The Critics Corner Pt. 1

One of the inevitable side effects of having children is exposure to children’s entertainment. This can lead to a variety of reactions. Some of it may bore you (Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story. Yawn.), some of it may make you laugh (Disney/Pixar’s Up. Yay.), other examples might make you want to poke yourself in the eye with a sharp, pointy stick (Teletubbies, Barney the retarded dinosaur. Stab, stab, stab.).

Like most old people, Daddy has decided that everything was better when he was a kid. Particularly the cartoons. My not so humble opinion is that nothing will ever be better than Loony Tunes, Tom & Jerry, and stuff of that generation. This is an objective statement. Because I say so.

That being said, right now Baby Girl has developed a fondness for something called Wow Wow Wubbzy. It’s pretty easy to see why. The animation is simple, bright, no sharp edges, and has plenty of silly sounding noises, in short, everything kids like. I can see why it’s popular, and why Baby Girl has developed a liking for it. It is, like most cartoons these days, enjoyable on exactly one level. Which makes it almost as exciting as golf. Well, as exciting as golf before Tiger Woods decided to moonlight as a third rate Hugh Hefner.

Part of what made cartoons like Loony Tunes so awesome was that it had a certain depth to it. You could laugh at the surface level stuff (Daffy Duck getting his beak blown every which way in the classic Rabbit Fire episode), as well as some of the more adult asides that Bugs was apt to make. Plus, despite having no idea at the time, Loony Tunes also gave me a certain appreciation for classical music.

So what do I think of Wow Wow Wubbzy? Well, it is as these things go, not horrible. But there are a couple things I’m not sure I want Baby Girl picking up on. First off one of Wubbzy’s sidekicks is an enormous lesbian rabbit. Now, they never explicitly say that the rabbit is a lesbian, but the signs are there: she’s the biggest character in the show, and she spends her time building machines and carries an enormous tool box. The only reason we know she’s a female is that she’s pink. I’m not sure I appreciate a children’s show perpetuating these kinds of stereotypes. And she wears overalls and speaks with a southern accent.

Another of Wubbzy’s sidekicks is, well, I’m not sure what kind of animal he’s supposed to be, but he wears a collared shirt and tie, has glasses and speaks with what I’ll assume is supposed to be a British accent. He is, if you haven’t guessed already, the “smart” one. Why can’t smart people be cooler than this? I suppose the British thing is cool, but really, why is it that still today, glasses are what signifies smartness? I’m pretty sure if we all thought about it, we could name dozens of really stupid people who wear glasses. Sarah Palin. There. I win.

All of that aside, Wow Wow Wubbzy seems to amuse Baby Girl, and for that reason, I suppose I can’t argue with it too much.

The Partnership Part of The Process

To say that this whole thing has been easy would be a bit of an exaggeration. Mommy and Daddy have both had moments when they frustrated each other enough to make the Pope kick out a stained glass window.

There are conflicts over all sorts of things. Much like the rest of life, there are different expectations and different ideas about how each should go about their day and the process of raising a kid. Sometimes Daddy doesn’t do enough of the required reading or maybe as much of the housework as might be expected of him. Sometimes it feels like Mommy forgets that even if she doesn’t understand why something like boxing makes Daddy happy, the fact that it makes Daddy happy ought to be enough.

After all, Daddy doesn’t spend his time out at bars, carousing with people of questionable character and whatnot. At least not in Dallas. Daddy has also committed to cutting that way down when he gets back to Seattle. He realizes that fatherhood is difficult enough without living the life he was leading before fatherhood. And realistically, Daddy certainly doesn’t want Baby Girl to get the impression that hanging out with the some of the assorted hooligans Daddy has in his contact list is the best way to go through life.

So there’s a give and take in this whole thing. And sometimes the give and the take are at complete odds with each other.

So what do you do?

I suppose it comes down to a combination of compromise, capitulation and acceptance. Daddy has accepted that for the time being, his career as it were, is on hold. Right now Mommy pulls down more than Daddy could, and as much as that might bruise Daddy’s ego, it certainly isn’t anything he can change at the moment. Raging at the perceived iniquities of life rarely does much other than exhaust one, although there the occasional cathartic element to the experience.

Daddy is also the one who expressed a concrete desire that at least one parent be home with Baby Girl during the time in which she is under our direct control (until she is 18). Now that it turns out that Daddy is the one that has to do that, I can hardly backtrack and hope to maintain any shred of credibility.

Mommy on the other hand has accepted (for the most part) that Daddy is going to spend a good chunk of his free time at the gym learning the practical applications of applied violence. She really hasn’t accepted that Daddy is committed to doing this without health insurance, but she tolerates Daddy (for the most part) because the gym has turned into Daddy’s stress outlet, social life, and only way to maintain some semblance of masculinity while covered in baby spit, handling baby poop, talking in baby talk and handling chores that would have gotten him shamed out of the Man Club thirty years ago.

Daddy on the other hand has capitulated on a number of issues. Baby Girl’s baths (99.9% of which Mommy handles, but Daddy is committed to doing it her way should he find himself in that situation – see Poop, Pt. 1), will no longer be handled via baby bath barca lounger and hosing off said baby. Daddy will, almost always, end up feeding Baby Girl when she is being fed via bottle, and Daddy will, almost always, be the one to put Baby Girl down at night, and sooth her when Mommy can’t stand to hear her cry.

Mommy has capitulated on the idea that Daddy will ever, and I mean ever, completely give up cursing. Or that Daddy will be the one to change Baby Girl’s diaper first thing in the morning. Daddy is not now, nor will he ever be, a morning person. Mommy has, for the most part, given up on trying to change that. Although I do have to be somewhat more civil than I used to be at Oh-God-Thirty in the morning.

As to compromise. Mommy has gotten Daddy to do most of the laundry, although she has had to concede that Daddy will continue to fold things in a manner which still irks her to no end. She has also gotten Daddy to accept that, despite what he may feel about it, dinner is not whenever he feels hungry, while she has accepted that to Daddy cooking is a contact sport and if things get messy in the kitchen during the creative process, well, dammit, that’s just the way it is. Daddy does clean up afterwards.

It’s a precarious balance with a new kid, particularly when as a couple the idea of a kid was an abstract thought at best. The sudden jolt from carefree vagabond to responsible adult can shock even the most prepared person, and to the unprepared it can feel like a brick bat to the noggin.

Additionally, our situation – far from home, without any kind of a support system – can cause all kinds of stress on a couple. There are days when it is easy to understand why there are so many single parent households in this country. Raising a kid is stressful, and if two people don’t love each other a whole lot, in combination with having a strong well-grounded sense of responsibility, as well as the ability to talk to each other, it would be easy to walk away from the partnership.

A Week of Firsts

This past week has been quite a doozy for Baby Girl. She was taken on her first zoo trip, as detailed earlier, she started on solid foods, she managed to pull herself up to her feet, she literally crawled over Daddy, who was trying to keep her from going from one part of the room to another, and more importantly, our precious little snowflake has turned six months old.

The six month mark is pretty impressive for us, because, let’s face it, for a guy who has had the kind of commitment issues I have, and the track record I have with keeping plants alive, anyone who took the “under” on the over/under couldn’t be blamed for doing so.

The solid foods milestone has been entertaining so far. As I understand is normal for most babies, Baby Girl ends up wearing more of her food than she eats. At first it was a challenge to get the spoon into her mouth, we would end up with about half the food in her mouth, and the other half on her bib, with a smattering of food on her Bumbo and a bit on the floor. Once we figured out how to get the spoon in her mouth (I go in sideways, tipping towards her mouth once contact is made with the bottom lip, and leave it in her mouth as she slurps away and I can see her swallow), I was convinced we had nailed it. Then she spit out about half the spoonful, somehow managing to get it in her nose.

The other effect of Baby Girl being on solid foods is what it is going to do to her digestive system. We’ve already experienced the first post-solids poop, and while I wasn’t home for it, I have been told that it was more…solid, and that it took Baby Girl a bit more effort to get it out. Mind you, she already looked like she was pushing a small car up a steep hill when she pooped. Apparently now it looks like she’s pushing an SUV up Everest.

I’ve also heard that it gets stinkier when they start eating solids, so the joys of parenthood seem as though they will keep multiplying.

We started solids over the weekend, so as to have both of us here, just in case things were more difficult than we had planned on them being. Starting in the morning, I’ll have her and all to myself for three feedings a day. I can only imagine there will be rice cereal covering a fairly large swath of the apartment, along with most every piece of clothing I own.

The other milestone she reached, managing to stand up on her own, is the more troubling of the bunch. I mean, I suppose it’s good in a holistic sense, we do of course want Baby Girl to continue to develop at a normal rate, however, it does mean that I will have to keep an even closer eye on her than I do now. As things stood, I could assemble her play yard each morning – consisting of random storage crates arranged to block off a modest section of the living room within which she could roam uninterrupted – and get things accomplished without worrying about her ingesting one of the millions of things that might kill her.

Now, since she can get up but has not figured out how to sit back down, I’ll be keeping an eye out for a standing baby who may be seconds away from falling backwards and bonking her cute little noggin on the carpet. We’ve been assured by the pediatrician that babies bonking their heads is quite normal and that we shouldn’t freak out every time it happens, but a parent’s instinct is to not let this sort of thing happen, and I imagine I will spend quite a bit of time zipping across the room trying to catch her as she explores the limits of gravity as it pertains to her lack of balance.

Family Outing

We took Baby Girl to the Fort Worth Zoo today. Mommy thought it would be fun little outing, and since we’ve heard that the Dallas Zoo runs a distant second to the Fort Worth Zoo, we figured, why not? It would be a chance to get out and about, explore a little bit more of our immediate surroundings, and enjoy what was turning out to be a spectacular day. Mommy had taken off the last two days of the work week, so we figured that we ought to put them to good use.

Driving in Texas is always an adventure. As I may have mentioned previously, it isn’t usually a good one. On its face, Texas would seem like a pretty good place to have a car. Lots of wide open spaces, a well thought out and executed highway system, and when not in their cars, a remarkably friendly and nice bunch of people. When you put those same friendly, nice people in cars however, they turn into the most remarkably retarded bunch of inconsiderate morons this side of the TSA. My single biggest complaint is that turn signals seem to be voluntary, followed closely by what seems to be a uniquely Texan desire to abruptly fit the largest, poorest handling SUV’s into the smallest gaps between two cars they can find.

It takes considerable concentration on my part not to use the full arsenal of four-letter words and their modifiers with our precious snowflake in the car. I’ve also started daydreaming way more than I should about car mounted paintball guns loaded with paintballs filled with neon pink bird poop. It also doesn’t help that Texans tend to veer wildly across the gap between the freeway and the exit, you know the one clearly delineated as a section of the asphalt one should explicitly not be driving on, rather than miss their exit.

Having braved the idiocy of the Texas freeway system, we arrived at the zoo, which despite Mommy’s notion that it might not be crowded because it was a weekday, was quite crowded. Not inconveniently so, but enough that it was full of lots and lots of people, most of whom seemed to be in the same circumstance as Mommy and myself, i.e. pushing a stroller and snapping semi-terrible photos on their iPhones.

The zoo itself is pretty well appointed as far as zoos go. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my. Our first stop was the primate section, which despite my fervent hopes, did not feature any of said primates flinging poop at the gawkers. There were gorillas, orangutans, gibbons, baboons, an assortment of smaller, fuzzy and cute monkey types, as well as a few monkeys of indeterminate origin. I suppose I could have read the informational signs describing them, but I was too busy keeping an open eye for some monkey winding up like Roger Clemens (who thanks to steroids, was nearly as strong as your average monkey), to worry about verifying their pedigree. Given the prevalence of the poop flinging reputation of monkeys, it was disappointing.

From there we wandered onto a replica of the African plains, where a couple Rhinos, some lions, a few giraffes, and a couple hippopotamuses were lounging in the sun. I do have to note that having had the chance to see some of these beasties in the wild in Africa, it is kind of depressing to see such magnificent animals confined to spaces that are likely smaller than what these animals considered to be their bathrooms in the wild. I suppose it’s how most people feel about their apartments in Manhattan. The rhinos in particular looked dismayed about their current circumstances, with one of them standing by the door from one enclosure to the next, looking like it would be happy to wreck the door if it had the energy anymore.

There were some elephants, some meerkats, a rather fat warthog, and lots of birds (we didn’t hang around the birds much, as both Mommy and I have had some issues with bird poop on our cars recently that have put birds on our not-getting-a-card-this-year list). We did get some good shots of the flamingos, which because of the opening credits of Miami Vice, I have a special place in my heart for.

Overall, it was a nice little jaunt. Mommy was disappointed that Baby Girl was more interested in the people at the zoo than the animals, but what do you expect from a 6 month old baby? We did miss the Komodo dragon, which was disappointing, but by the end of the day, Baby Girl was tuckered out, the sun was starting to worry us (nobody wants a bright red baby), and since we had walked more in the past three hours than either of us had managed in the past month, it was time to go.

The only other events of note were the animal adoption program we read about online and an incident in the car on the way home.

We have been considering getting a pet, but our hopes were dashed when we got to the Zoo, and realized that the adoption program they were running was more a of a give-us-money-and-we’ll-let-you-pretend-that-you-have-some-stake-in-a-wild-animal thing, than a take-home-an-exotic-mammal type of thing. We probably should have figured that out before we got to the zoo and saw the signs about adopting a giant sea turtle, but that’s what you happens when you get excited.

The other incident was that Baby Girl’s digestive tract started to act up as we hit rush hour traffic near home. She didn’t drop a deuce, but Lord we thought she did, and if I hadn’t been trapped in a hot car with no chance of escape, I would have been beaming with pride at the sheer pungent power of the smells she was creating with the thunder from down under. Mommy was in the back seat, which is what makes it funny.

Epic Fail Pt. 2

Things are devolving. For the second night in a row, Baby Girl has exerted her considerable lung power to avoid being left in her crib by herself at night.

I was at the gym so I didn’t have to deal with it (Mommy is a trooper, and puts up with a lot, and I do love her), but from what I understand, it was quite the event.

The problem is, if she doesn’t get better, we’re back at square one. Baby Girl in our bed, and no end in sight. This presents a number of problems. The first is that Mommy doesn’t really get the best night’s rest when Baby Girl is in our bed. We love having her there and we will definitely miss her, but Mommy has a tough job dealing with the general boobery at her Corporate Job, and she needs her rest. Lately Mommy has been calling me during the day, and she is, to say the least, not amused with the way things have been going. She’s tired, she’s frustrated, and the lack of a good night’s sleep certainly doesn’t help.

And to be completely honest, I feel a little guilty. Yes staying home with Baby Girl to take care of her is a lot of work, a lot of frustration (dear Dr. Baby Jeebus, why did you make kids so squirmy?), but I know that compared to what Mommy has to do, it really is the better side of the deal. The “New Economy” has necessitated some sacrifice’s from both of us (my pride, ego and financial self sufficiency, Mommy’s motherly instinct to be with her offspring), but if I had to pit my ego against her biological imperative, I know that as hard as it is for me, there is something primal in Mommy that is unsatisfied. There is a reason that you “don’t mess with a sow grizzly” as my own mommy used to say. The maternal instinct is powerful juju.

The second issue is that it leaves very little time for Mommy and Daddy to have Mommy & Daddy time. Being in Dallas has been difficult, what with the lack of any kind of support system down here, and while most couples have family and friends to whom they can drop their precious snowflakes off with to get some R&R, Mommy and I have been forced to go it alone. It hasn’t always been easy, and it takes its toll on a relationship. I, for one, miss being able to watch movies in a theater, have a civilized meal at a restaurant, and snuggling with Mommy uninterrupted.

The third issue is one of habits, good and bad. We certainly don’t want Baby Girl to grow up so attached to us, that she has trouble adjusting to real life. We would prefer that she have a sense of independence. And while we don’t expect that she will be able to go out and survive a night on the streets at six months old, sleeping in her own bed would be a good sign that we are heading in the right direction.

Issue four is one of personal laziness and sloth. Daddy has been pretty bad, much to Mommy’s frustration, about reading all of the required materials one has to read to raise a child. Daddy has been very bad. Mommy will vouch for this, and more than likely use it well into our old age as a point to illustrate what a lout I can be. I don’t mention this as a dig at Mommy (because I know she’s reading this), I mention it because I know I could do a better job at it, and I know I should. And I also know that if Baby Girl doesn’t find her way into her own bed soon, in a peaceful and organized manner, that I will be reading quite a bit more about baby sleep habits.

Now there are a number of reasons I haven’t read as much as I should have about baby sleep habits. One is that I have this stubborn belief, as wrong as it may be, that the natural order of things will generally take control, and that anything we do or don’t do to speed the process along, will most likely interfere with millions of years of human evolution, and somehow muddle things up. I realize that I am most likely wrong in this way of thinking, and am trying to overcome it.

I also have a stubborn streak a mile wide, which generally expresses itself in the following way:

“Daddy, do something.”

“OK dear, I will do it.”

Two days later:

“Daddy, did you do what I asked.”

“No dear, but I am going to.”

Four days later:

“Daddy, you need to do this stuff”

“I will, I will.”

Six days later:

Stuff is not done, and I feel like if I do it now, I’m giving in, because let’s face it, the Male Ego© is an incredibly stubborn and illogical mechanism. I am working on it. Slowly.

Epic Fail

So, as you may know, we’ve been trying to transition Baby Girl from our bed to her crib. We’d pretty much settled on the cry-it-out method. We get her to the edge of sleep, then put her down in her crib. It usually results in her crying a bit but eventually she ends up sleeping a few hours before she wakes up. It went from almost an hour down to about 15 minutes, with one night where she never bothered to make a fuss. We’d won! We had conquered the problem of the sleeping child.

Then there was tonight. To say it didn’t go well is kind of an understatement. She actually went to sleep, or an approximation thereof, in about 15 minutes. Then Daddy had to go make a mess of things. Now to be fair, what I did was strictly in the name of safety and not wanting to have to explain why my daughter suffocated in her sleep.

I went in to make sure our little munchkin hadn’t buried her face in a blanket and cut off oxygen to her tiny, yet extremely smart brain. Well, to me it looked like there might be an issue. Granted I probably could have just put my hand on her and checked to feel the rhythmic and peaceful breathing of a sleeping baby. But instead of doing that, I decided that she needed to be moved onto her back, because, I figured why risk it, she looked like she was buried in her blanket.

This is where the fail part starts. The screaming I unleashed by moving her to her back was epic. It was bloody murder times 10. She threatened us with great bodily harm, lawsuits, three kinds of violence and finally, that if we didn’t get in there and pick her up, she’d exclusively date musicians in high school.

The other effect was that Mommy gave me a look that is best described as withering.

So we went and got her out of her crib. The look on her face was triumphant.

Tomorrow night we’ll try again, hopefully with better luck, because I miss having our bed to ourselves. Plus, Baby Girl takes up too much room. She just sprawls out, like she owns the place, and let’s face it, who’s going to tell a baby she needs to stay on her side of the bed?

Trying to Keep Up

Silly me. I thought raising kids was supposed to get easier once you got the process rolling and got into a groove with it.

Baby Girl’s newest little trick is what I’ll call the stop, drop and roll. She stops what she’s doing. Drops a deuce, and rolls all over the place while I’m trying to change her. Used to be she would lay there calmly, staring intently up at me as I tried to make sure I got all the poop wiped up without getting it all over the changing table, or myself. She was polite, well-mannered, well-behaved and generally cooperative. Now however it’s like trying to fit an eel for a dinner suit. She squirms. She rolls. She grabs the side of the changing table to propel herself onto her stomach, regardless if there’s a steaming pile of poop underneath her or not.

If, God willing, I’m able to get her changed without repainting anything in a stinky shade of brown, she then proceeds to make it impossible to get her dressed again. More than once I’ve just given up and put her in a onsie, since the I have a hard time matching up the buttons on her PJ’s when she’s being cooperative, so doing it while she flops around like a fish on dry land is almost as hard for me as calculus.

She’s also started become increasingly mobile. We removed the top deck from the pack-n-play, because Baby Girl has figured out that she can pull herself up and has nearly launched herself out of the thing once or twice. Gravity is not a baby’s friend.

She really does like moving though. I’ve partitioned the house into sections so she can roam free during the day. The judicious use of boxes, suitcases, and furniture has created a nice play area for Baby Girl. We would have used her pack-n-play, but we have started transitioning her to sleep in it and she now officially hates to be in it. The pre-sleep screaming has dropped dramatically from around 40 minutes, to about 15 on a good night, so we’re making progress. But if you drop her in the pack-n-play during the day, she automatically assumes you expect her to sleep, and starts lodging a verbal, if incomprehensible objection within seconds. It’s loud. The neighbors probably think I have her hooked up to some kind of medieval torture device.

So the house is partitioned off during the day, making it look like we just moved in. But it keeps the munchkin occupied while I try to get things done. One of the more amusing things to come out of it is that apparently Baby Girl is confused by corners. She got stuck in one, seemingly couldn’t figure out how to get out of it, and was not amused by the situation. I’ll admit that I chuckled at it.

She is, as babies tend to be, quite curious. This has led to a number of almost heart attack inducing moments. Like when she removed the sonic bug reppeler from its socket and tried to put it in her mouth. Or when she tried to topple the Diaper Genie diaper disposal unit. Or when she started crawling for the underside of the kitchen counters, towards a day’s worth of dropped food (I’m a reasonably talented cook, but neatness is something that escapes me. On any given day you could probably figure out what we had for dinner the night before by referencing what dropped on the floor and has been kicked under the counter.).

She’s exhausting. And from what I’m being told by friends, who have children of all ages, I shouldn’t expect this to get any better. Only 35 more 6-month stretches to go before she’s off to school. Which means I get a nap sometime around the time I turn 62.