Double the Trouble

 

 

Please someone tell me why I elected to have one child, let alone two?

This is what goes through your mind at 2 a.m. when the crying from the newborn has awakened the 21 month old who finally fell asleep at 11 p.m. after crying and talking in her bed for two hours. The same 21 month old who is allergic to sleep and, if awakened by her crying brother, is likely to be up for another two hours. Her carrying on will eventually wake her little brother… and the whole cycle will start over.

Woe. Is. Me.

Good thing I have a wife who is a teacher and has summers off. “Honey, can you deal with Tyson and Sydney and wake me in the morning?”

Yeah, right. The answer to that is likely to be a right hook that knocks me off the bed.

You want to know how life is in the Gregg household? Two kids. Two adults. Man-to-man defense.

I’m tired. Just tired.

And my wife is the one carrying the water. I suck at taking care of babies. I would rather watch Sydney by myself for a week than watch Tyson by myself for a day. I never know what is wrong with the kid. I can’t ever make him happy. I’m always afraid I’m hurting him, or smothering him or missing some sign that he might die in the next 15 minutes.

With Sydney, it’s like, “Here’s a toy, here’s the Sprout TV network, here’s a grilled cheese sandwich, there’s a gate on the stairs and the cabinets are locked down ….now let daddy play Words with Friends for three hours.”

Thank God for my wife. And I am not the only one who says that. I am pretty sure Tyson screams that in his little mind every time Brooke takes him from me because I have screwed up and sent him into a tizzy.  

Speaking of Sydney, she has not exactly welcomed her little brother with open arms. She still calls him baby. Occasionally, she will say brother. I don’t think she ever says Tyson.

The first time she saw him cry, she felt so bad she cried, too. But that sympathy didn’t last long. Ever since, when he cries, she laughs hysterically.

I’m clearly raising a budding sadist.

She hasn’t pushed him off the couch yet, but she hasn’t embraced him either. She, like Vegas the dog, mostly ignores him.  On the rare occasion when she does acknowledge his presence, she might go over to pat him on his head and show a little affection. But her pats are slaps, like when she pets the dog.

He’s too fragile to endure slaps upside the head.

She does like to bounce in his bouncing chair. The weight limit on it is 25 pounds. At her last doctor’s visit, she weighed 24. I’m thisclose to a broken bouncing chair.

Tyson is adjusting to his new world. He already sleeps better than his big sister. It is probably too early to make the call that he will be a good sleeper, but all signs point that way.

He LOVES to be held. I don’t know if it is the product of being in that hospital bed for two weeks and not being held, but, if he is awake, he wants to be in someone’s arms.

That can keep a person busy. Brooke is pretty adept at holding him while eating, or while using the other arm to play with Sydney. Surprisingly, I am not.  

He cries for three reasons:

·         He hates to get his diaper changed. Not sure if it is the cold air or he’s just too modest to be naked, but you can count on some screaming when you pull the tape on the diaper.

·         He is hungry. We all cry for food, right?

·         He has gas. And he has A LOT of gas. He doesn’t deal with it well and can’t seem to get comfortable. This necessitates me having to move him 100 different ways to keep him comfortable until the gas passes. Unlike Sydney, who was a farting machine, Tyson seems to hold a lot of gas inside. He gets the hiccups after every meal.

He also has a clogged tear duct that produces regular discharge from his eye. It has even crusted his eye shut a couple of times while he was sleeping. Imagine his terror when he can only open one eye! That’s his Indian nick name, One-Eye Tyson.

Poor kid can’t catch a break. A defective heart. Excess gas. Eye pus.

He actually has a myriad of issues that we can’t determine whether they are normal baby issues or because of his heart. He sweats, shudders, grunts and yawns a lot. One of the things they told us to look for was sweating, so we may be hyper sensitive to some of these things, but each has me concerned enough to ask the doctor.

Also, his lips blister. They look like the back of a boxed turtle. Is he dehydrated? He gets plenty of milk.

All of these questions shall be posed in the weekly cardiologist’s visit tomorrow.  

We know for sure we have had a bit of a set back with him. Doctors released him to come home with the understanding he would gain weight and be stronger for his operation. But, they warned, if he is not gaining weight, it will likely be because his heart is working too hard, which would necessitate his first heart operation, the one we thought we’d avoided.

Despite eating like a Sopranos character, he has lost a little weight since he’s been home. Now, Sydney also did when she first came home, and I understand many other babies do, too. But because of his condition, they have decided to supplement his breast milk to see if they can add on some pounds.

We’ll cross our fingers.

Other than that, life is normal. We’re living the dream. Well, actually, there is no dreaming in our house. No one ever gets to fall into that deep of a sleep. 

Birthday Bash? What's next, a Mercedes SLK?

Sydney's first chocolate chip cookie. She has developed her father's messiness. Imagine when the cake comes!

Brooke and I have come to our first major disagreement when it comes to raising our child.

The birthday party.

If you have been reading this blog for any period of time, you know how our disagreements end. So, I will skip the suspense and tell you that Brooke wins. We are going to have a “big” party for our 1-year-old daughter. But I am participating under protest.

I expected to have disagreements with my wife on how to raise our child. We are human. We disagree on a lot of things. For example, she watches every reality television show ever invented, from “So You Think You Can Dance” to “How to Cheat on Your Husband and Not Get Caught.” (Hmm.) I can’t stand reality TV. She loves her new Ford Explorer. I think it lacks pickup and prefer my Honda Pilot. She likes to share our food when we go out to dinner. I stand ready with a knife to stab her hand as it reaches for my plate.

But raising a kid is serious business, so I hoped for as few disagreements as possible. This may be wishful thinking. I have seen how she raised her dog, after all. Murphy was allowed to sleep in her bed with her. Eat from her plate. Bark at anything that walked by. Sit on the couch (to the point where actual humans sit on the floor so as not to disturb him).

I, of course, raised my Vegas the opposite way. He was never allowed on the bed unless I invited him. He never, ever got on the couch. He hardly ever barks and when he does, it is usually for a good reason. And, when I was eating, he was taught to keep an appropriate distance.

Once Murphy moved in, all that great training went out the door. His bad habits have migrated to my dog. And Brooke has facilitated this. She is the only woman I know who feeds the dogs from her plate and then angrily wonders why they are either under her feet or in her face every time she tries to eat lunch or dinner. Hmm. Could there be a correlation?

Anyway, we have had very little disagreement when it comes to Sydney. But the Aug. 30 birthday is a big one. I am not one for big birthday parties. The thought of a dozen kids rolling around in the Hepatitis C-ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese makes me shudder.

I don’t ever remember having a big birthday party when I was a kid. My mom says I did when I was a toddler, but I can tell you that from what I can remember – maybe 5? – I do not remember having more than one friend over on a birthday. Most of my birthdays were just with my family.

As I got older –10, 11? – it meant going out to eat. There was a little Italian restaurant on the other side of town mom would take the family to for a celebration. If we had the money. Remember, we were so poor we went to Tiny Tim’s family for a handout at Christmas.

There was no freaking Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid. We couldn’t afford a skating party. If someone showed up in our neighborhood with one of those gigantic inflatable jumping playgrounds, I can guarantee someone would stick a pin in it and ride off on the party pony while it deflated.

I don’t know what Brooke’s childhood was like, but given that she grew up in suburbia with $400,000 houses, I take it huge birthday parties were as common as BMWs in the driveway. To say we grew up in different worlds is to say Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have a lot of secrets.  You haven’t even scratched the surface.

I know this for sure: Brooke has bought into the present propaganda concerning birthday parties. Most people would. For parents, birthday parties are all about keeping up with the Joneses.

I know someone whose child turned 1 last year and they catered a party. Yes, catered. About 50 adults attended, drinking wine and beer. In reality, it was a party for mom and dad, not for the kid.

The propaganda is never more prevalent than on the Sprout network for kids. They sing happy birthday to kids on a daily basis, running their names across the bottom of the screen. Sydney is being indoctrinated with the philosophy that birthdays are huge events that require tons of screaming kids, an inflatable castle, a pony and a dad walking around with a dazed look of confusion.  

And that’s where I come from on the subject of birthday parties. I don’t need a party for my sake. And Sydney doesn’t even know what a birthday is, let alone what day hers falls on. She’d have as much fun playing with a box as she would with any new toy she receives. She won’t remember it one hour after it ends, let alone for the rest of her life.

Maybe I am just trying to avoid the inevitable Sweet 16 Party with a Mercedes SLK in the driveway. I’ve caught a few episodes of those reality TV shows in passing while Brooke’s been watching. I’m never going to be able to afford that kind of outrageous birthday bash, so I might as well start crushing her dreams at an early age so she has low expectations as she gets older.

Am I a party pooper? Probably. That’s the great thing about being married to the uber-positive, raised-in-the-suburbs, Pollyannaish, life-is-a-bouquet-of-roses, let’s-give-our-kid-the-Beaver-Cleaver-life Brooke. She balances me out. Sydney gets the best of both worlds. My glass is half empty. Brooke’s is half full. Sydney’s is overflowing.

Maybe Sydney will be like me. I’ve always preferred to ignore my birthday, not celebrate it. I don’t like all the attention it brings. My wife likes to take me out to dinner. That is fine with me; I don’t want or need anything more. One birthday I spent walking the 5-mile loop at Lunken Airport. How is that for celebrating?

I kind of hope my daughter adopts my attitude. How about a nice dinner out at Red Lobster with mom and dad, or a trip to the Reds game with your parents and maybe one friend?

But, until she can make those decisions herself, her mom and dad will make them. Which, if you have been reading this blog for any period of time, means her mom will make them.

The invitations are being printed. The cake will soon be made. The relatives have been invited. And yes, the alcohol will be purchased.

Daddy will need it.

Soon, I Will Eat on the Floor With the Dogs

I used to have a pool table. It sat in my dining room and served as both a diversion to boredom and a topic of conversation. I was cool. I always had the pickup line at the bars…"You want to come back to my place for a game of pool?” Yeah, baby. It worked as often as sinking the 8-ball on the break, but at least it gave me a shot.

Now, I have a dining room table sitting where the pool table once stood, a stark symbol of my changed relationship status and loss of coolness. To make matters worse, it doesn’t even function as a dining room table. It is my wife’s scrapbooking table.

Life as a married man.

But, even with marriage, I still watched what I wanted on television (we have two different TVs), I still played cards when I wanted to play (mostly) and I got my drink on with regular gusto.

They say life changes when you get married. For me, life didn’t change much. I married a younger, independent woman who didn’t need me clinging to her 24-7 and was fine with my chosen methods of having fun.

But then came the baby.  

I heard Tiger Woods hit a hell of a shot to win the Memorial golf tournament the other day. I say “heard” because I wasn’t watching, despite the fact I was home and the TV was on.

We were tuned to Sprout, the children’s learning channel. We are pretty much tuned to Sprout whenever the TV is on. I have lost control of my house to a 9 month old.

I no longer watch what I want on television. I have played cards one time since Sydney was born, and that was couple of weeks ago. You don’t get your drink on when you 1) have a daughter to care for and 2) know you will not sleep through the night or get any naps the next day because she demands your attention.

Life as a father.

I’m not complaining. I love my little princess and I’ll sacrifice the TV or playing cards or a few beers to make sure she is happy. But life if far different from when I was single, or even married. Brooke and I used to rock and roll baby, living the nightlife on weekends. Now, we find ourselves using the word “potty” far more than “party.” With apologies to the favorite band of my grade-school years, KISS, I want to sleep all night, and potty every day.

I moved the coffee table in my living room to the basement so my daughter has room to roam around the floor. The coffee table served as my defacto dinner table during my wife’s quest to be the Martha Stewart of scrapbooking. Now, I find a spot on the floor for my glass while my plate of food teeters on my knee.

If you think it is bad for me, you should see my poor dogs. They used to be the “babies.” They were used to getting attention when I came through the door. Now, they’re second-class citizens. They don’t understand why this 18-pound scream machine whom they could knock over with their wagging tail is more important than them.

They clamor for a little scrap of love after Sydney gets her smothering. My German Shepherd is so jealous he has taken to eating the baby’s toys.

Sorry bud, we all have to make sacrifices. You don’t get enough petting. I eat dinner with my plate on my knee. Who has it worse?  

When do I get my house back? You experienced parents can answer that better than I. But I have to believe at some point I can bring back the coffee table, watch true crime on the ID Channel or catch a sporting event on weekend TV.  

Until then, I’ll stay up to date on the Wiggles and Bert and Ernie and rely on YouTube to catch all of Tiger's great tournament-clinching shots.

Oh Where Have you Gone Wile E. Coyote? Chica's selling for $250 a pop!

If you talk sprout to anyone my age, you are talking beans. But I have discovered a whole new Sprout as a parent.

As near as I can tell (and this whole column will be about my observations and thoughts as opposed to me actually looking things up…what fun would that be?) this new Sprout is like the old PBS we had when we were kids. It is a learning channel for kids. It is the station that plays Sesame Street.

Why Sprout? I have no idea. I imagine there is a lot of incredible market research behind it. Or, maybe it just sounds great to kids. These are people who are fascinated by furry puppets who eat a lot of cookies, so it doesn’t take much to make them smile.

I am not sure how we found Sprout, but now that we know where it is, it seems to run on an endless 24-hour cycle in our home. Most of you know I am an ID Channel addict. Not anymore. Now I am a Sproutlet. Yes, that is really what they call their followers.

Don’t get me wrong. My daughter doesn’t sit for hours and watch cartoons. It is more background noise than anything – something we turn it on to keep her entertained in between activities and naps and meals. And most of the time, if we are watching, we are explaining things to her, so it becomes a learning experience.

Kids take their Sprout seriously. I have even seen a Sprout Live insignia at the bottom of the screen while I was watching. Why in the world would children’s television need to be live? This is not CNN with breaking news. The Cookie Monster ate another cookie? Got it. No need to break into regular programming.

Over the past week, I decided to take some notes on what I was watching. I realized that I started to actually know some of the songs they sing on this channel and that led me to believe I was developing “mush head.” This is a disease I attach to parents who spend too much time around kids. Stay-at-home moms or dads are especially susceptible to this. They only talk about their kids, they frequently revert to baby language and tones and they tend to break out in kids songs on a regular basis. Try to discuss the nation’s debt crisis with them and you get a blank stare before they say, “Numbers? Oh, let me tell you about the Counting Song…1, 2, 3, 4 … one less than five, one more than three…” Yeah, I really don’t know the words, but you get the picture.

So, while taking notes to ensure my child was watching quality television, I came to the following conclusions:

·         Cartoons are much more educational than when I was a kid. They try to teach your kids life lessons, along with reading, writing and arithmetic. I watched something that had a bear family in it and they lived in a house that was apparently in the country. They were “rural” bears and the house next door went up for sale and a “city” bear family moved in. There was friction between the daddy rural bear and the daddy city bear because they did things differently. In the end, they became friends and the moral of the story was, just because someone is different, doesn’t mean they are bad. Good life lesson. We didn’t exactly get that kind of information from watching Wile E. Coyote try to blow up the Roadrunner.

·         There is some kid named Caillou who has his own cartoon show. Caillou? Seriously? Were Fred, Joe and Ricky already taken? What are we teaching our kids by giving main characters names like this? Caillou looks a lot like Charlie Brown, so why not call him Charlie? 

·         There is a show, called the Wiggles, about guys who dress up in funny outfits. I have no idea what this show is about, but Sydney seems to like it. They do a lot of singing. She likes anything with singing. But why are they called the Wiggles? Can anyone answer that for me? They need to keep this stuff simple for old guys like me. There is another show called the Pajanimals that features – yes, you guessed it – animals in pajamas. Now THAT is simple.

·         The old Thomas the Engine book is now a show. But he has seven or eight other engine buddies to help him out with his adventures. Cool.

·         There is this little bird called Chica who is apparently the rage with kids. Chica talks with a high-pitched squeak. Sydney loves her. You are supposed to “sing along with Chica and do the tweet, tweet, tweet!” I know Chica’s fandom has hit Justin Bieber-like levels because my wife got the idea to get on Amazon and see if she could find a stuffed Chica for Sydney. Average price? Are you ready for this? You are not, I promise you. Sit down for a sec. Ok, average price….$250. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND? Sydney will get version 6.0 of Chica, when the price comes way down.

·         They do some birthday songs on there and they recognize kids for their birthday. “Hap-pee Hap-pee Birthday to you, to you, to you!” I can’t get the damn song out of my head. I guess the idea is, if you are watching from home and see your name or picture on TV, it is a big deal. It is like Willard Scott for toddlers. But here is my problem with it: parents put their 2-year-old kids up there. They are 2! They barely know their name. They aren’t going to take time out from drooling to even enjoy it and they certainly will never remember it. These are the same kind of parents who take their kid to Disney at age 3 or have huge birthday parties for them when they are still in diapers. If you are going to do this stuff, make sure it is a time in life when they get maximum value out of it.

·         At night – which in kiddie land is about 6 p.m. – they have a Good Night show, or something like that. It features a chick who looks like Lindsay Lohan before the booze. She talks to what looks like a big couch pillow shaped like a blob. But his name is Star, so I think he is supposed to be a star. Makes sense with the good-night theme.

·         Even the commercials are geared toward kids. Sydney is fascinated by a commercial for lights that display images on your ceiling at night time. It looks like an old projection machine and you can project an image of hippopotamus or something like that into your room. When that commercial comes on, she stares intently throughout. I would buy it for her, but it would keep her up at night and if you follow this blog, the one thing Sydney does not need it less sleep. Let me correct that: the one thing Brooke and I do not need is less sleep.

The bottom line on cartoons is our parents had it a lot tougher than us for two reasons:

1) Cartoons were not as educational back in the day. We can justify all of today’s TV watching as learning. TV watching = learning = good parenting. Yeah, that’s it.  

2) We have smart phones and can play Words with Friends or surf the Internet to keep ourselves entertained while the Wiggles are wiggling away on the screen. This, my friends, helps ward off mush head.