On Diapers and Engrossment

Day 10 – After 10 days of the Daily Baby Tracker, I’m sad to report that the entire purpose of the tracker – to determine the daily sleeping and feeding patterns of Lian – has failed. The only conclusion I’ve been able to draw – other than that in 80% of all feedings a sleep period will follow – is that the for the last 3 nights we’ve kept Lian (or she’s kept us, we’re not quite sure) to an 11.15pm, 3.15am and 7.15am feeding schedule.

I’ve not given up hope. I’ve decided to extend the Daily Baby Tracker for another 10 days in the interest of getting Lian onto a daytime feeding cycle that we can then completely alter in order to get ourselves to an 8-hour or so night without waiting until she hits 13 pounds.

13 pounds, you ask? Well, we’ve been obsessed with that weight for one simple reason: parenting lore states that at that weight, babies sleep through the night. Then at the hospital, we learned to memorize a second number: 8 pounds 1 oz. Once Lian reaches that weight again (remember that newborns can lose up to 20% of their birth weight within the first 48-72 hours), we no longer need to wake her up to feed and can let her wake us up.  

In other news: this afternoon at 12.50pm, we ran out of huggies #1 disposable diapers. Michelle was frantic. “Go get some more at Safeway,” she pleaded. I was upset that the box of 40 I had bought on Day 7 had run out.

At 1.15pm, Michelle called her mother and asked her to pick up a box of disposables – Huggies – since her mother was going to CostCo. At 1.25pm, I answered the doorbell. The Tiny Tots cloth diaper service we had signed up for on Monday delivered 80 cloth diapers in a blue bag weighing at least 15 pounds.

At 2.30pm, Michelle’s mom arrived with a 15-pound box of 228 Huggies diapers.

I currently have 308 diapers in our apartment. We’re OK now, according to Michelle.

And I’ve actually joined a community, unbeknownst to me. Tiny Tots publishes a gazette in which they post pictures of their latest clients’ babies and stories about their favorite habits, playthings and interests. Cute, but no thanks, we decided.

Then, this evening, Michelle needed some time to herself. “Come home now…I need a break,” she called me as I was returning from a real estate related meeting. I hurried home and she headed to the Café du Soleil – our corner French café with the great lattes and pain-au-chocolat. [She ordered a Stella I later found out.]

Just before leaving, she set a record for an entire feeding cycle. She completed a change, feed breast 1, burp, feed breast 2, burp, swaddle, sing sleep sequence in 30 minutes flat. She walked into the kitchen grinning. “I’m getting good,” she said, chuffed at her meteoric rise into the ranks of professional mother-dom.

When Michelle left, I folded Lian carefully into our New Native baby sling and engaged in some engrossment with her. Engrossment, I learned today, is the act of bonding between father and baby, according to Dr. Sears & Sears – a family of well-known pediatricians. It seems that engrossment was first coined by Dr. Morris Greenberg in a 1974 article in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, entitled “Engrossment: the newborn’s impact upon the father.” The impact in my case could probably be simplified to: it’s big.

By the way, for those of you who are policy-wonks, this type of activity should not be confused with the engrossment that Senators in Congress engage in: where engrossment represents the formal reprinting of a Congressional bill in the form upon which the chamber will vote final passage. The reason for the word, I learned, was that in earlier times, these bills were handwritten in very large (or “engrossed”) script.

My engrossment with Lian extended for a 1.5 mile walk up into and around Buena Vista Park. She was engrossed too since she slept the entire way. Not a peep.

Tonight, we engaged in our nightly cycle (the past 3 days now, according to the Daily Baby Tracker). Michelle feeds Lian at 11.15, I burp her in between breasts at 11.30, Michelle feeds her again, then I burp her, swaddle her and put her to bed. I was staring at her just before swaddling, watching her little mouth pucker and make faces.

“Come on, put her to bed,” Michelle asked, tired and annoyed.

“I’m engaging in engrossment with her,” I said, starting to define for her what I’d learned today. “Men and their complicated terms,” she cut me off. “Why can’t you just call it love?”

I can live with that.

On Finger Sucking and Let-Downs

Day 9 – Another breakthrough happened today – in a bout of fussing and crying, Lian splayed the fingers of one hand across her face, and ended up – accidentally it looked like – putting her little thumb and index finger in her mouth. A loud sucking sound followed as her thumb and index finger went in and out of her small mouth, her opened palm flat against her nose and cheek. Michelle was overjoyed. “Look at that,” she cried in delight. For some reason, all I could think of was the studies I’d heard about that claimed that a child sucking its thumb could lead to poor gum development and crooked teeth.

“Just think,” Michelle added, “now she can suck her thumb to pacify herself instead of crying for us!” As soon as my dull mind realized the potential implications on our sleep patterns, I grinned from ear to ear. “Wow – some more sleep,” I thought.

The Art of Walking
Later today, we took another outing down by the beach at Crissy Field down by the San Francisco marina. It was a bright, sunny and warm Indian Summer day. The sky was a brilliant blue, the outrigger canoes from the San Francisco Outrigger canoe club were practicing sprints out by the dual buoys near the Golden Gate, and the water was flat.

All of this, of course, meant nothing to Lian who cried and cried during our walk. And do you know what? It didn’t faze us. For the first time, the two of us just walked together, each of us with a hand on the stroller – we’re a bit particular about each contributing evenly to whatever activity we’re doing – and almost blissfully ignorant of little Lian’s wailing cries. We’ve come a long way. The art of walking with a baby we’ve concluded, is to acknowledge her, but then let her sleep and to ignore her if she doesn’t. If she could only stay this age forever.

After a while as a new dad, you begin to feel like a pro and you tell yourself that you can read your baby’s cries and can tell her wants. I find myself ticking off the five wants all the time now: holding, feeding, burping, changing, and turn-up-the-heat (our own unique addition given our drafty apartment).

But even more important than knowing what a baby’s needs are, is being able to just ignore the cries altogether. On today’s walk, Lian’s crying made no sense: I’d just changed her diaper, she was stuffed with blankets in her stroller, she’d just been burped and fed. The only thing we weren’t doing was holding her – so OK – maybe that was the reason for the crying. But after a few minutes, she just stopped, and fell back asleep. Ignorance, it seems, is a useful tactic with a baby. At a certain point, she’ll just tire herself out or maybe forget what she was crying about, and she’ll fall asleep.

And as to our outings with Michelle, “the pleasure’s a little bit more intense than it used to be,” she said to me today. These little activities – a walk down a beach hand-in-hand – we would do without a thought in the world before. Now, we do them conscious of one thing that we never knew before: we are blessed when we can enjoy our time quietly, without Lian crying.

Motherhood
Since I’m less than half of the equation when it comes to baby and parenting, I thought I’d ask Michelle to share with you some of her thoughts on her newfound motherhood.

What is your perspective on motherhood versus fatherhood? “Well, there’s a certain amount of protectiveness that you don’t have as a man that I have, for example: protecting her body from the wind and the elements. You’re much more carefree in your treatment of her – I’m a lot more cautious about exposing her to people.”

What does it feel like being a mother? “It’s a life commitment like no other to just see this creation grow and blossom. It’s overwhelming having this creature take control of your life. It’s being able to let go (which is really hard for type-A personalities like ourselves) that is so difficult and yet so natural. Being a mom I’m much more aware that I just have to let things go and that I have to re-prioritize. Do I want to have my life and do things that give me pleasure? Absolutely. But now other things take priority.  

What do you find yourself thinking about when you stare at her as you do? “I still look at her and go …wow … she literally came out of me. How did she fit?!”

What are you proud of? “Stupid things like…oh, she’s gaining weight. You feel proud as a mother that you can give nourishment to this child so that it can grow.”

Uncontrolled Leakage in a Type-A Woman
And then, Michelle explains one of the strangest things imaginable to a husband – the act of “let-down”. The let-down of milk, or leaking of a breast, is a very strange thing indeed. Not to embarrass my wife, but this is something that is useful to know for those of you who haven’t yet had a child – you may find your wife walking into the shower with a flow of milk coming out of her breasts, or she’ll suddenly feel pressure in her chest when your baby starts to cry. It’s absolutely remarkable – an interesting side-effect of lactation that it is so sensitive to your baby’s every motion and sound.

Here is Michelle’s own perspective on the let-down of her own milk. “I remember reading about this, but when it happens to you it’s a strange alien thing. When Lian cries, I immediately start “letting”. I physically ache when I hear her cry: my chest tightens, I start leaking, and it’s this raw, core element of my being that takes over my body. And that’s the big thing about post-partum depression – it’s that you are now effectively a pod. Nature’s forces have taken over your body and it just seems to know what to do – but you have no control over it. In this day and age, for those of us who are so into our heads and in control of everything we do, it’s a very raw, grounding experience. All of a sudden, the moment a child is born, your body knows to kick into production and nourishment mode. That’s amazing to me! And the moment a child cries, your first reaction is to give it nourishment, to give it life. It’s like your lifeline, your continual connection with your child.”

“I can understand why some women choose to breast feed for up to a year. It’s like your umbilical cord. It’s your ability to provide nourishment – which equates with love – to your child. It’s so grounding. It’s your first chakra (the sexual reproduction chakra). Your first chakra is the most earth-bound – it’s survival. Survival is preparation – a raw physical element. And you don’t become more physical than in your first chakra.” [If you’re lost right now, it’s OK. So am I.]

More questions on motherhood and child-rearing
What are your biggest fears? That something’s wrong with Lian – and that it would be because I shouldn’t have done something (like drink wine, eat sushi), or that I didn’t protect her enough. I have no doubt, oddly enough, that we’ll be able to provide for her. What I do doubt is taking the time – giving her our time – being there with her and for her, and not just spending time.  My dad has a fear that she’ll have your nose [I’ve been likened to Cyrano], and that she’ll have trouble going out on dates.

What are your fears for Lian? She’s going to be a tough cookie. She has a will of her own. My only fears are related to me: Am I feeding her enough? Is she gaining enough weight? It sounds awful but you do compare your child to others, because as a new mom you don’t know any better. You hear stories about so-and-so having this happen, so it becomes something that might happen to your own child.

Day 9 - a close-up of finger-sucking, ear-picking and blah-blah-blah-blah listening.

Day 9 - mother reading from one of Dartmouth's best known literary figures to her little gil.

Day 9 - our new breakfast table addition. We each take turns eating with one hand and rocking her chair with the other. Already on our second day doing this, we've learned to cut each others' french toast into bite size pieces while the other is rocking Lian.

Day 9 - Lian sucking her thumb for the first time!

On Anniversaries, Life & Death

Day 8 - Michelle and I are in our 8th year together, and today we celebrated both our 8th day with Lian, as well as our 2nd wedding anniversary. We celebrated in style - at a great little tapas restaurant in the Mission. It was almost perfect, except for the quiet.

You see, we arrived at 5.45pm, only 15 minutes after the restaurant had opened for dinner. And we arrived at that time because Lian had to be fed at 7, and since we're hard at work on getting her into a sleep routine at night, Michelle didn't want us to go out after then. So at 5.45pm when the three of us arrived at the restaurant, we were the only ones there. I never would have imagined myself as that type of restaurant customer. The last time I remember eating at 5.45pm was when Mrs. Kocsis our Hungarian babysitter when I was in 5th grade would call my sister and I in from the yard for dinner. In fact, until June when we were living in New York, I would sometimes be grabbing lunch at 5.45pm.

Nevertheless, we weren't there to meet any other diners, and the service was excellent - prompting us to conclude that service levels in San Francisco were truly a step above New York's.

For our anniversary, I offered Michelle a small card, and an even smaller package - a new wedding band since she was allergic to the first one I'd offered her. Yes, her skin developed an allergic reaction to the white gold - and ... oddly enough ... the platinum engagement ring I bought her didn't produce any such reaction so I went out after much prodding and finally offered her a new platinum wedding band. But it was the card that she cried over. With little Lian propped up next to her in our car seat, fast asleep, she read the anniversary card in which I had written that the best anniversary present she could have ever offered me was that little bundle of joy and beauty on the chair next to her. It took two napkins to dry her tears.

Needless to say, Lian is a little beacon of emotion for us. It seems like every time we look at her, we're looking into the soul of some deeper being than the little one-week old inhabiting her body. Michelle considers her an "old soul", and though she can't exactly explain why - it's merely a feeling she has with people - I believe her.

Michelle likens souls to spirits – claiming that they inhabit one body from its birth to its death. And an old soul is one that has lived in another body before inhabiting its current one. So the cycle of life and death is the process by which a soul will exchange from one body to the next.

The cycle of life and death is particularly enhanced – even acute I would say – when you watch a fresh baby out of the womb. Watching the act, body, spirit and soul of life pulse out of your wife’s womb and land crying on your wife’s chest, quivering with the shock of breath, is strangely saddening. You see, until you witness a child’s birth, you only know vaguely what the Broadway actors exhort about in the Lion King about the Circle of Life.

When you see your child take its first breath, you are present at the most powerful moment at the start of that cycle. And what that does, for those of us who haven’t experienced death – the death of someone close to us – is that it somehow transports you to the end of that cycle. You feel transported in time and space to another point where you reflect upon how life ends. My grandfather is slowly dying and suffering from Alzheimer’s. It is painful to watch him wither away into a ghost of his former self. For some reason, watching Lian being born transported me from one end of the beautiful, painful and inexorable cycle of life to the other.

Day 8 - Mimi & sling take 2. 

Day 8 - Mimi & sling take 1. 

Day 8 - Lian swaddled and ready for her sling. 

The Knock-Out and the Look

Day 7 - It's 10.31pm and I have another 29 minutes to go here. No, I'm not in control of my own schedule since I agreed to wake up Michelle at 11pm in order to feed Lian. Am I happy about this? No. But as I sit here reminiscing about the days not so long ago when I could go to sleep whenever I wanted to (sounds strange, doesn't it? not being able to go to sleep when you want to), I'm not that bothered. Why? Because in the past few days, Michelle and I have discovered two things about Lian that make us melt. I call these the Knock-Out and the Look. The former mostly happens during the day, the latter mostly at night. And I expect that I'll be treated to the latter very shortly.

Picture George Foreman in Zaire against Ali in 1974. Better yet, Joe Louis in 1937 getting the heavyweight title from James Braddock. Braddock was knocked out in the 8th round. Braddock was on the mat, nearly comatose. That is the pose Lian does right after she finishes feeding.

Unlike the boxers in the analogy - Lian's Knock-Out pose is one of the most touching and beautiful I’ve ever seen. After every feeding during the day, right after Michelle has just broken the suction of her little girl's mouth against her nipple, Lian will roll slowly away until she's on her back on the bed or on Michelle's lap, her arms limp, her mouth open, her eyes closed. It's her version of the Knock-Out. And in that pose, Michelle will hold Lian against her after every feeding. Michelle will stay still sometimes for 15 minutes at a time, not letting me burp her or change her, for fear of waking her up out of that blissful state - the milk coma she calls it.

At night, our little girl seems to be alert more than asleep after feeding. In fact, I’m expecting to see her wide awake in another half hour once she’s finished her 11pm feeding. What she does when she finishes feeding at night is what melts me: she opens her eyes wide, looks around from right to left in your arms as you’re holding her, and then slowly, her eyes will wander until they find yours. That moment when her dark colorless eyes latch onto mine, her little mouth opened in a lazy “o”, her fingers and arms working slowly as if in a slow motion un-choreographed ballet, makes my heart skip a beat. I find myself breathing deeply as I think about that moment right now. Time literally stands still in that moment of the Look.

Colorless eyes, you ask? Yes, I didn't know this but apparently most babies' eyes are blue on birth because the brown pigment molecule Melanin which colors our skin, hair and eyes, doesn't color the iris upon birth, and only stabilizes at around 6 months of age. Well, to be honest, I can't really tell Lian's color - it's a deep dark ebony right now that I see staring back at me. I hope her Look never changes. One of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen in a human being.

The Knock-Out

Day 7 - happy grandparents and their Chinese-clad granddaughter.

Day 7 - ever peaceful. Her 3rd trip out of the house in as many days.

Day 7 - a visit to the Canvas Cafe in SF. Mimi is wearing clothes from her 4th month of pregnancy. She feels and loos fantastic!

It's All Good

Day 7 - A tiring day. It's 2 hours ahead of my 1st week's bedtime of midnight, and I'm ready for bed.

Even though today was exhausting due to last night's lack of sleep, and Michelle and I both longed to take a nap all day long (she took a short one in between afternoon feedings - I ran some errands), we were still blessed with a little bit of magic parent dust. Today, Lian gave her first hint of learning how to suck her fingers. Now that may sound very simple and unimportant to you, but to us, the implications of that were that she now has an alternative to sucking on one of our fingers in order to calm herself down. You don't know how good that makes us feel ....one step closer to baby independence.

Her little fingers, by the way, are fascinating to watch. For those of you who have had kids, this is old hat to you, but for those of you, like us, who haven't experienced this yourselves, your baby's fingers are like the tentacles of a drugged octopus. Sometimes the pinky will stick out, sometimes the thumb will be tucked under the index finger, sometimes all 5 will be splayed out and slap across her face. So when she attempted today to put her fingers in her mouth it was an exercise in timing more than anything - could she actually time it so that when her fingers hit her lips (of course they don't go right in her mouth) they would be straight enough so that she could slide them over to her opened mouth? Collectively, we saw her succeed twice, and try at least four times. Must be frustrating being so close and yet so far.

In my ongoing struggle to remain in ... who am I kidding, I mean regain ... control, I decided to wash the car today. What a relief. I'm back on top again - the drink stains are gone, and the spilled raisins and dried cranberries are all cleaned up. Our shiny silver VW is a testament to the ocean of calm this newborn daddy is working hard to project to the outside world, though even more, to himself. The kitchen sink is another story.

But speaking about the kitchen sink, I can tell you that I'm becoming an expert dinner planner already. Michelle and I (yes, I'm a lucky man since she decided to help me tonight) whipped together a salad, dressing bread, cheese, fruit salad, wine (what a treat) and fried pig's liver that her mom prepared for us, in all of 7 minutes flat.

This was all-the-more an accomplishment for us since Lian was bawling the entire time - I had her in our vibrating chair on the dryer (I had it running in the hopes that the heat and noise might calm her down - fat chance), and rushed over to her every minute to shake the chair a little and add to the battery-powered vibrations it was generating. All I can say is, battery manufacturers must be one of the biggest opponents to family planning. I went to Radio Shack today and spent $32 on the ubiquitous Size D battery. For those of you, like me, whose home and office gizmo's relied on A's and AA's, you'll learn that those tiny little Alkalines don't power anything that you'll use when you have a baby.

A Small Selection of Size D Energy Suckers: the Vibrating Chair (3), the Swinging Fish on the Vibrating Chair (3 - yes, it's its own Energizer Eater), the Baby Swing (4), the Baby Mobile (2). But let me tell you, I have absolutely no regrets over that battery purchase whatsoever. If ever our Baby Swing were to break, I would be one hapless father, so however many Energizers it eats, I will gladly feed it - anytime of the day or night.

Day 7 - Michelle realizing with a smile that her baby daughter has her snore.

The Collapse

Day 7 - It's only mid-day and Michelle and I are exhausted. Lian kept us up seemingly all night. My Daily Baby Tracker of her sleeping and eating patterns has failed me. Much as I would like to detect a pattern to her diurnal and nocturnal routines, all I can conclude with any degree of accuracy is that in 80% of the cases, a sleep period will follow a feeding.

Her "bewitching hour" as we like to call it - that period sometime between dawn and dusk and dawn when she refuses to fall asleep and fusses about - has gone from 10pm-12am, then 8-10am, and today 10am-12pm.

As that woman in the plane one day told me - it took her 10 days to figure out her babies' daily sleep routines before she then was able to manipulate them so that she could get a 6-hour stretch of sleep. That means 3 more days of the Daily Baby Tracker to uncover something, anything, that will give us insight into little Lian's cycles.

Controlling the Mess

Day 6 – My wife would probably call me anal – though not to my face, of course. Why? I bought my first label maker when we moved into this apartment 2 months ago, and spent 7 days labeling all my file folders – I even have our key hooks in the hallway labeled “his” and “hers” so that my wife can remember where to put them when she walks in. Ever since she became pregnant, she’s always asking me if I know where her keys are.

So for an anal guy, I have to admit that our baby is less than perfect. I can’t keep up. We had breakfast this morning – yes, I cooked pancakes with real maple syrup, fresh brewed tea and fresh cantaloupe for us – and as soon as we finished, we had to plan our exit. We wanted to take Lian to the Berkeley Marina for an outing, and according to my 2-day old Daily Baby Tracker, we had about 2 hours between the start of the mid-morning feed and the late morning feed. Since it still takes Lian ½ hour to feed off both breasts (she’s down to 10-12 minutes per breast, plus a 5 minute burping session as she makes the dash between left and right), that left us with exactly 1-1/2 hours to pack the car, pack ourselves and baby into the car, tackle Saturday morning Bay Bridge traffic, unpack ourselves and baby from the car, get out and breathe some fresh air, and then rush baby back into the car for some impromptu breastfeeding before unpacking her again to enjoy some fresh air again.

In our haste to get out of the house, I packed all the dishes into the sink, where they joined the dishes from last night that I hadn’t yet gotten to because I was busy writing this damn blog ;-). So the kitchen was a mess, and the car became a mess after we spilled first hot chocolate and then tea and sugar water on the backseat as we were trying to install Lian in her carseat. And then after coming home, our office was another mess – I have papers piled up from Monday – mail and bills unopened, and then Michelle has a pile of papers related to Lian that she hasn’t yet gotten to, that I’ve been storing for her on my desk. The mess is getting to me; all-the-more because usually Michelle is our resident clean freak and wouldn’t stand to leave anything out overnight, either papers or dishes – and she’s checked out. Yes, completely checked out. She announced to me yesterday: “Dean, I need some TLC for the next two weeks”. Gulp. That meant no cooking, no dishes, no cleaning. Nothing but bathing, eating and feeding Lian. So I’m learning how to clean dishes double time and it seems like every time I walk into our apartment or even into a room I’m either picking up clothes that we’d dropped onto the floor in our rush to take care of Lian, or cleaning up dirty diapers dropped into a heap in a corner of our room.

New Mama Needs
I was cleaning up her papers tonight – putting them into a pile on her side of the office – and one of them caught my eye. It was a list of things for new mothers to buy, entitled: “New Mama Needs” from a company out of Manhattan called Mama Nurture. Half of the items on the list sounded like ingredients for a witches’ brew: Arnica Montana - helps heal bruised perineal tissue; Comfrey, Yarrow and Witch Hazel – helps soothe in the bath; Fenugreek lactation tincture – to help with milk supply. The other half sounded like a strange mix of Duane Reade and Joe’s Porn Shop: Sitz Bath; Nipple Cream; Booby Tubes; Bravado Bra Pads; Electric Breast Pump.

There was one item on the list, though, that caught my attention: Chamomile tea ice packs. There were instructions: “pour strong brewed tea on maxipads and keep in freezer. Apply to vagina for the first few days after birth to help with healing. Can also be used on nursing pads.”

Yuck! I could just imagine Lian crying in the middle of the night, my rolling over to get out of bed, and soaking my underclothes in some cold herbal tea. I keep telling myself to remember that everything that I just don’t understand would probably make perfect sense if I were a woman. Still, an herbal smoothie poured down your bra and your underwear?!

So imagine my shock when we were finishing dinner tonight and I asked Michelle if she needed any help with anything. No, not really, she said. “What about preparing you a chamomile nursing bra,” I said jokingly. “Oh that would be wonderful,” she smiled, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and then walked away to feed Lian, calling out as she left “that’s so thoughtful of you!” I stood there dumbstruck.

I made the tea, though, and I poured the tea – all of it, an entire pitcher’s worth – into 4 maxi pads and 4 nursing pads. Can you believe it?! Those are amazing sponges. For a guy, that was a real eye-opener. Wow. An entire pitcher of liquid into 8 pads, only to be frozen and then drip back out of them when Michelle’s body warmed them up. I hope I’m not next to her when that happens, I thought selfishly.

The Joys of Nursing
Can I just say something about nursing pads and nursing? As a newborn dad, I can tell you that I’ve witnessed Michelle’s pain first-hand: cracked, bleeding nipples; swollen mammary glands (there are lumps the size of peanuts under her armpits, her sister had rock-sized lumps apparently, incredibly painful!); a painful grimace each time Lian latches onto a breast that continues for the first minute of each feed. This is not a fun exercise. Just imagine this, men: what kind of pain would you have to endure before you slipped a bag of frozen peas into your jock strap?

So imagine my surprise when I went to fetch the nursing pads from the bathroom for the Chamomile tea treatment, and read the label on the box: “Nursing Pads from Lansinoh – Discover the Joys of Breastfeeding”.

Day 6 - a close-up of little Lian.

Day 6 - our outing to the Berkeley Marina. Tracy on the left, Michelle on the right. Lian tucked into a blanket to protect her from the stiff wind.

Day 6 - she was dressed in a little pink dress today. Drop dead gorgeous. Here she's practicing tummy-to-tummy sleeping.

Discovering Aisle 10

Day 5 - Today was a terrifying ... but rewarding day. I set off on a major expedition - one I hadn't prepared for in years - I think the last one I had completed was just after college in the Cook range in New Zealand's South Island. Well, today my map was the shopping list in my pocket, and the little black granny shopping basket was the equivalent of my pack. And I had 17 aisles worth of Super Safeway to keep me busy in my quest for tonight's ingredients that I would use to cook us a meal.

Tonight was my night. My mother and father-in-law had brought us food for the past 2 days, and had given us enough for a week's supply of ready-made Chinese meals. My sister-in-law had made a curry sauce. My wife wanted curried chicken. I had to cook the chicken, and the potatoes. So off I went to Safeway.

I secured the meal ingredients - no problem. And then, I looked at the bottom of the list: diapers. I located the special aisle I had never even seen, let alone traveled down ... aisle 10 ... for the baby diapers - slight problem. There was an entire aisle - 75 feet worth - of diapers. Huggies, Pampers, Safeway, Seventh Generation recyclables .... oh my god was I overwhelmed. Finally, after about 5 minutes of panicked searching for the smallest ones I could find, I realized the simple trick - they're all numbered. 1's are the smallest for newborns, then 2's, 3's and 4's, which looked like they could swaddle a horse.

The strange thing about having a baby is that suddenly your perspective changes completely. Everything to a newborn dad suddenly shrinks down to micro sizes. Mini diapers, 2-inch long socks, 3-inch wide hats, 18-inch long clothes. So when I was given extra diapers from my sister-in-law for an 8-14lb baby, my jaw dropped. I pulled one out of the plastic bag and held it up against Lian - it reached from her foot to her armpit. I opened it up and then put it between my legs - it almost fit. It was a Huggies - with the built in stretch potential in one of those, I'm sure it could.

So back to the shopping adventure. Diapers - not that bad a problem after I figured out the system. Good thing was, no one was looking as I figured it out. Then back home. Dinner - slight problem. Now, you see, I haven't cooked in a while. I'm a fantastic leftover chef - and can make any lunch into a dinner with a flick of the wrist, but starting from scratch ... that's a different problem. But Michelle was categorical with me today: "sweetie, I'm exhausted and I need some TLC today." I was on my own.

Lian had just fed, it was 7pm, and she and mom were feeding in the bedroom down the hall. I was slaving away on the stove, boiling chicken and potatoes, listening to NPR, and then, I heard it....this strange sound - the sound of a small engine, a sucking noise ... a vacuum cleaner. I looked around, opened the outside door and looked around: nothing. And then, I realized where it was coming from: the baby monitor on the kitchen table which was on all day and I just hadn't seen it. It's that vacuum cleaner CD we bought to put the baby to sleep! Yes, Michelle had started it up, in an effort to get Lian to fall asleep.

Back to cooking. Success. Finally. And as I'm putting the finishing touches on the curry, I hear another strange noise. I walked over to the baby monitor again and bend down to get a better listen. It's repetitive, somewhat loud since I can hear it over the noise of the vacuum cleaner, but it stops and starts.

Then, I finally realize what it is. It's become so familiar to me that it's been drummed into my head almost every night of the past 7 1/2 years. Michelle's snores. Dear God, I pray that Lian doesn't take on after her mother, otherwise I'm toast.

Day 5 - Today we explored the world of the stroller, and ventured to a beachfront restaurant here in the Outer Sunset section of San Francisco. Three observations:
a. babies sleep through almost anything - as we were driving to the beach, we were passed by a large fire truck, horns wailing - little Lian slept without a twitch as it passed us by

b. Strollers are heavy, no matter how "light" they're touted to be. I read 4 different stroller reviews before settling on our little Zooper umbrella stroller mid-weight at 19 pounds. 19 pounds, I thought - that's an easy lift for me. What I didn't count on - shame on me, and on all the reviews I read that failed to mention this to me - was that that's actually 10 pounds hanging from one elbow, while in your hand you're carrying the other 19-pound weight: your "baby bag" that includes the following ingredients: with the diaper bag filled with 2 diapers, vaseline for baby's tender bottom, lanolin for mom's sore nipples, enough maxi pads for a cross-country plane trip, an entire spare set of clothes for baby in case her poo happens to leak all over her socks and hat as well, the New York Times of course, the old-style heavyweight digital camera (always check to see that you didn't leave the memory card in your laptop - I know, I just did it), a water bottle for mom, and your small set of 100 baby wipes ... just in case. Oh, and the other hand is carrying your car seat with the baby, crooked at 90-degrees because your wife has her hand in your elbow (yes, it's still hard for her to negotiate stairs in the first week after delivery). Let's see now, with a 10-lb carseat, 19-lbs of stroller, another 10-lbs in the bag, and your wife probably exerting 5-10 lbs of pressure on your arm...that's 45-50 lbs worth. The only saving grace in this first week is that your baby loses up to 17% of her weight - so little Lian shed 9 ounces since her birth. Phew, what a relief.

c. having a stroller is like walking a dog - you're an instant attraction for every other stroller pusher, homeless person looking for someone to talk to, or jogger in need of an excuse to catch his breath.

Tips for Newborn Dads (cont.):

#5. Why not try to control everything? So today I introduced us to the Daily Planning Sheet. It's a simple spreadsheet that allows us to record sleep time and feeding time (since sleep time is not exactly the complete amount of time between feedings by Day 5 of a baby's life, it's worth separating out the two). The purpose: track exactly when Lian sleeps and eats, so that we can then apply the advice that a woman on a Newark - SFO gave me a month ago: cut the baby's sleep time by 1/4 to 1/5 during the day, and within 10 days - you'll be guaranteed a 10-hour night! Sounds like nirvana right now, so why not try? I'll give you an update on Day 10 with my conclusions. One man's mountain...

#6. Changing a diaper is a dad's greatest asset in the struggle for long-lost sleep. If your tasks look anything like Michelle and mine, here's a sample of what each of us does: Michelle - feeds (both breasts each feeding: all the time); burps (sometimes); swaddles/dresses (sometimes); changes (sometimes); holds (often). Dean - feeds (never); burps (often); swaddles/dresses (often); changes (often); holds (often).

So, with that kind of routine, here's the diaper-changing secret: if your newborn is anything like ours, she falls asleep at the breast - Inebriation at the Nipple. But the more she can drink, the longer she can sleep. Her drinking capacity seems to be (once again, I'm no pro, just a 5-day old dad) directly correlated to her capacity to stay awake. The best way I've found to wake her up is to change her and to blow cold air on her little naked body. Whichever way you do it - just make sure that she gives a good howl of protest indicating she's wide awake. So what I like to do is to wait to change her until between breasts - so after feeding on one and before shifting to the second - and then I change her and wake her up. Then she's usually able to swig well at the second trough.

#7. Speaking of troughs - don't speak of troughs, or breasts or anything else that hints at the size or shape or characteristics of her chest. They will look ... significant. That's healthy. And when they leak at the sound of your baby's crying, don't laugh - I made that mistake. Just accept that it's one of those wonderful reflexes of human nature; smile; and tell your wife you love her no matter what her body does.


Day 5 - Another one of those heart melting photos of daddy's little girl. Just for sizing: the length of one of those little footprints on her blanket is 1-3/4"

Day 5 - Donna - your little swing set saved us last night. This is a wonderful tool for any dad kept up late by his little one.

Day 4 - Musings from an exhausted dad... it's 12.21AM, finally quieted little Lian. From 2 days of experience here at home, there are 3 things we've learned:

1. there are more than 4 things a baby craves. Yesterday we added warmth to the quiver of 4 that are: milk, clean diaper, burping and being held. Today we added ... well we're not sure but we tried the above 5 that we'd learned on our first night on our own with her, and we utterly failed. Two hours later, I pulled the technology solution - the battery-powered swing a friend of ours bought for us. On the baby monitor here in the kitchen (yes, this is my musing spot as I listen to what's going on in our distant bedroom - the monitor is a form of cord that I use to "connect" to my little family), I'm listening to the rhythmic back and forth'ing of the 4 foot tall swing. It is the only sound I hear, so the score is: Swing 1, Lian 0.

2. This little item below that I thought would be such a wild success for little one - and which was in fact the only reason Michelle and I bought one - has proved useless over the past 48 hours. Yes, the iPod is not indispensable to all children, I've concluded. In fact, that vacuum cleaner and dryer tracks I bought and downloaded and set on repeat mode on the iPod didn't do a single thing except to excite her and get her to perform even more loudly. So much ubiquitous baby sleep strategies.



3. We learn incredibly quickly as adults. A few examples: Michelle knows exactly how to breastfeed Lian - and what I mean by that is how to position her, how to tickle her upper lip to make her open her little mouth, how to press her onto her breast hard while her mouth is wide open in order to get her to attach properly, and how to insert her index finger into the corner of her mouth in order to break her suction.

In fact we've developed a sort of routine, if I can call it that - Michelle feeds on one breast, then I change Lian's diaper in order to wake her up again (she falls asleep during all daytime feedings and needs to be stimulated by slapping her heels, tickling her sides, squeezing breast milk into her mouth which works very well, or tickling her cheeks), Michelle feeds on the second breast, I burp her on my leg (it's amazing how long and hard you can burp a baby - I was advised at the hospital that if we were to introduce formula, we could burp for as long as 1/2 hour), then swaddle her and put her into her little sleeping basket (it's a soft 27"x10" wicker basket we ordered from Pier 1 to store baby clothes and supplies in that we've converted into her crib).

Doing what we know has become easy, and that is comforting to both of us as parents. There's nothing you want more as a new parent than to face a challenge which you know how to overcome. When Lian is crying and you think that by swaddling her snugly into her little blanket, you'll soothe her little wails ... and it works ... then you are the happiest dad in the world. It's when you're working on addressing the fifth "cause for crying" that you've diligently spent the prior night working out (keeping her warm), and you're failing miserably at reducing the baby din in your apartment, that you feel utterly hopeless as a new dad. If we hadn't had the swing in the next door baby room, I would have tried what I did last night - throw some of my dirty clothes in the dryer, turn it on, and place her baby basket on top of the drier.

So as I'm falling asleep here in the kitchen, listening to the battery-powered swing sounds from my bedroom accompanied by Michelle's soothing night-time chorus, I'd like to put together a few quick suggestions for those who come next - whenever that may be - in order to spare you the frustrations of coming up against challenges for which you don't know the answer as a newborn dad:

Tips for Newborn Dads
#1: Ask the hospital for as many baby blankets as possible - they're 3' square, will be in a print that you'd never buy yourself (ours have footprints all over them in different colors), and they'll be the best thing you've ever used. Also, while you're at it, make good use of the hospital-supplied burping cloths, baby hats, shirt tops (those ones with the extra long sleeves so your child doesn't scratch its face with its fingernails) and wet blankets. I call them wet blankets since I have no idea what they're called, but they're the same size as your baby blankets except they are plastic coated on one side for use whenever you need a little liquid protection (a changing area, for example).

#2: the dark hair growing on your little girl's back and behind her ears will eventually disappear. Noone will be able to tell you exactly when, and noone will quite be able to convince you that there's a 100% likelihood of that hair disappearing, but you'll be mostly reassured.

#3: Your wife read the book, and you didn't. So don't make pretend that you know what you're doing. Case in point: I was excited about washing Lian for the first time. I cleaned the kitchen sink, then I remembered the advice from Michelle's sister "keep the room warm", so I chose the bathroom. I got a chair from the living room and set it up by the sink. I filled the sink with hot water, pulled out a little finger cloth we'd been given by a friend, and went to get Lian. Michelle walked down the hall holding her and asked me if I was going to wash her. Yes, I replied. OK, she answered, and walked into the bathroom to inspect my setup. The water was too hot, she told me, the washrag wasn't soft enough, she added, I wasn't going to be able to undress her completely, she threw in, and I had to make sure to wash between her legs, in the folds of her neck, and to avoid her umbilical cord at all costs. All of this led us to Argument #1: Dean feels like he is the useless dad; Michelle ends up feeling that she's the correct but overbearing mom. We come to this realization only after I get steamed up with her, and she gets upset with me.

#4: Don't try to clip your baby's nails for the first time: instead let someone who has done this before show you exactly how to do it. It's terrifying to do it yourself, and satisfying to see someone else succeed where you failed. You can always do it the next time around. No brownie points for bloody fingers.

And so, as I fall asleep here at the screen, I have only one thought going through my mind ... how long can 4 C batteries power a baby swing? All I need is about 5 hours. Let's hope these are Energizers ;-)

Day 4 - getting her first taste of a climbing wall!

Day 4 - in a sling with papa in the playground across the street. 

Day 4 - baby in the carrier. A little tight! 

Day 4 - Here it is, mums and pops. This is what we're talking about! 

Evening of Day 3 - The demands of a child are simple, we were just taught at the hospital over the past two days. There are four simple needs of a baby: feeding, burping, changing and holding. It seems like every nurse and doctor and pediatrician and cleaning lady and meal delivery person had their own lessons for us. One told us the best way to burp was to hold the child over your shoulder so that its stomach is on the top of your scapula so as to exert pressure on it and facilitate gas emission. Another recounted a story of a young mother who did exactly that without seeing that her infant had become blue in the face and was choking. Tales of wonder and woe.

Here's something I never knew: a) a baby girl is born with all the eggs she will ever menstruate, and; b) within the first 3 days of life, the baby girl actually passes blood as part of a false menstruation (I'm still trying to find the medical definition of what actually happens). Well today our little one passed her bloody show. A small little dab of pink on one of her 8 diapers today (yes, I'm a pro at changing already).

Sitting here at home contemplating lifestyle of work, family, and play. It hits me that there are indeed ways to manage the balance between them all.

But then just as I'm thinking about how exactly this balance can work, and how I can influence and control it ... (I'm sitting here in the kitchen, at the opposite end of the apartment from the bedroom, where Michelle has been lulling Lian to sleep) ... I hear on the baby monitor that I have here on the kitchen table, Michelle's voice. "Dean?" she asks out loud. "Yes, Mimi" I call out down the hall. "I think she's the most beautiful baby girl in the world." That balance will simply be.



Day 3 - "...the most beautiful girl in the world." Michelle Jeong, 9:53pm.

Day 3 - her first visit outside our new home - to her SF grandmother's house. She slept the entire time.  

Day 3 - Cedric and Atina - thank you for the wonderful bouquet in a Leo's color!