2 Months Going on Sixteen. . .

Is it possible that baby girl hates me already? Yesterday was "Wed with Daddy #3." Wed #2 was a wash, literally. The weather was rainy, and cold, so we got stuck indoors. Needless to say there weren't too many photo opportunities. All in all it went well.

This past week, baby girl has been a terror with me. It may or may not have anything to do with serving her a bottle with maybe a bit too warm mamma's milk which may or may not have burned her mouth. Even before this hasty hot feed, baby girl was not wanting to be consoled by me, or better yet I was not able to give her a sense of security and calm like mamma.

It's been difficult these days since her tear ducts are in full working order. Those big teary eyes eventually lead to big tear drops. It breaks my heart each time I see her cry, knowing that I am unable to really help her, or she doesn't want my help. The esteem of being a father has been an all time these days with baby girl not even like making eye contact with me nor does she like to be held by me. She prefers non face to face type of hold- like over the shoulder, where she looks towards my back, or she prefers to be held so that she can look out and avoid having an engaging moment with pappa. Mamma on the other hand can just snug her really tight up to her face when she's crying and instantly she's laughing and smiling.

I already feel guilty about working so much and not being able to spend as much time as I would like with my baby girl, but there was a time when I could console her instantly, there was a time when we could hang out. Theses days I'm begining to think she already hates me.

Yesterday, Wed #3, baby girl screamed and cried at the top of her little lungs, get all red in the face, pump her fists in rage, and then after some prolonged time she would get exhausted and pass out for about an hour. On top of all this, she refused all pacifiers, as well as milk. We were at an all time low for diaper changes due to lack of fluids. What's a dad to do? Eventually daddy got smart and wrapped up the bottle in a burp cloth, so that there was this new magical nipple thing that had milk in it, instead of this bottle that scared her or made her upset. I've yet to read in any book, that there may be a time when you have to hide the physical presence of a bottle cuz it doesn't look like mamma's boobs.

So that's the story, not a pretty one, not a fun one, but it's been rough. All in all this is my baby, I don't hate her, nor am I angry, I'm just wondering, where's da love?

At least this morning was a nice moment with her, smiles, laughs and a successful feeding via covered bottle. Each day is a new day, and hopefully each week is better than the one before.

Happy 8 weeks old, baby girl!

Can't Stop Til You Get Enough!

Caffeine, ". . .is arguably the most robust form of drug self-administration known to man." It is this widely available drug that is keeping me from falling over sideways while riding my bike, or falling asleep on my clients.

After 4 weeks of sleeping for approx 100-120 minutes and then waking up for 5-40 mins, and then sleeping for 100-120 minutes, and repeating this 4 times a night, my body is spent.

Babymamma is not not snoring anymore and waking me up every night, nor do I have sleep apnea. The sleep deprivation that I've gone through the last month has been hitting me hard.

I've always been a 1 cup (ok it's a large 16oz mug) of green tea kind of guy during the work days. I wouldn't say I was addicted to caffeine, but I just enjoyed the slow release of caffeine that was laced into my day. On mornings of emergency, I'll admit I would drink that awful black sludge at work with a packet of hot chocolate to make it tolerable (poor man's cafe mocha).

These past 2-3 weeks have been 160z green tea in the morning, and another "cup" in the afternoon around 2pm. On my early morning meetings day which only happen once a month, I treat myself to 160z Peet's Coffee, splash of milk, and 1 sweet and low. On really tired days when I'm dragging and not feeling the tea, I'll get a sugar free Red Bull and call it a day, I'm good til the evening. Typically when I've drank Red Bull, I would be wired and get the caffeine shakes, and pee every 15mins. These days the afternoon Red Bull is nothing but a smooth delivery of caffeine with no real ill effects like the shakes, caffeine headaches, nor does "it give me wings," I guess this only affirms how tired I am on any given afternoon.

While Red Bull is not something I like to indulge in daily, nor does baby want me to spend all her college money on a $2 can of Caffeine, frugal daddy decided to try(or plan to try) some other caffeinated beverages. Mountain Dew is so something I OD'ed on in high school, so I don't wish to regress to liquid yellow. So it's on to fancy new products like:

1. Propel Invigorating Water: Good flavor, 2omg of the big C, and it's a non-carbonated beverage. While I found the caffeine delivery to be fast and sudden, it did give me a quick jolt, and got the shakes. Als,o since I was drinking water+diuretic (caffeine) I was heavily hydrated and thought I was going to wet my pants today like my baby.

2. Owater infused w/caffeine: Another non carbonated water drink with flavor and caffeine. This is probably the next product I'll sample in the next month.

3. Pimp Juice: I hope in the near future I'll get my hands on "the #1 hip hop energy drink." As they say, "its hard out here for pimp," and if it works for Nellly, it can work for this daddy.

The moral of this story is that this dad is tired, and despite catching z's when he can, regardless of how many hours of sleep I actually get, I can't seem to catch up on the sleep that I've lost. Sometimes I think this is really just the beginning of a lifetime of just being tired and having stank coffee breadth for the rest of my baby's 18 years of life.

Save a dad and pick up some caffeine for him in any form that's necessary.

Weds with Daddy

Mamma is away interning today. It's a sweet deal, she get to go into the office 1 day a week, and then the other day she gets to work from home. While she's away, for the next 5 weds, I've decided to hang out with you you, who knows who's going to watch in a month or so, but for now, you're all mine.

Morning went well, mamma fed you and you were out. Which led me to hold you while mamma rediscovered morning routines that involve leaving the house before noon. While you were fast asleep, I got to catch up on some headlines on ESPN.

After your little nap, you tried out a silicone nippled bottle for the first time, what do you think? My guess that it was weird, but it ain't like daddy's got anything better to offer you, so you ate and that was that. I imagine that you missed your mamma's presence because you were just cryin' and crying for no reason. I could have done Cirque du Soleil tricks you still would have thought I was lame. Finally I thought about going back to basics, and tied you to my back. It kept you happy for 20 mins or so, and then that got kind of got boring, and you let me know. At least while you were on my back, I got a start on washing your diapers, cuz ya know what, you only had 2 clean diapers this AM, :(

Somehow, you did manage to nap a bit, and I got to catch up on some news and what not. Somehow I had all these ideas of getting things done, scanning old photos, scrubbing the floors,, little did I know. After another bottle feeding, I got you all dressed up for a walk down the street. Daddy needed to go out, and so as a responsible adult, you came along via stroller. It was raining, but it wasn't too cold.

Not sure if you know this baby, but we live close to some pretty rough looking places. We walked by an old gas station, a bar, oil changing place, several car repair garages, including a cab repair garage, needless to say, daddy pushing the snap n go, was probably quite the sight today. We didn't see no other babies today, or parents out with their kids. Nor did we go to baby friendly places like Babies R Us, or the library. We walked straight to Advance Auto Parts. Daddy had to go buy oil and oil filter so he can change the oil this week. If you were only awake, you would have seen a young Ludacris look alike giving daddy the eye as we backed into the store, stroller and all. I'm sure he wasn't giving us the eye due to the single digit sized rims on the stroller, but more so that he ain't never seen an asian brotha pushing his baby girl into Advance Auto. We got our stuff and we were on our way. Next stop the bank.

We pull up to the ATM, and woman at the ATM was all about verbalizing and commenting on her own life. It's one thing baby when you or I comment on what others are doing, but this woman was all about, "nuh uh, they must be crazy that I'm going to take out that much money. . . . . forget this, they must be crazy." Daddy deposited a check and we took the long way back home. It was still raining a bit, and we got a nice walk in. You continued to sleep despite all the cracks and uneveness on these city sidewalks, but you just kept on sleeping.

Coming back home was good, you continued to sleep a bit, and then you got to eat again. After eating from the bottle once again, there was no stopping the wailing. Reggae wouldn't even console you, bouncing on the yoga ball was of no use, all sorts of different hold and positions were useless too. I think you were just crying out for mamma, who was beyond crying distance for the first time in your life. Needless to say daddy had a rough time trying to find ways to console you. Finally you just fell asleep in my arms. Due to the lack of napping this afternoon, you just slept and slept. Which allowed for daddy to finally take a nap too.

Then mamma came home and took over parental duties, including expelling warm milk straight from the boob. Of course you were all calm and well behaved for her. You even made funny faces and smiled with mamma tonight. Maybe next week, we'll get to smile together :)

What Kind of Dad am I?

While everyday pop psychology says that I"ll be a father just like my own father, or I'll try to do the polar opposite of what my father was like. Of course as a young idealistic dad, who's insightful and in-tune with himself (narcissistic?!?), I like to think I'll be able to bridge the shortcomings of my father and blend my own thoughts of what a 21st century father should be like. Of course this streaming thought of who I am was sparked by this article in the Globe today, The Parent Trap.

Where do my conventions and scripts for 21st century daddy-ing come from? Are there good models out there? I thought I would share a quick and not thoroughly researched (no google searches or in depth interviewing, and more whatever comes to mind first).

Here's what my mom sent to me before baby was even born.
1. Be Prepared, is entertaining, and informative in a basic and practical way, but is this all that entails in being a father. Is this all that pop culture expects from fathers these days? Is this the type of father I want to be. Don't get me wrong it's a great gift and fun book to flip through, but do I want to pimp this out to future dad's?

2. Expectant Father, reads more like one man's desire to add some substance to the literary "How to's" of being a dad. It's lengthy like it's most "How to be a mom" books, but again it's dry, there's forced humor that's plain, "mad corny, yo!" I can't say this book encourages or challenges me to be a cool dad.

3. Alternadad, how cool would it have been if my mom sent me this book. It's been a book that's been received with mixed reviews, from people who think it's a great portrayal of Generation X'ers as parents, to people who probably think it's forced and narrowly focused.

As the Globe article states, there are more ideas of what families are like on TV, but are these portrayals accurate? The article chooses to focus on Black families, and the portrayals of Black dads. Just like all things with the media, where my Asians at? I've noticed a proliferation of Asian actresses these days, but what about the Asian dudes out there? What about Asian families? It's not that difficult for writers to stay within conventions of ethnic stereotypes and give us an Asian dad who's a doctor or lawyer, or good at math. Or similarly, it wouldn't be that difficult to write a about an Asian dad who's working an office, or blue collar job. Maybe in my daughter's generation of writers and media will there be something more than white and black families.

The King of Queens portrays a blue collar husband than dad, but then again how many times have I've really watched this show. Homer Simpson is a highly fictional character that has moments of great fathering moments, but I can do better than someone in 2-D right? I'll have to admit I can only wish I was as cool as the Escalade driving Mac in the Bernie Mac Show. I'll have to say there are some great learning moments because we see Bernie make mistakes, and overreact, and correct them in a 30min episode, but I'm left feeling that what I just saw could be realistic in a similar situation with my daughter. When I watch Will Smith play Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness, I see a man who cares, and would go to great lengths to protect and pursue the very best for his only son. In the end can I really emulate a man who was single dad raising a son in a shelter?

While I enjoy reading Steve's blog on being a dad, it's simply a blog that offer glimpses of what his experiences are, or more his observations on what living with his daughter is like. I can't say it challenges me in any way, and that's no knock on Steve, but if I'm truly to be a cool, hip, dad who's able to be a breadwinner, have a great relationship with his daughter, and still be the husband that my wife wants to sleep with every night, who will be my guide? Is this even possible or simply idealistic?

I like to think I can be a better dad than Lester in American Beauty, and I think I can be as cadid as Mac McGruff in Juno. Maybe I"ll be a successful dad and family man like John Edwards, he seems to have done a good job in raising his daughter. I guess time will only tell if the various depictions of fatherhood and dads help me more than hurt me. Perhaps it's just inevitable that I"ll just be like my dad, which in the end isn't he worse thing, cuz I'm content with being me.

What are people's thoughts? Are there great models for fatherhood out there, for a generation of 21st century kids we're parents to? Maybe there's a better blog out there someone can point me to?

Random Hysterics

There will be a time when your child may just cry cry cry, and babymamma will pass off the child to you due to being frustrated, annoyed, or simply cuz everyone needs to suffer when a baby is wailing at the top of their little lungs.

Our baby is a pretty good kid, but when she cries, sometimes she just wants to cry it out for a a period of time. It doesn't have to do with the clothes she's wearing, the barometric pressure, whether she's tired or hungry, or even a wet diaper. Swaddle or no swaddle, distracting noises or lovely lullabies, there's nothing that will console or pacify that child.

The only thing that I can think of is the prolonged exposure to new people. Perhaps it's the germs (can't be, everyone Purell's before they touch her), perhaps it's something else. All I can think of is that it must be an overstimulation of senses or attention. Why she doesn't start to cry when she's in the presence of overstimulation is beyond me. Her crying fits always seems to happen when we're trying to put her down to bed, so we can go to bed, but again her fits only occur on days when many people have handled her, or she's been around others for a long period of time other than her parents.

I can only imagine perhaps at the end of the day, she reviews her day and then suddenly realizes all the scary people(non-biological parents) have touched her, held her, or spoke to her in baby talk, etc. Perhaps it's this sudden recall of faces and scents or something freaks out my baby and causes her to cry, cry cry.

One month and counting

Yesterday, or exactly 4 weeks ago baby,you were born. I hope this milestone in your life is a good one for ya. In terms of developmental milestones, you're visually tracking things, you're still obsessed with light fixtures, and if needed, you can scream and cry while using the full capacity of your little lungs. You can also shed tears after prolonged crying :( Just recently you can't seem to take your eyes of mamma, but I guess that's to be expected since you hang out with her so much (I'm secretly jealous).

You're making a range of noises, sometimes like a baby Wookiee, to just grunts of a young girl who knows karate. Sometimes I make a range of noises from scatting to random undulating noises, and my all time favorite, pit noises from a Nascar pitstop (this is truly what daddy thinks when he's changing your diaper at night. Undoing those tiny snaps on your sleeper and onesie, taking off the diaper cover, undoing snappi fastener, put aside dirty diaper with one hand, while the other hand keeps both legs secured and butt off the changing pad, secure proper placement of new diaper, ensure proper and secure fit of snappi fastener, but this point baby you might be squirming, and post cold baby wipe, you're about to start crying. We're in the home stretch here, I may sometimes make tire changing noises while I'm putting on your diaper cover, sometimes fastening the sides together could be a challenge if you're crying, squirming or both. Othertimes the noises seem to distract you, OK, I'll admit it, it's fun to make your own sound effects. If you're really crying mom's awake, quite possible the neighbors are awake, so there's a quick hand off to top you off with mamma's milk., so we can get you back to sleepyland. Haven't timed myself yet, but perhaps one of these days mamma will catch this all on tape.)

Speaking of sounds, I've expanded your musical knowledge by singing you Rockabies from the Beatles, Smashing Pumpkins, the Cure, Led Zepplin, etc. You seem to really like D'yer Mak'er. There's never a dull moment when you hang out with daddy, whether it's reading you the news, magazine articles, giving you the play by play of a bball game on tv, etc.

Back to milestones, baby, you now have a belly button, you're little stump and dried up and fallen off. Mamma discarded it, she had no desire to save it, so blame her. It's hard to say if it's going to be an innie or an outie, but it ain't like I'm going to be buying you navel shirts anytime soon, so no need to get all self conscious about it. Now that the stump is dry, you've been enjoying baths, cuz you've grown up into a real bath tub, so yeah!

The cutest thing you do is still when you're sleeping- the range of expressions, half smiles, more noises, and arm/hand placement is adorable. Some of my favorite arm positions, are the both arms above your head like you're doing the wave, the thinker-one fist tucked underneath your chin, and I think it's cute when you soothe yourself with a finger, side of your hand or your fist.

It's been a great 4 weeks, a bit sleep deprived, and becoming more dependent on caffeine, but I'm loving every moment with you.

Back in the day. . .

Baby, it's been awhile since I've written to you. I just wanted to re-live pappa's glory days. Now daddy was no all state quarterback, or track star, instead he chose obscure sports so that he had a fighting chance to participate and be active.

In H.S. pappa played water polo for 4 years, he was also on the state championship team his senior year. He also swam on the swim team his freshmen year. In College, for some reason he decided to walk on to the swim team, and devote 4 years of his life and many holidays swimming back and forth in a pool. I also discovered ultimate frisbee in college and that was more dynamic than swimming was.

After College I continued to play ultimate frisbee 3 out of 4 seasons each year, started commuting by bike to work, took up rock climbing for a bit, and even trained and participated in 2 sprint triathlons. Of course this is all the major activities, this doesn't include stretching daily that I started in college, occasional to regular running, lifting weights, backpacking/hiking, etc.

Daddy is a man who likes to stay active, sitting at work, being stagnant is not enjoyable, he can feel his muscles going into atrophy from lack of stimulating activity.

Since your arrival, daddy has been pretty inactive. Even couple of months before you arrived, daddy had to stop running due to his first serious knee injury. While stretching, strength based work outs, and commuting by bike is great, he's really missed running in the cold winter mornings, missed going skiing/snowboarding, and is itching to play ultimate frisbee. While all the inactivity you would think daddy blew up like a blimp, but actually the whole birthing process, not sleeping, always running, and hanging out with you has led to actual weight loss, but after 2 straight weeks of nicely cooked meals by your grandma's, daddy's weight is back to normal.

While all the inactivity drives him crazy, it really is a joy to just spend an hour with you in the morning, instead of going out for a run. How daddy will juggle this as you continue to get older is TBD. I did calculate on my bike ride, when you're in your teens, it's possible that we can play on the same ultimate team, boy do I look fwd to that. Until then, I'm loving every non activity related minute and hours that spend with you. Let's just hope daddy doesn't have to start walking to work each day and only eating subway, like Jared.