Poppa Large

MOVIN' ON OVER

2006-02-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

The Poppa Large blog is now defunct. All future posts will take place over at: Rice Daddies

Ciao!

ALL AT ONCE

2006-01-16T00:58:00.000-08:00

Not a month went by after L had to deal with the chicken pox...but then she came down with roseola. Three days of a modestly high fever, then a mild rash. The fever had us worried though it was never that bad but good lord, L's difficulties in sleeping pretty kept both Sam and I up for a few nights in a row; hadn't been this bad since...ever. "At least she got them all out of the way..." is the general sympathy quote we've gotten from others and while that might be true, we wouldn't have minded just a longer break between childhood diseases.

L's birthday is coming up, I'll have a longer post by then with reflections on the first year.

BEEN A LONG TIME

2005-12-30T00:19:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't have left you, without a dope post to step to...

I probably said this before but the truth of the matter is that I started Poppa Large because I had four things I wanted to get off my chest...and once I did that, I ran out of things to write about.

It's not that fatherhood doens't fill me with volumes of things to comment on but honestly, at the end of the day, it's hard to generate the energy to sit and blog about it. I have immense awe and respect for parents who manage this.

That said, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet (though honestly, I'd love to have some more Big Daddies join in the fun and co-blog this with me. Seriously, a think a group Daddy blog would be hot. (MetroDad - think about it. Holler at your West Coast boy).

Anyways, here's a year's end update (more or less).

-L is almost 11 months old. She is, by her parents' (and close relatives') estimation crazy f---ing cute.

-She, however, strangely got hit with a bout of chicken pox. This, for a 10 month old, is not impossible but is certainly rather unusual, all the more so because we have no fucking clue where she got it from. She only plays with one other baby (who she cheerfully infected, much to our complete horror) and she hadn't come into contact with anyone that we knew who was carrying the virus. Obviously, she must have picked it up from some place...we think it might have been the airplane when we went down to LA for Thanksgiving but who knows?

-When I took her to the doctor to get her diagonosed initially, he kept doing this:
[Looks at pox blisters] "Son of a gun!"
[Looks at more blisters] "Son of a gun!"
[Looks at even more blisters] "Son of a gun!"
It was actually kind of funny except I was mostly mortified that L had the chicken pox to be that amused.

-L dealt with it like a champ and never scratched much but there were about two or three bad evenings where her discomfort (and we weren't sure if it was itchy skin or a headache or something else) was really bad. A bottle of calamine lotion and a few oatmeal baths later, she was all good.

-Meanwhile, fatherhood is still tough and I have to admit something to myself...something that I'll likely have to expand on later in a longer post: my daughter...my wonderful, beautiful daughter...kind of bores me. And by this, I don't mean she's a boring person: she's actually the most fascinating person I've ever met (cue: Lost in Translation script) but I haven't figured out how to be enraptured by her for a complete afternoon. When I'm at home watching her, I inevitably want the distraction of the computer or the television. I usually just try to take her outside which I figure is good for her and it gives me something to do rather than read Goodnight Moon for the gazillionth time (much as I do like the book. Sam and I can now recite it from memory as I'm sure, 99.9% of parents can).

-Also...she's completely exhausting now that she's learned how to crawl and good lord, is she crazy mobile. We're pretty sure walking is due in the next two months or so and then it's really going to be game over. I'll have to spend some quality time finding activities where she can expend all that energy she has stored up: My Gym, here we come! (And swim lessons. I'm looking forward to having L become a "Baby Beluga.")

-Meanwhile, our friends are pumping out babies everywhere. One of my closest friends gave birth about three months back to a baby boy and one of Sam's old colleagues had a baby girl around the same time. We have other friends who currently live overseas who are about three months pregnant and my old school mate is six months preggers. What's funny is that with one exception, ALL of these people are having part-Asian babies but so far, L is the only one who is "full" Asian. I don't know if that makes her 1) anachronistic or 2) iconoclastic.

-One last thing, just to put this out there and I'll come back and (maybe) expand on it later: I never really took seriously when people said that 1) marriage and 2) having babies = end of sex but now I really, really, really, really regret not having understood how that shit is very real and that I never should have taken for granted easy access to sex prior to all these things. It's been about a month now and when I sat down and did the math, I think Sam and I have averaged sex once every six weeks for 2005. If I actually drank beer, I'd be crying in it right now.

-See you in 2006. Happy holidays everyone.

GEEKDOM

2005-09-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is the quivering mass of silliness that parenthood has reduced me to. I saw this story about iPod onesies and instead of thinking, "jesus, how dorky is this shit?" I'm thinking instead, "this is cute, maybe we should get one for L." For real, I need some help.

Seriously though, a friend recently wanted an update on my thoughts on fatherhood. Here's what I had to say:

It's hard to know where to begin...being a parent is such a profound experience that even the word "profound" feels inadequate to capture it. It's both amazing and beautiful and terrible and scary, all wrapped into one. This said, I barely remember my life before L and it's dawning on me that I'll never have a life without here in it. I've never really had a relationship like that, especially given my own distance to my parents. It's a lot to wrap one's head around and usually I'm so caught up in trying to attend to her needs that I don't have time to stop and contemplate. Occasionally though, I'll be watching her and she'll glance up to look at me and smile and I'm overcome with such an incredible wave of love/fear/wonderment that I don't know what to do with it, except for maybe reach over and tussle her hair and plant a kiss on her forehead.

HIGH IMPACT

2005-08-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Had a busy day yesterday:

1) El-Boogie got her first tooth in! Bottom one. So that explains her fussiness the last few days...we thought she might be teething but the doctor thought it was still a few weeks away.

2) I had to record an interview at home with L in my arms, trying to keep her quiet. Suffice to say, it was a very challenging task but I had no other options. Ironically, the engineer who came through to mic the interview had to bring his 6 year old daughter with him so it all seemed very appropriate.

3) My wife and I finally got our wedding bands even though we married in May.

4) It was my birthday. No party. Just some pizza and my two best girls.

A CHILD'S WISDOM

2005-08-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

Someone found this on a sidewalk and posted it up. Personally, I like #9 and #12.

EVERYBODY POOPS

2005-07-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is what I've been reduced to: the highlights of my last week with L revolve around poo.

It began with this weekend where L decided to go on a shit-strike by withholding for 3-4 days straight. She's skipped a day before but by the 4th day, Sam and I were both a little worried, especially since it seemed that L was having trouble napping out of discomfort. We couldn't figure out what was going on either - sure, L had started some solid food but it was mostly mashed peas and basic oatmeal. It wasn't like she was putting away a plate of steak and potatoes.

We were ready to call the doctor's office the next day but that evening, L finally dropped a load - though a rather modest one, all things considered for four days. She had another normal poo the next morning and everything seemed fine.

Until today where little L-Boogs practically destroyed not one, but two entire outfits. It wasn't a T.A.E. but the sheer volume of shit was mind-boggling, especially the second one. They completely blitzkrieged the diapers she had on, the first a cloth, the second a disposable, and alas, ran right up her backside. I had to throw out a onesie (one of my favorite too!) because it was stained so bad, even the evening wash couldn't salvage it. (Not to get all gross with ya'll - though we're way past that now - but I wonder if the high fat content of breastfed baby poo has to do with its remarkable staining power?)

Just to make things worse, L has now gotten into the habit of touching herself "down there" when she's naked and while I have no qualms with her discovering her body, her fingers will go straight to her bum and then to her mouth so I had to be very careful to make sure she wasn't touching herself before I had a chance to properly wipe everything down. Throughout the whole process, I was laughing up a storm even though no one, besides Ella, was around to ask what my chortling was about.

And who says being a SAHD is boring?

SAHD LIFE

2005-07-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

illiterate but cute
As promised, an update on my SAHD experiences:

It's been three months now since Sam went back to work and it fell to me to look after L's daycare.

I'll fully admit: it's been challenging, especially the first few weeks where I had a very hard time adjusting from my previous independent lifestyle to being beholden to L's whims, compounded by my inability to read her little mind to figure out what she wanted/needed. (I've felt like I've gotten better at that actually).

The sacrifice in time, for me, has been the hardest thing to do, both in terms of adjusting my personal expectations but it's also impacted my time to work on other projects (I work out of my home and on a flexible schedule but parenthood most definitely has limited my options of when and where I can get my projects done).

I admit...Sam and I broke down (really, I broke down) and we hired a PT nanny to come in. I wish I had some great stories to share about the nanny-find process but nothing was very dramatic. We posted to Craigslist, got a bunch of responses, picked the ones we liked and ended up with "Iris," a young, 20-something nanny who takes classes in the morning and then comes by to our apartment 2-3 times a week, for four hour shifts. My mother-in-law comes through once a week as well.

Now - if you do the math, you'll note that I get help at least three days a week and Sam was able to work from home once a week up until recently, when her company revoked the privilege from everyone on staff (bastards!) So really, Fridays, and sometimes Thursdays, were the only days where I had L the entire day, on my own and that's not really too tough, right?

Yet, I find myself counting down the clock everyday until Iris or my MIL can come through to free me up to get back to my work. And I admit, this is really important to me, to have some sense of control over my time. Like many parents though, I have guilt issues over putting my needs over that of taking care of my daughter.

On the flipside, as everyone also said - it's just as important that I be a happy parent as a present parent and if getting time to myself makes me happier to spend time with L, then that's all the better. In theory.

What will be challenging is that as L gets older and is more aware, she'll want to interact even more and won't be happy if I slide her onto an activity pad or put some toys in front of her and hope that occupies her. On one level, I'm very much excited to see L come into her own intellectually and physically. On the other hand, it also means I need to really be able to focus on her and not be all ADD in trying to integrate her into the rest of my life while mulit-tasking 20 other things. Brave new world? Or just a scary one? Ask me again in a year or so.

Meanwhile, our current problem has been that L's sleep patterns have taken a turn for the worse. She had been sleeping around 6-7 hours a night (straight) but these days, we're lucky if we can get 5 from her and many nights, she'll go down for 4 hours but then every 2-3 hours after that, she'll wake up.

The being up isn't so bad but the incessant moaning is. I guess it's not really a moan per se, but it's a very loud expression that sounds rather like, "unnnnhhhhh!" like L were some Frankestein baby. We're not sure, at all, what this is about, though we surmise it might be teething. Either way, Sam and I were on the road to sleep recovery but now, it's like the first few weeks again and it's taking its toll on minds and bodies. I'm starting to nod off as we spea...zzzzzzzzz.

DADDY'S BACK

2005-07-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been awhile I know. It's not for lack of interest, just lack of time. However, my good friend T and his wife just welcomed a brand new baby boy (we'll just call him Parker) into the world yesterday morning after a DEBACLE of an experience (but I'll try to get him to share it with us later) and that's reinvigorated me to chatter away again.

I have a longer update on my own SAHD experiences in the work, but in the meantime, here's what I told my friend T:

LACTIVISM

2005-06-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

public enemy #1?
Ok, by this time, every parent blog on the planet has probably been sent this story in yesterday's NY Times about lactating mothers protesting ABC because Barbara Walters admitted she was ~~the spawn of the Devil~~ bothered by sitting next to a nursing mother.

As the husband of a mom who breastfeeds in public, I'm definitely down for the general rule that nursing mothers get to do their thing wherever they want and everyone else needs to shut the fuck up.

However, when I see comments like this, I take a pause: "the new generation of lactivists compare discomfort with seeing breast-feeding in public to discomfort with seeing interracial couples or gays holding hands."

Just to point out the brutally obvious: nursing moms don't get lynched, stabbed or otherwise maimed for feeding babies in public whereas in many places in the U.S., being in an interracial or queer relationship can get you killed. If lactivists are really pushing their issue as a civil rights cause on par with anti-racism and anti-homophobia, they need a serious reality check and heavy dose of chill out. I'm all for legislation that bars nursing moms from being discriminated against or harassed, but just go easy on the analogies.

Didn't I warn you about the BFFs?

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, IT'S GIRLS I DO ADORE

2005-05-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy past few weeks. First of all, little L went legit as Sam and I tied the knot. Nope, no shotgun wedding...more like "we love each other, we want to raise our family together...and...I need insurance." Sentimental + practical. I have to say, L has been remarkably well behaved in public settings. She might fuss at home but in a crowd, she's very chill, curious and observant. (I'm not bragging here - it's just a marvel to witness.)

Meanwhile, Sam and I have been drowning in family of late which is both good and bad. My new sister-in-law, otherwise known as Super Nanny, is always a welcome guest. Mi madre? We went to dinner the other week and she was holding L. Everytime I tried to take a candid picture, mom would start preening for the camera. I finally had to tell her to quit posing and just let me shoot. On the upside, my dad is just great with L. I've always known that he doted far more on my sister than me (not bitter...much) and so, with his granddaughter, he's practically giggly.

Based on anecdotes from other parents, Sam and I are nearing the point where the prospect of having another baby suddenly goes from "are you kidding me?" to "I miss when L was younger [note: L isn't even 4 months old yet]...maybe we should have another baby?" Right on cue, I saw over on Metrodad that he's discussing sex selection treatments for parents. Not only that, but then I caught this story about the correlation between parental occupation and the eventual sex of the baby.

The latter is interesting - no one has a real explanation for the phenom (I'm a bit skepticla about this "systemizer brains creates more testosterone" theory). The former is just a tad disturbing since it's basically social engineering. In either case, it makes me think of the Asian families I've come upon in my time where they have four daughters. Now, call me cynical but anytime I see an Asian family with four daughters, my first conclusion is: "oh, they just kept trying for a son but never got one. Serves you right to keep trying." Hey, what do I know? Maybe they really wanted more kids and gender wasn't a big deal (yeah, right).

As I made brief mention before, Sam and I badly wanted a girl - our other friends who had kids all seemed to end up with two boys and while I know you're not supposed to care - we cared. If we decide to have a second baby, his/her sex isn't as big of a deal, mostly because what we're mostly concerned over is whether or not our second baby would be as good-natured as L is. It seems like in other families we know, when the first kid turns out dreamy, it's like fate dishes out the opposite with the second child and they turn out to be little holy terrors. As challenging as raising L has been as a SAHD, I realize that she's actually extraordinarily easy-going (as Sam jokes, "L didn't that from me"). Sam and I are completely spoiled as a result.

Ok, some cute time. L has recently discoved the pleasures of finger sucking and at our wedding, my friend's daughter "Kiana" also showed that the "two finger" technique is clearly a baby favorite.

(just to be a photogeek - everyone should own an 85mm portrait lens. Seriously.)

READING MATERIAL

2005-05-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, by this time, every single baby blogger has already mentioned this, but hell, why not one more? "Ugly children may get the parental short shrift."

Of course, how does one reconcile this with the fact that no parent thinks their kid is ugly?

Not quite as controversial but more practically relevant: forget telecommunicating - it's all about babycommuting.

Last, but not least, another NY Times article, this one on the excess of photography in a digital age

Let's be real: most of us are probably guilty of taking more pictures of our kids than Helmut Newton at a fashion shoot. L is only three months old but she already has seven albums online, the more recent including 46 pics (taken over the course of a month or so). And the thing is: those 46 represent me going through about triple of digital shots and cutting out all the photos I didn't like (and I'm picky).

I do miss shooting on film and one of these days, I might get a roll of B&W and blow the dust off my 35mm. But as all well know, digital photography makes overshooting seductively easy and it's hard to readjust to a reality where you choose your shots more carefully lest you waste pricey film. When you can put nearly 150 hi-res pics on a single memory card, the lure of clicking at will is strong to resist.

Worse yet, I keep meaning to get some of my digi pix printed but have yet to get organized enough to even copy my select shots to a CD.

THIS WEEK IN PARENTAL OUTRAGE...

2005-04-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Writer, columnist (former mommmy-blogger) Ayelet Waldman was on Oprah last Wed, responding to a minor shit storm she's caused with a recent essay excerpted from an upcoming book on motherhood.

The gist of Waldman's argument is that too many new mothers transfer their romantic passions from their partners and instead, onto their children. For Waldman, this is a concern because it explains bed death between new parents and more profoundly, in her own words, results in a situation, "where once her husband was the center of her passionate universe, there is now a new sun in whose orbit she revolves. Libido, as she once knew it, is gone, and in its place is all-consuming maternal desire."

Understand - I don't actually disagree with Waldman's central points especially since she's not stating anything particularly original. Fathers the world over, since time immemorial, have already figured out that more baby = less sex and that parenthood can (but doesn't always will) empty the sexual energy between a couple and redirect their attention onto the children. Moreover, I'll defend Waldman against all those outraged parents who'll try to call her a bad mom for speaking her mind on this topic.

All this said, Waldman's essay annoys the hell out of me.

First of all, while I appreciate the core of her argument, everything surrounding it is, at times, laughably overstated. The most obvious example is her "God Forbid" scenario where she weighs two scenarios, i.e. "God forbid one of my children ever die" vs. "God forbid my husband should die." Waldman declares that while the first would be devestating, the latter would be even worse, thereby confirming, to Waldman, that she does indeed love her husband more than her kids.

Pardon my french, but c'mon...gimme a fucking break. How can anyone accurately predict the qualitative difference in grief they would feel between the death of a spouse vs. child? Asking me whether Sam or L's premature death would affect me more is like asking if I'd rather lose an arm or a leg. I can't make that call and thankfully, I don't have to. More to the point, for most parents, I would have to think that they don't have a hierarchy of love between spouse and children, but rather, it's degrees of difference. I love Sam and L fiercely but I don't confuse the sexual/romantic affections I have for Sam with the parental adoration I feel towards L. I don't know why Waldman couldn't just state that point simpler without having to raise this ridiculous "God forbid" scenario.

Second of all, Waldman really needs to dial back the sanctimonious tone she uses throughout her essay. One of the most egregious moments comes early on, when Waldman writes,

"I am the only woman in Mommy and Me who seems to be, well, getting any. This could fill me with smug well-being. I could sit in the room and gloat over my wonderful marriage. I could think about how our sex life—always vital, even torrid—is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first met. I could check my watch to see if I have time to stop at Good Vibrations to see if they have any exciting new toys. I could even gaze pityingly at the other mothers in the group, wishing that they too could experience a love as deep as my own.

But I don't. I am far too busy worrying about what's wrong with me. Why, of all the women in the room, am I the only one who has not made the erotic transition a good mother is supposed to make? Why am I the only one incapable of placing her children at the center of her passionate universe?

Um...saying that "I could gloat about how glorious my life is...but I won't" is gloating, ok? Casually mentioning that you and Michael Chabon are currently enjoying Nina Hartley's Guide to Spanking is rubbing everyone's nose in your "torrid" sex life and this, i.e. "I am far too busy worry about what's with me," is such an obviously transparent attempt at false modesty.

Most of all, I think Waldman overstates her point unnecessarily. As I noted before, I think most parents can understand and appreciate her basic argument but rather than focus on the simple observation that spousal and parental love is and should be different, Waldman keeps repeating herself with a string of increasingly outrageous statements and rhetorical flourishes. She practically seems to taunt her own kids at the end by repeatedly stating (for the umpteenth time) that she loves her husband more than them. Ok, we got the point three pages ago, why are you still harping on this? The merits of Waldman's arguments aside, it's just bad writing.

This seems so reflective of the parental advice industry - a bunch of egomaniacs running around shoveling sanctimonious bullshit. Believe me, blogging isn't that much better either, but at least I'm not admitting, "I browbeat the fine editors of [Salon] into letting me have a column," which translates to me as, "no one thought I should be given a platform for my views until I nagged them into giving me one."

The shame of this is that Waldman, as I've stressed throughout, has some important points to make, especially in explaining some of the roots of parental bed death (something that I'm all too keenly aware of right now). In thinking about how Sam and I have drastically curtailed our love life with one another, there are many obvious culprits and you've heard it all before: we're both tired, we don't have time, the baby shares our bedroom so we don't have privacy, etc. One additional thought came to the mind though: I think one of the things we enjoyed about sex B.C. (before child) was the relative lack of concern over unintended consequences. Sex was about intimacy, pleasure, all the good things.

Then we got pregnant with L. Surprise!

I wonder if both Sam and I are subconsciously wary of resuming our sex life because we now are reminded that sex also equals procreation which, while rewarding in its own way, douses the enjoyment of "sex without concern" with a shower of chilly water. Of course, it hasn't even been three months yet so maybe this is just a momentary blip - I'm not trying to obsesss about it. At least it beats being married in Japan, where apparently, bed death isn't caused by kids...it's caused by marriage. Doh!

CLOSE TO THE EDGE

2005-04-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a minute, mostly because I've been out of town and busy with other things. This is the main reason why I wanted to avoid daddy-blogging - there's this pressure to provide content more regularly but sometimes you don't have time and other times, you just don't have the inspiration. Much as I'd like to say that my head is boiling over with topics on an hourly basis, the truth is that my experience with parenthood has been more like a continuous loop. There are some new things to report along the way - first smile, first crawl, first tantrum, etc. - but most days things just resemble the day before...or what I might predict for tomorrow.

Right now, I'm at the nadir of this current loop. Far from becoming more tempered to L's fussiness and crying, I feel like my fuse is even shorter than ever. That's not her fault - I self-reflect that frustration inwards at my inability to comprehend just what is going wrong and how to address it. It's gotten bad enough that I've taken to posting to Craigslist's Parenting forum for advice. However, that only further proves the adage that "every baby is different" since you'll get myriad suggestions, few of which are in actual agreement with one another.

So far, the only things I've found to absolutely work is taking her out for a walk...and that'd be fine if I had the stamina to walk 10 hours straight to wait for Sam to go to work and come back. Note: L is almost never as fussy when her mom is around which leads me to speculate that either she doesn't feed as well with me, and therefore, she's fussy because she's hungry or else Sam just has some secret maternal calming hormone. Bottle that and you'd make billions...

Part of my frustration/despondancy comes from the feeling that I'm just not cut out for SAHD status and being the stubborn refuse-to-admit-defeat kind of guy I am, this creates much internal conflict. After all, as I frequently tell myself, billions of women and men do this daily and it's hardly as if L is a real problem child by any objective standard. Hiring a nanny, or putting L in day care, just seem like admissions that I'm a lousy caretaker. If I was working full time, sure it'd make sense, but right now, I have the time. What's lacking is the stamina/patience.

Ironically (or maybe not), this all seems very distant when she's in a good mood. It's like a light switch: her happiness suddenly dissipates the emotional darkness and it's hard to remember what the bad stuff feels like. But the moment the crying starts, you instantly recall just how bad it can be. There's something very bipolar about this which I'm sure isn't particularly healthy. On that note, my therapist more or less hits it on the nose when she points out that I've always been ambivalent around taking care of women (formerly, my mom, then girlfriends) insofar as I both feel duty-bound to look after their happiness but I carry with that a kernal of resentment. Just my luck that I have a daughter, *laugh* though truthfully, both Sam and I really wanted a girl and I doubt my situation with L would be any improved if she were a boy instead.

All I really want to know right now are ways to keep her calm and uncrying without having to resort to either taking her out for long walks every hour or else carrying her about the house in the koala hold 9-5. We went to see the doctor today and he opined that her 5 O' Clock Fussies (as they've come to be known) are possibly a reaction to over-stimulation but trying to put her to bed in a quiet, darkened room does very little. I can't quite figure it out but there's something about laying down on her back that she really hates when she gets like this (being on her tummy isn't so hot either so scratch that easy solution).

In any case, I hope there are happier times ahead to report on - I'm sure there will be but it's as an acquaintance told me this past weekend: the months go by fast but the days last forever. Very true.

BABY STYLE

2005-04-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

First off - I survived Week 1 of SAHD status. It wasn't easy, especially the first two days. I was literally counting down the minutes until Sam came from from work so I could hand L off to her mom. I was just exhausted from dealing with this uber-fussy baby who hated the bottle and hence, was starving herself into discomfort. By mid-week though, L was better and now, she takes to the bottle as easily as could be hoped and that's made her a much happier baby. A thankful dad rejoices.

And I admit...it's fun to take her out so much. If I'm not too tired, I skip the stroller and strap her into either the sling or Bjorn. L's now strong enough to hold her neck up so I face her forward to greet the world and yeah, I'm doing it as much for my benefit as her own. I like flossin' around town with a cute baby hanging off my chest (it's like Baby Bling). I still need to figure out how to occupy both her and I for so much time per day. I don't want to resort to using the TV as a babysitter but sometimes, it's damn attractive.

Anyways, I've learned an important lesson from all this time with L in her fussed-out mode: it makes you appreciate people who put some actual thought into how to design baby clothes with both baby and parent in mind. There is nothing worse than trying to clothe a screaming baby and not being able to figure out how how the hell her buttons are arranged. Actually, I don't understand why so many baby clothes have buttons on them at all - are zippers gauche now? My favorite outfits for L are ones where there's one zipper that runs from her neckline down to one of her feet - zip in, zip out, super-duper easy.

On the other hand, this is a crazy cute kimono-style jumper that Sam and I love having L wear:

However, as elegant as it looks, it has about two dozen buttons (not really, but it feels like it), many of which don't intuitively snap in where you expect them too. I mean, I'm an educated dude - I shouldn't need a mechanical engineering background just to dress my daughter, you know?

Don't get me wrong...I appreciate how onesies and some jumpers have easy-to-open bottoms for quick diaper access...but on the other side of the spectrum, you have sweaters with actual buttons (i.e. with button holes) which is a nice old school touch, but have you ever tried to button someone when they're squirming around like a tadpole?

Sam doesn't seem to mind though - she's more a slave to fashoin than me. If I could dress L in mumus all the time, I probably would, just for the convenience.

A MOMENT OF LEVITY

2005-04-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

Day two is just kicking off...won't know if we'll have the same fireworks as yesterday. In the meantime...

For years now, I've been inundated with this constant chirping about how "hapa babies are the cutest." (For the unaware, hapa = person of mixed Asian/other heritage. Technically, it's Asian/white but the term was grown to encompass any mixture involving an Asian heritage).

This isn't to say that hapa babies aren't cute. Like most babies, some are, and some - I'm afraid - absolutely are NOT. But as someone who grew up full Asian, and who's daughter is of mixed intra-Asian heritage (Chinese/Japanese), I get rather eye-rolly at the idea that being white/Asian is supposed to increase your cute quotient above and beyond what one might have been as "just Asian." Our babies are cute on their own, thank you very much.

Moreover, I also find it a bit annoying that most of the people on the "hapa babies are the cutest" train tend to be Asians themsevles. It sounds as if it's not good enough for our own yeller people to be "full" Asian...it's only by mixing out that a next level of cuteness is attained. Please understand: this isn't remotely a screed against inter-marriage or mixed babies but I'm just lobbying for those of us with non-hapa babies to get some respect.

In any case, someone sent me a link to this site: Hapa Kids Club (an offshoot of the *gag* Haole Hubby Site) and you can decide for yourself. There are definitely some cute babies in the mix there, especially these two. There are also some not-so cute ones but I won't be rude and pluck out their pics.

One photo is almost identical to one of my daughter though so I can offer a hapa vs. full Asian cuteness test I suppose:

I also came upon this site today: Real Kidz - biracial dolls! They include a hapa doll named "Quincy". I was pleasantly surprised to see that Quincy's father was Asian and mom is white though I can't remember if any Asian parent I've ever known would have thought to name their child - a daughter no less - "Quincy."

THE DAY IS (CRASHING) UPON US

2005-04-03T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sam returns to work in about 10 hours, meaning my first day as a SAHD is about to begin. Time to get those fingers crossed...and blog ready.

Also, Poppa Large is turning into Poppas Large - I'm inviting a few other dads to join in to post. Stay tuned.

(Call me Daddy-O from now on).

Ok, so...so far, it's been a minor disaster.

L and I drove Sam to her first day of work - everything was great. L slept for the ride down, during the visit to Sam's workplace and all the way on the ride back, plus an additional 30 minutes. At around the 3 hour mark since her last feeding, she started to wake up and fuss so I changed her diaper, had the bottle all ready to go and...

It's like someone set off a Fuss Bomb. L was as unhappy as I've ever known her to be. She started crying the moment she woke up and from that point onward, didn't stop. This went on for at least 40 minutes. She hated the bottle, hated being picked up and held, hated being put down, hated having her diaper changed...you get the point.

The only thing she didn't hate was our swing, which is compelling me to send large donations to Graco for their godly creation. I, of course, feel shitty about this because I shouldn't have to use a machine soothe her when I'm right here, three feet away, but her crying was so persistent and loud, I was seriously hearing ringing in my right ear.

My guess - and this is only a guess since, hey, I don't really know what the fuck is going on - is that L's hungry but wants boobie. Boobie, alas, is about six hours away. L usually doesn't have that much trouble taking the bottle - she usually has a meal from the bottle every day or so - but I can appreciate that she's used to breast. If I thought it would have helped, I would have offered her myown but I don't think I can offer a reasonable fascimile to Sam's glandular grandeur. (I guess I could give a call over to BALCO and get some 'roid help with that though).

This is the grand irony, the flipside to my post Mammary Madness: after stressing to high heaven about the baby only taking the bottle and not taking the breast, we've suddenly had the tables turned. L nurses off the breast dreamily but try to ease the bottle into the picture and L's cocking her eyebrow, pouting her lips and giving me a "whatchu' talkin' about Willis?" stare (this about two seconds before she opens her mouth and starts firing with her Luger Lungs.)

Right now, she's sleeping in the swing and I'm plotting my next course of action until she wakes up again. Hopefully, I can whip up some kind of McGuyver-like solution...something involving a burp cloth, diaper snappy and breast pump tubing.

We'll see what happens later. Mommy needs to come home, stat!
(I'm such a wuss right now).

Last update of the day: altogether, today was a journey into my private concentric circle of hell. L-Boogie had two long napping periods which were dreamy for me...but once she awoke, she was inconsolable. I didn't help things by accidentally pinching her when I was trying to take a diaper snappy off. It's like when she gets a shot at the doctor's - she's eerily quiet for a split second as her primitive brain processes what's just happened...

Hmm...what was that?
That was different.
I...I...I think it hurts.
Oh yeah, it hurts really bad!
SCRREEEEAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!

I think, at one point, I had to scream myself (into a pillow) out of frustration, as well as rough the bed up a bit, just to expel some pent up ickiness. Sam says I was probably far, far more tramatized by today's events than L was but of course, being a PIP, I assume that I managed to squander whatever trust I've built with L over the last two months of attachment parenting. (Remember - the "P" in "PIP" stands for "paranoid").

Ah, tomorrow's another day though. Woo woo.

SHARED WISDOMS

2005-03-27T23:42:00.000-08:00

This was originally posted in the comments section but it deserves its own post:

From Jordan Stratford:

IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR

2005-03-26T23:00:00.000-08:00

Sam, L and I are down in L.A. right now, visiting Sam's sister, "Ki." This is the first real trip we've taken L on and Sam was somewhat apprehensive in risking a six+ hour drive down even though L usually sleeps well in cars. We actually made it down most of the way without incident...but of course, "most" doesn't really matter if the part "not most" doesn't quite go your way.

I swear that L has some kind of built in GPS system where she'll start to fuss inconsolably once we're almost within distance of our final destination but not so close that we can just floor it and hope to get there before she turns on the sirens. In took us an hour to travel less than 20 miles and it's not because L.A. traffic was bad (though, of course it was too). Rather, we had to stop twice to take L out of her carrier and try to calm her so we could lock her back in - this after she had slept pretty fitfully for 300+ miles.

Of course, maybe after 300+ miles, she wasn't feeling anymore time spent in her car seat (and who can blame her?) but it killed me that we were so close to Ki's house but we might as well have been 100 miles away if L was fussing up a storm. Surprisingly, what ended up working was Sam sitting in the backseat and "sssssh"-ing L until she went hoarse. L nodded back out and we were able to zoom to Ki's during the lull.

Everytime we either visit Ki or she visits us, we kind of want to kidnap her and make her our full-time nanny. Even though Ki is four years younger than Sam and doesn't have kids of her own yet, she's got more maternal instinct than Sam and I put together. She loves babies as a general rule whereas Sam and I, as a general rule, are terrified by babies and small children and thus it's grand cosmic humor that two people such as we should be so blessed as to be with child. Don't get us wrong - we're not big on children...except our own. Both of us love L but even then, she's like an enigma, wrapped inside a riddle, bundled inside a puzzle, swaddled within a dirty diaper. With Ki, she takes to kids with such a natural energy and grace, it leaves us both a little amazed and envious.

Most importantly though, as good as Ki is with babies writ large, given that L is her niece and godchild, you can only imagine how much she absolutely adores her. This is a woman who'll jump up and run across the run just to burp L. As such, we absolutely adore Ki - she's like the best frickin' babysitter ever and she actually seems to enjoy all the tedious tasks with L that we grow weary of sometimes: feeding, changing, burping, etc. Provided, maybe it's because Ki and her husband (who Ki describes as an "S.W.U" = Scary White Uncle) don't have kids of their own yet, but we don't care - having her around is like that third set of arms you and your parnter always wish you had.

Alas, the rest of our family, especially the in-laws, are not quite so handy. Sam's parents, while they live close by, are getting on in age and tasking them with L for the evening seems a bit burdensome. They enjoy her company enough but neither Sam or I feel comfortable imposing on them to babysit for an entire evening, especially since they usually turn in fairly early while L has proven to be a night owl like her old man.

My parents live far off which is actually a mixed blessing. On one hand, my dad absolutely dotes on L (even though he's only seen her twice)...he's really taken to being a grandfather (by the way - L is the first grandchild on both sides of the family, so you can imagine how badly she's being spoiled) which I find really fucking cute since it makes me see my dad in a new light (i.e. not as the disciplinarian who I grew up fearful of, but rather, this kindly, smiling old guy who loves his granddaughter).

My mom on the other hand...well, what can I really say? She's a Chinese mom and those of you with Chinese moms know what the fuck I'm talking about (those with other Asian or Jewish moms may also share some sympathy pains with me too). My whole diatribe about Chinese moms would be enough for its own ~~post~~ blog but since I already do enough kvetching to my therapist about it, I'll spare the rest of you.

Just to give one example though - when my mom and dad came to visit the first week after L was born, I was trying to take pictures of her holding L...only to be instructed on where I should stand and how I should compose the shot. She was basically operating as my goddamn D.P. - I was half expecting her to say, "wait, I don't think the mise en scene is quite right compositionally here. Let me move to the other side of the couch and why don't you try an elevated close-up and make sure the lighting on my left is good?"

I'm not saying she's a bad grandmother - she's practically gloats to her friends about how cute L is - but given that my ability to be a good dad can be comprised if I'm driven to a state of insanity, it's probably for the best that my mom only makes occassional visits to our household.

As a soon to be SAHD however, I really, really wish I had more family close by. I'll be honest with ya'll - I'm scared to death about this transition and I don't want to impose of my friends to lend a hand. Really, that's the great thing about family - you can impose on them endlessly without that much guilt since, as I've always said, if you can't exploit family, who can you?

WHO'S LOOKING OUT FOR MR. MOM?

2005-03-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

*Originally published at MetroDad

Sam's going back to work in two weeks and since she's the gainfully employed one of our pair, I'm designated Mr. Mom for lil' L. I've approached this fact with cheerful denial, i.e. "Oh, I'm sure it won't be too bad, right?" but when I seriously think about it, it's a daunting reality. It's been a luxury for both Sam and I to be home for L's first two months since we could always bail the other out when necessary. The times when I've had to leave the house for my work needs, Sam's mom has usually rolled through to help.

When I take over, it's not like it's going to be me, 5 days a week, alone...Sam can work from home at least once a week and her mom will still probably come by once a week too, to help. But frankly, I don't know what the hell I'm getting myself in for.

I'm fully aware that millions of moms work this grind out every single day. However, in all fairness, there are a gazillion resources designed to help at-home moms. All the books we have on parenting presume Dad goes back to work and if anyone stays at home, it's mom. Not helpful for me! Moreover, support and activity groups out there cater to at-home moms too. I tried to see if the big, local mom's group accepted Dads - they don't.

Mind you, I'm not bitter at this lack of parity. The % of at-home dads is, I presume, tiny compared to moms, but it makes me feel intimidated that I'm going to have to figure out how to make this work based on little more than my own wits and patience - both of which I'm in short supply of right now. Sam and I have talked about getting childcare - a part-time nanny for example - to help balance the load and while I'm not adverse to this, I still feel like I should try to do this on my own, just to see if it's manageable.

I'm wondering if there are any current or former Mr. Moms out there - and if so - what kind of insights you can lend to a soon-to-be member of that clique. Likewise, I'd love to hear from at-home moms too about what the experience is like: do you still have time to do your own things? How resentful - if at all - were you? Did you feel socially isolated from other people, trapped in your own house? Etc.

Poppa Large thanks you in advance.

KICKIN' FLAVOR

2005-03-21T09:59:00.000-08:00

*Originally published at MetroDad

From as far as I can tell, L won't be on the full-range of adult solid foods for around a year or so but this hasn't stopped me from being excited at the prospect of introducing her to all kinds of yummy consumables down the road. I've already experimented a bit by giving her small tastes of things other than mom's milk, i.e. a lick from a spoon which had been used to eat cantoloupe, a lick of Fuji apple, a dibby dab of ice cream, etc. I also tried a little chocolate, assuming she would have inherited mommy's chocolate obsessions but I don't think little L is ready for 73% cacao yet.

Ultimately, who knows what kind of food L will or won't like but like most, I'm hoping she'll have a generous and adventerous palette. For me, food was one of the few pure pleasures from my childhood that I don't attribute to nostalgia (like other memories) - there's something so sensuous about food that I never consciously recognized as a child but looking back now, I think the reason I can remember certain experiences with food so intensely (whereas, I've forgotten everything else) has much to do with the ways in which a great meal - even for a child - can light up your senses like few other things available to someone under the age of consent.

My Top Three Foods I Want to Introduce L To:

1) Fruit.
Neither Sam or I are religious people and my opinions on God range somewhere between atheism and agnosticism but if I were to believe in some proof of a Higher Power at work in the world, I'd point to fruit as my evidence. I know there are evolutionary reasons why fruit tastes good - you want animals to eat it, thereby helping to spread the seeds through their scat, blah blah blah. I mean, I'm sure the botanists are right and all, but fuck it: in my perspective, only some omnipotent, omniscient Being would have come up with something as incredible as a watermelon. Or a ripe pear. Or a bowl of sweet strawberries. It's no wonder that so many fruits are equated with aphrodisiacs - there are few other foods I can think of that offer such intense and powerful feelings of pleasure when you bite into them.

Like...a handful of seedless red flame grapes, chilled, on a summer day? That's like a "thank you" gift from Nature that we probably don't even deserve. I can't wait to watch L bite into a ripe strawberry and watch her reaction. Damn, I'm making myself hungry right now, writing this.

2. Pizza.
In Jeffrey Steingarten's book, The Man Who Ate Everything, he writes about "umami", the so-called fifth taste (alongside sweet, salty, sour, and bitter). It's a little hard to describe umami since it's not a combination of other tastes, but rather its own taste (I mean, try describing what sweet tastes like). It can be translated as "deliciousness" and it's supposed to convey a sense of well-being and satisfaction.

Japanese culinary scientists who originally named umami have found that it exists in certain kinds of foods and combinations of food. For example, kelp imparts a good deal of umami, which explains why it's such a staple of Japanese soup bases. Shocked as many will be to hear this, but MSG - unfairly demonized - is to umami what salt is to saltiness. Beef imparts umami as well. And two great sources of umami that we find combined often are cheese and tomatoes.

At least, this is the argument that Steingarden puts forward as to why we like pizza so much and while I hardly need a reason to justify why people like pizza, at least it's nice to know there might be a scientific reason behind it.

Pizza was the first non-dessert "treat" I can remember my parents offering me...it was this pizzaeria outside of Boston (we lived in Burlington for a spell) and all I remember is that their logo used a barbershop spiral and that they would serve their pizzas in between two paper plates, pressed together to form a UFO shape. Like I said, it's strange what you remember from your childhood and I remember the UFO plates because I associated it with this incredible new food.

Remember pizza = umami = mmmmmm...goood.

3. Ice Cream
Greatest. Thing. Ever. If you challenged me to either give up ice cream or sex, I might actually have to go with sex right now (like most new parents, we have ice cream a lot. The other thing? Not so much).

It's a bit strange but for some reason, I associate ice cream with the privileges of adulthood. To explain: when I was young, enjoying ice cream was only possible with the permission of my parents...they had to take me to the parlour, or buy some to take home. But it was a "special" food - not something I could just eat on a whim.

Now that I'm older, I can go out and have ice cream anytime I want to and honestly...there's a still little thrill in realizing that I don't need anyone's permission now. I guess it's a strange marker for passage into adulthood but then again, being able to buy a scoop of mint chip in a sugar cone beats killing a bear or having my privates pierced.

(Honorable mention: sushi. No kid of mine is going to blanch at the idea of eating raw fish, especially when they're half Japanese.)

A MOMENT OF REST

2005-03-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

*Originally published at MetroDad

Nothing too heady today. L has both Sam and I exhausted. As predicted, at six weeks, L has found creative new ways of being fussy. We're rather nervous since we're about to take L on her first out-of-town trip this week, to visit family down in L.A. Usually, driving with L is a breeze because she tends to fall asleep when we're moving. Lately though, it's been like that movie Speed - if the car falls under a certain speed, L wakes up and her internal baby bomb goes off. Freeway driving will probably be better but stop and go traffic is a nightmare since we can't get her to sleep for more than a few blocks until we hit a red light or stopped traffic.

What's funny is that whenever we visit my in-laws, they remark how it's strange to them that we seem to hold L a lot. Back in their day, they were down with that ole "let them cry it out" approach, something I think my parents adopted too. This, of course, explains all my abandonment issues (at least my therapist seems to think so).

Friends of mine, who have a baby girl about half a year older than L, have recently gotten her to go to sleep by putting her on a schedule and just laying her down to bed the same time every night. If she cries a bit, they leave her be - whether for five or fifteen minutes - until she cries it out and then falls asleep. I respect their choices as parents but personally, right now, I have a hard time picturing Sam and I adopting the same approach. As much as we'd like for her to get onto a more regular schedule, I guess we have the blind hope that this will be something she'll just drift into (I'm a firm believer in the "blind hope" approach to parenthood. Until of course, such a time when it might blow up in my face.) In the meantime though, L cries, we pick her up, rock her a bit, sling her in the "koala hold", take her out for a walk. Exhaust ourselves. Repeat cycle. But the alternative? Listening to her wail for a quarter hour? Not. Feeling. That.

I'd be curious to hear how more seasoned parents handled all the fussy times during your kids' infancy?

MAMMARY MADNESS

2005-03-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

*Originally published at MetroDad

Remember how I warned all ya'll that so much of the advice we're given for parenthood runs counter to CFS (aka Common Fucking Sense)? Nowhere is this more apparent than in the furor around breastfeeding.

This is far, far, far from a new topic - in fact, Metrodad already touched on this in a previous entry but it seemed as if he and BossLady had a far easier time adjusting to the reality of breastfeeding than what Sam and I have gone through (ok, really Sam since technically, my breasts don't lactate). More to the point, the pressures that exist for newborn mothers around breastfeeding are a classic example of how good intentions destroys CFS and creates neurotic wrecks in the process.

Call 'em the La Leche Legion, the Boobie Brigade, Titty Tyrants or just plain Breast Feeding Fascists (BFF - yes, I like acronyms) but the pro-breastfeeding lobby in America is not to be fucked with. In all the books we got prior to L's birth, breastfeeding is talked up with such passion that new moms who dare to consider bottle-feeding formula come off seeming like their feeding their kids broken glass.

The irony here is that part of why BFFs are so insistent on breastfeeding is precisely because the pro-formula lobby, up until the last 10-15 years or so, had ruled the day in what seems to me to be a classic example of a loss of CFS as well.After all, why in the world would anyone encourage moms NOT to breastfeed and use formula instead if the human female body has a whole goddamn biological sub-system specifically built for the task?

What, you think evolution created mammary glands just to give straight men something to stare at? Like breasts are optional equipment on your body that you can choose to disregard just because science thinks it's improved on the product? If your body went through all the trouble to create breasts that actually lactate (a rather remarkable thing, in and of itself), you'd think this was Nature's way of telling you to use what you got rather than cracking open another Similac can.

I want to be careful here not to diss formula since, as MD points out, most people in our generation of now 30-year olds were probably formula-fed and we didn't turn out bad because of it (well, except for that weird rash I still have...oh, never mind). However, I can appreciate that BFFs are trying to counter the last few generations of pro-formula attitudes and get baby's back on the breast because it's better for them. I'm not mad at that.

The problem is that as a necessary condition of being breast-friendly, there's a subtle demonization for formula and bottle-feeding that goes with it. It's not in-your-face, but it's easy enough to read between the lines in all the new parenting books that are out there, as well as the attitude of lactation consultants who will come visit you the first few days post-partum. No one will say, "don't give your baby a bottle of formula" but for PIPs (remember: paranoid, inexperienced parents), we excel at building mountains from molehills so we blow everything out of proportion.

For Sam and I, we had a terrible experience with this. She was able to breastfeed right after L was born and for the first day or so, everything seemed fine. Sam was producing colostrum, that early breastmilk that's apparently the best-thing-ever for newborns and L seemed happy enough with it. But by day 3, L seemed to be getting really fussy and nothing we could do - feeding her, swaddling her, rocking her - seemed to do much good for more than a few minutes. It was really wearing Sam and I down, especially as new parents who hadn't been sleeping at all the previous three days. Most of all, we just couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on. Babies, in theory, are supposed to sleep 90% of the time when they're first born but L was fussing what felt like half the day.

At the time, my mom was visiting and she basically spent 5 minutes with L and declared, "she's hungry" like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Now - I have some serious Mom issues and therefore, I have gotten into the habit of disbelieving any advice that comes out of her mouth so in this case, I just tuned her out.

But the truth was - L was hungry because Sam's milk hadn't come in yet. This isn't unusual at all - it's not like all women give birth and then start churning out more milk than a dairy farm. It can take days for production to match demand, let alone for mom/baby to master the art of latching. However, Sam was so insistent that we only breastfeed that everytime anyone (including myself) quietly suggested that we might want to consider using some of the formula we brought home with us, she became quickly defensive and despondant, as if those little Similac bottles were mocking her deficiencies as a mom.Clearly, this was partially Sam's neuroses as a PIP at work but it was also heavily influenced by the success that BFFs have wrought on new moms everywhere. The bottle is treated with a quiet disdain and it absolutely influenced Sam and my behavior the first month of parenthood.

What we ended up doing that entire day was starving L unnecessarily. She was nursing at the breast but wasn't actually getting anything out of it and it's no wonder she was so fussy that whole day. By the time we met with a lactation consultant the next day, she assured us that it was fine to formula-feed L as a supplement and for us to not stress about it. Upon which, fully fed, L actually, you know, SLEPT and Sam and I felt a great weight lifted from upon our shoulders. I cannot adequately describe this but I had never felt so relieved in my life.

It also could have been worse. When I started mentioning this episode to other friends, I realized how incredibly common it was. Clearly, Sam and I weren't the only stupid morons out there, caught up in BFF. One friend told me that his cousin had done the same thing, only that their baby had to be taken to the hospital for dehydration. Whoa! Luckily, L was spared a trip to the ER but for days after, Sam and I were convinced we had indelibly scarred her for life by starving her for the day. No doubt, this will emerge as a subconscious trauma for L when she starts going to therapy in 2027.

What's particularly crazy about all this is that all we really needed to hear was for a book or person to just tell us, "breastfeeding is hard and you'll be confronted with challenges with it. Don't feel bad using formula to help get you by." I wonder if BFFs are so worried that parents might abandon breastfeeding altogether if they're not militant about it, but very few of them are ever real with you about the reality that, for some women, milk production can be a challenge and there's nothing you can do about it, despite better intentions.

Ironically, when I suggested Sam attend a breastfeeding support group at our delivery hospital, this ended up making things worse since Sam felt like she was in a room filled with mothers lactating like friggin' cattle - pumping out six ounces as if were no big deal - while she was having trouble even eeking out a third of that.

What's telling in all this is that the one authority figure around you who's fine with formula is usually your pediatrician. The baby's health and well-being, after all, is their first priority and I think it's telling that doctors don't seem, at all, bothered with the idea that a baby might be both breast and formula-fed so long as the operative word here is "fed." Makes you wonder how the BFFs ever became as powerful as they are.

By the way, if you really want to see people get downright nasty with one another about this whole debate, try reading the Craigslist forums on parenting. People who say the Bay Area is filled with congenial, laid back folk are clearly not appreciating that we have assholes here too.

As a postscript, now that we're about six weeks into parenthood, breastfeeding has become much easier than it initially was. Sam's still not producing enough breastmilk for us to start making brie from the excess or anything but she is making enough to keep L satiated plus a few ounces every day to store in the fridge for the late-night feedings I usually take care of.

Just remember though - if your baby is hungry and you're not producing enough milk, use CFS: give 'em the bottle to help fill in the gaps. It's absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, especially once your baby decides to stop screaming on you for starving him/her.

SEX AND SALAD

2005-03-17T00:58:00.000-08:00

*Originally published at MetroDad

I can't really speak for Sam (but I will anyways) about what pregnancy must be like, but based on what I observed, there seemed to be some distinct phases to her experience.

Initial Discovery aka "Holy shit, we're pregnant."

Typical comments: "How the hell did this happen?" "Oh wait, maybe this has to do with me going off the pill last month." "Did I forget to tell you that?" "Oops."

First Trimester aka "I still can't believe we're pregnant."

Typical comments: "This is so crazy." "Are we really ready to do this?" "What do you mean I can't eat soft cheese/sushi/raw shellfish or drink wine?"

Second Trimester (early) aka Starting to Show

Typical comments: "Wow, I have a baby inside of me." "I hope people don't think I'm getting fat." "By the way, your mom called, she wants to know when we're getting married."

Second Trimester (late) aka Golden Days

Typical comments: "This is really amazing." "She's kicking so hard - she's doing her little fan dance today." "By the way, your dad called, he wants to know when we're getting married."

Third Trimester aka Ok, Show's Over

Typical Comments: "I hate wearing jeans with an elastic band - I'm not ready to wear 'mom' jeans!" "This was fun while it lasted but it better be over soon."

...and then comes the dreaded...

Post-mester aka Past Delivery Date

Typical Comments: "How come she won't come out?" "Am I going to be pregnant forever?" "I'm giving her one more day than I'm yanking her out myself."

Sam was actually quite well-mannered through most of the pregnancy - until the 36th week. Then, she started to be convinced that L was no longer merely kicking, but had apparently smuggled a small shank into the womb and was now stabbing Sam in the cervix with it.

We went to our midwife but he seemed convinced that L would be out any day now and that there was no reason to induce contractions through artificial means. Then he gave us the advice I knew was likely to come: "have you two tried sex?"

For those who didn't know (or who never watched the penultimate season of Friends(1), there's some kind of hormone inside semen that can help initiate contractions. However, like getting pregnant itself, it helps to be able to...um...deliver as much of the hormone as possible, which, in our case, meant trying to have sex three times a day.

Don't get me wrong. I love sex with Sam (that's what got us into this situation to begin with). Moreover, I found Sam to be incredibly beautiful throughout the pregnancy, even when she had body issues with her transforming figure. However, sex during the last trimester introduced certain - shall we say - challenges that conflicted with my normal enjoyment of lovemaking.

I won't get into all the details but part of it was that sex was now more physically awkward for obvious reasons. Certain positions just didn't work at all and more to the point, Sam was more sensitive (in a bad way) and the fear of potential pain doesn't do much to spice up the mood.

There's also the issue of the baby and the fact that I'm hyper-aware of the fact that L is basically, you know, RIGHT DOWN THERE. It didn't help that prior to suggesting we rut like rabbit, our midwife also told us, "your baby has already dropped into the pelvic region. In fact, if you stick a finger inside, you can feel her head." What I translated that to mean was: "When making love to Sam, I'll practically be poking our daughter in her head with my penis."

It just seemed so...disrespectful. However, Sam couldn't have been happier since she had been craving sex for weeks. The fact that sex could now be tasked with getting labor going only made it even more desirable. She was practically demanding "injections" as much as possible.

Now...like most men, I've had my bouts of performance anxiety in the sack but suddenly, sex on demand, three times a day, with a 9-month old pregnant woman, was like psychological anti-Viagra for me. I was anxious, frustrated, and resentful, none of which are particularly helpful in encouraging climax. It got to the point where it was easier for me to "self-negotiate" and only insert to "complete." Believe me, this did not rank among my fonder masturbatory moments but much to my surprise, Sam was very appreciative of my willingness to make the effort, regardless of what it took.

The problem was - all this effort was seemingly for naught. Labor still seemed like a far away fantasy despite our best efforts otherwise. That's when the salad came in.

Sam's sister had heard of this "labor-inducing salad" sold at Caioti Pizza Cafe in Los Angeles. It's not so much the salad that is purported to work the magic but rather, the salad dressing, a basil vinaigrette. As urban lore goes, women who eat a salad with this dressing will go into labor within a couple of days. Sam's sis sent us a bottle of this stuff. Did it work?

Let's put this way: on the sixth day after our original delivery date, we saw our midwife again. This time, he decided to help the process along by detaching a slight patch of the birth sac from the uterus. That tear also encourages the production of prostaglandin, the same hormone found in sperm to help induce contractions.

Then we went home and I provided my own prostaglandin donation (taking one for the team) and then Sam ate the labor salad. Within six hours, she went into early labor and by the next day, L was here.

Was it the sex? The salad? The midwife? Just L's time to arrive? Ah, the unanswerable mysteries of life.

(1) I never liked Friends much but I would watch it on occasion, including the episode where Rachel, pregnant with Ross' love child, is tired of carrying the baby around and tries to seduce Ross into sleeping with her as a way to induce labor. I cannot express the shock I felt when the OB gave us similar advice since it now meant I actually had something in my actual life that related to an episode of Friends. Oh, the horror. The horror.

THE LESSONS

2005-03-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

*This and the next few postings originally were published through MetroDad, when I was asked to guest-blog in mid-March '05. I never intended to daddy-blog fulltime myself but with enough encouragement and the realization that it might help with my adjustment to becoming a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD), I decided to jump in and see how the water felt. Thanks again to MetroDad for helping me get my start.

My vitals: 30-something, Chinese American. My partner "Samantha" is also Asian, though not Chinese, thereby making our newborn daughter "L" a mixed-intra-Asian baby (now six weeks old), and therefore, of the cutest genetic stock possible. At least we think so.

My perspective: Unlike MetroDad's bright and smiling perspective on fatherhood, Poppa Large is more of the "parenthood is kicking our goddamn ass" variety.

I'll be upfront - I'm bitter at all my friends with kids who didn't adequately warn me or Sam about how hard parenthood would be. We always got the, "oh yeah, it's hard but you'll love it" line, which is usually said with the air of casualness one might apply to say, French cooking. We soon learned however - raising a newborn was not quite like making coq a vin, though in both cases, copious amounts of wine can help make the process go better.

It's my theory that newborns give off a slow-acting phermone that corrodes the part of the brain that normally stores traumatic memories such as labor and/or new parenthood. As a result, people quickly forget the difficulty of it all and are pre-programmed to tell other prospective parents that, "oh yeah, it's hard but you'll love it." It's designed to ensure the future of the species because frankly, if the truth came out, the rate of human reproduction could plummet to extinction-level event status.

In dwelling with my innumerable thoughts about parenthood, especially for first timers like Sam and I, it quickly dawned on me that there are at least three important lessons all prospective and new parents should learn. They are:

LESSON ONE: Every parent thinks they're an expert on parenting.

It doesn't matter if they have a two day old newborn or enough progeny to field a baseball team - parents think they know everyting about parenting simply because they've gone through it.

On one hand, I can appreciate where this logic originates from. Having a kid is a pretty big friggin' deal and like living through war, a serious illness or a visit from the in-laws, once you've survived the experience, it's impossible not to feel like you've gained some Important Insight. However, just beacuse you know how to change the oil in your car and replace a flat tire doesn't make you a mechanic. Flying on a plane doesn't make you a capable pilot.

Yet, ask any parent about "the best [fill in baby-related item]" and suddenly, people turn into Consumer Reports. Ask them their philosophy on parenting and they speak with the authority of Dr. Sears/Spock/Dre, et. al. In other words, parenthood turns formerly humble and unassuming people and instantly transforms them into mildly pretentious know-it-alls. (Like me).

LESSON TWO: Avoid all advice other parents give you. Including mine.*

*most of it anyways

LESSON THREE: If you're desparate enough to take any of the advice thrown at you (and believe me, you'll be desparate enough), whatever you do, DO NOT disregard CFS.

CFS = Common Fucking Sense.

Most of us in America didn't grow up in social environments where child-rearing was a communal project. If you're lucky, maybe you had much younger siblings that you remembered helping to take care of, but for many others, parenthood is terra incognito. This is why the baby advice industry is a multi-billion dollar industry: it's all designed to play on the anxieties of Paranoid, Inexperienced Parents (PIPs) who are convinced that unless they buy the right videos, books, toys, clothes, and sippy cups, their children are doomed to end up as teenage hustlers with a heroin habit or even worse: Republican.

Most new parents really only need a modicrum of basic parenting lessons, i.e. changing a soiled diaper = good. Asbestos teddy bears = bad.) The rest you can figure out with a healthy dose of CFS. However, most new PIPs are so anxious about doing something wrong, they turn off their CFS and instead, try to follow through on well-intentioned advice that leads them down the short road to hell.

Case in point: when Samantha and I gave birth to L, one of the nurses we saw in the first two days told us, "oh, make sure you burp her for at least 15-20 minutes to get all the gas out."

Think about that: do burping a baby for TWENTY MINUTES after each feeding make CFS?

No. Hell. No.

Burping is designed to get any gas bubbles out of the baby's system right after feeding and especially for newborns, burping helps them go to sleep since they're more comfortable once they've cleared an offending belch/fart out of their system. However, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel very drowsy if I had someone 20x my size whacking me on the back for TWENTY MINUTES.

But sure enough, as a pair of PIPs, we trotted home with L and after every feeding, we'd start playing Whack-a-Mole on her back as if we had a roll of quarters to burn Sam would actually get angry with me if I only burped L for, say, five minutes. She'd say, "you need to do it for at least another ten minutes!" with a tone of such disapproval, you'd think I had been teaching L how to freebase cocaine.

Thank god another health professional told us, a few days later, that the initial advice we were given was ridiculous. Now, we burp for, at most, a few minutes and L seems none the worse for it.

Believe me, the opportunities to throw CFS out the window are vast and numerous, especially when you've read the umpteenth book on parenting (that, of course, your friends and family all bought you) or spoken to yet another nurse or doctor giving you contradictory advice. It's a wonder that PIPs aren't all on Paxil during the first month.

Just remember: parenthood - like pimpin' - ain't easy. If you're a PIP try to keep your wits about you as much as possible and never lose sight of CFS. And stop taking advice from other parents.

Including me.