The Practice Santa

As I sit, watching the governor of my state search desperately for the hottest toy of the season, Turboman, on the day before Christmas, in the movie "Jingle All The Way", I think about my first holiday shopping season as "Santa". (Subsequently, I'm also lamenting voting for a governor based on novelty instead of important things like political history.) Thankfully, this year was relatively easy compared to the frantic last minute shopping seen in that movie.

Although, much of my luck was due to the fact that my daughter isn't old enough to know what a Zhu Zhu Hamster is yet!

Over the past nine months, while I have joked about it on many occasions, one of the best things I've learned about being a new parent is that your first child really does act as a "practice baby" (See my post "The Practice Baby"), because you have the first few years to "get into the swing of things" and figure out your own best (and worst) practices for parenthood.

For example, this year I wanted my daughter's first Christmas to be special, even though she will have no memory of it, so my wife and I started stocking up on Christmas gifts back in October so we could spread out the purchases (and not rack up the credit cards too fast.) While it was nice to slowly amass a pile of new toys for our little one, I realized that it only worked so well because we could hide things in plain site of my daughter, because she wouldn't know the difference.

So, while shopping early helped us build an army of new playthings for our daughter (although, she has already shown more interest in the wrapping paper, rather than what's inside) and avoided a last-minute rush to Toys R Us, a new problem of storage limitations was created, which will need to be solved by next year when she will be more aware of what's going on.

Luckily, I have about 300 more days to find the solution to that problem!

And, back to the Zhu Zhu Hamsters, this year's hottest a toy, a rediculous (aren't they always) $9.99 toy hamster that makes noises and "runs" around your house; I appreciate that my daughter has no concept of what constitutes a "hot" toy and I didn't need to race around town or fight off any angry mobs to get one, and I had no intention of seeking one out.

My wife on the other hand, actually managed to get one, albeit by accident, in the process of doing her "Midnight Madness" shopping on Black Friday Eve with her friend, while my daughter and I actually slept through the night. Apparently the trick to getting the "hot" toy is to start standing in line at Toys R Us at 7 pm on Thanksgiving, and you will be guaranteed one of the last Zhu Zhu Hamsters in stock. Although we had no need or desire for the ten dollar ball of fur, my wife swooped one up and posted it on eBay for a quick profit (that helped pay for some of our Christmas shopping.)

So, even though this is really my "practice year" at playing Santa, and making sure that my daughter's first Christmas is great, I'm appreciative for the chance to figure out what works this year, and finally start some family traditions of my own.

Happy Holidays everyone!

A Parent's Nightmare

Over the last eight months, either by dumb luck or actual parental skill, my wife and I have done a relatively good job of keeping our daughter from getting sick. With the exception of a few runny noses, she had yet to have any kind of major illness (which is also a good thing because I recently discovered that most of the cold remedies for babies have been pulled from store shelves because one of the ingredients was causing throat closures in infants!

We were proud of the fact that our streak of good health had held strong for so long...until this week.

On Tuesday, our daughter had started to get a runny nose, which is nothing out of the ordinary, and it didn't seem to slow her down from bouncing around in her Jumparoo or trying to climb every piece of furniture in our house like it was rock wall. She had had a runny nose on a few occasions before and it wasn't out of the ordinary, especially considering the season and the two days per week she spends in daycare.

That night, however, she started making a wheezing noise while breathing. Again, not seeming to slow her down or dampen her mood we purchased a cold air humidifier to put in her room and thought nothing of it. With the baby monitor on the highest volume setting we listened to her wheeze throughout the night.

She was still asleep when my wife left for work, and even though she had managed to get ten wheezy hours of sleep without a problem, I had planned on calling to set an appointment with our pediatrician when she woke up.

Unfortunately, my daughter had a different idea in mind, because a few minutes after my wife walked out of the house she woke up by screaming, instead of by her normal morning babbling. When I walked into her room I could tell that she seemed to be having trouble breathing, and when I opened up her pajamas i could see her struggling to breath so badly that her chest seemed to be caving in. (I later learned that she was having "chest retractions")

Instead of calling the doctor to set an appointment I called the advice nurse who, after asking me a series of questions, told me to go straight to the emergency room.

The emergency room? I knew that I'd inevitably end up making a frantic run to the emergency room some day, since most kids are accident prone, but I didn't think I would be there with my eight month old daughter. I called my wife to tell her what had happened, grabbed a half empty diaper bag, and got in the car.

Luckily, Wednesday morning isn't a busy time for the emergency room and when we arrived we were not only lead straight to an exam room, but our room quickly filled up with about seven nurses, as one of them said "Don't worry, it's just that there's nothing going on today so everyone is coming to see if they can help."

After a quick albuterol treatment (the stuff in an asthma inhaler) my daughter started breathing much easier, and after a short wait, my wife, who had joined us, and I were lead to get my daughter an x-ray of her chest.

If your infant child has yet to get an x-ray, let me say that it's an experience you are much better not going through. Only one parent is allowed in the room while the x-ray is taking place, so, for "just in case" purposes, my wife stepped out of the room, leaving me to be the luck one to wear the ten-pound lead apron (so that my daughter wouldn't be an only child, if you know what I mean).

Since babies are inherently wiggly, they can't be trusted to lie still on a table during an x-ray. Instead, they are placed into a contraption that looks like some sort of futuristic torture device, that involves them sitting on a "bicycle seat" while two clear plastic "claws" hold them in an upright position with their hands straight up in the air.

The worst part of the process, was that I had to be the one to hold my daughter's hands up, while the x-ray technicians ran (literally) into another room, leaving me wondering if the lead apron was really enough to protect "my boys" and forcing me to watch my daughter look at me with watering crying eyes that asked "Why are you making me do this Daddy?"

After a short wait, and some more albuterol and steroids for my daughter, the doctor came in to tell us that the x-ray's showed the possibility of pneumonia in my daughter's lungs, and that her cough, which sounded like an impression of the sea lions in San Francisco, was most likely croup.

While it wasn't the worst diagnosis we could have received, and certainly not the worst reason to spend half a day at the hospital, it was a little heartbreaking to find out that our daughter was really sick for the first time, and with an illness that can't be treated directly. (Apparently with croup you can only treat the symptoms, not the actual virus that causes it.)

After a few days of running the humidifier 24/7 in whatever room our daughter is in, she seems to be doing better already, and her cough should subside soon. And, as an added bonus, I have been breathing easier than ever!

So, while no parent ever really wants to make that trip to the emergency room, I'm glad that we were able to knock out our first one on something relatively easy to deal with. But, knowing my personal history of proneness to accidents, I'm sure it won't be our last trip.

Top 5 Best Baby Gadgets & Gifts

Since bringing home our daughter, our house has somehow become an annex of the local Babies 'R' Us, as we seem to be collecting every baby gadget and accessory on the market. Some of them have come in extremely handy in making both my mine and my daughter's lives much easier, while some have shown to be an utter waste of money.

Many of the best gadgets, that I've found, are products that have only been on the market for the last several years, so when our parents, or anyone who hasn't had a baby in the last ten years, see them for the first time, they look at us like we're crazy.

So, in the vein of providing guidance to new dads, and parents in general, as well as the impending Holiday shopping season, I've created a list of my top five favorite baby gadgets and accessories, in ascending order:

#5 - Beaba Babycook Baby Food Maker ($149.99) - Although it's a little pricey (which is why it's at the bottom of the list) this baby food maker has come in extremely handy for my wife and I, since our daughter has started solid foods. Basically, it's a food steamer and blender in one device and it allows you to make your own baby food (duh), but more importantly it allows you to better control what goes into your babies mouth. While you may be thinking "Wouldn't it be easier to just open a jar of baby food, than taking the time to steam and blend food for my little tike?" To that I say this: A jar of baby food is about $0.79 and contains one serving of food; A bag of frozen green beans costs about $1.99 and makes about 12 servings of baby food...do the math.

#4 - Graco SnugRider Infant Car Seat Stroller Frame ($69.99) - This gadget really only applies to someone who has a Graco infant car seat, but most car seat manufacturers have their own version of it. Since infants typically shouldn't be placed in the upright position of a traditional stroller until they can hold themselves up, you'll need a stroller option that will hold your infant safely while you are out and about, unless you really want to work you biceps and carry your child in their car seat everywhere. For those parents who may not have gotten a combo travel system, which included an infant car seat and matching stroller, this item is great because it turns your Graco infant car seat into a stroller, and at $69.99 it's much cheaper than most strollers you will find. We used this frame for our daughter's first six months or so, while we researched which stroller we wanted, since our car seat was a hand-me-down Graco and we couldn't find (or didn't like) any of the matching Graco strollers.

#3 -Boppy Pillow ($29.99 - $34.99) - Yes, the Boppy pillow is marketed as a breastfeeding accessory. But, consider the shape...doesn't it remind you of something? An airplane pillow, as seen in Sky Mall perhaps? Not only is the Boppy a great item because it keeps your arms from getting tired while holding your baby for feeding time, but it doubles as a great pillow for those fleeting midday naps on the couch! In fact, I used to wait anxiously for my wife to take our daughter to her room to sleep, so I could steal the Boppy and sack out on the couch! For those of you that enjoy letting your baby nap on you, the Boppy also serves as a great way to wedge your baby around your waist, to free up your hands for other things (like video games!)

#2 - Diaper Genie II Elite ($39.50) - The Diaper Genie, in one of it's many incarnations, are a must-have for anyone who doesn't want their house to smell like baby butt. These handy contraptions operate like a trash can with foot pedal operation, but once the lid opens, the diaper gets dropped into a plastic bag which is then sealed shut once the lid is closed again, effectively locking away all of the smell. Inside, the diapers are contained in a big stinky "sausage" which makes actually makes disposal quite bearable, since the odor is locked inside. However, a word of advice: DO NOT squeeze the excess air out of the bag before taking the "sausage" out to the trash, or your nostrils will be greeted with the smell of concentrated dirty diapers. I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

#1 - Angel Dear 14" x 14" Blankie (aka: "Lovie") ($12.99) - My top pick for baby gadgets and accessories is actually the cheapest thing on the list, and I contend that every baby, or rather every parent, should have a "lovie". This silly little blanket with an animal head on it (available in a variety of colors and animals) has been the biggest helper in getting my daughter to fall asleep. For some reason my daughter's lovie has the same effect as an ether soaked rag, and assuming she is generally tired in the first place I can place the lovie on her face and she will instantly close her eyes and pass out. We have two of them to rotate through, in case one is in the laundry, and on nights when she is having a hard time falling asleep, we can double-team her with lovies for twice the knockout power. (NOTE: Once she is asleep we remove them from her face. I do not endorse letting babies sleep through the night with blankets over their airways...duh)

While the items on this list might not be for everyone, and you may even have opposing views on some of them, all I can recommend is what I have personally found to be the most useful items to me, over the first eight months of my daughter's life. At the very least, I hope I may have given you some gift ideas for the new parents in your life!

Happy Holidays!

I Think I'm Losing My Mind

Previously, I wrote a blog post called "I Think My Baby Is Crazy", but upon further evaluation I believe that it may have been a misdiagnosis. In fact, I think that I'm actually the one going crazy, as a result of fatherhood.

Prior to becoming a father I liked to think of my self as a relatively intelligent man, with a...uh...good...words in my head. (I'm drawing a blank on the word I want to use!) But lately I have been feeling the IQ points fly right out of my ears.

At first, I assumed that my mind loss was a side effect of the sleep deprivation that I endured through the first few weeks of bringing my daughter home from the hospital, but now that she has been sleeping ten to twelve hours a night consistently for the past few months, I can hardly think that my sleep schedule is to blame.

For months now, there have been countless occasions when I have struggled to find the right words to complete my sentences. Even as I type this I keep pausing to remember the "big words" that I am looking for (and some of the small ones too!)

And, my absent mindedness hasn't been limted to a reduced vocabulary, I've also found myself forgetting some of the basic tasks in my daily schedule, like shaving or even forgetting to rinse the shampoo out of my hair before turning the water in the shower off.

On at least three occasions, I have made it all the way to work, and hour into my day, before realizing that I had neglected to feed myself breakfast before leaving the house!

I can't even begin to comprehend how I can forget to do something so vital to living as eating breakfast. Although, when my morning schedule involves waking up, feeding my daughter, taking a shower, prepping her diaper bag, getting her dressed, getting myself dressed, feeding her again, and getting out the door in time to take her to daycare and get myself to work on time, it's understandable that some things could get lost in the shuffle.

I'm confident, or at least hopeful, that my faculties will return to me at some point, because I don't remember my dad being very absent minded when I was growing up, so maybe there's still hope for me.

At the very least, I may have lost my mind, but I haven't lost my hair...yet.