Fatherhood

There is this pang I get when I even see the WordPress logo. I feel like this blog has gone by the wayside. It’s not that I don’t wish to post anymore, but it needs more attention and time than I’m willing to give it. At least for now. I know most have heard, but a plague of computer ills has made writing, work, watching shows a bane. The longer I work behind a desk the more I come to realize how much of a slave to technology I am. My entire career path at this moment depends entirely on the face that Facebook and twitter exist. While this is not entirely a bad thing, it is dangerous. Having a computer that can simp access the most basic of websites while editing a document and playing music may seem like a menial task for most, but the web has increasingly become more power hungry. Chrome chews through ram and the weighted we apps I use for work on top of running word, my super lightweight note program, iTunes (most of the problem), Skype, and maybe ‘grab’ the 4 year old MacBook is showing its age. This is all after the desktop died 6 months ago and took along a couple of weekends with it. Note: moving 300 gigs of music across a 10mb network eats ass. The lamp went out on the laptop in one of those “this cannot be happening” moments a month or so ago, and now I’m tied to a desk. Not horrible, if it wasn’t for the fact that my work day is no longer dictated by me – a symptom of my stay-at-home-daddom – my desk is just waiting to be shelved by my wife, and that working form a couch, rocking chair, or anywhere BUT my desk would be 100x more helpful.

Where am I going with all of this? A new laptop is coming. Friday. Let’s hope it glues together some of my sanity at least temporarily.

Computer Woes

Category

been up to, Fatherhood

I cracked a bit last night. Usually, in the middle of the night I am pretty calm and even find myself falling asleep faster than Finn. But last night was different for seemingly no reason at all.

He had flooded the bed behind him, a not-so-unusual occurrence, and need a full clothes change along with a bottle at 3am. The changing went okay, but with his new-found love for flopping around like a new trout, it gets old fast. I always pre-warm the bottle in the tiny window between pulling him out of bed and changing his diaper so my nice warm bottle was ready to go. We sit down and I start feeding him, that goes just fine – the usual cat stepping on him, another one howling about how I am ignoring her – nothing different, but for some reason this anger is welling up inside me. It’s not pointed at anything or anyone – just angry. My attempts to push it down and focus on getting Finn to, now, burp goes well. Then comes the post-bottle battle.

Like I said before he’s found a likeness toward floundering around when things are just so. This also wakes him up, a lot. You’ve got to move from bottle to pacifier very quickly after burping – I guess I didn’t move quite quick enough because his milk induced lull was dropped for a woken baby stare. The rage bubbled. I gripped Finn tight against my chest and took a handful of deep breaths for his sake and mine. He quickly fell back to dreamland and I began the move to his bed. The Sandman stuck with him till my arm was pulled from behind his head – and he popped awake like he had just been playing me for a fool. The anger welled. Resilient, I wrapped him up and moved forward popping the plug in and leant down to silence the howling cat. Then the plastic clink, that only noise that can come from your son pushing out his pacifier. The mania was dragging me deeper. I took a hard deep breath as I pulled Finn out of his bed and squatted on the Astroturf rug and rocked and rocked for hope – for hope of him finally letting go and finishing the rest of the night in dreamland. After ten minutes of rolling and rocking while itchy turf pushed its way thorough my boxers he had fallen asleep enough for me to try again. All wrapped up, fed, dry, clean – I set him down ever so slowly back into his crib. Finn’s head snapped forward as it grazed the cool bed sheet.

“You Jackass. Go. To. Sleep.”

And I didn’t mean it in the joking – oh you are being a jerk. Oh no. Somewhere in my dumb brain, I knew – just knew – he was doing this on purpose. I pulled back the loose side of the blanket and pulled the fleece as tight as it would go across his tiny body – trapping his flopping arm against his side and making him nearly immobile save for his neck – and stuck the plug in and stood back.

Almost as soon as I took my step back I regretted being angry – being that he is the baby not me. His eyes drooped right away like the taunt wrap was the one thing holding him back from deep sleep. I huffed and walked out of the room feeling defeated and guilty.

I said I was sorry for being angry this morning – he seemed unfazed.

You Jackass

Category

Fatherhood, reflections

It has been three days. Three, surprisingly easy days – with just me and Finn. I had originally thought of writing updates from his perspective, maybe even daily – but at this point it’d be as follows:

Woke up hungry again. I AM SO MAD ABOUT IT. Oh, I pissed myself. Well, I’m mad about that too. I’m sad and confused about everything that is happening. Hey there trees! Treeeees. Aw, why do they make me naked. Oh – trees again! Right, I forgot I’m hungry. FEED ME! AH GOD WHY ARE YOU NOT FEEDING ME. Thank god. Wait, this isn’t food – there isn’t anything in this dang thing. FEED ME ARFGHRHGH! There it is, food! Food food food food food food do-do-do I love fooooood. Hey, give that back. I wasn’t done eating. Eh. EH! *Belch* Oh, food again. *Belch* Ugh, maybe I ate too much. I need a nap.

 

With intermittent “I want to stand! Wooooo!” and “I like that painting.” and “I like to sit, I like to sit dooodo.”

Maybe I will start this.

But suffice to say, it’s been kind of a cake-walk thus far. We’ll see how that holds out. Until next time readers.

At-Home-Dad; Week 7

Category

been up to, Fatherhood

I feel like Finn’s life is now marked with photographs. It will be the only way to follow it. Already he’s 12lbs+ barely fitting in his ‘3 Month’ size wear and looking different everyday. He’s stiffer – if you don’t have a baby this means their muscles are developing and he’s holding himself ‘up’ more. He stays awake longer and is interacting (as much as he can at one month). I know this sounds obvious, but I can see him getting older before my eyes. This is why I think the only way I’ll be able to relive his youth is through the photographs (which I’ve been yelled at many times to take more of.)

I think the biggest thing I’m learning through this whole process is patience, to wait, to breathe. Not just from his blood curdling middle of the night terror screams, but overall. To allow myself some space to let things go, maybe even to not be so uptight about making everything just so. Lis and I have seen other people with their children, people who should not be allowed to have them, younger parents than us that can’t even hold a job, drunkards who abuse their children (mentally & physically) – I just know I’m doing right by him then. I’m not blowing cigarette smoke in his face or not cleaning his diaper enough (heaven knows we are washing them enough). The worrying is what pushes this, making sure he is the priority not me.

2012-03-17_11-34-00_425

Maybe that is what being a real dad is all about – coming to that realization that you as hot shit as you think you are.

Pops – Week 5

Category

Fatherhood, reflections

Everything seems in order, our hospital bag is packed – sort of. Baby’s bed is ready save for the fact that our male cat Ike is peeing (again), and thus the bedding is waiting in the wings. We’ve met with our pediatrician, he’s quite nice. It’s snowing again in Maine, meaning slick roads and little-to-no clean up. My brews are waiting either to be kegged or bottled. I’m fairly certain both braggots are inoculated due to the use of the raw honey, but are clearing and chilling in the hallways at about 61°f. The mushroom grow box Gary bought me for Christmas is starting to really spout – hideous and disgusting, but interesting.

I’d like to address a quick… how should I put it, nuance. A few folks have been using a phrase (possibly without even thinking about it) that has Lis and I wondering. A simple three lettered word when in reference to Lis and I’s unborn child – “our.” Sure, it’s normal and fine for the two of us to use it, because – well – it’s ours. But when grandparents and great-grandparents use it, it sounds – oddly possessive. Maybe I’m only noticing this because of my close reading background, maybe I’m an attentive parent, but when “our baby” shows up in an email – I’ve got to wonder and fear how they mean it. Where do they see themselves fitting into our child’s life? A part of myself is concerned about their idea their interaction, their ‘teaching’ us to parent, and their influence on us. I think our seclusion and distance may seem like a hindrance, but it may also be a blessing – only time will tell.

I’m not worried about the raising a kid part as of now, more about the safety of my wife and child during labor. A symptom of my cross-that-bridge-edness that I can’t help.

A short time left. Anxiety may be getting to us all, but the longer I’m with Lis the closer I feel.

Babies and beer; t-17d

Category

been up to, Beer, Fatherhood

I’ve been sort of avoiding the start of this for some reason. Maybe I wasn’t sure where to start, or what to begin with but I thought objects might be something, an easy in.

Soon after christmas we had to do a little spending. We only had a crib, chair and a faux grass rug. We took our list from Amazon and picked up everything listed in our new book under the ‘need’ section. That and a couple rolls of wall stickers that we couldn’t live without. The boxes came and of course they were those oversized room-filling packages. I’m not sure I can solely blame amazon here because the foam changing pad wasn’t vacuumed small and its own box – so I can’t point fingers to shipping.

The room is coming together in strange ways. Recently when we move, we’re already carrying most of what we own. We change addresses, but the same photos, paintings, furniture (mostly) all go into different rooms. With the baby’s room were getting it together piecemeal, it seemed awkward and strange in a way. I guess when I was a child my room ‘grew’ in this way, but it just seems foreign now.

I’m unsure if I’m fearful, worried, or a whole host of other emotions that I’m feeling about this whole thing. For sure, I’m excited. The wonder of my child learning their way and navigating the world in new and interesting ways. I don’t want my kid to feel the weight of ADHD like I had, or the ensuing drug gamut that tried to ‘cure’ me. The possibility to avoid my awkward and lost middle school years, miss some of my substance abuse in High School, and sheer lack of motivation through 80% of it all. Sure, I worry about being a ‘good’ dad, making sure the cats don’t pee on it, I don’t drop it, or any other seemingly stupid things to think about – but I’ve seen some bad parenting and if I can just be marginally better than them, then I did okay.

Lis and I made a visit to the birthing center last week and it was a touch overwhelming; it was like being shown what you surgery is going to look like in stark realism. Really, really nice set up over there so I think that should help smooth things a bit. I can just be thankful Lis hasn’t written up a list of ‘demands’ as part of our birthing plan – heck nothing is even on paper. She seems only focused on not getting a c-section, and allow the rest to ‘just happen’. Shockingly.

As far as this blog goes, I plan on keeping it loose. I will try to post a bit about each week with the baby, with photos. The whole deal. Lis and I thought up maybe writing a first person perspective of baby ‘nutz’ – we’ll see how that plays out. Next post will be about my first partial mash brew day.

Baby Diary, -31d: Unboxing

Category

Fatherhood