Month 11: She’s Not a Baby Anymore
Learnings and observations from my first year of fatherhood.
Day 307: I wish Mom looked at me the way Baby looks at the TV remote. Wide eyed and so much drool. Her shirt is now see through. What is she even thinking about??
Day 308: Apparently tickling is bad for babies. The laughter is an involuntary response and Mom says I’m torturing her! WTF! Sometimes I hate being a borderline millennial and just having too much information at my disposal.
Day 309: Pawed on the floor, on hands and knees, making laps around the house. Me and Bae are a makeshift motorcycle gang. My knees are so sore, I’m so old.
Day 310: The subject stares at the black rectangular object, grabbing it with one hand then two. She rotates it and observes, balancing it in her palm. The subject presses her lips against the front side, retracts and observes. Light emanates, hypnotically casting a blue glow against her face. Her grip loosens, the object drops and thuds against the hardwood as drool splashes overtop. She again picks it up and pokes, rotates and pokes. She is trying to unlock the magic of this device that Mom and Dad seem fixated on.
Day 311: If you look closely you can see a trail of drool marking everywhere she’s been in the last 30 minutes.
Day 312: Went out till 2am last night. Not even wildin’ out, I was drinking bubble tea! By the time I fell asleep it was 3am. But Baby like clockwork, was up at 7:30am. And her schedule is my schedule and I now remember why I don’t go out anymore. Coffee and parents have a symbiotic relationship.
Day 313: So Baby can stand but she has trouble sitting back down. She’s scared that she’s going to fall. She looks almost like Tucker from There’s Something about Mary. She let’s go of the couch, legs wobbling trying to bend. She’s reaching down for the floor, bracing herself. It’s too far, she’s going to topple. She panics and grabs the couch again. She’s stranded and she’s looking around for help. We’re two feet away laughing like assholes. She’ll get it eventually.
Day 314: We’ve been looking for preschools for when Bae hits 18 months. Spots fill up fast and you gotta get in now. We’re touring an accredited Montessori today. It’s fancy and it’s $33,000 a year. Literally double other schools and more than what an average Canadian makes. But they promise to raise an independent child who will be two grade levels ahead. And you want to provide your kid with every advantage they can get, but gawddamn! And that’s after tax money! We can’t afford it. I also don’t want to self select her peer group, or add academic rigor right now. I just want her to be a kid and play.
Day 315: I’ve asked Mom for a photo of Baby, on the hour, every hour. It’s not that I need proof of life, I just miss her when I’m at work.
Day 316: It’s International Woman’s Day. I’m sitting at a restaurant looking around and realizing that every man and woman in here was probably raised by a strong woman, like Mom at home, giving everything of themselves to their babies. Parenting more than anything else has given me perspective. Women are the backbone of society.
Day 317: Was leaving for work today and Baby crawled up to me wanting to be held, not wanting for me to leave. She knows that the garage door means I’m going to be gone for awhile. I pick her up, I put her down, she comes back and we do this dance for awhile before I just have to rip the band-aid off and go. Mom sends me a picture of Baby just sitting there, staring at the door, thinking we’re playing peek-a-boo, but we’re not. I feel horrible.
Day 318: Rapid fire, she’s showing her uncle all of her tricks in quick succession. She starts with the wave, but quickly hits him with the kiss. Bam! Clap, clap, clap. Now slapping her leg, pat, pat, pat. Fake finger snaps, and..Sour Face!
Day 319: At a restaurant and this older gentleman is gushing at Baby, trying to get her attention with — “Hey big guy!!” — Ha! I stopped caring that she gets mistaken for a boy, and I don’t correct people anymore. In fact now that we’re starting to look alike, I think it’s more important to dress her up like me, than as a girl.
Day 320: It’s been almost a year of Mom not working. We’ve exhausted our available hand me downs. We got daycare around the corner, mortgage payments, and grocery bills. The pressure of being the provider is heavy. I love my job but there is now an overwhelming shift in needing to work instead of wanting to.
Day 321: Mom looked down and there Baby was gnawing on her ankle!
Day 322: Motherhood is a lonely endeavour. Nobody fully grasps what you’re going through, me included. You’re in the moment, alone, celebrating wins or struggling through new problems. Be it eating, sleeping, or development. Every baby and every situation is different and friends are too removed or too new or too engulfed in their own madness as parents to fully relate. Our parents even, they raised us in a time of less information and less judgement. There’s different expectations and pressures now. I’m going to give Mom a hug.
Day 323: Baby took her first steps today with a walker. She’s looking around with a huge smile, pushing this thing around. She’s so proud of herself and I’m so proud of her. It almost feels like it’s me taking those first steps.
Day 324: Baby is sick. She’s got a ton of congestion and she can’t sleep. We pick her up and she’s nuzzling into our chest, just wanting to be held. We’re ironically loving it. We missed this. Mom is setting up like we’re back in the beginning. She’s got her water, her phone, her charger, an extra pillow and a blanket. She’s hoping to camp out on the glider with her all night.
Day 325: New to me is this etiquette of not going to social outings if Baby is sick. Even if it’s just a runny nose, kids swap boogers, and parents fear your child will take out their whole family unit. Their kids get sick, then they get sick. Daycares won’t let them in, so parents can’t go to work. They get fired and suddenly everyone is homeless. It gets dark really fast.
Day 326: She’s weezy now so we went to the walk-in clinic. The only thing worse than seeing her like this, is seeing a room full of babies like this. She has Bronchiolitis. This could mean asthma at some point, but for now they’ve given us a puffer and some Tylenol.
Day 327: She’s still not eating. Definitely not solids but maybe half a fruit puree every meal. We’ve resorted to feeding her water through a syringe. She’s losing weight. Oh and Mom’s sick now too… Great.
Day 328: I hate giving Baby the puffer and sucking her snot. But she fights and that at least gives me hope. I’m dreading the day when she just submits and accepts her fate. She’s too young to already have a broken spirit, that shouldn’t happen until 30.
Day 329: Baby got thru the worst of her cold. Her appetite is back, as is her Sour Face. I also caught her making out with the floor this morning. She’s back to normal.
Day 330: We wheel her around in her little wagon. She’s parading through the house with a huge smile, waving at everything and everyone. She’s the mayor of this town.
Day 331: I’m full on sick now. I knew it. I knew it when Baby, all gross, coughed into my eye and mouth last week.
Day 332: Ran into an old friend with his tucked in Polo, walking shoes, and two kids in tow. Full on dad mode. He was a menace in college and this juxtaposition is staggering. It’s funny how your identity becomes so wrapped up in your kids, that you can easily forget who you were or who you wanted to be. In some ways it’s noble, going all in. In other ways, it’s sad.
Day 333: Once you’re a mom, you’re always a mom. Which is what makes Grandma stepping in, trying to take over, so frustrating — She’s cold, she’s hot, she needs this, she needs that. You’re holding her wrong. You’re feeding her too much. Here let me just do it for you.
Day 334: We taught Baby how to cheers. And now she cheerses us again and again and again and again and again and again.
