Month: October 2007

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

My Super Powers Only Work When Warming Up Baby Bottles

Baby Feeding Trophy There should be a trophy award for parents who are able to get up in the middle of the night and calm a crying baby without waking up the entire house, or even the entire neighborhood for that matter. And parents who pull this off in an apartment complex should get a cash reward on top of their trophy (“Do you need cash NOW?” I hate those commercials!).

Overall, I’d give myself fair marks for being able to pull this off. I’m probably about 80% effective when it comes to being able to put the baby back down, but last night, I deserve an Emmy nomination for my performance…

Our youngest woke up around 12:40 a.m. I heard him before he really got wound up, so I headed downstairs for the obligatory bottle. We normally leave a small fluorescent light on under one of the cabinets to light our way, but I suppose after two children, it has burned out and I’ve been too lazy to replace the bulb. I’m a man, so naturally I can find the refrigerator in the dark if need-be, so I opened it and grabbed a bottle, then turned to the right, walked one-point-five steps to where my memory says is where my microwave resides, opened it and stuck the bottle in.

For you mothers gasping in horror at the thought that in my sleepy state I’ll over-warm the bottle and end up scalding my child’s mouth, not to fear; I’ve done this hundreds of times, and not burned a single child yet.

Now, our house is about 19 years old, 20 really if you count when they actually started building it. And while this isn’t old for a house, it’s old for the appliances, which are original. In appliance-years, 20 years is really like 40—not so much because they don’t work as well, but mostly because after 20 years, whatever fashion style your appliances matched 20 years ago has long since disappeared from the showrooms of today’s appliance vendors.

For whatever reason, my mind was sure that, despite any light whatsoever, I’d be able to instinctively hit “3, 0, Start” on the microwave keyboard, but I didn’t. In fact, I’m not sure what I hit, but whatever it was, it started the microwave counting down like some sort of radiation time-bomb. I kept waiting for it to say something like, “Just what do you think you are doing Chris?” (“A Space Odyssey” reference for those of you playing along at home).

After pressing a few keys trying to kill it, which only really served to enrage it further, garnering a cacophony of “beeps,” I ran over to the light switch and turned it on so I could see what the heck I was doing.

Subsequent attempts at stopping the countdown were useless and by this time I could hear the baby ramping up for a mega-scream, so I quickly keyed in the correct “3, 0, Start” sequence and LO! It worked.

Bottle warmed, I ran upstairs, grabbed the baby out of his crib and before he could wake up the whole house, I stuck a bottle in his mouth and started changing his diaper. All is well with my soul…

But then…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…

…it wasn’t stopping! The microwave had apparently finished its countdown and was not going to be happy until I acknowledged it.

I quickly buttoned up the baby (whoever thought 15 buttons on a onesy was a good idea should be shot!) and ran downstairs to shut the microwave off, only to find that none of my attempts at cancellation worked.

“Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…”Beep”…

Knowing I had only moments before the baby dropped his bottle and started wailing for assistance, I dashed out into the garage and flagrantly started flipping circuit breakers in an attempt at shutting off all power to the microwave and thankfully, I hit it on the third try.

I then ran as fast and as quietly as humanly possible back upstairs just as the baby was finishing up most of his bottle. I picked him up, burped him, put him back down and let him finish his bottle and quietly go back to sleep.

Whew! Crisis averted.

Nightly duty done, now the only thing left to do is calm down enough to go back to sleep before the alarm goes off. Maybe if I had a nice, trophy to snuggle up to…

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Take a 1/2 cup of milk and put it in the pureed punkin’…

BPumpking Patch Goodness!eing the third weekend in fall, and the first weekend of the season that wasn’t mired in the upper 80s temps with humidity nearing triple digits, we decided that it was time to hit the pumpkin patches in search of the perfect picture, oh and yeah, a pumpkin or two also.

We normally do a local pumpkin patch called “Berry Patch Farms.” There, you can ride the wagon full of hay around to the pumpkin patch and let your little ones romp on hundreds of pumpkins, while simultaneously trying to take a picture of your precious little one that doesn’t include a horde of strangers. Afterwards, you can toss your “punkins” back on the wagon and ride it around to the cash register-cum-refreshment stand and wait in line for fifteen minutes while your spouse (partner?) entertains the children with some barnyard animals and a small swing set.

Wow! With that kind of description, I can’t imagine why anyone would NOT want to do it. But I digress. It’s really fun, especially when it’s not hot. But we wanted to do something different this year, so we decided to hit another pumpkin patch that also serves as a functional dairy. The thinking here was that we could maximize our “out of the house” time by combining multiple fun things into one long fun thing.

Per the new Pumpkin patches’ Web site, you can get lost in a giant cornfield maze, tour the dairy processing plant, let your little ones jump on bouncy things, and get your punkins…all in one place!

WOW! Score!

After our little one took his nap (and we adults hit the gym) we packed up and went to the pumpkin patch, arriving about thirty minutes after they opened and before most of the crowds had shown up. With so many things to do (and more! There were ponies!), we carefully scripted our activities to maximize fun, while minimizing any screaming that might ensue due to an overly-tired child.

Right off, our oldest wanted to ride the ponies, so we let him. Then we steered him over towards the bouncy things, where he bounced for about one minute before succumbing to a crying fit because there were other children on the jumpy thing too. This from a child in daycare who is used to having to share! After attempting to get him to jump some more (because “Dammit! I drove all the way over here and WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FUN!”), which induced a crying fit, which led me to, “Fine we’re going home!”, which led to “Noooooooo,” which led to me taking him back to the car and spanking him and letting him sit and think about how nice it is of mommy and daddy to take him to fun places and how selfish it is of him to not want to share…things finally calmed down and we made our way over to the dairy tour.

Now some of you might think my response a bit harsh, but what you don’t know is that this is about the 4th time we’ve made a special trip somewhere for our son, only to have him pitch some fit because he’s too shy to play with the other kids or just too jealous to share the playground. So, walk a mile in my shoes and THEN pass judgment!

To call this new place either a Dairy or a tour might be generous since the dairy that we saw was a crudely rigged mock-up of a real dairy, only using old rusted equipment. However, the kids did get to see a real live cow (wow!) get milked using those suctiony things and they got to get some fresh chocolate milk made there at the dairy. And anyway, does a kid know the difference between a real bottling conveyor belt and a fake one? I doubt it.

All in all, we were there for nearly three hours. We didn’t get any good punkin patch pictures because A) the patch sucked. It was basically just a bunch of punkins all neatly lined up on the grass B) because by then the baby was tired and fretful and poopy and Career-mom took him to the car to change him; C) because my oldest was more interested in the tractor than any punkins, and D) it was getting HOT!

Basically, let’s just call this one more memory that didn’t quite go as planned and if you had it to do all over again, you’d do it differently. Which seems to be the norm rather than the deviation when you have children. One of these days I’ll stop deluding myself that any trip with the family anywhere is going to be even remotely close to what I have built up in my head. Only, I hope I never become that jaded, because overall we did have fun…it just took a while.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

No Sleep for New Parents

No more nighttime feedings! Timing really is everything in life. I mean, think about all the things in your life that you’ve accomplished simply because it was the right time—you just happened to be there when so and so happened.

Consider how many hours of your life you’ll have saved (by the time you die) because you happened to catch that bothersome string of red lights downtown just right and instead of accelerating like a madman only to have to slam on brakes at each subsequent light, you instead cruised right through them as if you had Jedi powers (“there is no red light”).

My timing has been pretty great lately, but kinda not in a good way. I mean, I could harken all the way back to the day I answered the phone from an old boss and listened as he wooed me back to my current job, but rather, let’s stick to the present here (focus people!). After our first son was born, for months and months he woke up multiple times during the night and Career-mom was incapable of letting him cry himself back to sleep, opting instead to go in and give him a bottle. Which worked; but it just happened 2-3 times each night until he was almost one and a half.

Our youngest son is now seven months old and for whatever reason, Career-mom has decided that a little crying is OK after all (note to self: mentally pat back later for being right yet again).

The result: In the last week, the youngest has slept from 8:30 p.m. to approximately 4:00 a.m. nonstop three out of the last four nights. The fourth night he woke up twice. The only problem with this is, my daggum brain hasn’t given up on the idea that at any moment throughout the night, I’ll be awakened to the sound of a crying baby, so from about 1 a.m. on, I’m on full sleep-alert.

You know what sleep-alert is right? It’s when you’re mostly asleep, but the slightest noise wakes you up. Well, of these last four nights, I’ve been the one to hear the baby wake up around 4 a.m., mostly because at this magic hour, something in my head switches on and I come awake. And surprisingly, usually, within 5-10 minutes of my full waking up, the baby starts crying. Which also means that by the time I’m finished feeding and changing him, it’s near 4:30 a.m. and I’ve got to get up in another hour anyway…so why not just stay up?

So I do. Love that timing!

I don’t really mind the getting up as long as he goes back to sleep, and he does. But, while getting 6 hours of sleep per night is usually enough for me, there is something to be said for getting 7 ½ hours of sleep.

Now, if only Career-mom and I can sync up our “timing” for a little post-baby relationship-building…I’ll be a happy man!

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Dad Blogs Family Society

All’s fair in love and HR

Female Vs Female?

In the good old days, when men ruled the office environment, no one had to couch their comments in political correctness, or worry that something said or did would result in administrative actions. I’m not saying that’s wrong or right; I’m just sayin’.

But now, in many companies, there are just as many female employees as there are male, and we all have to watch what we say and do.

So, imagine Career-mom’s surprise when her boss came into her office the other day and said she needed to speak with her in her office, only to find out that she had been reported to HR.

The Backstory: Career-mom (my wife) had to attend a meeting out of town last week. Her manager (also a woman) was in attendance along with one or two male employees whom Career-mom is friends with. They met with several female Account Managers about something that probably wouldn’t interest anyone here.

Well, apparently during this meeting, as the air conditioning whirred away cooling off the room, Career-mom and her manager started…um…nipping and this also apparently offended one of the female account managers in the room.

Yes, let me succinctly capture this for you: Another woman got offended over two women’s clothed nipples.

Career-mom and her manager’s initial reaction was one of hysterical laughter, followed closely by, “How would you even phrase that complaint to HR?”

Guys, take heart. Apparently flagrant overreaction in the workplace is not limited to male-female situations.

My suggestion to Career-mom was a counter-complaint about having her breasts ogled and how it creates a hostile work environment.

Hey, two can play at this ridiculous game!