Daddy Screws Up, Version 2,652

OK, this is what happened:

Brooke had to pick up a friend from the airport. This left me in charge of bathing and putting Sydney to bed.

The normal routine is Brooke does the bathing and I read the bedtime stories and feed Sydney her bottle, after which, she usually falls asleep. On this night, I handled all three parts of the bedtime routine.

On the times I have handled the bath, I usually let her play for 20 minutes, then spend about five minutes cleaning her, then we are off for the stories. That was my plan this time, too.

Brooke threw me for a loop adding bubbles to the water (she prepared the bath before leaving). I don’t usually do bubbles, but, since they were in there, I figured I’d take advantage of it and let the bubbles self-clean Sydney. This would save me the five minutes of work at the end. The bubbles would clean Sydney while she was playing.

Now, while Sydney plays, I usually sit nearby scrolling my Ipod, setting my Fantasy Football lineups, reading the news of the day or playing Words with Friends. My job is to simply make sure she doesn’t drown. She loves bath time, so I let her play.

So I am scrolling and about 15 minutes into the bath, Sydney stands up. I immediately sit her back down and tell her “NO! We don’t stand in the tub.”

Sydney loves to get this kind of reaction from me. She thinks it is funny and it encourages her to again do whatever it is that drew the reaction.

So, a couple of minutes later, she stands up again. Same routine. I sit her down, tell her “NO” and go back to scrolling. A few minutes later, the same.

This time I tell her, “If you do that again, that is the end of your bath. We are getting out.”

Of course, she does it again two minutes later. I quickly whisked her up, threw her in a towel and walked her to her changing table.

End of bath.

I dried her off, put on her pajamas and read her a few stories. After her bottle, she was ready for bed.

Shortly after she fell asleep, my wife came home. She and her friend sat downstairs talking for a couple of hours and then came up for bed.

My wife goes in the bathroom and then comes running into our bedroom with a horrified look on her face.

“Did you see the tub??”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to drain it. Sydney kept standing up and..”

“NO! There is poop in the bathtub! How long did you have her in there?”

“What? No, she didn’t poop in the tub. I was watching her and…”

“She pooped in the tub. There are three turds in there. It is disgusting. How could you not have noticed?”

“Well, there were bubbles and you can’t see below the bubbles and…”

“I can’t believe you. She is going to be sick from being in that water. You have to pay more attention. You are so non-observant when it comes to watching her. You have to be more observant.”

“Yes, dear.”

At this point, I was totally defeated and feeling like a horrible dad. How could I not have noticed something taking place three feet from me?

That’s the story. If letting her roll off the bed onto the floor wasn’t bad enough, my inattentiveness now has led to my daughter pooping in the tub and me leaving it there for three hours. While Brooke had a friend staying with us.

I’m sure my wife had a fun time explaining what an idiot her husband is.

Thank God Sydney didn’t decide to take a few swallows of bathwater, which she is sometimes apt to do.

Call me Daddy Disaster.

Despite my stereotypical ineptness, I really do love my daughter!

So, if you are used to playing Words With Friends with me, I’m afraid I will no longer be able to carry on a game between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Sorry.   

Hide the Playboys, it's Time to Find a Babysitter

Let’s talk babysitting.

I have no idea how to pick one, how much to pay one or, most importantly, how to trust one.

I’ve recently been thinking about babysitting and that has me pondering how this world has changed. Babysitting, like everything else, has evolved over the past generation.  

I’m not saying the art of watching children has changed. If you were skilled in that in 1970, you are skilled in that now. Actually, if you were skilled in that in 1970, you might be dead now. Or at least using a walker to get around, and that would make it tough to be a good babysitter.

What I am talking about is what babysitting says about us as a society. Gone are the days of calling up grandma or the trusted neighbor down the street. We are much more mobile now and that makes it much more difficult to find a good babysitter.

I also want to clarify that I believe babysitting and child care to be two different things. Child care is something one does as a profession. I formerly sat on the board of 4C, the local child care education and referral agency, and am fairly knowledgeable about child care and brain development from birth to 3. You want a child care professional spending 10 hours a day, five days a week with your child, not a babysitter.

Child care professionals take this s--t seriously. This is a permanent job for them, not a temporary gig. It involves teaching and developing children, not just making sure they don’t set the house on fire.

It is when my child care provider has an emergency and needs the day off that I must turn to a babysitter.

In fact, that’s really what got me thinking about this. Our provider needed a day off to put her dog to sleep. Sidebar: This situation just about brings me to tears, and it is not even my dog.  I am a dog owner and lover. I barely knew this dog, but the plight of anyone having to put their dog down sends me spiraling. I know it is a choice I will have to make one day with my 9-year-old German Shepherd, Vegas, or my 8-year-old Weimaraner, Murphy, and I am sure I will be a blubbering mess when it happens.

So, my child care provider needed a day off. But that meant that either Brooke or I had to take off work. In fact, any time our provider has a day off, one of us is cashing in a vacation day.

That is the state of our society today. Thirty years ago, generations of families lived within the same town, if not on the same block. If you needed someone to temporarily watch your child, you had a half dozen people to choose from. A couple of grandmas, aunts, uncles, even a trusted neighbor.

But, over the past generation, society has become much more mobile. I ended up in Cincinnati because of a job and stayed because I liked the town. Brooke went to school here and stayed. Neither of us has family in this area. Mine is four hours away, hers is six.

When we need a babysitter, we are s—it out of luck. Whether it be an emergency day off from our child care provider, a wild Friday night on the town or even something as simple as having to work late – we don’t really have anyone to turn to.

I’m sure there are people who would do it for us. We have friends. But they work during the day, too. We know some people with children in their teens. But they go to school and have after-school activities.

I envy people whose families live in Cincinnati. They simply dial a number and say, “Mom, I have to work late tonight. Can you get Johnny from school today?” My wife and I have to play the game of “who has more important things going on at work?” Or even, “who will get in more trouble for taking off?”

Another sidebar: Work is important and all, but you know when a babysitter would really come in handy? Saturday and Sunday mornings. It would change my life. Not only could I catch up on all the sleep I miss during the week, but I could do a little guilt-free partying on Friday and Saturday nights because I would have someone to watch the Berenstein Bears with the little one in the morning.   

I’m not saying we couldn’t find a babysitter if we really put out the effort. But the truth is, I’m afraid to leave my child with someone. I work in the child protection field. I hear stories every day of terrible things happening to children. I don’t want Sydney falling down the basement steps because my babysitter was distracted by an intense texting conversation with her BFF over which country song best resembles her current love life. Nor do I want the husband of one of my wife’s friends, who might drink 13 beers to "wind down" at night, giving my daughter a hard shake because she is making too much noise.

In her 13 months, Sydney has been watched by my mom for a week while we went to a wedding in California, my mom for a night when we went to a local wedding, and by my wife’s friend for three hours while we cashed in an expiring Groupon for a Cajun dinner.  Other than grandma and Libby, and her child care provider, Amber, she has spent all of her time with either mom or dad.

I know this can’t last. Something will come up that we have to be at. Or want to be at. Like a Ryan Gosling movie. Or a Justin Bieber concert. I need to break down and find a babysitter. I’m going to have to trust someone.

I guess I’ll start with the kids of friends. But how do you know if someone is trustworthy? Every parent is going to say their kid can babysit. And there are a lot of kids who can do everything right in every other walk of life, but they might get stressed by a crying baby and give them a good shake to settle them down.

I guess I could interview them and background check them like I did my child care provider, but what 16-year-old can hold up to that kind of scrutiny? Besides, aren’t all kids a bit irresponsible? When I was that age, I would have considered myself more responsible than most, but I remember visiting my girlfriend while she was babysitting and attempting to get my groove on while the children slept in the nearby bedroom.

Lest you think I was a complete knucklehead, please be aware that I cared for my younger brother and sister after school when I was about 13. I cooked the hot dogs or mac and cheese or Hamburger Helper when mom worked late. The house did not burn down. No one got arrested. My sister did get hit by a car once, but I was right there loading her into the ambulance when it came. 

But that was a simpler time. When I was a kid, my mom could have left me with any of our neighbors and I would have been fine. But nowadays, you never know if your neighbor is a psychopath and you’ll come home to find your child cooking in the microwave.

A friend of mine is a teacher. He gets all his sitters from his pool of students. That’s bold. I’d be afraid they’d rummage through my personal affects and I would show up at school on Monday to rumors that I have a prized Playboy collection dating back to 1988.

Not that I do. (Wink, wink.)

If I do finally find a babysitter, how much do I pay them? I was talking to a guy the other day who said he pays $15 an hour. So if he and the wife go out for Happy Hour to closing time, or spend a Saturday night at a wedding, he’s spending $100 on child care, as well as what he spent taking the wife out or buying the wedding present.

That’s a little out of my public-employee pay range. Plus, that guy has three kids. I have one. I’m thinking maybe $8 an hour? Here’s where writing a blog comes in handy -- you tell me what the going rate is these days.

There is so much that goes into this babysitting decision. Who to pick, how much to pay, where to hide the Playboy collection….I long for a simpler time when my street was filled with relatives and trusted neighbors who longed for nothing more than to earn $2.50 an hour watching babies.

Massillon, Ohio, circa 1978, I’m coming home. Keep the light on for me.

Hide the Batteries or Sofia Vergara will be Speaking Spanish

My daughter – at the age of 1 – already has a cache of toys that could fill a corner of Toys-R-Us.

We are thinking about switching her middle name to Mattel.

Which one does she like best? Well, it is a tie between the television remote, her mom’s phone, her dad’s phone and her dad’s laptop.

That’s right. All that good money spent on toys and they come in a distant second place to anything that is not hers.

Her fascination goes beyond the shiny gadgets. She’d rather play with a photo album or a water bottle then her toys. Anything that she is not supposed to have is automatically something she wants, like a teen-age girl chasing the burn-out bad boys with juvenile delinquent records.

Is my kid the only kid like this?

It is frustrating with a capital F because I can sit her in front of this mountain of toys to play and instead she crawls over, grabs the remote and starts putting my TV into some sort of state that I cannot reverse, so that I end up watching Modern Family reruns in Spanish.

For awhile, my wife and I debated quitting our jobs and designing and manufacturing remote controls for children. They would look and act like the real thing, but have nothing to do with the television. We would trick the babies into thinking they were the real deal. We would make a mint.

Then my mom smartly said, “Why don’t you just take the batteries out?”

Out of the mouths of old fogeys...

So now, when Sydney insists on playing with the remote, the batteries come out. This is disappointing for her, because she has learned to look at the TV for changes when she starts pushing buttons.

How do kids learn such cause and effect at such a young age?

When I was a kid, we didn’t have remotes. In fact, I WAS the remote. I remember my dad yelling at me to come in from out in the yard and change the TV so he wouldn’t have to get off the couch and walk seven yards to the old black and white. Luckily, there were only four stations back then and I only had to stand there for a couple of minutes while he made a decision. Today, I’d turn for an hour as he decided between storage units, pawn shops and Real Housewives.

My daughter knows exactly what she is doing. When I have my laptop out, she stealthily crawls toward it, smiling all the way. She quietly pulls on the couch to get herself standing and then, not so subtly, begins to bang on my keyboard like a bongo drummer.

Then she looks right into my eyes and laughs. What you gonna do, dad?

She’s 1. I can tell her a hundred times “NO!” and it doesn’t register. She’s still in that delightful – for kids -- discipline-free age bracket.

We have learned to roll with it. If she is going to play with my phone, I try to put it on the ringtones setting or the pictures setting so that she is doing less harm. She loves to scroll through the pictures, delicately taking her index finger and moving them side to side. (Again, how do kids learn this stuff at such a young age???) I guess it is better than her calling 9-1-1.

One day, she called a reporter I had been dealing with through work. On a Saturday. Uggh.

My wife has started finding games on her I-Phone for Sydney to play. She likes to watch videos of Disney characters singing songs. A friend pointed out this app where a tom cat repeats everything you say. I can say “Sydney, don’t play with the phone!” and the tom cat will repeat it word-for-word. Sydney just giggles. Still, that is pretty sweet. I hope whoever invented that is a millionaire.

My wife and I would like an I-pad, but the truth is, we really shouldn’t spend the money right now. But, with all the games and things Sydney can play, it almost makes it impossible not to. It would at least give us our own gadgets back.

Maybe I can sell her toys on E-bay to pay for it.   

Control Freak and Daddy Not a Good Mix

I used to hate kids.

Well, I hated unruly kids. Ok, I actually hated the parents of unruly kids.

Now, I have sympathy for them.

In my previous life, it would not be unusual for me to visit a Skyline Chili by myself. I’d hunker in with my USA Today sports page and my five-way chili and look to lose myself for a half hour. Then, just as I was about to bite into that tasty cheesy-chili concoction, some kid would start wailing. Or start running around the restaurant. Or just be annoying in general.

This scenario played out in many ways in many places. It could be the seat next to me on an airplane. It could be the line at the post office. It could be the movie theater. It could even be my own house when some relative or friend brought their kids over.

One time, I was on vacation with a good buddy and his family. We went to a seafood restaurant and his 2-year-old proceeded to take every butter packet out of the big dish on the table and throw it under the table. One by freaking one. His parents acted like nothing was happening. I was incredulous.

As a former know-it-all, I would get extremely frustrated with the annoying behavior and blame the parent.

Shame on me.

Last night, I took my daughter out for her 1-year birthday. She loves macaroni and cheese and a nearby restaurant, the Keystone Grill, happens to specialize in that. We thought it would be nice for her.

She spent the first part of dinner opening the menu, paging through it and then throwing it down on the ground. Again and again.

She spent the rest of dinner eating macaroni and cheese with her fingers and dropping the majority of it on the ground. She was a cheesy mess when it was all said and done. Then, she topped dinner off by throwing her sippy cup on the ground. Over and over.

My wife and I basically ignored her behavior. We picked the cup up over and over. We picked the menu up over and over. Eventually we would take them away. Occasionally, we would say “No.” Sometimes, we tried to divert her attention to something else.

I’m sure people thought we were bad parents. What they didn’t realize is it could have been much worse. Take the cup or menu away, try to feed her with a spoon when all she wants to do is shove a fistful of macaroni in her mouth – these types of actions could lead to a crying meltdown.

The truth is, I have become immune to some of the bad actions of my 1-year-old. I overlook things as to not make them worse. 

One thing that I am starting to grasp is that kids of a young age do not have the ability to determine right or wrong and cannot be taught to be responsible for their actions. This is hard for a control freak lie me, but I am giving into this notion.

You ever try to reason with a 1-year-old? Sydney gets this look of consternation on her face like, “Dad, why are you talking to me in this tone?” Then she goes right about doing what she was doing in the first place.

She doesn’t understand sticking her face under water in the bathtub can kill her, how is she going to understand that throwing her sippy cup in the floor is a no-no?

Trying to "teach" her only makes it worse.

Dad: “Sydney, I am taking this sippy cup away because you keep throwing it on the ground.”

Sydney: "Huh? I'm 1. I have no idea what the words coming out of your mouth mean."

Tears. Wailing. Until she gets the sippy cup back. Then quiet, except for the occasional throwing of it.

So, as parents, we make a choice. I don’t mind bending over to pick up a sippy cup every now and then, I guess.   

Sydney is starting to get whiny. Especially for her mother.

Sidenote: Yeah, this hurts. Mom leaves the room, daughter cries. Dad tries to play with her, read to her, watch television with her, Sydney cries. Mom comes back into the room, Sydney quits crying. Dad realizes he is nothing but chopped liver and starts crying himself. End of sidenote.

So, when Sydney starts whining for her mom or crying for no really good reason, my inclination is to stop her annoying behavior. My attempts range from reasoning (Sydney, this is not how we act in this family. You can’t get what you want by crying.) to stating my case (Sydney, your mom is not the only person in the world. I am a good guy. Give me a chance!) to yelling (STOP CRYING! ARRGGGHHH!) to giving a soft tap on the butt to get her attention and telling her "NO!"

Sydney’s reaction to these various methods of control range from continuing the bad behavior, to increasing the bad behavior to laughing at me for thinking my soft tap on her behind would mean anything to her.

You can imagine how this plays with me. Especially in public. As I have said before, I do not like to be embarrassed and have all eyes on me. When Sydney gets going, I get flabbergasted and that makes the situation worse.

More than once, my wife has had to come to my rescue. She picks Sydney up and pulls her away as I sit wondering what the hell I am doing wrong as a parent.

Being a control freak and a dad to a toddler do not really mesh. One of my friends pointed out to me the other day that her teen-age son does not always, shall we say, do the right thing. Some of those screw ups have involved the police. She said this used to frustrate and mortify her because she felt it was her fault and a reflection of her as a parent. She would immediately dive in to help and get control of the situation so she would not look bad to her peers.

Now, she realizes he has his own personality quirks that have nothing to do with her parenting. He is not a clone of her, but his own individual. And, he can solve his own problems.

By the way, she has an older daughter who has rarely ever given her trouble. Don’t we all know families where one child is an angel and the other is devilish? You can’t have been a good parent to one and a bad parent to the other, right? So it really is more about the personality of the child as opposed to you as a parent.

Take it a GIANT step forward. Some kids grow up to be great successes in life, career, love, etc., but they have brothers or sisters who are criminals or drug addicts or unemployed or thrice divorced. Raised in the same environment, but drastically different. Nature wins over nurture.

Anyway, my friend got me thinking that the same logic applies to my 1-year-old. My daughter’s whininess, or even a public fit, are not indicative of my parenting. I do not have to be a control freak and immediately jump in and fix the situation.

At least that is what I am telling myself these days.  

This is not an excuse, mind you. This is a philosophy until Sydney gets old enough to truly know right from wrong and can understand consequences, punishment, etc. I don’t know what age that starts, but that is when the idea of discipline starts.

My brother, Little Dick, does a really good job with his 5-year-old. I’ve seen him in a restaurant and when the kid gets whiny, they go to the rest room to talk it out. He also effectively uses “time out.” The kid is well-behaved.   

Another friend of mine gets creative with the punishment. He has a young boy who likes to play video games. He becomes these “characters” in the video games. You can actually purchase the characters in real life; they are little toys. When the boy misbehaves, dad takes away a character and his son can never be that character again in the video game. That really sucks for a 4 year old.

That’s just a tool he uses. This guy has the best behaved young boys I have ever met. When he talks, they listen. It probably doesn’t hurt that he was a chopper pilot in Afghanistan for several years. When you are dealing with the chaos of WAR, a couple of unruly kids is nothing.

Other parents I know have kids who are old enough to know better who behave terribly. Those parents – well, they suck and I still hate them. They are giving us all a bad name.

But to those of you I maligned when you had your babies or 2 year olds or even 3 year olds at Skyline or on the airplane or in line at the post office, I have two words:

I’m sorry.   

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.

One Year of Blogging in the Books

A lot can happen in a year.

I know it is a cliché. But this has been the most life-changing year in the 46 I’ve spent on earth.

Sometimes I feel like a coked-out teenager. Other times, like a grandfather on his last legs. Always, like a contestant on the Biggest Loser, sweating through my exhaustion to make it just one more step.

I live a life of schizophrenia. Parenting has a lot of highs and lows.

My original goal for this blog when I started it one year ago was to capture Sydney’s life so she could someday look back on it and understand what she was like as a baby. Somehow, that goal morphed into providing a humorous take on parenting that every parent can relate to. Rarely are my posts specifically about Sydney and how she spent her day; they are mostly topical about experiences all parents share.

I still think Sydney will get a good idea of what her life was like. She’ll probably be embarrassed by the many mentions of poopy diapers, crying and other every-day baby experiences. Hopefully, she will laugh. I know Brooke and I both like to laugh – especially at ourselves – and I assume our daughter will be the same way.

One thing I hope she will surmise is that she was a baby who was loved and cherished beyond any words I can express in this blog.

I don’t know how long this blog will last. The posts are sporadic now. It seems like every-day life is a little more mundane after the baby is born. Wake up. Change the diaper. Feed. Play time on the floor. Play time in the Jumperoo. Change diaper. Feed. Play time…..you get the picture.

We’ve had teeth break through. We’ve had the first words. We’re waiting on the first steps. None provide enough fodder for a really funny blog post. I am not thrown into as many absurd situations (bloody delivery room, breastfeeding classes, black-tar poops, etc.) as early on. Maybe the absurdity kicks back in with walking and talking and getting out in the public. I’m sure the first playground fight will make for a good column, especially if I have to punch out a fellow father who is not controlling his bratty kid.

So, if this is the lull, it is time to reflect. What have I really learned as a first-year parent? Here we go:

·       The “you’ll-never-sleep” warnings are absolutely real. I can count on one hand the number of times I have slept more than six hours at once in the past 11 months. We were blessed with an insomniac. She wakes up at least once, and most often twice, between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. (which is about her wake-up time). She has recently started fighting us about even going to bed at 9.

And it is better now than it has ever been for her. We used to have three or four wake ups a night.

I used to have a problem sleeping. I have an unused bottle of Zolpidem sitting on my night-stand, enticingly calling out to me for a night when there is no Sydney or work the next day. I had trouble falling asleep and trouble staying asleep. In fact, once I woke up, I was up for good. But getting up once or twice a night with Sydney has changed that. Now, I can fall asleep faster than Ann Curry’s career fell apart.

·       Children progress at their own pace. Nearly every week, my wife is ready to take our daughter to a neurologist. “The book says she should be doing this by now and she is not! There is something majorly wrong with her!” You would think someone educated and skilled in the subject of child development would know better, but when it is your own child, you tend to panic a bit.

I on the other hand, am much more nonchalant. She’ll crawl when she wants to, talk when she wants to, eat when she wants to, etc. No worries. Be happy.

I never cracked a book on baby development. The only Dr. Spock I know is that guy with the funny ears on Star Trek. My wife has all these magazines and books she reads and all it does is drive her crazy with worry. I proudly go with my gut on parenting. Call me Daddy Instinct. If she is turning blue, I check to make sure she is breathing. Other than that, it is all good.

·        Everybody is a parenting expert. We get advice from everyone. Some of it is good, mind you, and I appreciate it. But each child is different and you have to handle them differently. It is easy to say “just let her cry it out when she wakes up at night.” But after you’ve tried it once or twice, and she cries for two hours in the middle of the night, you realize that feeding her a bottle for 15 minutes and then putting her right back to sleep is a better way to keep your sanity.

Some of the people who are giving advice have done a shitty job of raising their own children. “I always gave junior a little whiskey in his bottle to help him sleep through the night. Just a touch.” And you wonder why Junior is on his third DUI arrest? If your kid is a drug user, habitual criminal, pathological liar, high school dropout or member of the Tea Party, you forfeit the right to give me parenting advice.

You’d be surprised how many older people look at us like we have no idea what we are doing. “Well, when I was raising my children back in the 1960s, we always let them sleep on their bellies, ride in the car without a car seat and we weren’t afraid to give them a good shaking if they didn’t listen.”

Yeah, sounds like a plan.

·       You can forget about your own desires. I’ve recounted my lost life here before. I like to watch a tiny bit of TV every now and then. Now, the only thing that is ever on in our house anymore is the Sprout network. I like to play a little poker, too. Not happening. Weekends with friends? Once every six months.

My life is pretty much work and Sydney. I RECENTLY added the gym to that schedule, at my wife’s pleading. Yeah, I really desire that.

My point is, there’s someone else in your life now who is far more important than you are.

·        My wife is a freaking parenting goddess. I’d be lost without her. She handles the bulk of the caregiving. She’s changed triple the number of diapers, prepared double the number of bottles, handled almost every bath and is the go-to parent when Sydney is upset. My main responsibility has been late-night feedings.

When we get a divorce, I’m going to lose custody to her because I can’t even make a good argument that I have been an equal parent. (Just trying to see if you are paying attention, honey! No plans for divorce.)

·       Poop and puke become just another normal part of your day. I’ve handled more Explosive Ass Disorder (EAD) events than a bedpan in a nursing home. Poop flies everywhere when you have a baby. The other day, I was being a little nonchalant while changing her and a turd dropped on the couch. Ho hum.

Puke is not as frequent, but it is funny how quickly you become immune to watching your daughter send everything in her stomach right back at you. We have bought special bibs that actually CATCH THE PUKE at the bottom when the texture of Sydney’s green beans are too much for her to handle. Whoever invented those things should be an absolute millionaire. I think that might be my gift for every friend who has a baby between now and the end of my life.

·       Speaking of gifts, you get a lot of them. It is unbelievable how generous people are when you have a little one on the way. Essentially, it is a free pass to ask for anything you want. How do you think I got my big-screen television? We said we needed it to watch Sydney’s home videos and some sappy relative fell for it.

Ok, I exaggerate. But believe me, I am extremely grateful that having a baby has not put me in the poor house and that is where I would be if my friends and relatives had not been so giving.

·       Mommy will always be #1. This stinks worse than an EAD, but it is true. I’m as popular as a tax increase some days. Sydney’s first instinct when she is hurt or disturbed is to yell “ma-ma.’ I think she actually says “da-da” more often, but I’m not sure it means much to her. Looking at the wall? Da-da. Looking at the dog? Da-da. Looking at the mailman? Da-da.

When she needs something, it is ma-ma.

I’m chalking it up to breastfeeding. We all know the person with the biggest breasts always wins.

·       Having a child is the greatest thing to ever happen to me. I’ve made no secret that I wasn’t hot on having children. I’m closer to the grave than the cradle and I was hoping to ease into an early retirement. Now, the chances are I will be working until I am 70. And I’ll be the grandpa-looking-dude chasing kids around the soccer field while fathers half my age let me lean on them for support so my back doesn’t give out.

My wife says I never admit when I am wrong. Brooke, I was wrong.

Sydney has brought absolute joy to my life. I think about her a hundred times a day. She’s not even out of diapers and I think about her first day of school, taking her on college visits, her career choice, being at her wedding.

Most of all, I can’t wait to get home each night and see that smile when I walk through the door. I have been to press events at the White House with two different presidents; conducted interviews inside NFL and Major League Baseball locker rooms; talked with, and written about, music and film stars. I can honestly say I have more anticipation of seeing that little girl’s smile every evening than I did any of those.

My emotions are deeper than they have ever been. There is not a day goes by that she doesn’t do something that makes me laugh out loud. I read a story about a child dying or catching a disease and I’m immediately nervous for Sydney. I see some event in the newspaper that I would previously never get caught dead at and I excitedly think, “Maybe I should take Sydney to that. She would love that.” I think about all the great events ahead in her life and fear that I won’t last to be a part of them.

Sydney, with apologies to my wife, has become the love of my life. All in one year.

If this is the lull, I will take it. It has been a hectic year. I’ve learned about baby showers, $450 strollers, crapping in the delivery room, dastardly doulas and nipple confusion. I’ve changed dozens of diapers and prepared hundreds of bottles. I laughed. I cried. I danced. I slept…well, maybe not so much.

If this is a lull, I can use the break. It might not lead to good blog fodder, but it will keep me sane.

There will be a lot of highs and lows in the future. I just pray I’m around to experience them. 

If Chuck Norris isn't Available, Grandma is a Good Choice

My wife and I recently went on a six-day trip to California wine country.

Notice I said my wife and I. No Sydney.

Six days with no Sydney!!!You would think that would elicit excitement. Instead, I was full of dread.   

Leaving your child with someone else for an extended period of time is a scary experience. Even if that someone is your mom.

There isn’t anyone in my life I trust more than my mom. But we are talking about the most precious thing in the world to me. Leaving Sydney with my mom is like jumping out of a plane with Chuck Norris. It isn’t something I really want to do, but if I have to, I want Chuck Norris beside me. Chuck Norris is indestructible.

My mom could be in the Mom Hall of Fame. This is a woman who almost single-handedly raised three children. I was born when she was 17, my brother came along three years later and my sister three years after that. At 23, she had three children and, soon thereafter, a broken marriage. Those are nearly insurmountable odds. I would certainly crack under them.

But my mom is Super Woman. She worked, first as a waitress and then taking care of mentally ill people, and she sacrificed. She tried to do everything she could for her kids. You don’t realize it when you are young and asking for a toy or money to get something to eat, but those dollars were very scarce in our family. Mom would do without so we could do with.

It wasn’t easy. I remember eating huge pots of ham and bean soup or potato soup for a couple weeks at a time because that was all we could afford.  We would move from apartment to apartment because the rent would go up or we couldn’t pay the rent or some other landlord-related reason. For much of my childhood, we didn’t have a phone in the house. I’d use the corner pay phone to chat up my high school girlfriend, sometimes standing in the cold and snow for hours trying to get my love on. You know how teenagers are on the phone.

“I don’t have a quarter. You make sure you call me tomorrow at 5:30 on the dot, that is when I will be standing by the phone.” Could I be any less cool?

Now, that I have a kid, I know how much you want to give them everything you can in life to make sure they are successful. I imagine there were many nights my mom cried herself to sleep because there were things she couldn’t give us.

But she gave us the important things. The things that really matter and the things that make a person successful in life. We all turned out to be quality people. No wife beaters or child abusers. No thieves or robbers. No drug addicts. None of us have spent time in a jail or committed any crime worthy of mention in any newspaper. All three are contributing members of society who work hard to take care of their children and teach them the very same values mom taught us.

My mom shouldn’t just be in the Mom Hall of Fame, she should be the first bust you see when you walk in the door.  

So, if I have to leave my baby with someone, it is going to be my mom. She is the Chuck Norris of moms.

But it wasn’t easy.

My wife and I were kind of basket cases about leaving Sydney. My wife wrote a detailed schedule of Sydney’s daily routine, down to the minute. She stocked up on Sydney’s food and diapers and baby wipes so my mom would have no need while we were gone. She walked my mom through the whole house, explaining how Sydney used this toy or what she did with that gadget.

I’m pretty damn sure my mom was thinking, “I have done this three times, you know. Started when I was 17, long before you came into this world. You see that slug over there who you are married to? He is only still walking this earth because of my skills as a parent.”

I decided my role would be to talk to my 14-year-old nephew – who was along to help grandma – and explain that if he shook or dropped my baby while I was gone he would have a hard time getting out of the cement shoes I was going to make for him just before I dropped him into the Ohio River.

He got the picture, believe me.

Leaving was emotional. Brooke cried. I might have had some mistiness in my eyes. My friends have been going through this for years. I used to think my buddies would be happy to get away from the kids and party it up for awhile on our out-of-town trips. Now I know leaving your kid is difficult.

But lord, Brooke was 100 times worse than me. We were in San Francisco for a couple of days and then wine country for a few and all she ever talked about was Sydney.

“Hey, honey,” I said, as our boat approached Alcatraz Island, one of the most notorious prisons in our nation’s history. “I see why they call this place The Rock. It looks like it was built on a pile of rocks dumped in the bay.”

“I hope your mom remembers to rock Sydney if she gets cranky,” she responded.

Or, when we traveled over the Golden Gate Bridge and I remarked about its rusty-orange color and she replied, “Aww, it is the same color as the carrots I feed Sydney.”

In Chinatown?  “I wonder if Sydney will like Chinese food when she gets older? We are going to make sure she tries lots of different food so she experiences everything.”

It was a little different in wine country. There, the Sydney discussions took place over wine tastings which often brought out the tears. And maybe some hiccups.

“I miss our little girl,” she sobbed. “You don’t care about her and you don’t care about me. I can’t believe you would, hiccup, separate us for this long. You are the worst husband in the world. Now pass me, hiccup, another bottle of wine, honey.”

These discussions were often followed by questions of “Are you sure you are ok to drive home?” and, a little later, declarations of “Take me you big stud!”

But I digress.

Thank god for Facetime. Do you remember when we were kids and the Jetsons could see the people they were talking to on the phone? Who would have ever thought that would happen?

Every day, my wife would Facetime my mom so she could see Sydney. Each time, I would pray Sydney didn’t have any bruises from falling or she didn’t immediately cry at the sight of her mother. If either one of those things occurred, Brooke would have had me ponying up $200 to change our tickets and fly back early.

She was always good. And it was clear we thought about her far more than she thought about us. She seemed to be having fun, bouncing in her Jumperoo or rolling around on the floor or going to the park or visiting a restaurant with grandma.

In fact, she pretty much ignored our Facetiming efforts. Occasionally, she would look our way and smile or laugh. But most of the time, her attention was on her rusty-orange carrots or Sprout TV or even my 14-year-old nephew who was busy consuming enough candy, soda and pizza at my expense that I could have paid for a third flight to California.

(On the subject of said slacker nephew: I’m surprised she even knew he was there. We spent 144 hours away and he spent 100 of those hours Facetiming with his girlfriend, my mom said. They would fall asleep at night together, while Facetiming. Good lord. You know how teenagers are on the phone.)

But at least the Facetime gave Brooke peace of mind. I was concerned she wasn’t having a good time because she was so preoccupied with Sydney. But she did manage to enjoy herself.

When it was time to head home, however, she made sure I drove 100 mph to the airport and she threatened a hijacking should there be any delays with our flight home.

When we finally got back, Sydney was safe and sound. She actually looked like she had some fun and bonded with grandma. She sure didn’t look like she missed us.

So, one trip down and dozens more to go over the next 18 years. But it was tough. I almost look forward to the teenage years when she hates me and skipping town will be a relief for both of us. But that will bring a whole new set of worries, such as locking the liquor cabinet and hiring Chuck Norris to guard the house from boys.