So date night was pretty much awesome. Katie (you may know her as Artsy Katie) and Seth came over, and after fumbling to groom and clothe ourselves, find wallets, and keys, we were off on our baby-less adventure. We went to a relatively new tapas restaurant in Athens, called Flight, and were much impressed. In a town full of restaurants catering to the college population, the food was well executed and the wine list extensive and tasty. Anyway, we had a wonderful time. While our dinner conversation did include some talk of our little Safia, it was not exclusively on that topic. It was a really great opportunity to look back at the past two months and recognize that, although we don’t always have the answers and sometimes we fumble and stumble, we’ve been doing a fine job. We also took time to recognize our relationship, how it has adapted and evolved through this transition, and how we can keep things good as our family dynamic continues to change. We both are so very grateful to Katie and Seth for giving us the chance to enjoy one another’s company without the underlying concerns of baby-care. We love, love, love taking care of Safia, but moments like these allow us to put things in perspective, and reassess what’s working and what’s not. Just those couple of hours let us get a quick re-charge, and we all need that every now and then.
{knock, knock, knock....open door} Oh, good afternoon officer...screaming baby screaming for the past hour?....oh, well, yes...possible child abuse?....oh no officer...no, I'm not hurting my baby...no, I'm just trying to give my baby a bottle.
Ok, so that never really happened. But I have been increasingly concerned that somebody walking by the house, hearing the heartbreaking (and might I add, ear-piercing) cries from within, might get the impression that something unsavory was going on. Alas, the bottle situation has not gotten much better. I won't bore you with yet another post about my struggles with bottle feeding, but let me just say this: "AHHHH!"
I had a pretty full day with Safia; much of it solo, as Ellen was trying to alleviate the bottle issue by not being in the house. People (and by that I mean everybody but me) says that Safia will be less inclined to eat from the bottle if Ellen is around, and so I guess I'm starting to believe. I truly do enjoy my role as father and like caring for Safia. I still find myself staring at her in disbelief, and I predict that that phenomenon may never go away. My favorite is definitely watching her as she sleeps and studying all the crazy, silly, funny faces she makes. Even when she's awake (as you've no doubt observed, too) she makes some of the craziest facial expressions. I wish I could know what in the world was going through her mind.
Tonight...{fanfare, fanfare, fanfare}...Ellen and I are going out on a date! Friends are watching Safia, and we're going out to dinner. Booya!
Hello, Mom...It's Safia. Tell Dad to cool it with the bottle, I'm just not that into it.
So the bottle battles continue. Safia has few meltdowns these days, but when I try to feed her with a bottle, watch out! We borrowed a different kind of bottle from a friend yesterday, and tried it to little to moderate success. She still thought it was poison. A consistent piece of advice we've been given is to try different bottles with different nipple shapes until we find the ones she prefers. Anyway...pain in the tuckus, but as a friend put it last night, "The payoff is parent sanity!" And that, folks, is what it's all about.
Quality time with Snoops!
Aside from bottle skirmishes, we had a pretty awesome day. Great friend interactions in the morning and afternoon, and a wonderful walk through downtown Athens in the evening (early morning, before the heat, and evenings, after the heat, are fantastic times of day!) made yesterday downright pleasant.
This weekend was chock full of goodness. I don't know where to begin. Ah...how's about chronologically. That sounds logical.
Friday: We took Safia to the pediatrician for a little check-up. Here are the vial statistics you've been anxious all weekend for - weight: 11lb. 5oz; length: 23 inches; h.c. (head circumference. Keep up. Next time, no hints): 15-and-a-quarter inches (that's 95th percentile, y'all...bobble heads up in here!). During our pediatrician's visit, Safia also got 4 vaccinations (one oral and 3 shots). If you're thinking scream-fest, you'd be right on. She actually fell asleep pretty quickly after the shots, but the doctor warned that she might be fussy for the next 24-hours, and boy, was she right. Safia was very clingy for the rest of the day and would only sleep while being held by either Ellen or myself, and was, on the whole, pretty uncomfortable and kind of constantly whimpering. Our friends Michelle, Paul, and Jenny came by for dinner and we had a wonderful time together, and then all the ladies headed out for the evening while the men stayed home with the baby. All went swimmingly except that Safia had a hard time going down for the night, which is quite understandable considering the numerous inoculations against preventable communicable diseases.
Safia discovers she has toes.
Saturday: We attended the post-baby-delivery reunion of our Centering group (Ellen explained Centering here in a previous post; 4th paragraph down). It was a brunch get-together and I made tater tot casserole (thanks Jen) and it was killer. Ask me for the recipe, I dare you. It was awesome to get together with all the babies and watch them all do baby things. Fantastic. Safia was feeling much better and we had a smile filled afternoon and evening.
Wink.
Sunday: After many months on hiatus, I went on an early morning bike ride with my buddy Mitchell. Felt awesome to get pedaling again. Came back and Mitchell stayed to help bust out some garden work in the brutal 100-degree heat. We turned over some beds with bolted, bitter lettuce, laid down more soaker hoses, planted zucchini, cucumbers, squash, and okra, and mulched. We brought Safia out to the garden in her stroller with a sun shade, but it was just too hot, and so she ducked back inside while the garden got busted out. Later that night, we re-initiated our weekly dinner and cards get-together with Katie and Seth in the evening (pizzas on the grill!) and that was delightful. We didn't quite get to the card playing, but that's alright; the visiting and the company are what it's all about.
Sorry, that was a lot of words. I'll try to be more succinct in the future.
What did we do yesterday? I'm having a hard time remembering. No, no...no narcotics involved (silly). It's just that it was such a mellow and quiet day, I really don't know where it all went. I did leave the house (briefly) to get some things done (picked up teaching certification papers from university, shuttled them over to the school district office to get sent off, and brought the car to the shop to get a belt tightened down so it stops squealing like a stuck pig every time we start it up). I also went outside to retrieve our clean and dry diapers from the clothesline (fresh like the summer's breeze!). Ellen took Zoey (the dog) to the vet because she has some wicked allergic reactions to hot Georgia weather. Poor little Zoey has lots of hot spots all over her body, and is so itchy, so miserable, so sad. What else did we do? I guess there's a baby here. There was so little crying, though, that it hardly seems worth mentioning. We had an extremely happy baby day. Very refreshing, and much needed. Safia'll go to the doctor later today, so we'll update her stats tomorrow and let you know her new weight, length, batting average, and free-throw percentage. Oh yeah, and by the way, in case you were wondering (and I knew you were) it's still hot down here. Mid-to-upper 90s (in the 100s on Sunday) for the foreseeable future. No relief in sight. I think I will dub this summer the "Summer of the Popsicle."
Time has taken on a whole new dimension in our lives. In some ways, I can't believe that Safia is already two months old, time has flown by. In other ways, it seems like she's been with us a long, long, long, time, and that time is moving at a snail's-pace. Also, we used to keep track of time by the things that we'd accomplished and the things that we did. These two months have been different - not sure what we've accomplished, but we've survived. Guess that's what parenthood's done to us!
One Week
Two Weeks
Three Weeks
Four Weeks
Five Weeks
Six Weeks
Seven Weeks
Eight Weeks
Looking back over picture of her from the past two months, it's amazing how much she's changed. She's gone from newborn to baby. She's gotten so much bigger and more expressive (I think we're going to have our hands full, she has a lot to say already and she can't talk!). Each week has brought new challenges and new rewards. I guess that's where all of our time has gone - trying to keep up with this ever-changing new aspect of our lives! Things have really changed for us in the past two weeks, really the past week - she smiles more, she interacts with us, she's awake for longer, and she's sleeping for longer. That's not to say we haven't had our set backs, it seems like just when we think we've got things figured out she'll throw us a curve ball and not go to sleep, or battle the bottle. In some ways these regressions are harder than the original mayhem because we thought we'd gotten beyond them, but in some ways they're easier because we know that they will probably end sooner than later! Her latest growth spurt seems to have ended, which I'm thankful for, but this too was easier than past growth spurts because I knew it was going to end!
We had another big day yesterday. The three of us piled into the car to drive to Gainesville, GA so that Safia could meet the amazing women I work with at the Newtown Florist Club (with whom I've been doing my dissertation research with). I had been putting off the trip because I didn't want to drive the 50 minutes by myself, but with Rube done with work, it was doable! Safia was great for most of the ride there, she only cried for the last 10 minutes. She was great while we were there and instantly feel under Ms. Faye's magic (as almost everyone who meets her does!). The ride home wasn't as pleasant. Rube and I got something to eat before heading out of town, using up some of Safia's nap time, so she pretty much cried the entire way home (which doesn't bode well for our upcoming trip to DC). I keep hoping she's going to get better!
Yesterday afternoon, after we got home, she slept for 2 and 1/2 hours. I fully admit that I checked on her a couple of times, because even though I have been dreaming of 2 and 1/2 hour naps, they don't seem possible. After she got up, we headed to the Geography Department where Rube's band was playing for a reception. She was a trouper, taking it all in, being passed around, and falling asleep in other people's arms. And to top it all off, she went right to sleep when we got home, doesn't get much better than that!
So I'm starting to understand why some parents with very young babies hole up in their houses and don't ever go anywhere. I had Safia to myself for a few hours in the early afternoon and was brazen enough to agree to meet a friend for lunch downtown. The stage was perfect: she had recently eaten, was happy and awake for about 30 minutes, and was wholly content. When it was go time, I gingerly slipped her into the car seat and whisked her into the car. Not a peep, not a rustle, she went straight to sleep. All the stars must have been aligned, because I even found a nearby parking spot without any trouble (also because most of the college kids have left town) and was strollering toward the restaurant in stride. We walked in, found my friend, parked the stroller next to the table, and was feeling like Father Extraordinaire! You feel the ominous set-up here, right? Food ordered, talking, talking, food arrived, baby sound asleep. Talking, eating, talking...baby screaming. Now I know I'm Mr. Sensitive when it comes to causing a commotion in public places (call it my Taiwanese heritage), but she was wailing something fierce.
Don't mess.
The patrons in the restaurant (nearly all women, come to think of it) all gave the initial, "aww!" when I went ahead and grabbed her from the car seat, but that really didn't make me feel much better. I reached deep into my bag of baby calming tricks and came up zero - baby still screaming. So I'm up and bouncing her and walking around the restaurant, going outside, coming back in, thinking, I look pretty looney here. She would calm for a second or two, but then resume her desperate cries. I had a bottle with me, but considering our tribulations from yesterday, I surmised a struggle on that front. I tried it anyway: popped the bottle in and she acted like it was poison. Now I know that I'm overly sensitive because I was the one holding the baby, but being in public with a scream machine really does put a giant spotlight on your parenting skills. Defeated, I got my food boxed up(I had eaten maybe 6 french fries and 2 bites of my sandwich), paid the bill, and scooted out of the place. Now this experience, as scarring as it was, doesn't deter me from wanting to bring Safia out on the town (and she has done very well in the past), as I want, not only to have a life myself, but also to bring her up in a social environment. To see how people interact, and to embrace the diversity in our culture is very important to us. So fair warning: if you see us walk into the place you are, I hope you brought earplugs.
