Not what you think.

I am a week late in POSTING THIS.  I mean to put this out there exactly one week ago today, but as with most other things in my life right now, I forgot.

It was April 1, 2008, that I saw this early one morning…

I woke up D., and he wondered if it were an April Fool’s prank.  Hmm….

I can’t believe it’s been a year.  And what a year it’s been!

I love you, J.  We’re so glad you’re ours.  So glad, in fact, that we can hardly believe it sometimes.

Can’t wait to see who you’ll be…  It was certainly the best April Fool’s Day I’ve EVER had.

Baby Mugshot

Some readers know that we’re avid travelers. On top of that J’s aunt is about to move across the pond to the uk.

So, just so that we won’t have any surprises, we’re appyling for J’s passport.

I think it a good thing that infants have passports. It’s another form of identification. US passports require both parents of minors to present themselves to apply for a child’s passport. This is to keep one parent secreting away a child in the middle of a disagreement. I assume it’s also more difficult to forge being both parents than one parent, too.

The funny part is getting J captured in an approved fashion for her passport. With some luck and her being somewhat lethargic with her ear infection, we did it!

Now we’ll head to the post office and see how it goes!

Well, even though S swears otherwise, I don’t entirely believe it. She was able to keep baby J free from illness for three months. I have her three weeks and she gets an ear infection.

Thank goodness we both caught this in time and that she is a little trooper. All you have to do is look at her to tell she doesn’t feel good. That said, she’s already sleeping more and eating more than she did even two days ago.

I know folks disagree but I’m so glad to have an old school pediatrician that went ahead and prescribed bubble gum flavored antibiotics for her (which she loathes). She’ll feel better faster and head off getting sicker.

That said, she sure does need to be held a lot. Good thing she’s cute!

11 lbs 11 oz
24 1/2 long
15 1/2 head

11 lbs 11 oz
24 1/2 long
15 1/2 head

Why is it that I’ve made more coffee in the past week than I have in the past three months?

My God, am I tired. I had these wondering thoughts of blogging the whole becoming-a-Daddy experience. I’ve been lucky to be able to find my shoes.

Needless to say, Baby came into the world with few, if any bumps. She is an amazing little girl.

The people at the hospital were amazing and all the people who have visited have loved meeting the newest member of our family. As I spend some time thinking and processing, I’m sure more will be posted.

But needless to say, I was hooked when we were still in the O.R. she was still “cheesy” and she looked up at me, grab hold of my extended little finger, and screamed her head off.

Well, this is my first blog post.  Pretty good for a 6-day-old, eh?  Good thing I have long fingers, like my Daddy.  World is a pretty fun place.  Lots of people have come to visit me, but most of the time I sleep through their visit and I kinda enjoy people picking me up and holding me.  Oh, time to go eat… or poop.  I keep getting those signals confused.  Whatever the case, I’m gearing up for a real loud cry.  That really gets the big peoples’ attention!

Nice to meet you, everyone.

1. “we only listen to NPR”
2. McDonalds only on birthdays.
3. Television is not for babysitting
4. Neither is it to remain perpetually on
5. “because I say so”
6. Softdrinks are evil
7. Bedtime is the same time, every night
8. Nevsr Miss any performance, exhibition, or sporting event, ever.
9. While I’ll do my best to make sure she lacks for nothing, I won’t spoil her.
10. I’ll never lose my temper.

It’s been a tough week.  Sunday and Monday were spent mostly in the bed, suffering from what I discovered on Tuesday was an infection.  I also found out Tuesday that Baby may be bigger than she’s supposed to be at 26 weeks AND that I have gestational diabetes.  So, I’ve spent most of the rest of the week in bed, on antibiotics, mostly far away from D., and worried about Baby.  What is it about us that makes us automatically blame ourselves for potentially “dangerous” things that face our children?  Mine isn’t even born yet, and it’s entirely possible that at least one bit of bad news we received this week is completely out of my control.  Yet, I spent a lot of time this week worrying: will she be born with remnants of or ill-effects of the infection I had?  Will the antibiotics cause her harm?  (That one came mostly from the pharmacist not wanting to give them to me and saying things like, “helpful efftects outweigh potential harm to the fetus”.)  Will she now not be able to be born naturally because I have consumed too much sugar and starch in my lifetime?  That’s not HER fault, I kept saying to myself.  

Then I got around to the silliest one of all–this is how I KNEW I had just done a cannon-ball off the diving board attached to sane reactions in the 16-ft. deep water of blowing things WAY out of proportion: will she be too fat?

I don’t mean that in the scary, mom-who-forces-her-daughter-to-be-in-beauty-pagents way.  I was worried that she would spend all of the life she’ll be able to remember worrying that she is too fat, just the way her mommy has.  And for the first time in my life I had stopped worrying about that and about what I was eating.  Irony!  

But don’t worry; I’m not going to starve her or only feed her half as much as she cries.  I think chubby babies are cute.  I just worry that she’ll live with even worse influence from the world concerning body image than her mom has had to live with–and that’s been no picnic, let me tell you.  

In then end, with the help of D. who has taken tremendous care of us this week, some good friends and helpful family members upon whom I can really count, and some extra time to give myself a few “You’re being silly!” lectures, I’m feeling better now.  Much better.  I’m out of bed, medicine is working, Baby is using my insides to train for what already seems to be a promising future in martial arts (I picture her doing those flying/spinning kicks you see in movies–just NOT in slow motion), she’s not too fat–she’s perfect just as she is (thank you Mark Darcey in Bridget Jones’ Diary) and I’m learning to deal with carb cravings.  We’ve had a life-long love afair, carbs and me.  But I think I’ve made a clean break.  Pray for me.

So what if Baby turns out to be “big-boned”?  It hasn’t ruined my life, and she’ll be the most beautiful thing in the world to D. and me, ALWAYS.  It’s just like my dad said on the phone the other day: “I can’t wait to see her!”