the clueless american

Somehow this makes it all more real, while at the same time neither of us can believe it's really happening.

My life as a carefree 34-year-old boy is rapidly coming to an end. My high performance 2004 BMW M3 now has a carseat in the back. Only 3 weeks to go until that carseat is all filled up.

Well, our little one has been given an ultimatum. Either he comes out on his own or we go after him on Wednesday. We thought the doc was going to wait until next week, but he casually pulled out his calendar and said "How about Wednesday?" Wed night e goes in for some drugs to help prepare her, then Thursday morning they start the pitocin which will get her labor going. The Boy should come along Thursday, Friday at the latest if he's very stubborn. I'm almost disappointed that we don't get the surprise contractions and late-night drive to the hospital, but as long as he's healthy I'm not overly concerned about how he gets here.

On a sad note, while we were at the doc's office we saw a girl who looked about 12 years old waiting to be seen. She was probably a little older but not too much. Instead of parents she had her slightly-older boyfriend, ostensibly the father of the child. He was way more interested in adjusting his cool gang-looking watch cap and reading his Reader's Digest than talking to or even looking at the girl he'd knocked up. Poor kids! I have to be sure to tell MJ some day that he doesn't have any business bringing a girl to the OB/GYN before he's 18.

Well, I'm typing this with a little chunky chunk, as e likes to call him, sleeping on my lap. This is our first night back home, and so far our sleep/feed schedule is not working out as well as it did for 2 nights in the hospital.

We went in the hospital Wed night so that e could start on meds to prepare her for being induced the next morning. That medication made her crampy and uncomfortable despite the ambien to help her sleep, so we started off on the right foot with only an hour of sleep the first night. In the morning they didn't even start e on pitocin because the preparatory medication already had her contracting enough. They broke her water at about 7:25, and by 7:28 she was experiencing the first painful contraction. That got her pretty scared, but when the epidural went in at 8:30 life was beautiful.

Once the epi started taking effect the ambien remaining in her system let e sleep pretty well, giving me a chance to nap. The midwife started e's pitocin at about 9. At 10 her exam showed 8-9 cm, and at 11 the midwife was looking at the top of MJ's head. She got e to start pushing at 11:05, and we had a little son at 11:28!

I had more to write but got distracted by the phone. I realized that it was a decent hour in Spain and decided to call several of our friends over there. During that time MJ started getting ready to feed so I woke mama up.

So now you get the short version, which is that he's a healthy little boy and mama's doing great, too. We had him Thursday morning and checked out Saturday afternoon.

Let's see....what else...oh yeah, anyone for a picture? here he is:

Ok, 5:27 now...started this at about 4....time for some more sleep while mama's feeding him. We've decided to keep the specifics off of the website, so if you're a friend/family member and want the details, email and we'll get them to you.

Well, we're in the second night without e's family in town, and it's the second night that I'm up late in the office instead of sleeping. We had this great plan before MJ came along: she'd pump so that one feeding a day I could give her a break and bond with The Boy a little. So far that plan isn't working out well. He's just had 3 days of two bottle feedings a night with Gran and Aunt J, so I know he can handle it. Must be my fault when things don't go well, at least that's what I conclude at 0254 when I really should be asleep.

Everything starts with the fact that he refuses to have anything close to a normal schedule. During the day he'll sleep like a log and go up to 7 hours between feedings. (Before you start writing nasty comments about starving our baby, remember that The Boy gained back his birth weight plus 5 ounces in 4 days.) At night, we're lucky if he goes 4 hours between feedings.

Tonight I misjudged when he'd wake up again, so the bottle had barely been out of the fridge an hour when he started crying. I was trying to calm him, heat up the bottle in the bathroom sink, and keep things quiet enough so that e actually felt like she was getting a break.

I've never fed a newborn, but in my previous experience with babies, feeding them was generally pretty easy and fun. Not so with my boy. I have to pin his arms down just to get the bottle in his mouth because he wants to knock the bottle out of the way so that the path is open for the bottle to get to his mouth. Once I make it in, he's prone to shake his head to get the nipple out and then cry because there's no nipple in his mouth. When I finally get him drinking the bottle, he stays on for about 5 minutes before either spitting it out or just stopping sucking and letting milk spill all over the both of us. It takes about 60-90 minutes to get him to drink 5 ounces of milk. It seems like most of that time is spent listening to him cry about not having milk in his mouth or crying because I've stuck the milk in his mouth. I can't seem to win here.

As I write this I realize that I'll most likely erase this whole post from existence once I'm a little more rested and rational, hopefully before any of our family reads it and calls child services on me. I know I sound angry and frustrated--I admit those emotions freely. I thought I'd be real cool about The Boy and his troubles when he came along, but it seems that I get hit real low when I'm not capable of providing him with nourishment nor giving my wife a break for one feeding a night. I forgot to mention that I screwed that last part up, too, for three reasons:

1. I asked her where she wanted me to feed (ie, in or out of our room) and listened when she said stay in our room.
2. I griped about MJ not taking the bottle and leaking milk all over my clothes and part of the bed where I sleep for about the entire 90 minutes.
3. I got into a fight with e about the stupid bottle because last night she made it clear that I was to feed him with only 5 ounces in the bottle. Tonight when I said "you want me to pour the extra into another bottle?" she said, "nah, let's see if he'll eat 7 ounces" and I was dumb enough to take that to mean don't pour the extra 2 ounces into another bottle. So, I get about halfway through the feeding when she laments the fact that I'm going to wind up wasting the extra 2 ounces again if they aren't eaten.

1. in another room;
2. with only 5.00000000000000000 ounces in the bottle;
3. hopefully without complaining about it the whole time.

So how about a picture?

After last night's fiasco I could hardly skip writing tonight. I'm typing one-handed while the other arm cradles a mostly content little burrito. I have to say that sleep seems to be the primary ingredient for a successful feeding. I went to bed at 2130 and woke up to the boy at 0040. He was drinking by 0047 and done by 0120. Overall it went pretty well. The biggest problem was that I chose to feed him his bottle while I sat on the floor cross-legged. My lower back is now killing me. Tomorrow night I'll sit in a chair. Otherwise there were no major hangups. He drank almost 100% of the bottle and then stopped all on his own. I gave him some time to enjoy the full feeling, changed his diaper, then wrapped him up. He's now pretty happy but still wide-awake. I'm spending a few more minutes here in the warm office, then I'll load him up in his carseat (favorite sleeping place lately) and set him next to mama. Hear that music in the background? While the credits are rolling on the end to a much-improved night, MJ & TJ are listening to Maná - El muelle de San Blas. Goodnight.

Poor old MJ...mama's cutting off his little package. Not literally, of course, just Photoshopping his little b-a-l-l-s so that he doesn't look like some kind of baboon when people see his pictures. We wanted some pics of a little naked boy, because that's perfectly ok to do when they're only 2 weeks old, but he still looks a little like he's sitting on a balloon.

I wound up not being able to go back to sleep yesterday until 5:30 in the morning, but the feeding was still about 1000% better than the day prior. This was our last day of totally lounging around. Tomorrow we take MJ to his cardiology follow-up and then go straight to the airport to pick up Grandmom. She'll be in town until Monday and then I head back to work after 20 days of vacation.

Here's what a little naked boy looks like after he's been snipped by mama:

Poor little guy did a great job putting himself to sleep at 2108...I told e I'd go get him at 2113 if he didn't stop crying, but he was conked out within 2 minutes. Mama went to bed at about 2230 thinking that MJ would sleep until at least 0045, but at 2330 he was up and screaming. Her eyes were so red I knew she didn't need to be feeding him yet, so I took him and started trying to calm him down. I could hear his little belly gurgling all the while, but none of my burping seemed to calm him down the way it usually does. I finally put him over my shoulder to burp, which got him calmed down enough to suck on the great green pacifier (he does better with it than all the others). Then when he'd sucked a little while and seemed calmer, I put him in the sling. He bucked and screamed a bit longer, but he's now asleep. Hopefully I can keep him calm at least another hour so that e is able to wake up and feed him.

I thought this picture definitely needed to be shared. It's the one I have propped up between my keyboard and monitor. I laugh every time I sit down at my desk because he looks so darn cute when he yawns. The only problem is that when I'm sleepy (and when am I not?) he makes me want to yawn along with him.

Be safe, little boy, and come back soon!

You too, mama, you too!

Well, I dropped e off for her girls-only weekend with the women from our Bible study class, and now I'm here with MJ. I had grand plans: I figured that while I was out I'd take MJ over to the mall and walk around the stores with him for a while. I thought I might even head over to Best Buy since I don't get to go there a whole lot anymore. I only lasted about 2 hours before The Boy beat me.

We got to the mall shortly after 9 and I saw that it opens at 9 for mall-walkers but the stores don't open until 10. I had MJ in his stroller and pushed him around the mall for a few laps. When he got tired of that I sat down and let him out of the stroller for a bit. At 10 I loaded him up and started moving again. I saw a Radio Shack while I was walking and went back to get a belt clip for my cell phone. I broke mine about a month back and am getting very tired of carrying the phone in my pocket all the time.

As I was finishing the belt clip transaction MJ went from fussy to full-fledged screaming. I thought moving might help, but it did no good, and naturally everyone in the mall was staring at me like I was torturing the poor kid. I realized he was tired and reclined the stroller for him; the intensity of his screams increased at this.

I decided to leave if he was still screaming when we got to our exit, and as you may have guessed he was. I went out to e's car, strapped him in his new car seat (that's a whole other story) and drove off. Before I was out of the mall parking lot he was snoring. I thought about going back, but what's the point? I'd have to unstrap him and move him to the stroller, thus ensuring he'd be in a screaming mood again. I brought him home and gently laid him in his crib where he's been sleeping for nearly an hour. Now I know why it seems like e never goes anywhere.

After church we took The Boy over to a nearby park. We played all over, but he liked the swing the best. When he got going he would put his arms back behind him as if he were flying...but never when a camera was in view!

We're pretty bad about keeping our various websites up to date, but you know how that goes. I realized the other day that we haven't posted a picture on our main site since December 2005. I usually have a lot to say on this blog in my head and then very little when I actually open a new post, so I thought I'd start randomly sharing some pictures from time to time.

Anyway, this is from October 2006. MJ went down the slide once and really seemed to enjoy it, so the second time e took his picture. The picture looks great, but what you don't see is that Mama wasn't in a position to catch him so he landed on his feet and promptly face-planted in the dirt at full speed. Needless to say he was a little upset, but we finally got the dirt out of his mouth (and hair and...). As MJ would say, yaaaay Daddy! Yaaay Mama!

Edit, 12 December: e thought this was incomplete without a close-up. Make sure you click on the picture to see the fear in his little eyes!

Needless to say, they were both surprised to see me last night. More on that later. Maybe.

e tells me that The Boy has been kneeling at the head of the bed pecking away at the headboard. When she asks what he's doing, he replies, "I'm working on the computer (com-poo-doh-doh as he says it) like Daddy."

Today e asked him to show me how he worked on the computer. After he showed me he said, "Daddy you come show me how to work on the computer." So here we are, furiously typing away on our pretend keyboards:

According to http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html I'm 13,503 days old today. I've got to tell you, it feels like at least 13,650! Even though Jack is doing a much better job of sleeping through the night, and even though I'm not the one who has to deal with him when he wakes up, I feel like I could sleep all day and all night.

I'm sure stress has a lot to do with that. The latest word is that we'll be moving back to the US in October. It will be good to get Jack the therapy he needs, but stressful to get from here to there. Maybe I can get some good sleep in November :-)