I went hiking up Culver Hill today with the baby strapped to my chest.
Half way up Kaia gets hungry so I dutifully insert the bottle before she can blow.
As we huff up the elevation, I pass some undeniably sturdy women battling their McDinners into submission.
A few doughgirls stagger upwards, while some others roll down.
As we pass, their eyes warm, they beam and nod.
One looks to their girlfriend as if to say: "See I told you these were out there."
Perhaps their surprise is the result of recent trends, where dads are happily absent, content to let baby-momma carry the bulk of childcare up the steep hill of parenthood (too much?).
Or perhaps I'm being a smug shit and it has only been three months so I should shut up and keep walking.
Perhaps.
8/7/10
7/30/10
3 Months
I’m not gonna sugar-coat it.
It's been a roll up your sleeves, get down and dirty, cry hard three months.
A wiggle all night, whine all day stress-a-thon.
If Kaia’s not acid refluxing, she's got spastic gas or crack-ho insomnia.
The wife gets the worst and swears our baby is going to be an only child.
And as nerves wear, I’m tempted to agree….
Perhaps most only children were difficult babies?
Shout out to my cuisine Caroline who was an only child but has matured into a beautiful adult x
It's been a roll up your sleeves, get down and dirty, cry hard three months.
A wiggle all night, whine all day stress-a-thon.
If Kaia’s not acid refluxing, she's got spastic gas or crack-ho insomnia.
The wife gets the worst and swears our baby is going to be an only child.
And as nerves wear, I’m tempted to agree….
Perhaps most only children were difficult babies?
Shout out to my cuisine Caroline who was an only child but has matured into a beautiful adult x
7/28/10
I was speaking to a buddy of mine the other day and he was telling me about babies in India...
[For some reason my mom has it in her head that in India and Africa 'they don't use colic calm or zantac or prevasid' and they just care for their babies naturally]
Anyway, this guy tells me that mothers in India slip their kids a bit of opium to calm them down... you know a smidge for om shanti's sake.
Some of this is probably because the tiny tots are starving for food, but also it can help keep them sedated so the beggar who rents them out can peddle the traffic light without a baby shrieking away his patrons.
Whatever the case, I'll tell you right now if I had a bundle of poppies out back, I'd crush them into little baby bliss balls faster than you can say Kandahar.
But I don't. So zantac it is.
7/26/10
Sorry for the radio silence... it's been hectic (more on this later)
But I'm hoping to be back now.
Especially with the giddy news that our baby said her FIRST WORD TODAY!!!
Little chubby Kaia look me dead in the eye...
Pursed her delicate lips...
Rolled her pink tongue and murffled:
"glar"
Unfortunately it only means something in Klingon.
Must teach English next.
7/9/10
Good News For L4 And L5
Like most compadres, I have a back of questionable integrity.
Slipped/herniated/protruding/bulging discus betwixt L4 and L5.
The last two years have perpetrated some nasty sciatica.
I’ve hit the physiotherapy, the cortisone injection, the BKS Iyengar Yoga, the Thai massage (where they trod on my jewels), the Chinese acupuncture, pretending it’s all in my head, and, of course, lots and lots and lots of Tylenol.
Imagine my concern at having 10 lbs of live weight dangle from my torso. For hours.
BUT/HOWEVER/THEREAFTER…
Much to my surprise, since I’ve had this fart-knocker plastered to my chest, all pain has magically disappeared (!)
Still not sure how this sprog therepy works. But it does.
I’m gonna rent her out, charge people to walk around with her strapped to their spare tires.
Apart from medicinal applications, baby-walking also has its social perks… specially with chicks.
For the fair sex, the sight of an hombre out taking some air with his offspring is the visual equivalent of a tub of chocolatey ice-cream smothered in a marathon of Bridezilla:
They get positively dreamy, start cooing and waving.
And a guy with a baby AND a dog?! Suffice to say it's a good thing I'm such a chastely chappie.
7/5/10
iFriend
Strange thing, friendship.
Perhaps it’s my post-partum depression but I feel something changes here once you have a kid.
First you try and hang on to old familiarities, desperate to prove it’s business as usual.
But you’ve changed.
Somehow you’ve transformed into a creature that has much in common with a snotrag: functional, not particularly fun, but a begrudged necessity.
If ever you take a stab at socializing...
Friends are annoyed you're distracted by the baby.
The baby is annoyed you're distracted by friends.
You’re annoyed at both for the above.
Yada-bladi-blah.
In the end the winner is whoever screams loudest (guess).
So…
Isolation descends, encroaching like mist in a bayou, clinging to your face, clawing at your throat.
Facebooking takes over in an attempt to fulfill friendship obligations one Like button at a time (try typing with squirming diaper-bunny).
After that obligatory first visit, friends drop off…
To be seen in photos with other people, at other gatherings.
Which you Like.
You turn to socializing with support groups and other parents (some of whom you’ve hated with a passion but are now lashed together with your common misery, your common loneliness... Or because your kids are pals. Ah, the humor of fate).
Perhaps it’s my post-partum depression but I feel something changes here once you have a kid.
First you try and hang on to old familiarities, desperate to prove it’s business as usual.
But you’ve changed.
Somehow you’ve transformed into a creature that has much in common with a snotrag: functional, not particularly fun, but a begrudged necessity.
If ever you take a stab at socializing...
Friends are annoyed you're distracted by the baby.
The baby is annoyed you're distracted by friends.
You’re annoyed at both for the above.
Yada-bladi-blah.
In the end the winner is whoever screams loudest (guess).
So…
Isolation descends, encroaching like mist in a bayou, clinging to your face, clawing at your throat.
Facebooking takes over in an attempt to fulfill friendship obligations one Like button at a time (try typing with squirming diaper-bunny).
After that obligatory first visit, friends drop off…
To be seen in photos with other people, at other gatherings.
Which you Like.
You turn to socializing with support groups and other parents (some of whom you’ve hated with a passion but are now lashed together with your common misery, your common loneliness... Or because your kids are pals. Ah, the humor of fate).
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