The New Dad's Mom

It's granny's (My mom) birthday today.  Due to the distance, and that my wife is still recovering, plus our little guy is still only a bit more than a week old.  I visited my mom solo.

My mom's place is always crowded with stuff, even when I was living there with her before I got married.  She doesn't like the idea of people touching or throwing away her stuff.  This time, it is still fairly crowded, but she's trying to clean up so soon we can bring our little guy over without violating any safety hazards.

I felt bad for not being able to bring our boy along to greet his grandma a big happy birthday, but on the bright side, his eyes are opening wider each day so by the time he meets his grandma, he can dazzle her with his... funny stares?

The little Fireball =O

It is a beautiful Sunday morning, and uh-oh, what are these little red dots and bumps on our little guy's face?  And his bump is redder than a ripe tomato...

Being a bit anxious, my wife started googling and putting face cream and rash cream all over our boy like face paint!  Almost every 15 mins my wife checks and asks if the redness is going away.  And the answer is no x 100 times!

Thankfully, with a quick glance, our super nanny said 2 words that took my wife's mental alarm off the grid - "Too Hot!"  No wonder, grandma (just like many grandparents btw) is always scared our little guy being cold, hence overnight...  

"of course an undershirt, onesies, plus sleep sack isn't enough.  Let's give him a small blanket, PLUS a larger blanket (mind you it's double folded), WITH two towels rolled up side by side with the baby, jusssst to make sure he's not cold.  Because it's 75 degree Fahrenheit and it's (apparently) freezing".

Anyhow, grandma's intention  good, but hopefully lesson learned that we don't turn our boy into a little fireball ever again.

Weekend, Schmidkend

For many people out there, after 5 long consecutive hardworking days, weekend is their closest break.  Late night out, booze and friends.  My wife and I tend to prefer staying home with late night dessert + TV as entertainment.  

Now with our boy being the main focus of our lives, even though we are home (for many days in fact), we find ourselves following a similar routine plus a moderate change:

1. Late Night - Checked (if not later)
2. Booze/Dessert - Checked (milk for our boy, we serve him butler style)
3. Entertainment - Checked (baby watching/burping, and diaper changing)

Yup, doesn't seem all that fun, and weekend doesn't seem much differ from weekdays either.  But I sure would not miss any part of our boy's growth, and definitely not his childhood.  

That's right, Weekend? Schmidkend!

Living the Dream

Our little trooper is officially a week old!  Besides time deficits, lack of sleep, and an extreme tension up on my neck and shoulders, there are a few insights that I always hear but never realized how literal the fact is until now.

Without thinking too far ahead, 2 weeks off was all that I anticipated before our little boy was born.  And what sort of "Fantasy" did I see myself doing for these time off?  Nothing much, "taking care of the little guy, my wife, job hunting, resting here and there, and maybe I can squeeze in a bit of time to make progress for my apps once again".  Sounds reasonable right?  Even if i can't do all of the above on a daily basis, how about spread them to 2 days?  Well, dream on!  How about never! lol

The term "Taking Care" apparently isn't all that easy, especially if the subject is a baby (Trust me, I'm not a douchebag who does nothing but whining, and I have a VERY good understanding of what the term "taking care" means).  A baby, depending on their development and size of their organs, he/she needs to be fed every 2-3 hours.  As I haven't had the experience in feeding a baby before, it was news to me that average feeding time of our boy can take at least half an hour.  And diaper change?  Depending on the fuzziness (mentally) of our boy, if we don't catch him at the right time for the diaper change, what suppose a one time event can take up to 3 times more...  Of course that is only for the feeding and diaper changing part of our little guy, other time slots I also need to check on my wife to make sure she's in good both physical and mental state.

What I'm trying to say is... *talk about timing, continuing where I left off 2 hours ago for feeding our boy, changing his diaper, and taking care of other businesses*..., time is always at the essence, need not to fantasize what other activities you may achieve, taking care of the baby and my wife is already (and always will be ) my highest priority, as I do love them both very very much.

Little Frogger

To those who lived through the 80's, by 'Little Frogger' I'm not referring to the Frogger arcade with an end goal of a frog crossing the road, but my son's ability to get out from the baby bathtub sure reminds me of a frog (in terms of strength, not appearance).

Perhaps my wife has been good at taking her daily dose of vitamin (including milk, cheese, and yogurt on the side) months as she was carrying our little guy in her, even though our boy didn't seem to have big bones when he was born, he sure held a lot of strength in him.

Considering he is only a week old at this point?  If we are just a minute delayed in feeding him, or he is done with a nice warm bath with his back facing upward, he has the strength to push your arms and the bathtub away like a little frog!  So far he has gently bumped his head against the baby bathtub once cuz of that, thank goodness no harm was made to this little active frogger...

So FYI Son, your forehead is genetically big, not cuz of any safety hazard violation from baths given by your parents!

The Palm!

It's been a couple days since our last visit to the doctor, and this time we were well prepared.  From top to bottom, we had our baby boy dressed, rations packed, and hit the road right on time during rush hour.  Not to worry, that was expected as I had it thought through of which road to take.

We arrived 5 minutes early before our appointment, it was perfect!  With the help of granny (since my wife had to stay home to get well rested), the next thing we had to do was to unclothe our boy.  Wait a minute... it was almost too easy, something wasn't right... oh my, yes it is always important to cover the little guy's 'little guy' the moment you take the diaper off.  Thank goodness it wasn't too late, nothing happened!  Alright, the boy seemed all relax, let's not be overly skeptical about it.  Removed the diaper to give my boy a little kiss on his forehead for being such a good sport :)  And before I realized (that's right), I felt a great warmth sensation up from my chest, all the way down to my hip.  Yup, being relaxed gave him the go ahead to pee on me!  Without wanting the doctor to give us a hard time going forward, without hesitation, my natural instinct gave me the new move - the Palm!

Sir Poo-A-Lot

As I recall what a nurse has told me, the number of diaper for the first 7 days should be as follow:

Day 1: diaper x 1
Day 2: diaper x 2
Day 3: diaper x 3
Day 4: diaper x 4
Day 5: diaper x 5
Day 6: diaper x 6
Day 7: diaper x 7

It was day 5 for our little guy but we have already hit 8 diapers!  Either we were too quick at his changing his diaper, or the theory above is more of a minimal guideline.  Regardless to the possibility of either reasons applied, I am happy to announce our boy's new nickname - "Sir Poo-A-Lot" as well as the "Pooping Machine". GoOO Peanut Butter!!