Saturday, September 20, 2003

My wife and I don't fight a lot.

Maybe it's the lack of things to fight about, really. We get along rather infamously because we are easygoing folk, and neither of us are really interested in controlling the other, or even being dominant or taking charge too much. Although it does lead to a fair amount of indecision about a lot of things, it has also given us freedom in doing a lot of things, and being open about a lot of situations.

I am regretful to say that we are not going to be the ones who are able to dispel the myth that babies don't change the dynamics of relationships. They do, and in the biggest possible way. I cannot imagine people who have babies in order to maintain relationships, because it has the complete opposite effect.

We love our son a lot, and his cute, limped-neck, chubby-cheeked, little angel has managed to wedge himself square in the middle of our love utopia, and last night we had an emotional blowout at 4 in the morning.

It was one of those fights that were mostly misunderstanding, but it had been building steam for the past week. All the stress about feedings, sleep depravation, diapers, and relatives being weird -- it all balled up into a big emotional meltdown. My wife told me that she was afraid that we might drift, so we're gonna have to make some real time for us. Alex needs us, but he'll need us to be a loving couple too, because then he'll see how cool we are and how in love we are.

Our daughter had some cramping this morning at 7:30, about 2 and a half hours after I went to bed, and she was in such severe pain that my wife had to drive her to the hospital. Turned out to be nothing, went away after she checked in, but it was quite surreal after 2 and a half hours of sleep, to have someone in incredible pain lying next to you while you're holding a baby and trying to be somewhat coherent.

But today has been a better day, we've been consciously turning away stress at the door. Just joking around today and having some fun talking about stuff. My wife and I were talking about how we would rock at charades, because our minds have somehow become a giant unit of phrases. Today, while we were grocery shopping, we passed by the potatoes and both said, at the same time, "We still got like a bunch of potatoes left in the fridge."

Thus confirming that we couldn't be apart ever because we wouldn't be able to finish a sentence.

Alex got another bath today. Boy, can he scream bloody murder. But now he smells fresher and I gave him a parting like his Daddy, with a little swirl of "superman" hair in front. LL Cool A. Points if you know what that means.

Thursday, September 18, 2003

I feel like I have seriously gotten too used to the routine of a baby - so much so that I'm not getting anything else done. Parenting is so full-time that I actually will start feeling guilty for leaving my little boy alone too long. Of course, he's actually in full custody of my wife, but I just feel like a wretch if I'm not in eyesight of him. He might learn to talk or handglide and I would miss it because I'm editing.

Today has been a day like many others before it, with the exception that I really had a chance to play with my wife a lot today. Alex slept quite a bit, so my wife and I were up to our old tricks. Not sex, mind you, being how that's off limits for six weeks so that she can recover from childbirthing. But just us, playing around, and her beating me up. I mean, literally, my wife has slapped, karatae-chopped, poked, smacked, and stuffed her fingers in my mouth today. We get to wrestling and she gets squirmy and forgets that I'm an actual human being with very fragile body parts. For the most part, she doesn't get injured much, but boy, she mauled me this afternoon. It's very strange now because for the past nine months, I would wrestle with her but always had to avoid crushing her tummy. Now it feels great to attempt to kick her ass again without worrying about inadvertently pushing on the baby, and while I spend all that time enjoying the carefree notion of being on top of her, she will deliver another blow to my head and revel in laughter as I collapse into a fetal position and swear at her.

I love being married to her.

Tales of the Incredible Growing Baby

Alex's appetite doubled at the blink of an eye, going from 2 ounces to almost 3 and a half ounces easy! And he's getting a little baby tummy to go with it as well. Last night I spent about four hours trying to alternate between feeding him, holding him, changing him, and trying to reason with him about what he wanted from me. He burped on me and made a funny face to convey what he thought about my train of questioning, and demanded for more food by groaning and doing the horizontal can-can.

More chocolates are to be made, but will be handed out more wisely. I went through my stash and I don't think I've hit half the people on the list at all. Oh well.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

New parenthood is such a new and interesting experience for me. Never in my life had I had to block the urine stream of anyone so that it wouldn't douse me with its golden splendorness. It happened to me, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time last night when I was changing him. While I was taking off his diaper, Alex proceeded to pee his warm goodness for a few seconds before I deflected his pee with my hand, and making it all shower back on poor Alex. But in those few destructive moments, he managed to pee on his shirt, his mittens, my hand, the towels, and the neighbor's dog. Well, maybe not. So we clean him up, put a diapey on him (get used to me altering names of actual things to sound cuter), and within a few minutes his butt vibrates soundly and a wet sounding squirt indicates that indeedy, he needs another diaper change.

Yesterday my wife had the same misfortune, while changing him out of his soiled diapers, Alex decided to show Mommy his newfound talent of pooing, so he had to have a change of clothes and a new diaper.

Ironically, it was just a few days ago when we decided that he was off breastmilk and on formula, that we were worried about his lack of Number Two. Apparently, little babies can't process formula as easily as breastmilk, so it would take a couple days before their little digestive systems will convert that into poo. So finally when he did grow a tail, we were quite the estastic parents. "Yay! He pooped!"

And now we're like, "Please don't poop on Mommy."

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Time has no real concept when you have a baby, and we're finding that out this last week when we've hardly observed the time at all. Day and night seems almost arbitrary when your whole schedule revolves around when the baby needs food, or a diaper change. If it wasn't for taking some time off for the baby, I believe that right now, I could likely be foaming at the mouth and twitching involuntarily.

Ironically, I woke up this morning not because of the baby, but because of JL. She missed her school bus watching cartoons and I had to drive her to school at seven in the morning, and thenafter I just stayed up because I do not have the ability to go back to sleep when I'm up. So... that was fun.

We had to kick poor Franklin out last night when he wanted to cuddle in bed, and I was feeling rather bad about it. All the kitty wants is a little loving, but when he's a 16 pound behemoth with a dominance for space, you kinda have to put his priorities behind your child.

Have to say, emotions are still a little on edge in this house. Everyone's a little bit in the fragile state so spending some time blogging and editing might be a good idea after all. Peace and quiet is becoming a luxury is this household.

Monday, September 15, 2003

Went to the doctor's today, and the chocolate-giving commenced. I don't know how many I've handed out, but we stopped into Freddy's today and had friends and well-wishers coo and gush over the little guy, and our rule was with each person who stopped by to see the baby, they got an announcement/chocolate. It got to be a little absurd after a while, because I was even handing one out to someone who was a complete stranger, because she was looking at the baby. But now I have to wrap more chocolates, so that people who visited us can have a little something-something.

Anyway, the doctor's visit went well, and our next doctor's appointment should hopefully be in two weeks, instead of two days. We've had about 5 or 6 appointments for Alex in the last 8 days, so hopefully the rest of his life will be spent outside the hospital. We haven't even begun to fanthom the medical bills. I hear they're quite the bloodsuckers when it comes to payments -- they want it all up front.

We spent most of the day running around and doing some errands, and we are completely exhausted. It's 10:48 and my wife's already sleeping and I'm not doing too hot at the moment. It's amazing how zapped one can feel at the end of the day when there's a baby around. Our emotions have been fragile and careless -- I've said a bunch of stupid things to my wife today, which on a regular baby-free day might seem just fine, but on a baby-around day seems like a sharp blow to the face. But it's just adjustment, and adaptation, and a lot of forgiving. I'm a little afraid of what's going to happen when we start alternating schedules, or when I go back to work, but that's just something we deal with when we get there, I suppose.

Sunday, September 14, 2003

New batch of pictures!

The Hospital's page for Alex Thanks, Dansen for the direct link!

This is fast becoming one of my favorite photos of A.A.



The week has definitely shown us how completely hard parenthood can be. Alex's jaudice has brought my wife to a fragile state of worry, and depleted her physically of any energy. I'm a little better off, getting a bit more sleep, but my temprement is something to reckon with. I've been fantasizing beating up our neighbors a bit too vividly for my own comfort.

Yesterday, the visiting nurse introduced us to bililights, which is a flat platform with a flourescent light underneath, which the baby lays on and get treated for jaudice. Because of Alex's nature, he doesn't really like to be alone too much so we ended up comforting him, touching him and placing pressure on his body to let him know that we were around. My wife watched him for 6 hours and I had to be yelled at to take my shift, because I would've slept otherwise. We ended up taking an afternoon naps, like the other days before today, because we're not getting the sleep like we should otherwise.

But earlier tonight the nurse called with the results, and the bililights brought his levels down. As far as I know it, whenever the biliruben level is above 10, it warrants caution. 20 is considered dangerous levels. Alex went from an 18.6 or something to a 15. It's still high, but the on-call doctor felt that it was good enough to take him off the lights, which was somewhat a relief to us. Thanks to Maralise and Brendon, who have been showing us their support and lending a hand, literally.



Alex seems a bit relieved as well, and now we're actually worrying about another thing. He hasn't pooped in like a day, so we're wondering about his well-being.

But through all this stress and worrying and sleepless nights, we just look at him and we are just elated. He's the sweetest boy and I've made it a habit to kiss his little head and little cheeks, and he's made it a habit to freak out when he's being held next to my head, when I'm trying to comfort him, and toss his head around while his mouth does all sorts of interesting expressions -- and therefore, inadvertedly giving me slobbery kisses. I know he loves me.

Well, fatherhood has given me new persepective to sleep.

It's a really, really good thing.