Traveling for work

I'm traveling for work this weekend/first part of the week. I've been missing my family, but not too much until I just saw a Huggies commercial. We use cloth diapers, but Huggies has finally done something right...I got just the tiniest but misty-eyed. Weird

Sick Baby....Sick Mama...

I have not envied my wife this week. Sairshe is at the tail end of a cold she's had all week. Casey is also at the tail end of a cold. I've been totally slammed at work and have had to work long days. It is not a happy household, though things were better yesterday and should be today as well.
Apparently, babies can get upwards of ten colds in their first year, but I don't think any will be as bad as this week was. (At least I hope not.)
What makes this harder is that you can't give babies cold medicine. You can run a humidifier in the room, but no decongestant vapor in it. There's no such thing as baby Sudafed or at least you don't use it with a 4 month old. Babies can't blow their noses for something like a year. So this is what I have done.
Used a saline solution and bulb syringe to remove snot...Sairshe hates that.
Held her a lot.
Slept on the couch propped up so Sairshe can sleep upright.
At least she's been sleeping a lot.
Yeah...and...that's pretty much all I've got to say about that.

Visits and sleep

So first, about sleep. We considered ourselves pretty lucky. Sairshe slept through the night pretty early (not too early and there is such a thing). Well before 3 months, we were getting a good night's rest. Then we went to California for Labor day. Her sleep habits fell apart. She woke up more at night and napped even less than she did before. (She never really napped well to begin with, but we'll take good sleep at night over naps any day.)
We made some discoveries and some things were pointed out to us while in CA. First of all, she has been drooling a lot and sucking/biting on fingers or anything else she gets in her mouth...duh, teething. It's early for teething, but certainly not unheard of. We've since found some good ways to deal with that, including Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tablets. I was skeptical, but they work well.
We have also been reading a lot. During a late night crying fit, I read the section in Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child that discusses sleep "regression" around 3-4 months old. The book makes some good points, but doesn't work with our parenting styles. Still, there was good discussion about naps every few hours and creating a good calm environment for sleep. Even better was this article Casey found that argues against the existence of sleep "regressions". It argues, instead, that these events coincide with developmental milestones and little baby brains are working out new skills at this time. It makes a lot of sense and after a minor milestone, she has slept better, just not as good as before.
Finally, we reinstated the nighttime routine. About half an hour before her stated bedtime, we change her into her sleepy clothes, change her diaper and put the fleece liner in, wash her face, and Casey nurses her while I softly play the guitar. The only nights we can't do that are Tuesdays when we have home community, but six nights a week is good. We are hopeful that this routine will help a lot.

Okay, on to some pictures. We went to California for labor day to visit my parents and Casey's mom's side of the family.
Here she is with her grandpa. My dad always seems a little uncomfortable holding her. It's kind of funny. I think he'll be more comfortable with her when she's older.










My Aunt Lori was visiting from Las Vegas.













And with my mom and Casey in Cotati, CA. I had already come back up to Portland since I had to work, but Casey and Sairshe stayed a few extra days.

















And that's it for the pictures. Next posting I'll try to talk more about swim class and, perhaps, a father's early thoughts about the Portland Public Schools and his concerns. (See that's funny because I started to refer to myself in the third person.)

Another Swim Video

After this dive, Sesame pretty much lost it and was crying quite a bit for the last 15 min of class. It took lots of daddy magic to keep her happy after that.

It's been way too long

I had these grand ideas that I would write something every week for this blog. Well, reality has struck. I hardly have time to think about writing, much less actually do so. I think it will get better, but I don't know how regular I'll be. Anyway, I thought I'd post a video today. We've taken Sesame to swimming lessons the last two weeks and she really enjoys it. Apparently, there are a lot of reflexes that can be used to teach her how to swim at such a young age. (She is 11 1/2 weeks old right now.) So, the following video is from her swim class yesterday. There's a bit of swimming and a big finish at the end.

A picture

So. Here's a new picture of our little girl. It's a week or so ago. Casey took a bunch of pictures in our bedroom when the light was perfect. I really like this one. She shows so much interest and wonder in, well, she's not really looking at anything.

Ethics, Values, and Cloth Diapers

I have to differentiate between values and ethics. Trust me, this relates to parenthood, especially in Portland. Values are variable as one's station in life changes. When I was in college, I valued, free time, independence, and my friends. When I was married, I valued "being an adult," supporting my wife, maintaining a job, etc. As a parent, and even when while Casey was pregnant, my values shifted away from personal gain and enjoyment and, instead, toward supporting my daughter and securing her future (as much as I can.)
Being a good steward of creation, reducing waste, eating sustainably, and other environmental concerns (typical Portland) are not mine and Casey's values. Those are part of our ethics. Ethics don't change so easily. They are a part of what we believe is right and honorable. Here's an equation to illustrate: (ethics + station in life = values) It is because of our ethics that we do not eat fast food. It is because of our ethics that we fanatically recycle. It is because of our ethics that we use cloth diapers. My mother doesn't believe that we will stick with cloth diapers. At least, she didn't think we would. It's been almost a month and we still use them. We don't see it as inconvenient. We use cloth diapers because we can't, ethically, use disposable. If other parents want to, I won't judge them (too much), but we simply can't do it.
I'm on the wrong computer to post any good pics of Sesame. I'll try to get a recent one up sometime this week.

Late

So I'm off to a great start here. I forgot to post this past weekend and it's only my second post. I thought about it on Saturday, but put it off for Sunday.
I've got two things for this post...one new insight and one anecdote:
The anecdote happened within hours of my last post. I came home from the coffee shop where I wrote the last post and Casey was up with Sesame. We had received some books for her for when she's older. I decided to read one of them and I chose the one about a girl, Emily, and her daddy. He takes her on his bike to ballet class. These bike rides are special times. Later in the story, Emily begins to ride her own bike. This book hit so close to home and I was already emotionally vulnerable. Halfway through, I had to stop because I was so choked up. After a break, I finished the book, but got totally choked up again. It's weird to me to cry because I'm so happy and full of hope.
I have learned that Sesame decides everything we do. We can make plans to meet up with friends, go to church, etc., but if Sesame is in a fussy mood, we don't leave the house. I'm okay with that, but it's totally new to me.

A New Blog

It's Father's Day and a monumentous one for me; I've been a father for two weeks now. I'll be posting weekly...Saturdays or Sundays about new insights or funny stories about fatherhood. This week will just be background.
My wife, Casey, and I have been married for nearly six years now. We have wanted to have children for a while now, but were in graduate school, then had uncertain careers. Things settled down and we started trying to have kids. Casey told me she was pregnant while I was looking at beer at New Seasons Market. I was thinking, "Which beer do I want?" and she said, "I think I may be pregnant."
I didn't know what she meant by "think I may be" so I asked, "What makes you think you are?"
"Because the pregnancy test said I was."
And there it began. Now, I was excited when we decided to try to get pregnant...anticipation, the thought that we're finally going to do this, but pregnancy was even more exciting. Fast forward 40 weeks and and our daughter wasn't born yet...officially late. Three days later, about 2 AM, and we're leaving for the hospital. It was difficult to see my wife working so hard to give birth, but my daughter is beautiful. Everyone seems to love the pictures of my and her because I look so happy...so they say...and I am happy.
Now, two weeks later and I'm still happy. I don't like screaming in the middle of the night, though. It's not the diaper changing every two to three hours that gets to me. It's when she's screaming and wiggling that gets to me. Nighttime is supposed to be peaceful and she's usually not when her diaper is being changed. I'm learning to be patient.
We had a grand plan about how she would sleep at night: in a bassinet in our bedroom for a month or two and then we'd transition her to the crib in the nursery. So far, she will only sleep in our bed. We've gotten her into a co sleeper attached to the bed for an hour or so at a time, but her plan certainly doesn't jive with ours. Guess who's going to win?
Oh, one more thing. Her name is really unique so I'm not going to reveal it here...at least not for a while. We called her Sesame throughout the pregnancy so I'll stick with that for here.
Okay, that's all for this week.