Other uses for Vaseline

Get your mind out of the gutter.

So rather than have this blog be 24/7 whine, bitch, moan about how tough it is having a baby… I’m going to also try and pepper in some actual useful advice.

And here’s an interesting tidbit. When we went to our first Pediatrician appointment for our son, we met a sweet mom who had been going to this doctor for over 20 years. She had in tow children #2 and #3, who appeared to be about 13 and 15 years old, respectively. She was sweet — she pulled out their baby pictures from her wallet, and couldn’t wait to share them. (The teenagers, it goes without saying, were humiliated. “Awww, mo-om.”)

In addition, she did share with us one nugget of wisdom that has seemed to work well: put vaseline on everything. Bruises, cuts, rashes. In one of our baby prep classes, the instructor said the best way to prevent diaper rash is to smear vaseline everywhere poo/pee can get. Well, this lady went one step further and said she puts it on cuts and bruises too.

And you know what… I think it works. Our son will occasionally cut or scratch himself with his out-of-control little arms that flail everywhere. (I assume some day he’ll get control of them, because otherwise, that would suck to be in a business meeting, and just having your arms fling randomly in the air while you’re trying to review the quarterly report.)  Anyway, we’ve been following her advice — yes, we’re in the business of following the advice of completely random people on the street (it’s basically how the internet works, right?) — and his cuts seem to heal pretty quickly. (Or do babies just heal vampire-fast anyway?)

One addition to the story: the sweet mom relayed a story to us about an elderly neighbor who fell (as old people are want to do), and could feel a big ol’ knot on her forehead starting to come on. She advised the elderly neighbor to quickly go and smear Vaseline all over it. And the neighbor swore that it prevented the bump from bruising/discoloring or from knotting up. Not that I advise going around thumping old neighbors to test this.

I’ve got to admit it’s getting better

Paul: Getting better, All the time.

John: It can’t get much worse.

Here I sit. Week 9. And things are looking up. The cockles of my heart, which are normally crusted over with barnacles and flotsam, are slowly warming to my kid.

Two big things have happened in the last couple of weeks that have made our life easier. First off, when he wakes up, and sees us, he smiles. Oh my god. I would never have dreamed a smile could make my day. But when this drooling blob of a crying thing normally stares at blank walls… and then one day he catches your eye, focuses at you, and you can watch the smile expand across his face… wow. That just is awesome. You can actually see his little brain work. He stares at you. He locks in. And then this grin just blossoms to a full fledged smile as it cleaves its way across his cute little face.

The other big thing is that when we set him down on his back now, he’s able to stomach… er, umm, he’s able to “back” it a bit better now. He’s not going to set any marathon records for “chilling” (by the way, the lowest ratest Olympic event on television)… but he at least can occasionally occupy himself by staring at who-knows-what for 10-15 minutes at a time. You wouldn’t think that’s a lot — but it feels like a world of difference. (Like at my old job, when it was 1:45pm, it felt like I had all the time in the world to get shit done for the day; then suddenly at 2:45pm, I was in panic mode because I only had a couple hours left. It’s all perception.)

Feeling free for the first time… being able to not have a baby on your chest (me) or boob (well, me kind of, but supposed to be my wife) is amazing. I can go upstairs and poo. She can take a quick shower. We can microwave ourselves a nutritious dinner and scarf it down at the same time. We can eat with two hands.

So, yeah. Things are getting better at week 9. He can hold his little head up for longer periods, before his neck caves and his big ol’ noggin’ slumps over to his shoulders. (It’s like watching a weight lifter give out on the last bench press.) He’s following us now with his eyes when we leave a room.

And I can make him laugh with funny sounds. (Well, sort of “laugh…” It’s more like he’s smiling, and he tries to breathe in at the same time and it’s likely more of a wheeze, but I prefer to categorize it as a laugh.)  He has this weird jingly-toy with a bunny head and dangly legs. It sounds and looks like a broken wind chime with the head of a possessed bunny. My wife hates it– but it captures his attention for hours…er, well… minutes. (Which feels like hours when he’s quiet and staring at it.) I’ve given it life, and made a voice for the toy: she’s a Spanish speaking old woman, I call her, “Senorita Conejita.”  (Miss Bunny, roughly translated) And she sounds like your high school Spanish teacher on LSD, “Hola mi hijo. Como estaaaaaas? Me llamo Senorita Conejita. Como te llamas? Me gusta ir ala bibliotecaaaaaa.”

Oh, and all of the above stuff I whined about: my wife has it 20x worse. She’s much tougher than I am. She rarely gets a break. I leave for work sometimes, or go on short business trips. I’m complaining about having to hang out with him for maybe a few hours a day, and she’s stuck with him for hours. So I know I’ve got it easy to begin with.

Love, Love Me Do

Today my  bundle of joy poop poop and crying and breasfeeding is seven weeks old. I’m not sure what is wrong with me because I’m not madly in love with him. He’s sort of a selfish jerk if you ask me.

People ask me, “Oh, when he came out, did your heart just melt? Did you immediately fall in love with him? Did you cry?” And the answers respectively are: No, No, and No. If he and my wife were in the way of a speeding bus and I could only save one of them… right now I’m leaning towards my wife. I might even make the same decision if it were between he and my Xbox 360.

Okay, I might be joking a little bit. Sure, I’m a sarcastic guy. I’ve got a healthy amount of irreverence about most anything. (9-11 jokes anyone? C’mon. 8 years later. It’s time.)  So I don’t know if I’ve somehow broken something in the part of me that is supposed to feel compassion for other living things. Because right now all I think about is dropping this kid off at a safe surrender site.

Joking. (Mostly.)

Actually, safe surrender site humor has been banned in my household. As has me swearing at our kid. Examples of ways in which I am no longer allowed to talk to my own son: Scenario #1; kid just fed on my wife’s teat for over an hour. “What the fuck do you want now? You just ate you stupid shit.”  Scenario #2: kid just fed on my wife’s teat for two hours and it is now 3:30am. “God damn, would you just fucking go to sleep. What the fuck is your problem?”

I try to explain that I wouldn’t do it if he was older and knew what I was saying. But she insists that it’s not a good habit to get into. She’s usually right about these kind of things. I always have to learn things the hard way. I’m like Homer J. Simpson in that respect. So I’ll probably listen to her.  (Ha, that implies I have a choice in the matter. I must listen to her.)

But my point being (yes, somewhere in there I had one)… that I’m just not in love with my baby yet. He started smiling a bit over the past week or so. I’m still not convinced he was squeezing out a good fart at the time. My wife says it was definitely a smile. This is starting to thaw the ice that is chipped around my Grinch-like heart.

Our pediatrician asked, “So, how’s it going?” And we gave him one of those looks that new parents give because you want to unload for an hour, and instead sort of give a half-hearted lie of, “Oh, good.”  He said, “It’s hard, huh?” Well, he should start smiling soon. I think babies smile around this time because if they didn’t, their parents would start sending them back.” SO TRUE. See, I’m not the only one making safe surrender site jokes. I wonder if my wife is going to make our doctor put a dollar in the safe-surrender-site/swearing/threatening-to-kill-our-baby jar.

(Quick tangent: A friend came over the other day, and I said, “You know, I empathize a little with Susan Smith now. I’m not saying what she did was acceptable. But I get her now.”  My joke was returned with looks of horror. Sigh. Note to self: no Susan Smith humor in mixed company. Luckily, my wife has developed the ability to tune out anything I say. She learned to do that back in college. She’s had years of experience.)

You know what bothers me the most about my whole, “I’m not head over heels for this kid” issue? It’s that deep down I know it reflects more on me. I’m the selfish jerk; not my kid. I mean, here I am saying, “This kid doesn’t do anything for me… ” See, there are those words: for me. The couple of times he’s smiled it’s been like a reward for me. But, does that mean I’m only starting to warm up to this kid because I’m getting feedback from him? Some sort of validation? That’s a little self-centered; only to the point where I’m getting something in this relationship do I find myself interested in the relationship. That’s kind of messed up. Yikes.

Lessons Learned since birth

Well, not my birth. Since Quinn’s birth…

I don’t remember where I heard this, but recently I’ve been fond of quoting the phrase, “I was a great parent until I became a parent.”

My wife and I went into this with intentions of using cloth diapers, not using a pacifier, etc. Well, we held out for a week on the cloth diapers, and a whopping three weeks on the pacifier.

On the cloth diaper front, we found that for our son who was under 8 pounds, we couldn’t get a solid fit. Plus, until he starts taking solid food, his poo is basically runny. And the cloth diapers — perhaps because of the way we were folding them or perhaps because of his size — were not doing a great job of keeping the liquid in. But we’re not ruling out cloth diapers. We still like the idea. So we’re planning to try again with diapers once he’s on solid food and a little bit bigger. Maybe after 6 months. (Plus, I swear… the diaper was SOOO huge when folded, we couldn’t get any onesies on him.)

As far as the binky — the American Academy of Pediatrics (or some such title) recommends not introducing a pacifier until 4 weeks. We made it to 3. So that’s not so bad. But, we were concerned about nipple confusion for breast feeding, and also having him become “addicted” to having a pacifier in his mouth for soothing himself to sleep. (We’d prefer to have him learn to sooth himself, which seems healthier.) But… at 4am when you just want the little stinker to shut up and go to sleep… the pacifier calls out to you. “Uuuuuuuse me! I can heeeeelp.”  I feel like an alcohol trying to resist the tempting allure of “just one beer.”

So yeah, at 4am I found myself shoving a pacifier in his mouth. God. It was sweet. He quieted right up, calmed down, and I was able to get some extra shut eye. I feel selfish, because I realize this isn’t done for his benefit, but rather my benefit. Which is kind of selfish of me. Like I said, I was a great parent until I became one.

Going into this, people would say to us, “Having a kid is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” And it comes off as cliche, so I’m prone to ignoring advice like that. I would think, “C’mon. The hardest thing? I’ve road my bike from Seattle to Portland three times. That’s 200 miles. That’s pretty damn hard.” And I was also of the mindset that if this has been done billions of times before us, then we should be able glean a lot from the collective experience of all those births, and stand on the shoulders of giants so-to-speak. In theory, we should be able to be completely prepared. After all, we took all the classes. We bought everything we were supposed to buy. I spent countless hours investigating only the safest and best products that we truly needed. I didn’t buy anything unless I spent a good 30 minutes investigating it and reviewing and comparing it online.

Well, I’m here to echo the cliche, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Not physically taxing; I’m not incredibly tired. It’s not mentally taxing; I feel alert enough. It’s just… fucking hard. Really fucking hard. I’m trying to put my finger on it… I think it’s hard because it’s the most selfless I’ve ever had to be. I can’t sleep when I want. I can’t just hop in the car and go to the store when I want. Everything I do has to be done in service of another being, and all of my wishes take a back seat to the needs of this little guy. I mean, I’m doing it. It’s not like I’m neglecting him. I think what’s hard about it is the fact that it’s hard to go from living a selfish lifestyle, cold turkey, to having to be completely selfless. I feel like my life has gone from the main plot of the sitcom, to the secondary story (usually some subplot about Karla or Coach or Cliff, used as filler in between the main plot between Sam and Diane.

Anyway, you don’t realize how hard it is until you have to coordinate your pooping schedule with your wife. A busy day for us is if we manage to all three go to the grocery store. That takes about 5 hours of preparation. (Got to feed him at this time, then get his nap, then feed when he wakes up, but change his diaper before he finishes feeding so he doesn’t wake up… etc.)

As materially prepared as we were… I wasn’t prepared for just the complete shift in my mental processing of “what a typical day is.”  It’s not “What would I like to do today?” Rather, it’s “What can I squeeze in when my kid is asleep?”  My concept of a schedule has gone out the window. We do things whenever we can. Not at a certain time. Clocks have no meaning it seems. Before, the day ended when we went to bed, and the next day began when we woke up. Now, days blur into nights as we’re up every couple of hours changing diapers, feeding, and soothing. These past 5 weeks haven’t felt like 35 individual days… just one reeeeeally long stream of diapers, feedings, sun going up, darkness, daylight… one really long day.

Joining the elite ranks of the Parent Club

We live on a block with lots of kids. And the parents on this block were always having block parties. But we were never invited. However, ever since having our son we’ve been invited to two different potlucks. It’s like we finally gained access into their secret club where the only way to break into their ranks was to spit out a kid. All we need now are a couple of members only jackets and a secret handshake like the water Buffalo Lodge.

And if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to get in good with kids. So for the potluck, I decided to make the most kid friendly dish possible. That’s right: homemade macaroni and cheese. As I see it, you get in good with the kids, and that opens doors to getting in good with the parents. And that means, more invites to future block parties.

By the way, it was a crock pot macaroni and cheese recipe from Paula Deen. And it kicked ass. I even had parents coming up to me asking for the recipe. So easy to make. Just throw a bunch of crap into a crockpot and a few hours lator… voila! Instant popularity.

Count it. And one.

Do I really want to go to their block parties? No, not really. I just want to be invited to their block parties. Strike that. One of the neighbors really knows how to grill up meat. Plus, he has direct TV and he has the NFL Sunday ticket package. So I really really want to get in good with that neighbor.

The Labor, Part II

My son was born face up. And if you were an OB doctor, you would probably guess that my wife had a cesarean section, because most babies who are face up can’t make it through the vaginal canal. And you would be wrong. She did it the old-fashioned way. As soon as my son shot out of my wife’s vagina, everyone saw that he was face up, and the nurse turned to the doctor and exclaimed “see I told you he was face up!” Which explained the difficulty my wife was having getting him out. And why you might ask, did my son come shooting out so fast after taking so long to get to that point? That’s because he made himself a nice second degree tear in my wife’s perineum. And folks, let me tell you… that’s one hell of a strong girl who can push a baby out through her skin. I even overheard nurses in the hallway commenting how impressive it was that the baby was face up and yet my wife managed to push him out through her canal.

Unfortunately, coming out face up was not without its consequences. My baby boy had some fluid in his lungs and he wasn’t taking deep breaths like he should have been. So instead of immediately getting to do the kangaroo care my wife and I planned to do, my son spent the first five minutes of his life on a counter with tubes shoved down his throat. Oddly, they let my wife hold her baby for what seemed to be a photo op. She held him, they took a photo, but to that then whisked him away to the NICU. And I followed.

And for the first three days of his life, my son lived in the NICU. Hooked up to machines. And I stayed in the nursery with my son, in a rocking chair. I watched other babies come and go, who were free to return to their mothers after their requisite time in the nursery. But my son’s respiratory rate was higher than it should have been, so they admitted him to the NICU which means he couldn’t leave that room. And because my wife had an epidural, she was not allowed to leave her room for the first few hours.

And this was hard for us, because the most important thing to us going into this delivery was the ability to immediately do skin to skin contact after our baby was born. And we couldn’t do that. And the second highest priority on our list was that we did not want to use any formula to feed our baby. But having him in the nursery meant that my wife wasn’t free to feed him whenever she wanted, or more importantly, whenever he wanted. You see, I learned a lot about how hospitals work. The feeding schedules they use in the nursery, are not about what the baby needs. Rather it’s about a set schedule based around the nurses shift changes. And because of this, the nurses tried, and ultimately succeeded without our knowing it, on several occasions to give formula to our baby. My wife and I had to fight very hard in order to get the nurses to call my wife up whenever it was time to come feed the baby.

Because of my son’s high respiratory rate, the pediatrician on-call decided to do an x-ray. Now I worked at hospitals, and have worked in radiology departments. So I know how things work. The pediatrician orders an x-ray; radiology department comes up and takes the x-ray; and the radiologist downstairs reads the x-ray. Well, reading an x-ray of a newborn, who is only hours old, is vastly different than reading a normal x-ray. And here’s where we became victim of hospital politics: the radiologist who had the x-ray gave a very waffling report. And to be honest, that’s what radiologists who are not very good often do. They give these reports that are sort of all over the place, in order to save their butts, without being very exact about anything. The problem is, the pediatrician on-call has to assume that radiologist knows what he is talking about. In our case, the radiologist said it could be something bad, so the pediatrician had to assume the worse and admit our son for another day at the hospital.

This meant that after my wife’s two days of insurance ran out, she was sent home without her baby. And that’s probably the most angry I have ever been in defense of my life. I went downstairs that night and got a copy of my son’s films. I woke up at 6 AM the next morning and drove an hour south and dropped the films off at the office of a radiologist I used to work with. She called me up that morning, and confirmed what I believed… that the report issued by the radiologist the prior day at was bogus. And the films looked just fine.

But this was all for just peace of mind. Because unfortunately, my radiologist friend had no sway at the hospital where we were delivering. The next morning we returned to the hospital and when the pediatrician on-call came I explained everything to her. She had another radiologist at the hospital read the films again, and thankfully that radiologist knew what he was doing and gave our son a clean bill of health. In hindsight, it was frustrating that we could not bring our son home with us due to a nonspecific report issued by the poor radiologist. However, because my wife and I both worked at hospitals, we understood the politics and even though we thought it was unfair we knew that we had no choice. We certainly didn’t blame the pediatrician, whose hands were tied by the waffling report that was issued by the radiologist. One thing that did cheese me off pretty good though is that the radiologist who issued the lousy report refused to talk to my wife or me. What a Dick. To quote the father from the movie Juno, “if I see that radiologist, I’m going to punch him in the wiener.”

The Labor, Part I

Sunday marks week five of Quinn’s birth. And it’s taken me that long to crawl out from the rock that I was underneath. And to be honest I’m not sure were out from under that rock, but I gotta get back to my blog. Every day for the last five weeks I thought of something I wanted to put in a blog, but the lack of sleep, energy, will, motivation and free time have prevented me from doing so. Until now…

So it all started on Sunday, June 7. My wife woke up at about 4 AM complaining of some cramping; unbeknownst to us, it turns out that it was actually her contractions beginning. Now, everything we read in the book said that contractions would start pretty infrequently and last about 30 seconds each and come oh every 15 or 20 minutes. And this is where a common theme is about to begin: everything in the book is a lie. Come to think of it, I should probably start looking for those receipts for those books, because I’m pretty sure that the pages involving “My labor” were missing. Or better yet, perhaps I have a lawsuit on my hands. I think all I need would be a jury full of sympathetic mothers and my lawsuit of “Schell v. What to expect when you’re expecting” would easily be a $10 million payout.

Back to 4 AM: so my wife wakes up, and she’s complaining of some cramping. She says it feels like menstrual cramps except the cramps seem to be one on top of another. So I pull out my handy dandy timer application that I’ve already downloaded to my Blackberry and I start timing those suckers. Well I don’t know what happened in those cramps in the first wave that were supposed to come every 15 to 20 minutes because these were coming every 2 to 3 minutes and they were lasting 45 seconds to a minute each. And the thing is, my wife and I didn’t want to be one of those couples who rushes to the hospital way too soon only to be in early labor or false labor. But she didn’t have any of the classical signs of being in labor, I mean her water never broke. But by 5:30 AM these cramps were getting pretty painful and it was obvious to us that they were contractions.

And painful may be a bit of an understatement. Because my wife is pretty strong, but I’ve never seen her cry in pain until the morning of June 7. And here’s another thing I’d like to get a refund for: those stupid Lamaze classes. My wife and I went into this labor expecting to have a natural childbirth. We took the breathing classes. We knew the techniques. But I didn’t even get a chance to begin practicing my techniques, or practicing breathing, because her labor went from 0 to 10 in less than an hour. Within 90 minutes of waking up, my wife was on her knees crying, telling me that she couldn’t do this. I was all set and had my bag ready, I fully expected her to be in labor at the hospital, and be practicing my techniques there. When I pictured this labor in my head, I pictured us at the hospital doing our hee hee hoo. But instead, her pain jumped to a 10 before I could even get out of bed.

We left for the hospital by 6:30 AM and let’s be honest who doesn’t love the opportunity to drive 90 miles an hour. That’s one of the things I was actually looking forward to in this labor: getting pulled over by a cop going as fast as I can, and having an excuse to drive and seen how he would respond. We arrived at the hospital at 6:45 AM, and after some waddling into the delivery floor, my wife was checked into her room by 7 AM. After getting in her bed, the first thing out of her mouth was “I want an epidural.” But they needed her to be hydrated first, so she had to wait an hour. Perhaps the most excruciatingly long hour I’ve ever waited. Longer even then hour-long wait to the Ninja roller coaster at Magic Mountain.

Now to give you an idea of how quickly things were progressing for my wife, they measured her cervix at 7 AM and she was only 3 cm dilated. They measured her again at 9 AM, and she was 8 cm dilated. I’m not a doctor, and I’ve never had a kid before, but I’m pretty sure that damn fast. Now here’s where the story gets boring, because between 9 AM and 2 PM, nothing really happened. My wife slept, while I sat in the chair and read a book. I remember at one point, looking up and thinking how surreal all of this was. I mean, here was my wife next to me in labor. We’re in the hospital room. But other than that, it was a very normal Sunday. We didn’t have any friends or family coming in to visit us, so I guess it just didn’t feel like a very special event. After all, here was my wife snoring away while the beeping machine was showing her contractions going up and down.

Before I go much further, and get to the good stuff for the actual delivery, I want to take a minute to talk about one other big misconception I had. A good month or two prior to going to the hospital, my wife and I packed our delivery bag. It had everything we were told we would need in the hospital. And we typed up ourselves a little “labor and delivery plan.” And did we use any of that stuff in the labor and delivery bag? Hell no. Everything we packed sat there in that bag. And did we use our labor and delivery plan we wrote? Hell no. That was the first thing to go out the window. Followed a close second by my wife’s modesty.

The thing was, we just simply didn’t have any time to use any of that stuff. I got the hospital, an hour later my wife was drugged up, she slept, and before I knew it was two in the afternoon and they were waking my wife up telling her it was time to start pushing.

And here’s yet another thing I was like to about: I thought the pushing was a lot of screaming and cursing and swearing at the husband. I guess I learned everything I know about labor from sitcoms. Well in reality, or at least in my wife’s and my reality, the pushing wasn’t all that painful. She would push for about 10 seconds during the height of the contraction, and then take a couple minutes off. Kind of like a commercial break. In fact, in between the pushing sessions, she was smiling and we were making jokes. This was likely largely in part to the epidural that was preventing her from feeling anything below her waist. She turned to me and asked, “do you think they gave me too much epidural, because I can’t feel the pushing.” Now I can’t say I’ve ever experienced this firsthand, nor will I ever experienced this firsthand (after all I am a guy), but from what she told me I gather trying to push when you’re numb from epidural is sort of like having your mouth injected with Novocain at the dentists, then trying to whistle Zip–a–dee–do–dah.

Fast forward about two hours, and the baby’s crowning but it’s just not coming out. The doctor tells my wife and she may have to use the suction cup to help get the baby out. I think this was all the motivation my wife needed because within about five minutes after that, she pushed that baby out. At exactly 4:27 in the afternoon, our new bundle of joy shot straight out like a missile into the waiting arms of the doctor. In fact, the baby shot out so quickly I couldn’t even see what sex it was. Finally, the doctor held the baby up and said, “Congratulations! It’s a boy!”

And this is just where this story begins. In hindsight, that was the easy part of being at the hospital. I have much more to tell you about what happened immediately after the baby came out. And that my friends, is what we in the biz call “a cliffhanger.”

T-minus 4 Weeks… or so

Actually, it’s more like 3.5 weeks, but really who’s counting? (3 and 4/7 if you want to split hairs and/or remainders.)

This wekend we removed a big weight of our shoulders: we finished the nursery. All the furniture was delivered last week, but then I promptly left for a business trip. I returned Friday night, and my wife made it known, in no uncertain terms, that the nursery had to be done this weekend.

And I’m happy to report we did just that. Crib. Check. Changing table. Done. Glider and ottoman. Fini. Bassinet. Another word for done.

We even attached the car seat adapter to the-world’s-greatest-stroller (see an earlier post if that reference doesn’t land with you). I even spent about an hour breaking down and cutting cardboard boxes into increasingly tiny squares so they could be stuffed into our alley recycle bin.

Quick tangent: a major pet peeve of mine is inefficiency. Like when people parallel park but don’t pull up to the end of the curb, thereby taking up two spots. Or people who hold up the boarding process on the airplane. (PLEASE step out of the aisle and let others pass.) Inefficient = inconsiderate = rude. So it drives me bonkers when neighbors (it’s a shared recycle bin) put entire boxes in the bin. All you have to do is flatten the box so more can fit. I mean, I love being indignant, granted, but I can’t fathom who does this. I want to set up a camera to catch people so I can shame them into flattening their boxes.

Where was I? Oh yes. With all that furniture, we had enough cardboard to … Well, do something that requires vast amounts of corrigated board. (It’s early yet and my analogy engine isn’t warmed up.)

I found myself just standing in the room admiring its completeness. My wife asked, “what are you doing in there?” “Nothing. Just staring.”

My wife walked in and – as cheezy as this sounds – we just stood in the clean nursery and hugged. Then, because the moment was at risk of being too sentimental… I turned to my wife and said, “you know, it’s not too late to change our mind.” “About the furniture layout?” “No, the pregnancy.”. She then punched me and walked away.

Gearing up for my new budgetary bundle of joy

File this under: “It’s the little things…”  But today was a big day for me, because I created my first “baby monthly expense item” in Quicken.  Baby:Diapers. Yup. $20.10 / week into the ol’ Quicken budget. ($87/mo.)

Hey!!! That means I’ll save money in February!

See, and you thought this blog was going to be all “interesting” topics. You really have no idea how much of a geek I am.

Next I’m trying to anticipate what other costs I’ll want to categorize. Obviously healthcare (co-pays, medicine, etc)… And eventually daycare (nanny?). And I suppose I’ll need to make an allowance for how much per month we can spend on Peanut. (I’ve already entered a dangerous zone at Babies ‘R Us where I saw a toy.. and it was, oh $18 or $20, and I thought, “Screw it. That’s nothing! I’m buying it.” The thing is, I will gladly — and stupidly — buy four $20 items in as many shopping trips, but if the item cost $80, I would go, “Hmm. I don’t know. That’s a lot.” Stupid brain. And how come they have to price everything juuuust below my cheapskate threshold. Jerks.)

Diaper Decision

Today marks a milestone of sorts. My wife and I made a baby-related decision! Chipping away at our to-do list. Sure, the baby won’t have a name by the time we’re wheeled out of the hospital, but at least we’ll know what type of diapers we’ll have waiting at home.

The answer: cloth diapers.

I’ll be honest. When we began our baby journey, I would have never ever (ever) considered using cloth diapers. I just assumed cloth diapers were only for die-hard hippies. It seemed like so much work. And I assumed there’s no way you could beat the price of disposable diapers.

Well, in true Papi Nuevo Fashion, I decided not to leave any researchable-stone untouched. My interest in creating a Toxin-free environment lead me to search for other varieties of diapers that are hopefully less harmful to Peanut’s soon-to-be bottom. I started with the major brands, Pampers, then onto “organic” or “green” brands, like Seventh Generation. And then I fell into the world of cloth diapers. Apparently organic diapers are a gateway diaper to cloth. It’s a slippery slope. (Pun!)

The more I researched, the more sense (and cents– pun #2!) cloth diapers made. In fact, except for the convenience of being able to throw away a diaper wherever you are, I could not find any benefit or advantage of disposable diapers over cloth.

Myth: Cloth diapers are messy. Before becoming Papi Nuevo, I thought cloth diapers meant hand-washing soiled linen in my sink, or in my washing machine. Fact: with modern cloth diaper services, you just throw them in a diaper-pail like disposable diapers, and the diaper company comes and picks up your soiled diapers on a weekly basis, and gives you fresh ones. They do all the work.

Myth: Cloth diapers are much more time-consuming, and harder to fasten. Fact: modern cloth diapers no longer require saftey pins. There are velcro/buttoned outer shells which make fastening diapers a cinch. (a snap? Pun #3!)

Myth: Cloth diapers are more expensive than disposable diapers. Fact: The cloth diaper service near my house charges $20.10 for 80 diapers (per week). That’s about 25¢ per diaper. But that price never changes, no matter the size of the diaper. And that is unlike disposable diapers. See, disposable diapers get more expensive as they get bigger. At Target, a store known to have pretty good prices, disposable diapers (plus tax) for newborns and size 1 diapers (up to 12 pounds) were about 21 or 22¢ each. Size 2 diapers cost 27¢, and the price only goes up from there as the baby gets bigger. So cloth diapers are actually cheaper.

Not to mention that on average, babies using cloth diapers are potty trained about 1 year before non-cloth diapers. (Because they feel the uncomfortable wetness much easier than in disposable diapers.) So factor in the fact that not only are they much cheaper at the potty-training-sizes, you will likely save a year’s worth of diaper costs.

Myth: Cloth diapers aren’t as effective as disposable diapers. Fact: Okay, this one could be true. It depends on what you mean by “effective.” Disposable diapers do a much better job at soaking up urine. But, the problem is, they give parents a fall-sense of security, thinking their baby’s diaper is dry. When in reality, the chemicals and urine are still there, touching the baby’s skin. That’s why babies in disposable diapers are five times as likely to get diaper rash. (In 1955, 100% of babies used cloth diapers, and only 7% experienced rashes. In 1998, 90% of babies used disposable diapers, and the likehood of diaper rash increased to 78%.)

Long story short: the “effectiveness” of disposable diapers are actually more harmful to babies. Plus, cotton diapers breathe better and cause less friction on the baby’s skin. Remember… dry does not equal clean. With a cloth diaper, there is no confusion. Dry = clean.

Each supposed benefit I believed disposable to have over cloth, was… as they say in the NFL… overturned upon further review. So to recap: cloth diapers are cheaper, healthier, and (with the exception of traveling) just as convenient as disposables. And, my cloth diaper service brings the diapers to me, without me having to lift a finger. No rush emergency trips to the grocery store. That’s a convenience you can’t get with disposables.

And this is to say nothing of the other obvious advantages cloth diapers hold over disposables: No use of toxins or chemicals. Lower rate of male infertility than with disposables. No link to asthma as with disposables. And don’t get me started on environmental benefits — of which there are gazillions.

So yeah, we’re choosing cloth. We’ll keep disposables on hand for trips as needed. But we’re proud to choose cloth to do our part to help the environment (and our checkbook). And, to be honest — we fully realize that not every child’s body is amenable to cloth diapers. But we’re going to give it a try. If we have to revert to disposables, so be it. But I feel good to be doing it based on an informed decision, and not just because it was easier. (Heck, it’s easier to just throw our fast food wrappers out the car window, right?)

Swine Flu

[Blog time-out! We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog to bring you Papi Nuevo's list of Swine Related Maladies]

I think this Swine Flu “pandemic” is getting blown out of proportion. I mean, in the spectrum of swine-related maladies, the flu really isn’t even near the top:

1. Swine Cancer
2. Swine AIDS
3. Swine Diabetes
4. Swine Herpes
5. Swine Arthritis
6. Swine Flu
7. Swine Sniffles
8. Swine Headache
9. Swine Tennis Elbow
10. Swine In-grown toe nail
11. Swine ate-too-much
12. Swine something-in-your-eye

Free Range Kids

I referenced a story in a post a couple months ago about a mother who caught hell for letting her 9 year old son ride the subway alone in New York. Salon.com has an interview with the mother, who has released a new book, “Free Range Kids.” Here’s the article: Stop Worrying About Your Children.

Some great quotes from the interview:

If you were a child in the ’70s or the ’80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were.

But it feels so completely different, and we’re told that it’s completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it’s the same, nobody believes me. We’re living in really safe times, and it’s hard to believe.

Another one, which is exactly the point I made previously… (my older sister used to walk me home when I was in kindergarten, and she was in 3rd grade)

Maybe the 7-year-old will walk the 5-year-old home, and nobody would say: “Oh my God, where are the parents? Let’s arrest them.” Perhaps your child is in .00007 percent more danger, but the danger is so minute to begin with. There is a 1 in 1.5 million chance that your kid would be abducted and killed by a stranger. It is hard to wrap your mind around those numbers, and everybody always assumes: What if it’s my 1 in 1.5 million?

If you don’t want to have your child in any kind of danger, you really can’t do anything. You certainly couldn’t drive them in a car, because that’s the No. 1 way kids die, as passengers in car accidents.

I realize that this could seem antithetical to my Papi Nuevo researchaholicism, such as the recent posts I’ve made about trying to find phthlate-free and PBA-free plastics. But here’s my current outlook and where I make the (however thin) distinction: There are tangible things I know I can protect my child from: harfmul chemicals like those found in plastics, baby wipes, lotions, creams, etc. And there are conceptual things that I could only hope to protect my child from, but that I have no control over: like playing outdoors.

Example: the odds of my child choking on a chicken bone are probably 1 in 1.5 million as well. Should I prevent my child from eating chicken? No. Should I research the chicken brand I feed my family to make sure it is free of hormones and toxins? Yes. I can prevent hormones from getting into a child’s body. I can’t prevent them from choking on a chicken. However, I can give them the tools to eat slowly, be careful with chicken bones, not talk to strangers, run if somebody talks to you, etc. (I just mixed my analogies, but you see where I’m going with this.)

I hope that I am part of a group of parents who were children in the 70s and 80s, who are returning to the concept of “let them play outside.” Hopefully the cultural pendulum is swinging back in favor of teaching responsibility and independence. Last point I love:

And when I say: “Walk to school,” you’re thinking, What about that girl in the trailer park in California who was walking to her friend’s house the other day? [Sandra Cantu, 8, of Tracy, was murdered in late March 2009. The chief suspect is the child's Sunday school teacher, who is also the mother of one of the girl's friends.] That’s the image you have. You get despairing and worried, and then you remember afterward there was probably some expert on TV saying: “Parents, here are some tips for you.”

As if there is a tip that can tell you, “Remember parents: Don’t ever let your child out of the house to go visit a playmate.” That’s what the tip would be, and it wouldn’t make any sense. Preparing for such unlikely scenarios is like preparing for, “Remember parents: Asteroids happen, so keep your children inside!”

But of course, as I’ve said previously, I reserve the right to totally change my opinion on all of this, and be one of those parents who buys knee pads to make crawling safer.

My latest infatuation…

Tummy Tub!

From Holland, of course! (My wife made me say that.)  Ours is shipping in June.

KNOW YOUR PLASTICS!

In typical Papi fashion, I’ve squandered a large part of the day researching toxins and plastics. (My wife likes to call it “procrastinating from the work I really should be doing.”)

First stop is my quest for safe-plastic baby bottles… I stumbled upon this amazing webpage: Know Your Plastics, from HealthyChild.org. In 20 words or less, here’s what you need to know: Plastics labeled with a 1, 2, 4, 5 are basically safe. Avoid plastics with # 3, 6, and mostly 7.

We also found this thread, which… as with every other user-supplied-forum on the internet… should be taken with an amazingly large grain of salt… Discussion on plastics at Mothering.com. Of note, that thread is from 2003.

The Week In Review

I don’t care what the calendar insists. To me, Sunday is the end of the week. So let’s take a look back, shall we? (In no particular order…)

On Thursday, my wife passed the week 35 mark. Only 5 weeks to go. BabyCenter.com sent me an email in honor of the occasion, reminding me that my unborn child is about the weight of a honeydew melon.

On Friday, I took my car to our local neighborhood resource center. I had an appointment at noon for them to show me how to properly install my car seat base. I was amazed at how simple it was. (But, as my wife pointed out, they saved me from reading the manual, which could have made it seem much more daunting. True. True.) And best of all, it was free. Walking in, I got the impression that neighborhood resource centers might be geared towards… oh what’s the word… lower income families. But, my property or sales taxes likely fund it in one way or another, so I guess I don’t feel bad using it. Besides, is it my fault I did research and found that this organization offered a free service? Plus, the state highway patrol makes you wait weeks and weeks. This place was like, “Sure, when you wanna’ come in?”  Chalk one up for socialism! Suck it, GOP.

Friday evening, we went to ‘Babies’ ‘R’ ‘Us’. (I forget how many and where to place the superfluous apostrophes.)  If you read my previous entry, you’ll remember that a store employee told us that if you get a coupon within two weeks of your purchase, you can bring in your receipt and the coupon and retroactively apply it. Well, we had some “15% off any single purchase” coupons that began 13 days after our receipt. So we had to go in Friday night to redeem them.

Fast forward after about 30 minutes of confused customer service employees and talking with a manager: We were able to apply it to one of our $550 purchases (glider I think), and basically got $80. We opted for in-store credit, which I think made the manager slightly more amenable to helping us out. Plus, we plopped down like $3K in receipts, and he said, “Well, I can see you’ve spent a lot of money with us… so we’ll go ahead and do it.”  We took the $80 and bought another $300 worth of items. See, Babies ”’R”’ Us… it all worked in your favor.

On Saturday… oh Saturday… 9am-5pm Birthing Preparation and Lamaze class. It was good, but long. Learned lots of breathing techniques to help with contractions. Learned different positions to help with pain management, and different visualiztion / focus techniques. Watched about four videos of actual start-to-finish labors. (From sitting at home, to deciding to go to hospital, through baby emerging.)  Man, I definitely had a skewed version of labor. It definitely looked pretty intimidating. But, at least I feel slightly more prepared.

Well, that’s not true. With each of these classes, I would say before the class, I felt 80% prepared. After the class, probably 50% prepared. The variable here is that before each class, I didn’t realize exactly how much there was to deal with and to do. So my preception of what “100%” prepared really meant shifted, I suppose. Oddly, I know I left each class more prepared than when I walked in… but it’s like the door at the end of the hall just got that much farther away. Am I making any sense what-so-ever? Sports analogy time! Before each class, I felt like I was on the 10 yard line, and only had to make it to the 50 yard line. A difference of 40 yards. With the assistance of class, I left prepared on the 30 yard line, but realized I actually had to make it to the endzone, which is 70 yards away. Ta-da. Thank you sports analogy. Once again you have served your fellow man.

Saturday after the class we made our baby bassinet. Sooooo cute. Then we went out to the car, and I showed my wife everything I learned about car seat installation, and then we installed a second base in our other car. I think comleting those two things, in particular, were significant to complete, because a car seat means we can legally take the baby home from the hospitial, and a bassinet means the baby has somewhere to sleep. So even if we get nothing else done between now and when my wife goes into labor, we’ve got that covered.

On Thursday the delivery folks called to set up a time to deliver our crib, changing table / dresser combo, and glider-ottoman. Alas, they wanted to deliver Saturday, but we’ll be out. So they’ll be delivering Tuesday. My wife is getting antsy (“nesting?”) to take all of this baby stuff and put it somewhere, and organize it, but as of yet we have nowhere to really store it. I think this is causing her some angst, and hopefully getting the furniture delivered will relieve some of her pressure.

What does 34 weeks look like anyway?

My wife is pretty tall – 5′11 (she claims 5′10 but I’m doing what guys do and rounding up). So relative to her height, the baby pooch appears smaller. But I assume if she was shorter, with a pooch of the same size, it would appear larger. Essentially, she’s an optical illusion, I guess is my point.

Yesterday, we were at a bakery and the girl behind the counter asked how far along she was. “34 weeks,” my wife acknowledged. The girl behind the counter was amazed, “Wow, you look great.” That’s not the first time my wife has heard that.

So we’ll see in the remaining 6 weeks (we hope) if she ever gets to the point where you look at her and go, “Wow, that lady is about to pop.”

Quick tangent: she does not want her belly button to pop out. Each week I take notice and say, “I don’t know – its a little less shallow than it was last week.” But she refutes this and claims that there is no way her belly button will pop out. 6 weeks to go, we’ll see who wins that bet.

The secret Babies R Us Doesn’t Want You to Know

Chalk this up under: it’s all who you know.

My wife and I were at Babies R Us (again) buying the final piece of nursery furniture. The crib we wanted had just arrived in their wherehouse, so we had to rush to the store and order / pay for it since they had a limited quantity in the wherehouse. (Or so we were told. Who knows. Either way, it got us in asap.)

Now, if you read my post a few entries back (and I’m sure you did because you hang on every word I wrote), you’ll know that my goal was to buy everything at once so we can get the 10% discount when you sign up for the Babies R Us credit card. (Which I plan to cancel by the way, but it’s worth doing it to save an extra $250.)

Anyway, because they didn’t have the crib in stock, we couldn’t purchase it with the others. The crib price was $430. We had a coupon from Babies R Us for 15% off any furniture above $250. But it could have been cheaper had we gotten an additional 10% off.

So when we get to the checkout, my wife asks, “Can we get the 10% discount from when we signed up for the card, because you didn’t have this in stock at the time?”  And predictably, the answer was “Sorry, no.”  Which wasn’t a surprise. But didn’t hurt to ask.

BUT! Then the girl behind the register tells us… (And mind you, this is like our 4th trip there buying major stuff, so I can’t believe nobody else mentioned this)… “But if you get a coupon with 2 weeks of your date of purchase, you can bring it in with your receipt and they’ll credit you the amount.”

WH-WH-WHHHAAAT? And, to top it off, she hands us a 15% off coupon that starts in exactly 12 days. So, we have to rush our fannies into Babies R Us on the 13th day (1 day shy of our 14 day limit), and bring in all of our receipts, and bring in all of our coupons, and just see what they can credit us.

Anyway, I found that to be a pretty major feature, and you would think they would advertise that a tad more prominently, because it’s a darn good customer service feature. But, then again, maybe they don’t want people to really know about that.

Gotta start planning now

I turned to my wife this evening and asked her, “So, what race do we want to teach our baby to hate?” She wasn’t amused. But you gotta start planning these things ahead of time.

But then I realized the answer: people whose second toe is longer than their big toe. I realize that’s not a race. But that’s what I’m going to teach my baby to hate.

Papi mobile!

Omg. I just figured out how to post from my blackberry. This opens up a whole new world of quick, random thoughts.

To start things off: we’re at week 34. While my wife isn’t in full waddle mode yet, she’s defintely developed herself a sashay.

A big weekend of gifts and shopping

Had a big baby weekend. Perhaps our biggest thus far in the first 33 weeks of pregnancy.

On Saturday, the girls at my wife’s work and her sister threw us a baby shower. My parents flew down on Friday, and her mother surprised her at the baby shower, which was very unexpected.

The shower was fun. The hosts of the shower knew my dad would be with me, so we were both invited. My dad wasn’t sure he wanted to attend the shower. It was touch and go for awhile. We were very close to taking off and going to a driving range, which I think he felt more comfortable doing. But, once we saw the food spread, we decided to stay. Actually, my dad put aside his qualms and said he would do whatever I thought we should do. He wanted to be flexible. He remarked a couple times that he was surprised to find himself at a baby shower. He’s old school. But he socialized like a champ.

I think most of his surprise stemmed from the fact that my wife and her friends at work are not “woooh” or “squeal” girls. They don’t giggle, or do foo-foo things. The party games were quite normal and fun for both women and men of all ages. It was a great shower. Fun people. Fun games. Good food. And we hauled in a ton of stuff.

THEN… we spent 20 hours (okay, 4.5) at Babies ‘R Us and bought everything else we needed. You need help finding something at Babies R Us? How can I assist you? I have the store layout mapped to my brain. Infant goods? Enter the store and take a right, past the registry table. Car seats? A few isles away on the same side of the store. Bedding? Opposite side.

This is where all of our hours upon hours of researching paid off. We went in, knew what we wanted, and loaded up. We dropped a cool $2K in one day at Babies ‘R Us. And here’s the brilliant thing, and I highly recommend for all first-time parents:

1. Sign up early with Babies R Us to get coupons in the mail, and wait until you have some. They seem to send ‘em quite often. And, Babies ‘R Us has some pretty good coupons. (They had coupons for like 20% off of any furniture item more than $500, which the changing table was; and 15% off items $250-$499, which the crib was; long story short: we saved a few hundred just by timing it right with coupons).

2. Buy as much as you can in a single trip, and sign up for the Babies R Us Credit Card, which gives you 10% off when you purchase everything at that time. (10% off for the whole day actually, but who wants to make multiple trips when you’ve been there for over 4 hours?) For us, that meant $200 in savings of our $2K purchases.

3. Do all of your research ahead of time, and have it all figured out BEFORE you get there. Because once you’re there, the store employees aren’t none too bright. Nice and friendly, sure… But they really don’t have the detailed knowledge that a research-geek parent such as yourself craves. Trust me on this fact. (Sample interaction with store clerk: “Excuse me, what’s the difference between these three breast pump packages?” “Umm… they’re all the same.”  “Well, they appear to come in different carrying cases.”  “Well, uh, yeah. Besides that, they’re all the same.”  “But this one has a battery pack that can be removed from the case.”  “Oh, uh. Yeah.”  “And this other one says it comes with different nipple shields.”  “Oh, umm… yeah, that’s different.”  “So why is this one $50 more?” “It has a different case.”  “Okay, thanks.”)  So yeah, have it all mapped out before you show up, because you want to buy it all at once, and if you say, “Nah, let’s research this later,” you’re going to lose out on the 10% savings of getting it together. Plus, you’re going to fight with your significant other. Nothing good comes out of being in a Babies R Us for more than 2 hours.

So not counting about $300 in coupons and combo deals ($150 off when buying glider and ottoman at the same time), we got another $200 for buying it all at once. OH– and my advice gets better (naturally): they offer delivery for $60, but you can do it for up to 5 items. So we’re having them deliver our crib, changing table, glider, and ottomon all for $60. That’s a frickin STEAL!

We used our baby registry as our shopping list, so we walked into the store when they opened, printed out our registry, and bought everything we didn’t get from the shower. One helluva weekend. Lots of free and not-so-free baby items! Now we’re stocked up. Feels good to have a little more done. I still have to put together all of this furniture once it arrives. (The crib is back-ordered.) But that’ll be a post for another day. (A post about building baby furniture chock full o’ cursing and ‘that’s what she said’ jokes.)