Month 7: Two-way Interaction
Learnings and observations from my first year of fatherhood.
Day 185: She’s up at 7:30am down by 6:30pm. Working folk like me could easily go days without seeing Baby. Gotta make the space, my visitation window is 20 minutes each morning.
Day 186: Two hours late for a costume party. Gums, dressed up as a grandma, rolling thru like a boss. Everyone’s losing their minds, fawning at her and flashing photos. This might be her 15 minutes of celebrity.
Day 187: Byproduct of eating solids: Her poop looks like peanut butter now.
Day 188: “Don’t ring the bell, knock. Baby Monster is sleeping.” It’s Halloween, Baby’s asleep. She’s still too young to pan handle for us but maybe next year.
Day 189: Baby actually holds her own bottle to feed now. This has some utility but really, it’s a killer parlour trick when we want to show her off.
Day 190: Baby’s not a big fan of cauliflower and it’s now all over the floor.
Fun fact: Organic cauliflower is three times the price and I now exclusively eat organic cauliflower off the floor.
Day 191: Baby scratched at her ears all night and this morning there was blood everywhere! She’s fine but she now wears the sock of shame on her hand, protecting herself from herself.
Pro-tip: Don’t underestimate baby nails, they’re sharp and they regenerate super fast. Babies are basically Wolverine and their nails are adamantium.
Day 192: You know what’s not fair? Mom pouring on all these firsts while I’m at work — broccoli, bananas, water, carrots. Baby’s a living breathing science experiment and I’m stuck watching the video logs.
Day 193: It’s probably her body just adjusting to solids but she’s constipated. She’s pushing and pushing and her face is all red. I know that face too well… We’re just going to have to systematically eliminate foods until we find the cause of the blockage.
Pro-tip: If you can roll her poo like Playdoh, she’s constipated. Don’t ask how I know.
Day 194: Two oversharing parents trying to talk about their kids is like watching four year olds bicker. Nobody is really listening and both are trying to one up each other. I’m one of these guys now and I feel so dirty.
Day 195: Highlight of my month, I found the secondary parking lot for the train. It means that I can catch the later train and still get a spot. It also means that I bought an extra 20 minutes in the morning with Gums.
Day 196: Baby now kisses on demand. I take full credit for this one, but not if she somehow develops an overbite. I also can’t confirm if she in fact kisses on demand. It’s worked every time, 20% of the time.
Day 197: Passing Baby back and forth between Mom and I, faces against her bum, sniffing for doo doo undertones. Veteran move, actually checking a diaper is too much work. I feel we just reached level 2 of this game.
Day 198: Changing diapers has become a 2-person job. She squirms and rolls and someone needs to pin her down. For safety, we’ve abandoned the change table for the floor. My money is on her surviving the fall but I wonder if stuff like that is what causes a fear of heights, or brain damage. Brain damage would be bad.
Pro-tip: The designer change table is nice to look at, but I probably should’ve opted for that cheaper Ikea one that extends out.
Day 199: Giving Baby her first shoulder ride. She’s pulling on my hair for support, snot and drool dripping all over my hair, forming some kind of low budget hair gel. She’s having the time of her life.
Day 200: We had to hose Gums down today, her afternoon poop was out of control. 40 years from now I’m hoping we’ve traded places.
Day 201: Drawback of her eating solids is that feeds take at least an hour. She plays with her food, pushing it around, food slipping from her grip, shit dribbling off her chin and onto the floor. It’s more art class than it is dining.
Day 202: She looks at me with such wonder and innocence. We want everything for our babies, we want them to change the world and be great. I’m sure my parents still want this for me. But how do you balance that ambition and maintain that drive, when you want nothing more than to just sacrifice and simplify now.
Day 203: Skyping with Baby, she has no idea what she’s looking at. She’s hitting the screen, confused. Annnnd it’s in her mouth.
Day 204: I have this romanticized idea that Baby is developing a refined food palette. That she can take these new base flavours and later combine and deconstruct them like that character in Ratatouille. Then I remember she’s just a baby, we’re not on Top Chef and that she’s in love with Baby Mum Mums.
Day 205: She’s waking up an hour later and so my whole schedule shifts. My visitation period has moved to the evening. I can’t believe something so small wields such power over me.
Day 206: Her voice is suddenly hoarse. For some reason she sounds like a gremlin who smokes.
Day 207: So I scrambled eggs for Baby this morning. It was my first time on food prep and it’s actually a lot of pressure, you don’t want shit to go down on your shift. And of course it did. She got hives. Fuck. It might be unrelated to the eggs. I hope it’s unrelated to the eggs. I don’t want her to be bubble girl.
Note: Hives passed, nothing serious. It was probably just a 1-time thing. Booked an appointment with the allergist anyway.
Day 208: We’re in the car trying to make Baby nap and she’s there under the cover, hitting the noise machine, trying to get it to stop before it lulls her to sleep. Point: Baby.
Pro-tip: Save on car insurance if you tell them you’re on maternity leave.
Day 209: We eat from No Frills, Baby eats from Whole Foods. Ain’t that a bitch.
Day 210: Only after being a dad do I wish I’d had a kid sooner. Nothing can make you feel more alive. Logistically, it also means that I’ll be retiring later now, cause kids are expensive!
Day 211: I can’t call her Gums anymore because her teeth finally came through! They feel like tiny razor blades and Mom’s still letting Baby soothe on the boob. That’s love.
Day 212: At every feed she leaves a little bit of milk in the bottle, just to remind us who is actually in charge.
Day 213: Reading “Goodnight, I love you”, and every time we get to this page — Time to brush now open wide — I say “AHHHH” and she flips her head back to look at me. Every time. She understands and associates that sound with my dumb face. We’re actually playing.
Day 214: At a buffet with Baby on my lap, cutlery and food pushed a foot away. Given her motor skills, literally anything can now impale, choke, or kill her. I’m balancing a slab of prime rib on a fork, gnawing at it, trying not to drip on her. This is how we eat now.
Pro-tip: Pay for an extra seat and bring a guest to “play” with the baby.
