brother?

We make it to closing time most weekends. On the way home, we hit Taco Bell. This is fun. But I am too old for this. It only takes a few months for me to say, “Honey, how about if you go out with your friends by yourself and I will be here when you get home.” Then I watch TV and hit the sack after the 11 p.m. SportsCenter. No drinks, no hangover.

Age 45: Well, here it is.

I get home from work about 5:30 and my wife wants to know if we should order a pizza. The big debate is if we have enough money for something like that. Every penny counts now. Bars are out of the question.  

Music? The only music we listen to are the lullabies that play on Sydney’s swing. Getting lucky? Yeah, like back in college, about every two months. Who has the energy?

I spend my evening playing with my daughter, trying to keep her stimulated and away from crying. This usually requires my total attention, so there is not a lot of time for say, writing a blog post, or watching a DVR-d episode of Man vs. Food, which, at this point, I could star in and win every challenge.

My wife and I pass her back and forth like a football, sharing the "stimulating duties." For some reason, she is generally quiet and happy when my wife has her. I get the screaming and crying Sydney. Roses for Brooke, thorns for Brian.

We get to bed whenever we get to bed. My daughter sets her own schedule. She usually sleeps a couple hours and then is up a couple of hours. All day long. All...night...long.

I never leave the house, yet I am worn the hell out.

The next day, I have a “baby” hangover.

Anyone Have a Trailer for Sale?

There are always those milestones you look forward to. The first smile. The first words. The first steps.

Then, there are those you dread. The first temper tantrum. The first bout of explosive ass disorder. The first tattoo. The first boyfriend you have to punch in the face. Can a 5-year-old take a punch?

This week, we hit one that was a little bit of both: first day of child care. We looked forward to Sydney spending time with others and beginning a life that reaches beyond the walls of our humble home. But we – well, really Brooke – dreaded the idea of Sydney facing a whole new world on her own and entrusting someone other than her parents to care for her.

Here’s how we prepared:

We set out with steely determination on the Friday before to conquer Sydney’s desire to sleep during the day and party all night. For some reason, when 11 p.m. comes around, Sydney turns into Lyndsey Lohan looking for VIP treatment at a Hollywood nightclub. She wants to rock and roll all night.

This was fine when Brooke did not have to work. She could stay up with her and then catch up on sleep when Sydney finally hit a wall and turned into Rip Van Winkle. But with Brooke returning to the classroom, it was imperative to put Sydney on a better schedule. Being the smart parents we are, we gave ourselves a whole two days to accomplish this task.

My cousin, Melissa, loaned me a book to help educate me on proper sleep habits. It is written by a doctor who is some type of sleep svengali for children. He gives great advice, but he also acknowledges 20 percent of kids will be difficult when it comes to developing good sleep habits.  Believe me, a 20 percenter is occupying my house.

Previous to this day, we had spent our evenings keeping Sydney up so she would be exhausted come sleep time. This obviously did not work and it required a lot of energy on our behalf as we spent the night tossing Sydney around,  teasing her with toys and even undressing and redressing her to keep her awake.

The book pointed out a different way. Dr. Svengali said to put the child to sleep EARLIER, shortly after the early-evening feeding when she showed signs of fatigue. He pointed out the early sleep time would actually help her sleep LONGER. This is fuzzy math to me, but I am no svengali. And I am desperate.

So this became part one of our strategy. Part two was advice we received from every parent we knew: shut the door and let your child cry it out. Sooner or later, she will fall asleep and after a night or two of this, she will go down easy and sleep through the night.

Getting my wife to agree with this was sort of like getting Chaz Bono to embrace his inner womanhood. She wanted to go a completely other route. I think there is an electric current that runs through her body every time Sydney cries. But I stood my ground and used the pressure from other friends to convince her we had to take this drastic step or she would roll into work every morning looking like, well, Lyndsey Lohan after a night of VIP treatment.

Armed with our two-part strategy, we roared into Friday evening ready to conquer the world. Twelve hours later, we crawled into Saturday morning ready for a six-hour nap.

Sydney went down around 8 p.m. when her eyelids looked like they were weighted down by 20-pound barbells. An hour later, she sprung awake with an indignant look of How dare you put me to sleep so early.

The next two hours consisted of Brooke and I cringing in our bedroom as we listened to our daughter scream-cry over the baby monitor. One of the worst feelings in the world. Brooke was saying things like, “I know her tiny little brain is thinking that we have abandoned her,” while tears welled in her eyes. Ouch. Take that, daddy!

Look, I am not an experienced parent. I have no idea whether we were doing the right thing. I did what I always do: I asked for advice, processed it and made a decision. I may not win any father of the year awards, but I was doing my best.

She eventually fell asleep, only to repeat the pattern a few hours later and to finally wake up for good about 5 a.m. Saturday night was not much better. By Sunday, we had abandoned our plan. Essentially, we decided to play it by ear. Put her to sleep when she was tired and hope for the best. You can imagine how that is going.

Nevertheless, Monday rolled around and it was time for our visit to Miss Amber’s house for Sydney’s first day of child care. Mom and dad would have been zombies on this day, but the nervousness over this new experience for Sydney was enough of an adrenaline rush to get us going. Our mood was somber, similar to what you might expect as you prepared for a funeral. Brooke had been crying since Friday, but this was D-Day.

I immediately started calculating our monthly obligations in my head to see if there was any way we could afford my wife quitting her job and being a stay-at-home mom. We can do it; we’ll just need to get rid of one car and move into a trailer. Brooke quickly nixed that idea.

The first thing I learned that Monday was introducing a baby into the morning routine means getting up earlier and moving around faster at a time when you’d rather plod. The second thing I learned is that you should always have a burp cloth on your dress shirt when handling a baby.

The handoff went smoothly. Miss Amber couldn’t have been nicer and more understanding of my wife’s inner turmoil. Sydney was oblivious. To her, this was no different than a trip to the grocery or doctor. Hell, it was a lot better than a trip to the doctor – no one at Miss Amber’s was going to prick her ass with a needle. At least I hope not...or we’d have a much bigger problem than day care dread.

Our drop off ended with me hugging a tearful Brooke good bye and praying everything went fine or I was going to have a basket case of a wife when I got home.

And fine it was. Miss Amber even texted us pictures of our smiling baby looking like she was spending the day on Sesame Street. I think Brooke went from worrying Sydney would be ok to worrying she liked child care more than her own home.

And the kicker? She somehow came home exhausted. We could not keep her awake. She slept for two hours. The kind of sleep where if you tickle her feet or play patty cakes with her hands she doesn’t even lift an eyelid.

Of course, that means she wasn’t tired when bed time rolled around.

Sigh.   

At Least She's Not Nicknamed Puff Baby

Sydney is 7 weeks old and has five nicknames. At this rate, she will accumulate 35 nicknames in her first year on earth.

How does this happen? Why are parents so quick to call their children anything but the names they spent dozens of hours debating and sweating over? Shouldn’t this be the time we spend working hard to get her to recognize her real name?

I already told you what we went through to pick Sydney Grace. It was quite the ordeal. So the fact that on any given day she might hear five other names come out of our mouths is a bit distressing to me.

But I can’t stop.

Sydney’s nicknames and the story behind them:

Snorty Magee: She snorts when she is angry and crying. One doctor said her nostrils just aren’t developed enough yet. I sure hope this doesn’t carry over into adulthood. We all know someone who snorts when they laugh….it is very annoying.

Tree Frog: She parks herself like a tree frog on my belly.

Crankypants: Pretty self explanatory. I did some figuring the other day. Sydney probably spends about 6 hours a day just feeding. She sleeps another 13. She is awake and pleasant for about an hour. That leaves four hours a day when she is crying about something or another. Thus, Miss Crankpants.

Porcupine: I gave her this nickname and I really don’t know why. I think “P” words just sound good for babies. Pumpkin Pie. Precious. Peanut. Pudding. Pudding pop. Poopy.

Peanut Butter: My wife gave her this name because she was singing a Raffi song called Peanut Butter Sandwich. I probably don’t need to tell you I have no idea who Raffi is, why he has such a stupid name or why he devoted a whole song to a simple sandwich.

I am confident and relieved none of these names will follow her into adulthood. As kids get older, baby names fall by the wayside. Sooner or later, she won’t be cranky, right? And no matter how big my belly is, she eventually will not be able to sit on it like a tree frog.

But we all know some kid who somehow managed to keep an embarrassing nickname into adulthood. Pee Wee. Bubbie. Buster. Bunny. Marky Mark. Puff Daddy.

Let’s not forget my brother, Little Dick.

I don’t know what nicknames I had when I was a kid. I did have a couple as I got older. I had hair like Leif Garrett in high school – hey, it was the ‘80s -- and one of my buddies decided it looked like a Tumbleweed on top of my head. He and another guy started calling me that. They even copied some signs with my picture and “Tumbleweed” written across the top and hung them around the school. Yeah, funny. Why couldn’t I be the Italian Stallion, Snoop, The Rock or even 50 Cent? Instead, I am nicknamed after some dry grass.

Another guy thought I looked like Tony Dow on Leave it to Beaver and called me Wally. It didn’t really stick, although my best friend who I hung out with all the time became known as Beaver, and that did stick. Later, I went to college and asked Beaver to keep an eye on my girlfriend. He kept his eye on HER beaver and they are married today, so now I have another nickname for him that I will not print in this family blog.

Brooke says the only nickname she can remember was one in college, where she became known as Breeko in some circles. This happened after a night when someone under the influence of an herbal product inadvertently inverted the vowels in her name.

I’ve always been partial to nicknames devised from initials. I always thought TJ was cool when I was a kid. I became known as BG after I got older. Brooke was Brooke Marie. I guess she could have been BM, as in, I just had a BM. Her brother is Blair Jason…BJ. Hmmm.

SG doesn’t really have a ring to it. And I don’t really like Syd. Too masculine. I hope Sydney ends up with a really cool nickname. How about the Fresh Princess? The Material Girl? Lady Gaga? No, I guess I’ll pass.

In fact, I am not sure there are really any cool nicknames for a girl. I think we’ll stick with Sydney Grace. Judging by Miss Crankypants’ first seven weeks, it will be hard enough teaching her that one.  

Beating the Feedbag for my Daughter's Love

Parenting, it turns out, is a competition.

And I am losing.

Who is working harder, getting less sleep, changing more diapers or more quickly winning the love of the child? These are the things mom and dad debate in the first months of a child’s life.

I’m under no delusion that a mother’s life isn’t difficult. But somehow we dads are the Winklevoss twins of parenting: we get no credit for a project that will ultimately be a tremendous success.

I am eternally grateful my wife has chosen to be the nighttime caretaker on weeknights, when I have to work the next morning. I dread the thought of her returning to work after next week and us splitting nighttime duties.

Yes, Sydney has decided that, even though she sleeps 17 hours a day, it is best for her to continue to ensure a few of her awake hours occur after midnight.  In fact, she seems most rambunctious after her late-evening feeding. She may be a vampire.

Side note: last night, a weekend night, I had night duty. Sydney slept a solid 5 ½ hours, from 12:15 a.m. to 5:50 a.m. I am taking full credit for it. All hail, King Daddy!!! Clearly, she knows that when daddy is in charge, she must behave.

Back to story: So nearly every morning, I awake to find Brooke sleeping in a different room because she has moved Sydney around the house in an effort to calm her crying and get her to sleep. My wife appears to be getting less sleep to me, and she is not afraid to let me know it. “Oh, are you just waking up? Must be nice. I think I managed about 22 minutes last night.” Yawn.

But is she really sleeping less? After I leave for work, what exactly does she do? How do I know she doesn’t sleep all day. Yes, I get a solid six hours and she might only get three at night, but does she then turn around and get five more during the day? Who really knows? You know she’ll never admit it, because then she can’t play the “sleep” card every morning and make me feel like former presidential candidate John Edwards, abandoning his wife in a time of need.

But, before I let her win the title for less sleep, I am going to sneak away from work some morning and peek through my windows to see exactly what goes on around here when I am gone. I suspect I am going to find one huge slumber party.

As for changing diapers, I concede. She is home alone with her all day, so there’s no doubt. Plus, as I have already acknowledged, I am not above passing off the baby with a smelly surprise hiding below her belt.

Working harder? Come on. I work all day THEN come home and take care of the baby. Brooke catches up on Jersey Shore reruns during the day. Yeah, she gives me all that “we did tummy time today” jazz, but how long can that take?

Brooke will argue that even while I am home, she is the primary caretaker. Maybe so, but it takes a lot of energy at the end of my long, hard work day to pump Sydney’s arms or tickle her feet in order to keep her awake so she will sleep after midnight.

Please someone, give me the check mark on this one.

But the final, and most important, competition is the battle over Sydney’s love. Secretly, each parent wants to be the main apple of their baby’s eye.

This morning, Brooke told me that Sydney smiled at her. I quickly shot her down with the retort that the baby is too young to smile yet…at least to smile for a conscious reason of happiness. Brooke just got a reflex. My thinking?  I can’t let Brooke claim that victory!

One of my favorite things to do is grab my child, sneak off to a hidden corner and ask over and over again, “Who is your best friend? Daddy is.” If I can somehow tell her this a million times over in the next few months, it will come true. I am playing subliminal mind tricks with a 6 week old.

I will step up my game soon and whisper the word “Da-Da” a few dozen times a night in hopes it will eventually be her first words.

Nevertheless, I am losing the battle because my wife – whom I have nicknamed “feedbag” – has the hunger-quenching milk Sydney craves every three hours. I feel like Sonny Bono or Art Garfunkle or Selena Gomez or Russell Brand….I am definitely the less glamorous and desired one in this duo.

It becomes obvious every time I’m holding her and she starts crying, only to have her mother come over, snatch her from my arms and make the noise disappear. Talk about putting dad in his place. If I ever had any illusions I was winning this competition, Sydney shatters them with the sounds of silence.

But it is only a matter of time before my subliminal messages kick in.  I like to look at this as a race between the tortoise and hare. Brooke may be out to a big lead, but I have a lifetime to catch up.

Sydney Will Someday Hate Me for This

I went a few miles out of my way the other night to buy diapers. We were parked in the parking lot of a super market when my wife said, “But I have a coupon for $4 off if we go to Walgreens.” So, we drove across town to save $4.

This is what parenthood does to you.

Remember who I am. If I am really, really hungry for Arby’s and the McDonald's is two miles closer, nine out of 10 times, I am hitting up the McDonald’s. Convenience is a hallmark of my lifestyle. Why do something yourself when you can pay someone else to do it? Trickle-down economics. My wife likes to say my middle name is “relaxation.”

So to get me to drive from the parking lot of a grocery store across freaking town to save $4 on diapers? I never would have thought I’d see the day. But when you are going through diapers like they’re dollar bills at a strip club, you get desperate.

By the way, I probably haven’t been to a strip club in 15 years. I went to one in Windsor for a bachelor party, probably in the late ‘90s. I think I went to one in Atlanta about that time, too. I have lived in Cincinnati off and on for 17 years, and I don’t think I have ever been to a local club.

I’m not saying I haven’t had my share of adventures. In college, I swore I and a stripper in Florida had solid eye contact and she would soon be mine. We had a connection. It took my buddies dragging me out of the club and screaming at me that it was HER JOB to have eye contact with me before my wet dream fizzled.

In my 20s, at my first job where I worked a later shift, a few of us liked to relax after work with a jaunt or two to some of the fine gentleman’s establishments in Rockford, Ill. (“Fine gentleman’s establishments” seems like an oxymoron to me, like “jumbo shrimp.”)

But overall, I’m just not a strip club kind of guy. I don’t see the point in spending my hard-earned dollars on a woman whom I have zero chance of taking home that night. If I am going to be out and about, let it be at a regular club where I have at least a tiny shot at some action (this is pre-marriage, mind you). Wives and girlfriends should understand: the safest place for your man to be on a Saturday night is in a strip club. Those women want nothing to do with him except to discover the fastest way for his dollar bills to find a home in their G-strings.

But, I digress.

Our mountain of pre-baby diapers has become a molehill. I knew we would go through diapers, but I underestimated the rate….which means I underestimated the cost. I’m not a cheap guy, but I do like to spend money on things that are enjoyable. A fine dinner, a gangster movie, a trip to Vegas…shitty diapers are not on the list.

It seems like Sydney needs changed every couple of hours. Brooke likes to change her before every feeding, which is about every three hours. Sometimes, she needs changed in-between. I have to admit, I sometimes see that little blue line on the diaper and I turn her over quick before Brooke notices. If she is going to pee again soon, it might as well be in the same diaper. It saves me money and a little wetness can’t hurt, right?

I have self-diagnosed Sydney with Explosive Ass Disorder (EAD). Don’t bother looking it up in Webster’s or your New England Medical Journal. It’s a term I personally coined.

I believe this to be a hereditary disease, because the first time I ever encountered it was when my dad got a little older in life and was spending time at my sister’s. I happened to visit one day and my sister explained a “Holy-Crap-Mother-of-God-Hide-the-Women-and-Children” moment she had trying to clean up her bathroom after my dad’s bout with EAD.

Yeah, I went there.

I was afraid to even visit that bathroom after what came out of her mouth. I drove two towns over to my brother’s house just to take a whizz.

So grandpa passed on his EAD to my precious little child. First, she has enough gas to fuel a Sunoco station for a month. I don’t really have a reference point to compare her to other babies, but I estimate she farts at least 10 times an hour. Yes, she even farts in her sleep. That’s 240 farts a day!!!

Then, there are times when I am holding her and I can just tell she is going to the bathroom while she sits in my hands. There is a rumbling, then a sound like water gushing over Niagara Falls. That is what a liquid diet will do to you. Good lord, this child needs some roughage. If I am lucky, Brooke does not hear this and I can stealthily hand her over to play with her mama, who will no doubt discover the equivalent of a murder scene in her daughter’s pants shortly thereafter.

How much is my daughter going to hate me when she grows up and reads this?

So, my life of convenience and relaxation is now the equivalent of life on a chain gang. I used to sleep through the night. Now, I feed and change diapers. I used to nap on the weekends. Now I use them to catch up on everything I didn’t get done during the week. I used to watch my favorite TV shows. Now I spend all evening keeping her awake so she will sleep through the night. I used to buy whatever I needed, wherever I wanted. Now I drive across town to save $4.

Someday, very soon, she is going to smile when I pick her up. A few months after that, she’s going to call me “da-da.” A few years after that, she’ll squeeze my hand tight as she enters kindergarten for the first time. Later, there will be high school graduation, freshman year at college, calls about her world travels, the excitement of her first job and maybe even the chance to walk her down the aisle.

In other words, it will all be worth it someday.

Diapers Have Fronts and Backs?

My first night alone with Sydney ended with my wife arriving home to find two dirty diapers on the coffee table and her daughter dressed in only her diaper and half an onesie.

But at least Sydney was alive. I’m pretty certain Brooke was concerned that might not be the case.

She attended a wedding on her own. It was not that we couldn’t find a babysitter.  I wasn’t invited. One of her friends tried to be conservative with the guest list in order to control costs and I did not make the cut.

A lesser man would be offended by this. But you have to realize, inherently, I am a lazy person. If given the choice between dressing up, sitting through a long church service, talking to people I do not know and dancing to Celine Dion or lying on the couch watching ESPN in shorts and a t-shirt, I think you know what will get my check mark every time.

So I became the babysitter. Although when it is your kid, you really can’t call it babysitting. In fact, it is a little insulting to dads. Nobody ever says a mom is babysitting. We dads are considered a bit incompetent when it comes to caring for our own children, so we are placed on the same level as babysitters.

A lesser man would be offended by this.

The night started uneventful, with Sydney sleeping for a couple of hours. But then it was feeding time.  Brooke had pumped ahead of time, so I was ready. I’ve been doing a few feedings here and there for weeks, so this part of the night went smoothly.

But then, a bit of trouble. I checked her diaper and there was some nastiness down there. Up until this point, Brooke had been the primary diaper changer in our house. She doesn’t have a lot of patience for fools, and if she sees I am not so good at something, she just takes it on herself. Why teach a man to fish? My diaper duty pretty much ended the day I put one on backwards. I did not even know there were fronts and backs to diapers!

Now, alone by myself, the pressure was on. I managed to put this one on frontwards, but when I went to tape the sides together, I pulled the tape right off the diaper. Strike one. I grabbed a second diaper, lined it up right, gently pulled the tape and managed to get everything right. Except, when I lifted her up, it sagged deeply.  Not tight enough. Oh well, why waste another diaper? Let’s roll with it.

About an hour later, that became a big mistake. I heard a rumbling that turned into an explosion. I scrambled to contain it, hugging the sides tight to her body so nothing spilled out. I actually did ok. But I made sure the next diaper fit her like a Kim Kardashian sweater. Tight.   

My wife is deeply involved in my daughter’s bowel movements. The doctors tell us this is a way to ensure the baby is eating right…count the bowel movements. Take a look at them to see the texture and color. No thanks, doc. Sounds like a job for the wife. So, to assist Brooke with her mission, I left both diapers open, sitting on the coffee table. The only one happy with this was the dogs, who got to sniff a new smell for the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, in between two diaper changes, I had to take on and off her clothes. Most days, Sydney doesn’t even leave the house. Why does she even need clothes? Sydney doesn’t like socks. She kicks them off. She doesn’t like pants either. Well, her dad doesn’t. He doesn’t have the patience to put them on and take them off. Her legs are always getting caught up in them, especially those pajamas with footies in them. So, I made an executive decision and the socks and pants were ditched. Then, I unbuttoned the onesie at the bottom and pushed it above her waist to give me easier access to check the diapers. She essentially sat around in a diaper and a t-shirt the rest of the night. This would not make my wife happy. But who cares? She was sipping wine, eating wedding cake and dancing to Celine Dion.  

By the way, my wife called twice in six hours to check on me. Like I said, there’s not a lot of faith there. A lesser man would be offended. One of her calls came while Sydney was in the middle of what would be a two-hour crying jag. I practically hung up on her. I’m sure that inspired confidence, but I was a little stressed. No time for niceties.

In fact, that crying jag was the worst part of the night. My solution to these things is to move Sydney from position to position until she is comfortable and quits crying. I’ll hold her like a football, put her over my shoulder, cradle her, set her down flat, prop her up….anything to get the crying to stop. Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to find a comfortable position that night. She basically cried until she ALMOST fell asleep.

Oh, yes….sleep. My job was to keep her up until her late-night feeding, at about 11 p.m. We’ve discovered she sleeps better at night if we keep her up from her dinner feeding until her late-night feeding. This is not as easy as it sounds. You could stand four feet apart and throw her back and forth like a basketball and she could sleep through it. I have even used an ice cube to help keep her awake. It only works half the time. When a baby is tired, a baby sleeps.

So, keeping her awake was one of my jobs that night. Mission accomplished…thanks to my singing, my making her dance and my doing many other things that annoyed her enough to keep her crying because I wouldn't let her sleep.

So Brooke came home to find that her baby was not only alive, but awake. As ordered. Did I get a thank you? Heck no. She was more concerned with the dirty diapers on the coffee table and the lack of clothing on our daughter.

A lesser man would have been offended.

My Wife Says My Posts Are Too Long

Q. What do these have in common?

-- A British Petroleum station
-- A recently fueled Hummer
-- A long-haul trucker
-- My wife
-- My wife’s daughter

A.    They are all full of gas!!!!

Almost Too Tired to Post About Being Tired

I’ve heard of sleep walking. Last night, I witnessed sleep breastfeeding.

It’s quite the story. But first, background on where we are:

Everyone told us lack of sleep is an issue with a newborn.  But until you experience the bleary-eyed, zombie-like reality of it, you have no idea what havoc a screaming child will wreak on your life. (I use “screaming” when I describe her actions instead of crying because I really don’t see a lot of tears coming during one of her “fits.” What I do see is a lot of tonsil. This child could put Axl Rose to shame.)

Since when does one celebrate getting four hours of sleep in a night? Since Sydney Grace Gregg came into the world.

In the hospital, we wanted to be super parents. The first night, they highly recommended she go to the nursery because of the long labor we’d been through. That was fine. But the next night, we wanted her in the room with us. One, because we wanted to be with her and two, because we knew we had to get used to nights with her.

Well, about midnight, she made a bit of a gurgling noise and I looked over to see her choking. I jumped up and grabbed her and noticed she was beet red and trying to scream but nothing was coming out. I turned her to her side and cleared her airway as she gasped for breath. The doctors later told us she probably was choking on amniotic fluid.

That was all we needed to confirm we’d need eyes on her 24-7. We did not sleep the rest of the night or into the next day. Now, by the next night, we were exhausted. She was awake and crying. NOT a good combination. If I did not have a shaved head, I would have pulled my hair out.

We finally gave up and sent her to the nursery. So much for super parents. Only one night into it and I had already abandoned my daughter.  So far, my parenting skills are on par with Britney Spears.

Our first night home was our first night without a safety net. The baby was up until 6:30 a.m. The next night was ok, but the third night, she was up until 7 a.m. It is not that she didn’t sleep, but she would go to bed at about 11 or midnight, wake up at 2 a.m. or so and stay up until the morning.

And this is not “up” and looking around curiously wondering what is happening with the world. This is “up” and doing her impersonation of a fire engine siren. There are periods of calmness, but most of it is screaming. My daughter has not yet grasped the concept that she can be awake and happy, or simply awake and silent. If she is awake, she is generally conditioning her lungs for a career as an opera singer. She is either sleeping, eating or screaming.

I attribute this all to gas bubbles. I have noticed her quietly trying to fall asleep when, all of the sudden, her face contorts like Joe Cocker and her body starts writhing like a scene from The Exorcist. This inevitably culminates in a scream. Then, a couple minutes later, she is back to normal. Sometimes, in between, she burps or passes gas. I have to believe her fits are the result of gas wreaking havoc on her tiny digestive system. We are now using baby gas drops from Walgreen’s.

These late nights have made her mom and dad walking zombies. I crave sleep like Charlie Sheen craves high-end prostitutes. Does anyone know a good meth dealer? I’ve been working as needed the past two weeks and I have shown up at the office with bloodshot eyes and a strong desire to crawl under my desk for a George Costanza-like nap.

We’ve heard the quality advice: sleep when she sleeps. Easier said than done. There are a lot of things that need to be done around here. For example, this damn blog. I was up until 3 a.m. last night and then had to give a talk to foster parents this morning. I am so tired right now I can barely find the energy to post about how tired I am.

My poor wife has it worse than me. Even though I wake up for the breastfeeding, she actually does it. I can help position the pillows and keep Sydney awake, but honestly, I find myself falling back to sleep during some of those late-night feedings. Brooke must endure, although even she will admit to dozing off in the middle sometimes.

But nothing was as bad as what I witnessed last night. We finally got Sydney down at about 3 a.m. and I fell into a pretty deep sleep. But something stirred me at 4:30 a.m. I woke to find my wife sitting straight up next to me, her breast in her hand, ready for feeding time. She was awake, but not moving.

I looked in Sydney’s direction and noticed she was sitting in her perch as quiet as can be, still sleeping. Befuddled, I said, “Honey, what are you doing?” She looked at me, looked down at herself then looked over at a sleeping Sydney. She sighed, dropped her boob and sunk down into the bed for more shuteye. Never said a word.

I remained befuddled. I wanted to know what the hell was going on, but, to be honest, I was just too tired to investigate. I rolled over and closed my eyes.

Random Observations About Sydney

All of my posts are about my personal life, but I try to make them topical so they appeal to all through the experiences we share as we travel through life. Like yesterday’s post on breastfeeding. Or picking a baby name. Or life in the delivery room. These are personal experiences, but we all experience them, so you can read what I am going through and identify with my situation.

Rarely do I do a totally personal post. So, indulge me. As my baby grows, I will make this a regular contribution.

Observations about my little girl:

• She absolutely has my chin. I have a distinct cleft chin that sinks deeply right below the lip. It is not an attribute I particularly like about myself, but it is confirmation that she is mine! That was always up for debate.
• She is a snorter. Her tiny nostrils can’t handle her rage. When she gets excited and throws a fit, she snorts. We have nicknamed her Snorty Magee.
• She has black hair. Both Brooke and I were blonde when we were children, so this was a bit of a surprise.
• Her eyes look Asian. This seems to fade a bit every day, but, with the dark hair and eyes, I might need to get a DNA test…if not for the chin.
• She is very serious. She get s a look of consternation on her face several times a day, especially when she is eating. Her dad is kind of a clown, so maybe she is taking a different approach to life.
• She is a fighter. She fights herself awake and fights herself to sleep. Her clenched fists and arms pump like Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime.
• She is strong. I honestly don’t know if she is strong compared to other babies, but she is much stronger than I thought a baby would be. She will push things away with force.
• She is squirmy, like a worm on the end of a hook. She looks like she is having an epilectic fit when she wakes up.
• She likes to get her hair washed. It soothes her.
• She also sucks things to soothe herself. If not feeding, she sucks her fingers. I want nothing to do with a pacifier but it looks like she has other ideas.
• She likes the sound of the vacuum cleaner. We discovered this by accident while cleaning. It calms her. I have a feeling we will pull this out when we are desperate to stop a crying fit. Maybe I can even get Brooke to do more cleaning.
• She hates to get dressed and undressed. This always results in screaming.
• She hates socks. Kicks them off every time.
• She prefers the left breast to the right breast. I will attribute this to me.
• She is gassy. I will attribute this to her mother.

Can I buy Stock in Nipple Cream?

There are certain jobs in life I do not have any desire to do: window washer on skyscrapers, port-o-potty cleaner, janitor in a porno theater, to name a few.

Not that I could ever do it, but breastfeeder also would be on the list.

This is hard work.

The doctors told us we should feed every three hours. That amounts to eight feedings a day. Babies sleep most of the day. Thus, we are constantly waking her to feed her. Make sense? To me, that is kind of like waking someone to give them a sleeping pill. Believe me, this child has lungs like an Olympic swimmer. If she is hungry, she will scream it loud!

But my wife wants to do this parenting by the book. She is deathly afraid of our daughter not getting the nutrition she needs. So we feed every three hours.

The doctors also told us one half hour on each breast is an optimal feeding. Do the math here. If you feed every three hours and a feeding takes one hour, you only have two hours in between.

To top it all off, my wife has to pump to get her “milk in.” That’s what they call it. Pumping takes 15 minutes and there’s another fifteen minutes or more of burping, getting things together, putting things away, etc. When it is all said and done, one breastfeeding event could take two hours.

Breastfeeding every three hours. Each feeding could take two hours. You getting the picture?

Don’t get me wrong, I value breastfeeding. It is best for the child and it will save me money. But I recognize it is a tremendous chore. Sydney never makes it easy. She is always angry about being wakened, and she is strong enough to squirm and push and claw her way through the feeding. My poor wife.

I don’t have milk-producing breasts, so of course I am forced to relax and watch television while all of this is going on.  

No, seriously, I do all I can to help. I wake up with her, get her all the pillows she needs to be comfortable and play with or talk to Sydney to keep her awake during the feeding. Yes, she tends to fall asleep in the middle of the feeding. This happens when you wake someone from a deep sleep and shove a gallon of milk down their throat. So I am constantly pumping her arms or tickling her feet to make sure she keeps sucking. That’s me, Daddy Court Jester.

I also have taken on the role of Chief Burper. I am not sure I am good at this, because Sydney inevitably has more gas 15 minutes after I burp her. But I do get a few loud ones out of her. A few that would make Roseanne Barr proud.

While I am burping, my wife is pumping. Not only does she have a child sucking on her for a half hour, a machine then vacuums her nipples for the few remaining drops. We have invested in a bucket of nipple cream.

If there is one thing this pregnancy has opened my eyes to, it is how difficult it is to be a mom. We dads get to burp them a little, bounce them on our knee, maybe throw them a ball. Moms spend their first year or so as a designated feedbag with an 8-pound squirming, crying, rooting little piglet attached to their nipple.

I’d rather take a shot at cleaning those port-o-potties.     

Meeting Sydney: Both Parents were Bloody in the Delivery Room

When doctors told us we would have to go the c-section route, one of us was unhappy. And it was not the one whose body was about to be sliced open like a biology-class frog.

Brooke had been trying to have the baby for so long, she was ecstatic at anything that would make it happen, even if it meant she would go under the knife.

I, on the other hand, am a risk-adverse person. No mountain climbing or sky diving for me. I plan to die the old-fashioned way: eating too much and having a heart attack.

A trip under the knife scared me. But the doctors said that was really our only option. Sydney was content to stay in for awhile and her head was in a position where she needed to come out. I had always thought my daughter would come late, but, when Brooke was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, the option of a late delivery disappeared. Sydney had to come out on time.

Well, she had other ideas. Because of her stubbornness, her mom would now pay the price of major surgery.

I squeezed into my scrubs as they whisked Brooke away to prepare her. When I arrived in the room, she was already lying on a table with a curtain blocking her view of her lower half.

Look, I was MAJOR afraid. I don’t care how many times they tell you c-sections are routine, when it is your wife lying on the table with her life on the line, it is one of the scariest things you will ever experience. My heart pounded like a jack hammer.

I positioned myself near Brooke’s head so I could talk to her through the surgery. I was determined not to look down. It is not that I couldn’t handle it. As a reporter, I once sat through a whole autopsy, watching the coroner slice a man’s belly open, pull and weigh the organs, saw the brain out for examination, etc. It had little effect on me.

(Turns out the poor bloke had an aneurysm burst in his stomach while trying to grunt out a difficult bowel movement. He immediately keeled right over and died on the bathroom floor. You think that doesn’t go through my head every time I am struggling with constipation? Be careful in there! No need to hurry.)   

It was impossible not to notice what was going on out of the corner of my eye. It was like a scene from MASH. Scalpels were flying through the air as they rapidly sliced away, pushing organs around to get better access to my baby. Plastic lines moved blood and other fluids to and from my wife’s body. Three different surgeons worked furiously, with a team of nurses surrounding them, carrying out various duties.

I tried to avoid looking afraid. I wanted to make sure my wife was calm and knew everything would be ok. Her main concern was the baby – “Can you see her yet?” My main concern was my wife living through this surgery.

Soon, she emerged. A purplish little blob appeared in the corner of my eye. Even with all the concern I had for my wife, I could not help myself but stand up and walk over to see her. It was as if all the commotion in the room stopped for a minute. I was totally focused on her. The nurses grabbed her and moved her over to an area where they could clean her up. She was coated with a dry, white pasty substance that they rubbed off. I watched in amazement as she wiggled in their hands.

Someone said her color was good.  I’m not sure what else was said. I quickly scanned to make sure all her body parts were right. Ten fingers and toes. She was beautiful.

I cradled her for the first time. I can’t tell you what went through my mind. It was one of those moments where you are almost thoughtless, you just react. I have never believed in love at first sight. That changed in that moment.

I raced over to Brooke with the baby in my arms. Brooke’s smile was a mile wide. This was the moment she had waited for all her life. Her baby. I was happier for her than I was for me. We both had tears in our eyes as we enjoyed our first ever family moment.

Sydney Grace Gregg. Eight pounds even. Twenty one and a half inches long. Born at 3:31 p.m. on August 30. My precious baby.

The nurses gave us a minute, but then had to take her away for some tests and things. I handed her over and then buckled down to get Brooke through the rest of the surgery. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the doctors sewing stitches into her. Brooke kept saying she was sleepy and could barely stay awake. In my mind, I thought this was like a concussion and I couldn’t let her sleep because she might not wake up. I kept saying, “Honey, you have to stay awake.” At one point, one of the doctors said it was ok for her to sleep, that this was pretty common in c-sections. Still, Brooke’s strength was amazing. She managed to stay awake until the end.

She did get sick and start puking. I immediately lost it. I thought she was dying. My blood pressure shot up 100 points in ten seconds. I have said it before…I can’t do this without Brooke. The thought of parenting Sydney without my wife…I can’t even think of living without her, let alone parenting without her. We are one.

A nurse whisked me away. She gave me tissues to wipe my eyes, but when I removed my mask to wipe, my nose gushed blood. A serious blood-pressure spike. I had to walk out of the room to clean myself up, still worried my wife was dying. What a drama queen. My wife is having major surgery and I interrupt it with my own attention-grabbing moment.

We both survived.  Those doctors and nurses do incredible work and they took tremendous care of both of us, as well as our baby. Back in the recovery room, we got to spend as much time as we wanted with Sydney.

We are blessed.  

A friend of mine said that children increase your span of emotions. He said you’ll experience higher highs, lower lows, greater fears, more intense pride, etc. then you have ever felt before.

Based on my experience in that delivery room, I already know he is right.