The Five Lessons I Learned During the Births of My Two Children

I am a father... again!!! On June 19th, a day before her due date, my wife and I had our second child, a little girl. What I was most excited about was the number 19. Now all four of us have prime number birthdays! How cool is that?

Okay, fine! I'm super excited about being a father again too. This time to a darling little girl. She is wonderful and calm and already has a quirky little smile whenever she passes gas (she got that much from me at least). Her volume when crying is about one-half her brother's volume at her age, and her frequency of crying is about one-tenth.

When we brought her home she relaxed even more as she slept for hours, waking only for feedings. My wife and I hovered over her as she slept, admiring the rolls under her chin, her pink skin, and her fluffy strawberry-blond hair. It's great to be home, great to have a family of four, and its really great to be done with another round of pregnancy... mostly done, anyway.

Now that I have mastered two very different deliveries, here are a few things that I learned and I thought I should pass on to any dads out there about to go through the delivery process.

#1: Do as you're told!

If you haven't learned through nine months of pregnancy that your wife is always right then you probably never will. But there's still time for some of you, so I will repeat it: do as you're told!

The moment those labor pains hit her, your wife is going to know exactly what she wants from that point onward. You need to leave your emotions at the door and listen to her every demand, whim, and craving. Trust me, trying to reason with her, or even worse, asking her to soften her message a bit, is not going to result in anything other than fire-eyed anger. So just shut off your emotions for a short period of time and listen to your wife. 

She knows exactly what she's saying at the time, and if she loves you she will apologize for it when it's all over. And even if she doesn't apologize, she still loves you.

#2: Empathy is king.

I have this book at home that I like to reread every few months called Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five by John Medina. Absolutely one of my favorite parenting books as it's filled with strong, science-based analyses of the best approaches to raising children. And it's super easy to read as well. Definitely a must for any new parents out there. But there is one section of the book focused on the relationship between parents. What it boils down to is that parents that regularly practice empathy towards each other tend to create safer, happier environments for children to grow up in. 

"Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding," writes Medina,

I truly have no idea the level of discomfort being pregnant can bring to a person. But my wife knows. After two child births I have learned to read her pain based on her facial expressions. I can't even begin to imagine some of that pain. It's frustrating when I can't really be the one to take that pain away.

But I can be there with her through the whole process. I can offer her ice chips when she's thirsty, and I can refill the cup when I spill it all over the floor. I can hold her hand and cheer her on. I can listen when she describes her pain or discomfort or how she can't feel her legs when the extra dose of epidural kicks in!

And practicing empathy shouldn't go away after the baby is born, guys. Try to identify what she is feeling, acknowledge it, and do what you can to help her. Make recovery as easy as possible for her. Trust me, this is important.

#3: Enjoy the bonding time.

Every picture of me with my daughter, she's in my arms and I'm just staring down at her. I still do this with her. There's nothing better than staring into the eyes of your brand new daughter or son and thinking, "I helped make this." And it's probably good for your child to spend some time getting to know you. Like your smell, your sound, and the feel of your two day's unshaven stubble on their cheeks. I'm sure they'll love you for it.

Those first few days at the hospital and the those first days at home are an excellent opportunity for bonding with someone else special. Spend some time with that awesome lady that delivered your child. Take advantage of your time together. Your lives just got a whole lot more complicated with the addition of this new life, so celebrate together as neither of you get any sleep whatsoever those first few nights. (And a little empathy-based hint: If your wife is breast-feeding, stay up with her those first few nights at the hospital while she's feeding. It will help her stay awake, the three of you will get some bonus bonding time, and you won't look like a giant tool when the nurses come in to help and you're snoring away on the couch.)

#4: Take lots of pictures and videos.

When our son was born, my wife and I were so overwhelmed with being first time parents and all of the chaos and crying involved with that, that we didn't get the amount of pictures and videos we wanted. With this little girl I was able to stay focused enough to take lots of videos and pics. I got some really good ones too! Unfortunately, the only one I sent to friends and family was a picture of the little girl, freshly born, covered in all of the slime and goo from her time in the uterus, and a great big scowl on her face. And it took me a few days to send some good updated photos to all those folks. That very picture was posted for weeks on the break room wall where I work.

Having a new baby is not all fun and games. A lot of it sucks and it can be a very difficult time for everyone. So take lots of pics and vids. Delete the ones that give you bad memories and keep the amazing ones. Those are the moments you'll remember in the years to come anyway.

Trust me, you'll want to relive all of it someday.

#5: A choice between a steak/lobster dinner and mac and cheese is no choice at all!

So you've done everything your wife has asked of you, you've got empathy spilling out of every orafice, you've bonded with everyone every way you know how, and you've filled two phones with pictures and videos of your daughter's first snot rockets. Now what?

Food, of course! 

Depending how your hospital functions, they may provide food for you and your wife (You're still paying for it even if you don't see a cost. It's going to be built into the final hospital bill, so take advantage of it.) Get as much food as you can while you're at the hospital, because as soon as you get home you're going to have to figure out how to cook with a new one around.

One trick I learned is to take advantage of visitors. Everyone wants to come see the new bundle of joy as soon as she arrives. Ask them to bring a food item when they come. If you plan it out right you can have one visitor bring entrees, one bring drinks, and another desserts. They'll be happy to help you out and excited to see the baby, and you and your wife can eat dinner in peace while someone else is holding the baby.

And the most valuable lesson I learned is that if your hospital offers you and your wife a celebration dinner of steak and lobster or one of the regular entrees, go with the regular entree. Steak and lobster may sound great, but its still a meal prepared in a hospital kitchen. I had great mac and cheese the night before. I wish I had chosen it again...

On Fatherhood, Picnics, and the iPhone.

Yesterday afternoon my father-in-law sent an interesting link to my wife and I. It was a video entitled "Look Up" and apparently it has been gaining some internet fame recently. We sat together around my iPhone while Rowan played on the ground at our feet. After reading the short introduction to the film we commented on the irony of watching the video on our iPhone, then we pressed play.

It was an interesting video about our social-media-obsessed world and how we can miss out on all of life's chances, beauty, and opportunity. At the end of the film we both commented on how we liked it and how we thought it was a good video. We played with Rowan for a bit as he tried to climb onto the couch with us. But it wasn't long before we had both jumped onto our phones for one reason or another.

I think the video made some excellent points and I agree with most of it. I for one am guilty of getting lost in the screens of my iPhone or iPad and forgetting about my wife and son. Besides Instragram and this blog, I really have no other types of social media begging my attention. But there's still plenty to distract me on my phone. 

Earlier in the day (before my father-in-law sent us the link for the video) the three of us were driving around, looking at purchasing a new car to replace my almost-dead Blazer. After numerous wrong turns and quick getaways from shady dealerships, we found ourselves far from home and hungry. It was warm and sunny out, and Heather knew of a park nearby that we could spend some quality time at and have a picnic. 

Not having planned ahead, we stopped at McDonald's for some McDoubles and fries and made our way to the park. It turned out to be a beautiful, secluded park on the banks of the overflowing Mississippi. The grass was green and the trees were beginning to bud. We chose not to get too close to the river as it was high and moving quickly. We plopped ourselves down on the sun-warmed grass (making sure that Rowan kept his hat on) and enjoyed a tasty lunch by the Mississippi.

And we used our phones... but only for taking pictures. We were all having a great time enjoying the outdoors and the warm spring air and we wanted to remember it. We took pictures that would later find their way to Instagram, and I took some videos of Rowan crawling, which I sent to my parents.

The technology can be distracting, and it can have some very negative consequences. I agree that when our noses are stuck to our screens that we miss out on some amazing opportunities in life, like watching your son crawl for the first time (a story for another day), or kissing your wife after an eventful and satisfying day. I don't want to miss those moments, and I certainly mourn for the unknown moments that have already passed me by.

But the technology of smart phones and iPads also have a great many and appropriate uses. Taking videos and pictures of special moments, sending quick greetings to grandparents far away, and googling how to get an awnry nine month old to eat solid foods; all of these things are made possible by the very same pieces of technology that can distract us into social isolation. 

They are only tools. Its the value you give these tools that matters. 

I'm not going to put down my phone and iPad forever (else how would I write this blog while rocking out to The Lord of the Rings soundtrack on Pandora?), but I am going to be more intentional about putting them down when I should be enjoying special little moments with my family.

Men at Work

With the recent uptick in crib-time mobility, mama and papa have decided that new security measures need to be put into effect. In order to make that happen, I grabbed my son and my tools, pulled apart the crib, and went to work.

Supervisor Rowan and Foreman Leo the Lion watched over the affairs as the manual labor (dad) went to work lowering the crib bed to a safer and less-likely-for-a-baby-to-fall-out-the-top level. Supervisor Rowan thought it best to dress as a sailor for this venture.

Midway through the procedures the young supervisor wished to help. I volunteered him to hold the mattress while I tightened the nuts and bolts on the crib. 

I'm not sure if he was totally satisfied with the results, but at least his late night gymastic routines will be safer, though the noise level will undoubtably stay the same.

The Baby Monkey in His Natural Habitat

I think its safe to say that my son is a monkey, or at least an acrobat-in-training. Or maybe he's some sort of strange monkey-acrobat hybrid. 

The funny thing is, he can't walk yet. Or crawl. And yet he traverses the perimeter of his decently-sized crib in moments. 

This is not the position my wife and I place him in when we lay him down for his rest. We lay him on his back, parallel to the long side of the crib. So how does this sedentary six-month old manage to make himself mobile? Well, we're not sure.

After my wife and I lay him down to rest, we have just enough time to turn the tv on or open a book before panicked cries echo down the hallway. We rush into his room, expecting to find him fallen out of his crib, or maybe being attacked by angry bees. Instead, we find him trapped in a corner of his crib, usually with his feet caught in the bars on one end and his head caught in the other. We pick him up, wipe away his tears, and lay him back down with admonitions to get some sleep. We close the door, hoping that this time, this time, he'll fall asleep. No sooner do we put our feet up to relax when the familiar cries of our cornered monkey fill the house.

Lather, rinse, repeat, until he's too exhausted to try again and passes out from all of the exertion. Heather and I would find it all funny if we had any energy left after running to his room more times than we can count. We just take pictures of him... to laugh at later.

On Fatherhood and Time Management

I've been late a lot these days. No, really, it's true. I'm having trouble being on time for the things in life that I've usually been very good about arriving promptly to. For example, I have never once in my life been late to work! Even in my teens I always delivered the paper early and showed up to Taco John's with plenty of time to eat some potato ole's before clocking in. But twice I'm the past two months I have been late to work. Both events were due to simple errors on my part, a causal slip in judgment, that resulted in tardiness at work.

I grew up in a home where being on time meant arriving 20 minutes early... For everything! I can't tell you how many times I sat with my family in the movie theater a half hour before the show began, All the popcorn eaten by the time the lights went down. I don't even want to begin to think about how many hours we spent waiting for others because we were ready so early. And this same sense of timing followed me through college and into my career! My brain was a specially calibrated clock fifteen minutes ahead of the rest of the world.

Where has my superior sense of timing gone? I love you, Rowan, but I think you might be responsible for this! Suddenly, tasks that took two minutes now take twelve! I never knew how challenging putting on socks could be until I attempted it on a wriggling two month old. Talk about slippery! All of these extra challenges result in some serious timing issues!

How do we rectify this, Rowan? I guess we could start preparing to leave even earlier, but an hour before departure seems excessive. I will just have to suck it up and settle for being late more often... I just hope my boss doesn't mind!

Adventures in Fatherhood: Part 1

The first few moments I saw my son were filled with joy, terror, and then extreme joy.

Heather and I spent the nine months previous to Rowan’s birth wondering what our little guy might look like. I hoped he wouldn’t get my ears (I didn’t want him growing up being called “Dumbo” by all of his classmates the same way his father was), and I wanted him to have his mother’s blue eyes and pretty nose! But nothing could compare to the first time I saw this little creature in the flesh!

My first glimpse of Rowan was when he was yanked free of my wife’s body, his tiny torso swinging through the air (okay, he wasn’t all that tiny, weighing in at over 9 lbs, the little porker!). The nurses plopped him down on the warming bed for some quick prep work before they launched him into Heather’s waiting arms for some skin to skin time with mommy.

Looking down at the two of them I thought, “Wow! That’s my son in my wife’s arms! He sure is beautiful! And such a funny shade of blue too. Should he be moving more? OR AT ALL?”

Everyone in the room realized that our little boy had not yet taken his first breath. The nurse grabbed him and launched him once more back to the warming table. They poked, prodded, and rubbed his legs and feet to try and get a response from that little blue bundle.

Panic took my wife and me. For just a few seconds we had held the little guy we had hoped and dreamed about for nine months. Now he was snatched away, and we could only stand (or lay, in my wife’s case) and wait and hold our breaths until he took a breath! That was the first moment in my life that I truly understood helplessness.

A cough! Our little man took his first breath! Another cough or two (probably triggered by the blue bulbous tool stuck down his throat to suck up his lung juices) followed by his first real cry. Such a beautiful sound (at the time, at least)! His color returned and his cries continued.

Heather and I exclaimed over how beautiful he sounded and how relieved we were. And then the most exciting thing happened! He heard our voices, opened his eyes and turned his head to find us. We had talked to him in the womb for months (sometimes reading, sometimes singing) and he recognized our voices and wanted to find us. What a thrill! I know he couldn’t see very well, but he looked all over to find us. Our boy was breathing and he recognized the voices of his parents!

After a few more minutes we were finally able to hold him. His crying stopped and he stared up at us calmly for two hours before falling asleep for the first time outside of the womb. It was an amazing two hours! It was such a long day, and being able to hold, talk to, and love our little boy made it worth it!

That was the first few hours of my adventures in fatherhood, and all I really did was stand back and wait. It would be the next few days that proved to be the real challenge!

The First Two Months

I’ve been a father for all of two months. Do I deserve a medal yet? Absolutely not! Not because I suck as a father, but because this fathering thing is so easy! Okay, not actually easy, but the first two months are certainly not like the horror stories about parenting that my wife and I stumbled across as we prepared for our little man’s arrival. He has been a true joy, and I wake up everyday looking forward to his smile! I plan on going into a bit more detail about my experiences, thoughts, anecdotes, and nuggets of wisdom in time, but for now I just want to share how awesome my little Rowan is!

Here are the past two months in seven Rowantastic moments!

 Day 1! What an angel! You can't see them, but he already has his father's dashing sideburns.

 

Still his first week and still a cutie! 

My little lion man! (Actually, we’re calling him “bear cub”!)

 

All smiles for mommy!

 

He’s a deep thinker, just like his daddy.

Yup.

 

Mr. Serious

 

Classic Rowan

So that basically sums up fatherhood for me. Yes, I'm leaving out dirty diapers, 2:00 am feedings, that dreaded second night, and screams that pierce my brain. But I'll get to those in time. Besides, its the good times that matter the most! The challenging times just get us there.