“Look at dem blue ayez.”


We took Charlotte for a walk this evening because she’s been fussy from when we get home until she goes to bed all week.  We passed a man who said something about her pretty blue eyes.  I looked at my wife and joked that there will come a time that I would punch someone in the face for that.  Oh, the teenage years will be fun.

But, yes, her eyes really are this blue.

The bizarre urge to document everything.


Before Charlotte was born, we bought her a new Moleskine (sized A4) for a first-year journal, and I bought a new camera with the cash I was planning on buying an acoustic bass with. My better half is a talented historian, and I’m a little obsessive and compulsive. We planned on recording everything. Everything.

I didn’t mean to, but I’ve found myself watching important moments through my camera’s LCD screen, and I’m so behind in journaling (and I haven’t cracked Charlotte’s volume open) that I can’t stand to sit down and begin to write anything at all. Today, I noticed a nice red stuck pixel in the middle of my camera’s pictures. Great. I know that bad pixels are a fact of digital photography, but a red one right in the middle is disconcerting. I spent the night trying out CHDK, but their website and download pages have been down all night. And the firmware version is conflicting with what it’s supposed to be. Canon said to send it back to them. Okay, that’s like $15-$20 in shipping and a week or two (or three) without my camera.

In itself, that’s not the end of the world. I could do something scummy, like buy my camera over again and return the one I have now, since my return period is over. Aside from being scummy, I’m sentimental, and I don’t want to do that. This camera took Charlotte’s first picture ever. But I find myself hoping that she doesn’t do anything too memorable in the meantime. And this is stupid.

For another thing, if it were me, I’d rather hear the story from my parents than see the photos. My parents took tons and tons of photos of their boys as children. But my own memory and hearing my parents tell me things that I don’t remember serve me better for my nostalgic needs than photo albums. In fact, there are some I’ve probably never even bothered to look through.

I’ve developed a strange “I’m getting older” and “important things are happening now” penchant for writing everything down and recording everything (that sounds like it’s own blog post) over the last few years. I worked all day and spent half the time Charlotte was awake messing with my camera like her childhood depended on it. But worrying more about some photos and posting them on Facebook seems like a waste of energy to me these days.

But, you know. Tell me that.

Big face and a fun new playgym.


Charlotte has two playgyms, both from Ikea, and she loves both. Both bear being written about so that you can enjoy them, too, if you’re in the market for one (or two).

Without raving about either, she’d like to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day weekend. Today, we’re going to see Grandpa off for his camping trip (on which Daddy has to sit out this year); going to her first campfire Saturday; and celebrating Uncle Joey’s birthday Sunday with a small family cook-out.

Mommy and Daddy both go back to work next week, and we’re not happy about it.

Honeysuckles in the morning.


Charlotte and I took a walk early this morning.  We exchanged many “Good Mornings,” enjoyed a nice breeze and savoured the smell of honeysuckles and freshly-cut grass. If she ever manages to stay awake in the baby carrier, she now insists on being able to look around at her leisure. This requires not only her usual sun-hat, but also sunglasses. Usually though, like today, she is asleep before I even hit the elevator, rocked by the nice warmth and softness of Daddy’s belly.

Adorable thing our daughter does: Arms up!


During The Big Ultrasound in November (the one wherein we found out Baby’s gender), GE was there selling 3D machines. So we were able to view (but not record) a 3D ultrasound of Charlotte. We could see her cute little face but were having trouble getting a steady shot. Because. She loves to put her hands to her face.

Even in the low-res, 2D versions, you can see her hands up to her face.

As soon as she came into the world, she was putting those arms up.

When she came back from the nursery, right after she was born, her face was red and raw from scratching herself up.

Whether playing, fussing or sleeping, she loves having those hands up on her cheeks and chin.

And sometimes, she does this.


She cries.  Her tear ducts work now; so it’s terrible to see.  Especially if it’s because you’re administering nose drops and sucking out boogies with an aspirator because some jackass knowingly came to visit with a cold.  And if you’re at the ER when she’s less than two weeks old because she’s breathing funny because of said cold, tears are that much worse.

Three weeks old, and we have a revenge list! (kidding)

Interesting facts about the birth of our daughter.


I’m tempted to do a play-by-play. But, for one, I barely had the energy and time to journal about it. For another, there was a lot of gore and fear and terror and love, and I don’t think I’m a good enough writer to do it justice. In the end, though, I think it’s not my place. Yes, I was there. I was scared and shouting and crying and smiling and gasping along with Charlotte’s mother. But I didn’t get sewn back together and almost give birth without medication. I feel like it’s Mama’s to write about, and she’s not a blogger.  So these are just the facts, Jack.

Mama’s contractions got so bad that she cried, screamed, dropped to all fours. The jokes she told me to remember to tell her when the time came didn’t help at all. Neither did a walk, a movie, etc. The midwife on call at the hospital told her, No, don’t come in. We tried to go to sleep at midnight, but apparently I passed out on my own.Mama  woke me up at 1am telling me that it was time to go. In my stupor, I begged her to come back to bed.

At the hospital, I had to keep running around to get guest passes and had to leave her twice. I hated that.

By the time we got to Labor and Delivery, Mama was beside herself with pain. She was also 7cm dilated. The epidural was ordered, and we were admitted to a room. I had to get another pass from security, and the guard was not at his post and was a jerk when he got back.

We got to the room, and two young residents were discussing how dilated Mama was, where the on-call doctor was and whether there was time for the epidural. Sparing scary and TMI details, it was almost too late for the epidural because the midwife let us stay home too long (confirmed verbally by three doctors — I have no beef with midwives, just that one) and because the anaesthesiologist was taking too long to show up. My wife screamed, “Please!” to give her the damned epidural and even begged at one point, “Why can’t I have it?!” In retrospect, this melts my freakin heart and makes me feel like a wanker for not jacking up whoever I had to in order to get her the drugs she was begging for. The mean anaesthesiologist finally came, complained that my wife’s back was sweaty and then left the room without turning on the drip (luckily, the nurse noticed). Once the drugs were in, Mama was her old self again.

We didn’t wait long before it was time to break the water and PUSH. Geez. I had to hold a leg, while a room full of people encouraged Mama. In the end, Baby needed a little help from the vacuum, and Mama had a pretty large episiotomy. Very large. Baby was stuck on her way out, and the vacuum and cutting were necessary. Plus, she’s our kid and has a big head.

Baby came out like a starfish with a tube in her belly, screaming. My wife’s joy cries and terror cries are the same, and I thought for a second that something was wrong. But they asked, “Does Dad wanna cut the cord?” and I was handed this instrument that looked fit for cutting off my own hands. Once the cord was cut, they gave Charlotte to Mama, then to me, as they had to bring in another doctor to sew Mama back up again.

Yeah, there was blood and poop everywhere. Baby pooped on everyone but me because she’d become stressed by being stuck. And Mama was really torn up. The man who they had to bring in was oozing with competence somehow, and that made me feel better. I also felt, well, happier than I’d been in my thirty years that I got to hold Charlotte for the better part of an hour, while Mama was getting repaired by a room full of people while she was completely awake.

Charlotte was looking around, blinking slowly, taking us all in. She seemed to recognize her parents by our voices (and her grandparents later in the same way). I’d never had a better hug in my entire life than the cuddles we had while Mama was getting repaired.

And, to back up the three pieces of identification that they put onto her before she left the room, she has my family’s butt-chin! She looks like all the men with my last name, that is, the four of us still alive from my Dad’s side of the family.

They took Charlotte to the nursery, and I walked as far as they’d let me. Once Mama was put back together, Grandma and Grandpa came in, and we all watched the morning unfold in downtown Baltimore. Uncle Tom and Uncle Joey were on the way with coffee and donuts.

All was right with the world.

Less than infinite patience.

I have to say this.  Life has been little else but pure joy since last Friday, when Charlotte was born.  Life would be nothing but pure joy if dingdongs and poopyheads would do a few things for me/us:

1) Keep their issues to themselves.

2) Keep their issues to themselves.

3) Stop demanding things of either of us.  Unless you live under a rock, you know that new parents don’t sleep, don’t have any time and are more than a little consumed with taking care of and admiring their new child.

4) Respect our decisions.

I’ve found that a lot of the same people who make a show of sympathy, empathy and understanding also get pissed when there is no patience and no “consideration” left for them.  My immediate family is not, thankfully, pulling any of this crap.  The opposite, actually.  But my immediate family is pretty small, and the slew of other people that demand attention for themselves in favor of my newborn child is a larger list of people.  Passive-aggressiveness over perceived slights at the lack of returned phone calls, meet-ups, emails, etc.?  Seriously?

Fortunately, we have — or, at least, I have — resolved to just not care about other people’s feelings right now.  Easier said than done, I know.  But on nights like tonight, where the poop’s flying, and Charlotte’s not sleeping, and I find myself with less patience left for her because of some fartpooper who’s being passive-aggressive because our priority has been our child, well, that makes it easier.

I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end of the month without snapping at someone for being a jerk.