Sleep Deprivation and Metaphor Useage...

Sounds like a lecture you took in freshman psych, right? Here's the lesson to be learned from my first three weeks as a dad. I am not a funny man when I'm surviving on 3 hours of sleep a night. First off let me put this out there. Heather's mother has been staying with us since Braeden was born, and without her, we would be totally lost. She cooks us dinner, cleans the house and has even taken Braeden for the night on several occasions so we can sleep. So those of you out there that did it on your own, Kudos to you... suckers. But even with Binnie here to be our third parent during this "feeling out" period with Braeden, we're still in survival mode.

This brings me to an incident last week when I was commenting on how fast the little guy is growing. As of his doctor's appointment last week he's 8lbs 14oz! Of course immediately after that he had his first warm water bath and the resulting muscle relaxation took him back to about 8lbs even I think. Anyway, I made the comment "wow Braeden, you're growing like a weed." Now, had I been in my right mind I would have realized Grandma Binnie's affinity for anything flora and seen that comparing her first grandchild to a weed would bring out the claws. But I was running on 3 hours of sleep and was sucker punched into a discussion about how we shouldn't compare him to a weed. "How about 'growing like a tulip' or 'growing like a lilly'" came the other options. At this point my sleep starved mind was racing with visions of my first born child running around in leotards doing his interpretive dance of the first cool breeze of autumn... Growing like a tulip... How do you respond to that?

We finally settled on "growing like a dandilion". I guess you have to pick your battles. Now I have to start working on converting her to "imaginary superbowl parties" instead of "imaginary tea parties". I think she'll be ok with it as long as we can invite all of his stuffed animals. Except for the penguin. I think that guy is a closet Denver Bronco's fan. Here are some more pics of Meester Braeden for all of his adoring fans. And if you will email me at r.carl10@gmail.com I'm trying to put together an email list so I can send you all a quick note when a new post is up with pictures. - Thanks for the emails and letters. We appreciate all of them.

-Rob Heather and Braeden-

Sphere of Influence...

Make a note of it. Heather was the first one to get peed on! Which meant that bath number 2 was four short hours after bath number 1. Braeden may not be able to get off his back, or change positions, but make no mistake about it, his "sphere of influence" is pretty big. He can get you with spit-up from about 6 inches away. He can tag you with some pee from about 3 feet, and if that doesn't do it, the slightest whimper will stop me dead in my tracks from anywhere in the house.

I'm surprised that I'm the neurotic parent out of the both of us. Heather is the one who has a spreadsheet for everything and I'm more of a "we'll get a hotel room when the plane lands" type of guy. So imagine our surprise when we discover that I'm the one who can't sleep through a cough from him, and every little red mark that appears is surely the start of some exotic disease that hasn't been seen around here for decades.

Today's trip to Chili's was a fine example. We get our table and he's sound asleep in his car seat but we had to get the Ringling Brothers trained waitress that swore she could stack 40 plates and hold them over the top of him. Then for an encore I'm pretty sure I saw her juggling steak knives over my 5 day old son. I ate my entire lunch in about 3 minutes and then had a rabid stare for anyone who got to close. Everyone eating there today left with a great story about the cute baby and the Neanderthal father who grunted and paced back and forth like a Silver-Back Gorilla when they stopped just a tad bit too long for his liking.

So my next great challenge as a father is to learn to relax just a little. I spent most of last night swearing he was coughing every thirty seconds only to discover I was loosing sleep over the sound that the humidifier was making. I'm sure eventually it will happen. After all, he's got a full life of eating dirt, chasing bugs and riding his bike into a pond ahead of him. Someday I'll have to relax and let him do his own thing. Someday I'll have to trust that he'll make the right decisions and maybe decide not to ride his bike off of the roof. I just need to be there to give him the advice he needs. And maybe he'll listen to dad because, remember, he peed on Heather first!

ROCKSTAR!!!

I am totally amazed that every single baby in the world doesn't grow up with a celebrity complex. Braeden has already posed for more pictures in his 3 short days than I think I have in my entire life. He's definitely getting the Rockstar treatment. He eats, poops, poses, sleeps and criticizes his parents on poor performance. The pediatrician had a great comment in the hospital when he said that baby's seem to thrive "despite" the best efforts of their parents.

Leaving the hospital yesterday was the most traumatic experience for me so far. Suddenly the highly trained support staff was gone and it was just Heather, me and Mr. Braeden (pronounced Meeester Braeden). It made it much easier knowing that we had a lot of experienced parents all around and that Grandma Binnie will be staying with us for the next two weeks. The funny thing about that is that Heather and I have a newborn baby living with us and we are eating better than we've eaten in years. Yeah, we're only getting about 2 hours of sleep a day but we just had pan seared seasoned chicken with a fresh garden salad and steamed carrots. Good trade off in my book!

It's definitely a week of firsts for little man. His first birth (hopefully the only one he will have to ever endure...). His first breath (easily the most amazing thing I've ever seen), first garage sale (thanks Chris for the heads up). And his first bath. That was probably more traumatic for Daddy than for him. I still can't handle hearing him cry so hard. I'll definitely be the pushover.

Thank you all for the calls and emails and we look forward to all of you meeting him. Hopefully all the fame won't go to his head and he'll still be willing to pose for pictures. But please, no autographs...

Meet Mr. Braeden

So, turns out the last post was correct, and he was ready to be here. Heather was admitted to the Maternity Ward at 2 pm and she had the epidural by 3 pm. Pushing started at 8 and we had a healthy baby son by 9:36 last night.

Braeden was 7lbs. 6oz. and 20 inches long. He came out crying and has pretty much slept since then. Here are a few pics. I'll update along the way when we can. We have wireless at the hospital! Now I just need time... From what I understand that will be in short supply for about 18 years.

-Braeden, Heather and Rob-

Today's the Day!!

Ok, short post today. I picked Heather up from work about an hour ago (it's now 11:30 am) and we're timing contractions. Looks like it might be today. I'll keep you all posted. Here's "Heather Pregnant Version 40.5" for you to look at. Big thanks to Blogspot for picking today to run maintenance and make this update nearly impossible. I'll keep you all updated but I'm at the Google teams mercy right now.

-Frazzled Rob-

Big Brave Daddy...

I was heading to work yesterday morning and as I went through the garage, I saw a big furry black spider on the lip of our trash can. I had my gym bag in one hand, and my lunch in the other, so I (being Mr. Smooth) just shot my foot out to crush this unwelcome guest. Well Mr. Smooth has an eye-foot coordination problem and I actually hit just below the spider, thus compressing the lip of the trash can into a spring-board and shooting the giant hairy spider right onto my chest.

Needless to say I started making some really wierd sounds, hyperventelating and running in circles. I think that this is a survival instinct to make me look so stupid that nothing in it's right mind would want to attack me for fear of catching whatever brain desease I have. I was finally able to get the spider off of me and crush him and my next instinct was to look around and see if anyone saw my little act. Even though I knew I was in my own garage totally by myself, I looked for someone watching me and judging my performance on a scale of 1-idiot.

As everything does these days, it started the wheels turning about Braeden. Just last week we had some of the neighbors over and a 5 year old boy and I were watching a Wolf Spider run through the yard. I was telling him how they live in holes in the ground and take care of mice and bugs around the yard. "Don't be afraid of him, he may look scary but he's a good little guy to have around," I said. And one week later I'm running around doing what can only be discribed as a bad impression of a Tyrannasaurus because of a spider half the size of the one we were watching. So what is the life lesson in all of this that I can impart? I think it's this: Braeden, don't stand too close to daddy when a spider lands on him. And screaming like a little girl is a very manly thing to do.

Man, I'm gonna be an awesome dad!

-Rob and Team Heather-

Arriving here...

As we're all sitting back and waiting for Braeden to arrive, I was reflecting on how I got to this point myself. I have a very vivid memory of being 12 or 13 years old and watching my dad make fried chicken one night for dinner. I remember thinking, I have no idea how to make fried chicken. I have no idea how to pay taxes or buy a car. It sounds pretty rediculous now, but I actually started to wonder how someone could possibly learn everything it takes to be an adult in the amount of time your given to grow up.

As I look back on it now, I realize that you can't really learn it all in time. I still don't have a clue how to make fried chicken other than to call KFC. I still don't do my own taxes. I do know how to buy a car, so I guess one out of 3 isn't bad right? What I do know however, is that I've been given the skills to figure things out on my own, and that's what I need to pass on as a father. I can't possibly teach Braeden everything he needs to know by the time he leaves for college. 18 years just isn't long enough to prepare someone for the world we live in now, much less the world as it will be two decades from now. But what I can do is teach him to be confident in his decisions, and learn from his mistakes.

Now I just have to brush up on my "When I was a boy" stories. I think I'll start with how we used to have to fry our own chicken...

- Rob and Team Heather -