The Car Seat

Ah Day 5.  Daddy starts the day by asking mommy when the second feeding was…”1 am?  I don’t think I woke up” .  Another lesson is learned…never assume mom went to sleep and managed to wake up for a feeding.  I quickly find out that mom was awake from 10 to almost 2 am and offer anything in the world she wants for breakfast.   “dig upwards stupid”

Today’s adventure is a trip to the clinic to check up on Chloé’s weight and overall health.  Easy peasy, just need to get some lunch ready while mom gets ready... I end up eating while sitting on the floor and entertaining Chloé.  And now to put her in the car seat just like the nurse showed us…oh crap.  Where do the legs go?  Let’s try that again….crap, Chloé is crying…maybe my wife remembers and oh no, tears from her as well as she can't figure it out.  Everyone breathe and relax, Dan can do this, I know I can, and  YES!  He pulls it off! Now calm momma down and get her on the road.  Men, you will be constantly impressed by what your wife goes through during the labour and then when she becomes a mom so constantly remind her.  She will not know how great she has been and she frets over the things that you find small with the baby.  She will have these moments of frustration, so just help her and talk her through them.

This is also a great time for another sidebar, as much as we failed with the car seat it will not compare to my failure while putting together the stroller.  Rewind a couple months ago, the stroller had sat in a box for a few days and baby momma was out of the house so I decided to try to put it together and surprise her.  Pretty easy until we arrived to the back wheels, I just couldn't get the first one in.  So I wrapped my hand around it and attempted to slide it in and OH MY the pain!  It seems there was a lock on the wheel which my palm hit and the wheel immediately slid in with my weight behind it onto my finger.  It jammed my ring finger nail and caused days of pain, x-rays proofed there were no broken bones but I ended up at emergency a few days later where they poked a hole through my nail to drain it and relieve the pressure.  Future dad of the year potential right here...

The appointment itself, you ask?  It goes great, our little girl has been feeding well and is regaining the birth weight!  Momma is rewarded with a nap (obviously after another feeding) and Chloé goes to sleep in her swing while daddy watches and…closes his eyes and gets 10 minutes of shut eye.

What a great day, I'm enjoying this little bundle of joy and her ability to be pretty quiet and peaceful, this will obviously go on forever.

Home Sweet Home and the first Pooping Incident

Finally, the battery of tests are run!  Our child is normal and ready to go home and we are ready to lie down on our own bed.  But first, to put her in this car seat…what’s that?  The clips are supposed to go around the legs?  Oh…thank you Nurse for helping us out with this latest little challenge.

Night 1 goes well, Chloé has made a habit of having her energy peak past 10:00 pm but she finally calms down and falls asleep…only to be woken up every 3 hours for feedings.  But ¾ of a good night’s sleep feels like heaven and we decide to get ambitious on day two and bathe the little angel. 

The preparation takes a good 15 minutes and now to change her diaper.  What a sweetheart and OH MY GOD, she’s projectile pooping onto mommy.  I know, we’ve seen this moment in movies and television but oh my is it hilarious to watch.  As the supporting husband I’m trying to stifle my laughter and tell my wife it’s ok, well attempting to figure out how to clean it off and get this diaper change done.  She begins to laugh probably because there's nothing else to do in this situation.  The fact I pull it off without my wife ripping me apart is a crowning achievement in my life and my understand of women and hormones…I’d like to thank my mom and my two sisters for giving me visibility to female emotions as I grew up.

Sidebar - there are many bar nights with my friends where I've uttered "I wish I had a GoPro camera attached to me so that we could relive this".  Can you imagine if I had one in that moment?  The hilarity that would come from that video along with the potential to scare my wife at every family event by teasing her to put it on would be PRICELESS.

Naturally, once she almost causes World War 3 in my kitchen Chloé is content and sleeps through most of the day,  even proving hard to wake up for feedings.  She still doesn’t want to play monopoly with me, so I’ve taken on throwing the dice for her and making property trades that benefit me.  This trading ability a skill I’ve developed through years of fantasy sports.    Naturally, on the first and second nights her energy spikes….right at 10:30 and she begins to fret for what seems like the entire night but is actually just a couple hours.  When I say “just” a couple hours, parents can understand that it doesn’t feel like “just” and all you young’ins without children will someday understand the pain of trying to go to sleep and having a child full of energy crying.  In the meantime, enjoy watching hours of Netflix and deciding to go to the bar at 11pm when this old man is attempting to get to sleep. 

The adventures will only get better from here.  We are blessed with a healthy, pretty well behaved baby and we are loving every second of it.  And hopefully, she never poops on me...if this was a movie I'd be worried that this was foreshadowing.   After having typed that, I'm envision that moment of "i'll be right back" in a scary movie.

The (long) road home

I’ve romanticized meeting my child for the first time and the emotions that you go through but the next steps are just not the same.  After the mother and child are deemed healthy, you’re moved to a room which is essentially a little larger than my cubicle at work and has a single bed, a chair that converts into a cot and a bassinet for your child.  Space is limited and the walls are not sound proof so you hear the cries of other babies while trying to make sure yours sleeps.  Despite this, this is your home for a few days while your wife recovers and your baby learns the ways of the world...oh and while daddy figures out what the heck he's doing. 

On the first night, I immediately got to change my first diaper…which wasn’t that bad.  The nurses give you the first one free and I watched to learn the process.  She decides to poop again and with my wife bedridden and no nurse around, I know it's my time.  Two days ago, I was making sales calls and talking fantasy football and now I'm a freaking dad changing a diaper...
We are extremely lucky that our baby as of yet is easygoing and put up with her father who lacks finesse while he bumbled through his first diaper change.  The cot was incredibly uncomfortable (luckily I was warned about this and brought a pillow from home) and the two of us slept a combined 3 or 4 hours on the first night.  Lots of "What was that noise?",  "Is she awake?", "does she need food?" and every single time...she's asleep peacefully.  This will take a while to get used to.

The next few days are a blur, with nurses coming in and out to run tests, teach you some tricks of the trade and ensure your competence as a parent (somehow they deem me fit).  For any future parent, make the most of this!!!  Ask questions and ask the nurses to help you (I’m a terrible swaddler and asked them to help swaddle as much as I could so she’d be happy and cozy). 

The least gratifying feeling as a parent is when you change that diaper perfectly and your child looks up at you and immediately poops again, making you change her again.  This will happen, a lot. Luckily she’s so amazingly cute that I let her frustrate me in this way so obviously she takes after her mother.

By day 2, I’m begging them to let us out early, trying to figure out how to speed things up and trying to learn as many skills as I can.  Baby momma is slowly recuperating and I'm making runs to the Quickie to grab snacks and treats while our visitors bring us love and well, more treats. 
I’d only read about a quarter of the “Preacher” graphic novel collection and by the end of this I’d read the entire series and half a book.   I kept waiting for Chloé to play with me but she seemed more intent of sleeping, waking up to pass gas and feeding.  Hopefully when we get home, she’ll want to play video games or maybe a little game of Monopoly.