What the hell are shnitzengruben, you may ask? For my cinematically challenged readers, they are the German sausages Lilly Von Schtupp (Madeleine Khan) serves to Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) in Blazing Saddles, prompting an exhausted Bart to declare upon his return to the jailhouse, "Them shnitzengrubens can really wipe you out."
So now, you're saying, it all makes sense. Now that your favorite blogger/two-time parent has had a couple of months to get accustomed to this solo daddy routine, he can safely report that it remains one of the most exhausting regimens one can subject himself to. From the earlier-than-usual rising, to the non-stop calls for entertainment, to the lugging the increasingly heavy car seat around, to the frenzied rushes for warmed-up formula bottles as an end-of-his-wits 5-month old screams in the next room, it is a routine that is not for the squeamish among us 44-year-olds. Never mind the fact that I actually try to work on these days, too.
Take yesterday. A seemingly innocuous day, the highlights of which were a visit my the housekeepers, a trip to the park for some swing time, and the nightly effort to get dinner rolling with a pent-up, babbling baby in tow. Sounds pretty manageable, yes? Well, let's not forget about the other things that weave their way into the day--the driving Jackson to/from soccer practice; the scramble to de-clutter the house so the housekeepers can actually clean; a furious string of emails to schedule an interview for a story I'm working on; the attempt to repair a broken leg on one of our dining room chairs; the calls for paperwork to be faxed (and re-faxed) to my real estate agent cousin, who's helping Sarah short-sell her underwater condo; and, of course, the increasingly impatient catcalls of a baby who no longer is content to stand in his circular activity center and fumble with all the colorful built-in toys surrounding him while Daddy handles the aforementioned tasks.
All of which leads me to this familiar refrain: How do hard-working single parents do it? I'm talking about the ones who have few resources, work multiple jobs, rely on childcare they can't afford, and have no option but to put on a happy face for baby at the end of an exhausting, never-ending, blindingly stressful day. These people are the heroes of modern society, and quite often the ones that ass-backwards laws like Arizona's anti-immigrant stance target.
It's a thought that makes me very thankful to be a privileged, educated, middle-class white man who can work from home and handle the demands of parenthood with aplomb. Now excuse me while I get back to balancing Max on my head as I pay bills, plan dinner, keep my clients at bay, and try to squeeze in some quality time with the human breast-milk factory who shares my bedroom.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
4 Months Old, and Taking Control of His Life Already
You know that feeling you get as the parent of an infant, the one that tells you that your newborn knows something that you don't? Well, go with it, 'cause it's true. I have proof.
Last week (yes, this is evidence of my too-infrequent posting habits--I'll try to pick that up), Sarah's mom was in town, so I got excused from a trip to the pediatrician for Max's 4-month checkup, which includes two shots and an oral vaccine. Mind you, up until this point, all of the previous pediatric appointments--even those that ended with shots--had been joyful occasions (well, up to the insertion of the needle anyway), with Max showing off his numerous wonderful qualities (which obviously have nothing to do with me), and the doctor finding him endlessly entertaining. At one point, she told Sarah, of Max's seemingly excessive nighttime sleeping patterns, "Don't question it--just consider yourself lucky."
Something tells me her tune was a bit different after this latest appointment, in which Max launched into what has been described to me as an epic meltdown. Even though he left the house his usual happy self, he apparently started to crack right as Sarah and her mom walked into the doctor's office with him. He proceeded to cry, louder and louder, throughout every second of the exam, sending unsuspecting infants and their sleep-deprived parents running for cover. I picture it like a grotesque cartoon in which we zoom in on the baby's crying mouth, which is consuming all of its surroundings.
Things got even worse when the doctor decided to find out if a fever might be causing this outburst, and lo and behold, Max's temperature registered at over 100, enough to get any new mother headed down the worry path, and Sarah was no exception. What was especially disturbing about this fever was that there were no signs of it earlier in the morning AND Sarah had given Max a dose of baby Tylenol (since thrown away amid the recall!) in anticipation of the shots. (The previous round of shots was followed by 5 painful days of Max wallowing in discomfort.)
In any case, the upshot of the tantrum and accompanying fever was that the doctor decided to skip the shots and vaccine and have us come back. Which apparently was just what Max had in mind, because by the time he had settled back in at home, and mom and grandma had filled me in on the theatrics, he was back to his normal self. I mean fully back--no crying, no fever, no nothing. And here's the weird part--the fever never returned. It was as if the whole thing never happened.
There's only one conclusion a sane person can draw from this episode: Max did not want those shots. How he knew he was getting them, where he found the inspiration to hatch his diabolical plan, and what gave him the self-awareness to recover so quickly is totally mystifying--not just to me, but to Sarah, her mom, the doctor--everyone involved.
Which brings us back to my original point, about your baby knowing something you don't. That something is how to really best meet his needs. Because heaven knows, his needs do not include pulling his pant leg so a giant stranger can jam a needle into his thigh. I just hope it's not a foreshadowing of what will occur the first time we ask him to clean up his room. I have to admit, though, I'm thinking about using his strategy the next time I'm asked to spend my weekend doing yard work.
Last week (yes, this is evidence of my too-infrequent posting habits--I'll try to pick that up), Sarah's mom was in town, so I got excused from a trip to the pediatrician for Max's 4-month checkup, which includes two shots and an oral vaccine. Mind you, up until this point, all of the previous pediatric appointments--even those that ended with shots--had been joyful occasions (well, up to the insertion of the needle anyway), with Max showing off his numerous wonderful qualities (which obviously have nothing to do with me), and the doctor finding him endlessly entertaining. At one point, she told Sarah, of Max's seemingly excessive nighttime sleeping patterns, "Don't question it--just consider yourself lucky."
Something tells me her tune was a bit different after this latest appointment, in which Max launched into what has been described to me as an epic meltdown. Even though he left the house his usual happy self, he apparently started to crack right as Sarah and her mom walked into the doctor's office with him. He proceeded to cry, louder and louder, throughout every second of the exam, sending unsuspecting infants and their sleep-deprived parents running for cover. I picture it like a grotesque cartoon in which we zoom in on the baby's crying mouth, which is consuming all of its surroundings.Things got even worse when the doctor decided to find out if a fever might be causing this outburst, and lo and behold, Max's temperature registered at over 100, enough to get any new mother headed down the worry path, and Sarah was no exception. What was especially disturbing about this fever was that there were no signs of it earlier in the morning AND Sarah had given Max a dose of baby Tylenol (since thrown away amid the recall!) in anticipation of the shots. (The previous round of shots was followed by 5 painful days of Max wallowing in discomfort.)
In any case, the upshot of the tantrum and accompanying fever was that the doctor decided to skip the shots and vaccine and have us come back. Which apparently was just what Max had in mind, because by the time he had settled back in at home, and mom and grandma had filled me in on the theatrics, he was back to his normal self. I mean fully back--no crying, no fever, no nothing. And here's the weird part--the fever never returned. It was as if the whole thing never happened.
There's only one conclusion a sane person can draw from this episode: Max did not want those shots. How he knew he was getting them, where he found the inspiration to hatch his diabolical plan, and what gave him the self-awareness to recover so quickly is totally mystifying--not just to me, but to Sarah, her mom, the doctor--everyone involved.
Which brings us back to my original point, about your baby knowing something you don't. That something is how to really best meet his needs. Because heaven knows, his needs do not include pulling his pant leg so a giant stranger can jam a needle into his thigh. I just hope it's not a foreshadowing of what will occur the first time we ask him to clean up his room. I have to admit, though, I'm thinking about using his strategy the next time I'm asked to spend my weekend doing yard work.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Ladies and Gentlemen, We May Have a Giant On Our Hands
Nothing in my family history suggests that I was due to have a big kid. In the 150-plus years of Kontzer/Ledner family history, the tallest person I'm aware of is my brother, who stands a whopping 5-10, maybe 5-10 1/2. I, on the other hand, topped off at about 5-7 1/2. Sarah's family's not exactly huge either. A bit taller than mine, but only one or two relatives that eclipsed the six-foot mark.
So imagine my surprise as I've watched my little Max's height and weight track well above the middle of the curve at his pediatric appointments. Today, a woman at the dog park said, "what's he, 6, maybe 8 months?" When I answered, no, actually, he just hit 4 months, she was visibly shocked. "Wow, he's a big one."
This might have something to do with his seemingly endless and insatiable appetite. Max eats noticeably more than Jackson did as a baby, which should be no surprise to anyone who's privy to Jackson's current eating habits. (No breakfast, no lunch to speak of, a snack under duress before soccer practice...it's not a pretty picture.)
Come to think of it, Max's car seat has gotten pretty heavy to lug in a hurry. He's outgrown much of his 3-6 month clothes and is already wearing a lot of 6-12 month stuff. His head is the size of a small watermelon. His legs look like standing rib roasts. Trying to wipe away spit-up that's found its way into the folds of his neck is like trying to retrieve a pen that's fallen between the driver's seat and center console of your car.
But if all of that ends up with me having a son who can push around opponents in the key, see over people in a crowd, or get things down from the top shelf without a step-ladder, then it will have been worth the back strains and longer-then-expected feedings.
So imagine my surprise as I've watched my little Max's height and weight track well above the middle of the curve at his pediatric appointments. Today, a woman at the dog park said, "what's he, 6, maybe 8 months?" When I answered, no, actually, he just hit 4 months, she was visibly shocked. "Wow, he's a big one."
This might have something to do with his seemingly endless and insatiable appetite. Max eats noticeably more than Jackson did as a baby, which should be no surprise to anyone who's privy to Jackson's current eating habits. (No breakfast, no lunch to speak of, a snack under duress before soccer practice...it's not a pretty picture.)
Come to think of it, Max's car seat has gotten pretty heavy to lug in a hurry. He's outgrown much of his 3-6 month clothes and is already wearing a lot of 6-12 month stuff. His head is the size of a small watermelon. His legs look like standing rib roasts. Trying to wipe away spit-up that's found its way into the folds of his neck is like trying to retrieve a pen that's fallen between the driver's seat and center console of your car.
But if all of that ends up with me having a son who can push around opponents in the key, see over people in a crowd, or get things down from the top shelf without a step-ladder, then it will have been worth the back strains and longer-then-expected feedings.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Day in the Life of Daddy and Baby
It's day one of week two of the Sarah-Goes-Back-To-Work Non-Experiment, and, from a fathering perspective, it's been wonderful. Don't tell Sarah, but Max is much less fussy and much more in the flow when she's gone. No surprise there--there are no boobies to latch onto, or be tempted to latch onto, or to communicate spiritually to him, calling "Max, over here, two ripe nipples with all the sweet mother's milk you need, and all ya gotta do is cry!"
Nope, it's just him and me, man to, uh, man, mano a mano, tête-à-tête. The showdown at the O.K. Changing Table. But seriously, it's been more like one of those buddy films, only instead of two cops chasing bad guys, it's a bald, middle-aged writer and a drooling, babbling infant prowling the streets of Albany, California. With each day that we spend together, we develop an ever-more comfortable rhythm to our day, which goes something like this:
8 am: Baby wakes up after his typical 10-11 hour sleep, and Mommy nurses while Daddy reads the paper in the "office"
9 am: Daddy has all the intention in the world of getting up and going for a run, but instead just stays in bed with Mommy and Baby.
10 am: Mommy leaves for work
10-11 am: Daddy makes ridiculous faces and even more ridiculous noises as he manipulates Baby's body in ways that clearly please him judging from the onslaught of smiles and spit-up.
11-11:30 am: Baby sits in his little spinny toy, or on his baby chair on the dining table, while Daddy checks email and gets a bit of work done.
11:30: Baby downs a bottle of sweet mother's nectar, then begins rubbing his face, and lays down in his crib and naps until about 1.
1-2 pm: A repeat of 10-11 am, only this time Daddy tries to get lunch eaten during this time because he was too stupid to make himself get that done while Baby was asleep.
2 pm: Baby downs another few ounces of milk, Daddy eats his now-cold leftovers, and then it's time for a walk.
2:30-3:30 pm: Daddy struggles through the neighborhood with a stroller and two crazy terriers (at least when Sarah's dog, who's usually in the custody of her ex-husband, is visiting, which he is now), a tangled mess of wheels and leashes and spit-up devastating all in its path.
3:30-4:30 pm: Baby, who has fallen asleep on way home, naps while dad catches up on some email and starts to think about that dreaded topic--dinner.
4:30-6 pm: This is the most chaotic time of the day, with soccer practices, grocery shopping, and other errands always seeming to pile up.
6 pm: Baby gets tired once again, goes down for another cat nap, sometimes after a bit more milk, sometimes not. Daddy starts assembling the elements of dinner, trying not to make any noise loud enough to wake up Baby.
7:15 pm: Baby, seemingly detecting that mommy's breasts, which are now on the way home, have entered within a 5 mile radius, begins to become hysterical.
7:40: Mommy pulls up, causing a huge sigh of relief in Daddy and a sudden burst of joy in Baby, and all is well with the world.
8:25: After nursing, and just as the rest of us are about to eat, Baby's bowel explodes up his back and down his legs, and Mommy and Daddy finally get to sit down to eat about 8:45, after de-poopifying their hands and arms.
9:30: One final nightcap on the breast, and Baby goes down for the night. Daddy foolishly stays up another 4 hours, only to pay the price with another wonderfully relentless next day.
Really, what it all adds up to is this: Stay-at-home Daddy is the best job in the world. And the boss is simply the best; he can't even dress himself or form a sentence. Who doesn't want a boss like that?
Nope, it's just him and me, man to, uh, man, mano a mano, tête-à-tête. The showdown at the O.K. Changing Table. But seriously, it's been more like one of those buddy films, only instead of two cops chasing bad guys, it's a bald, middle-aged writer and a drooling, babbling infant prowling the streets of Albany, California. With each day that we spend together, we develop an ever-more comfortable rhythm to our day, which goes something like this:
8 am: Baby wakes up after his typical 10-11 hour sleep, and Mommy nurses while Daddy reads the paper in the "office"
9 am: Daddy has all the intention in the world of getting up and going for a run, but instead just stays in bed with Mommy and Baby.
10 am: Mommy leaves for work
10-11 am: Daddy makes ridiculous faces and even more ridiculous noises as he manipulates Baby's body in ways that clearly please him judging from the onslaught of smiles and spit-up.
11-11:30 am: Baby sits in his little spinny toy, or on his baby chair on the dining table, while Daddy checks email and gets a bit of work done.
11:30: Baby downs a bottle of sweet mother's nectar, then begins rubbing his face, and lays down in his crib and naps until about 1.
1-2 pm: A repeat of 10-11 am, only this time Daddy tries to get lunch eaten during this time because he was too stupid to make himself get that done while Baby was asleep.
2 pm: Baby downs another few ounces of milk, Daddy eats his now-cold leftovers, and then it's time for a walk.
2:30-3:30 pm: Daddy struggles through the neighborhood with a stroller and two crazy terriers (at least when Sarah's dog, who's usually in the custody of her ex-husband, is visiting, which he is now), a tangled mess of wheels and leashes and spit-up devastating all in its path.
3:30-4:30 pm: Baby, who has fallen asleep on way home, naps while dad catches up on some email and starts to think about that dreaded topic--dinner.
4:30-6 pm: This is the most chaotic time of the day, with soccer practices, grocery shopping, and other errands always seeming to pile up.
6 pm: Baby gets tired once again, goes down for another cat nap, sometimes after a bit more milk, sometimes not. Daddy starts assembling the elements of dinner, trying not to make any noise loud enough to wake up Baby.
7:15 pm: Baby, seemingly detecting that mommy's breasts, which are now on the way home, have entered within a 5 mile radius, begins to become hysterical.
7:40: Mommy pulls up, causing a huge sigh of relief in Daddy and a sudden burst of joy in Baby, and all is well with the world.
8:25: After nursing, and just as the rest of us are about to eat, Baby's bowel explodes up his back and down his legs, and Mommy and Daddy finally get to sit down to eat about 8:45, after de-poopifying their hands and arms.
9:30: One final nightcap on the breast, and Baby goes down for the night. Daddy foolishly stays up another 4 hours, only to pay the price with another wonderfully relentless next day.
Really, what it all adds up to is this: Stay-at-home Daddy is the best job in the world. And the boss is simply the best; he can't even dress himself or form a sentence. Who doesn't want a boss like that?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Life's First Wonderful Gift
Anyone who's raised a child knows that after those first weeks of infancy, a magical thing happens: Your child discovers the gift of joy.
There is nothing quite so spirit-filling as seeing your baby's glowing face smile at your expanding attempts to entertain him or her. And let me tell ya, my spirit's been getting its fill these past couple of weeks as Max responds with growing enthusiasm to our raspberries, kisses, and increasingly aggressive manipulations of his little body. We've moved on to the stage of arm-waving, torso-tickling, and up-and-down bouncing.
All of which is making mornings quite the happy little scene in our bedroom. After Max nurses, Sarah and I spend what seems like an eternity lying in bed, propping max on our bellies and watching him laugh and smile and yelp with glee as we run through a combination of tried-and-true happiness inducers and new attempts to push his joy to new levels. Like this week, I introduced turning him upside down and gently flipping him. He's not sure he likes it, but he hasn't complained, so I have no intention of pulling back.
One thing that's making me highly focused on fully enjoying this ritual each day is the fact that when Sarah asks me if I remember this or that from Jackson's first months, my answer is almost always no. The memories are fleeting, having been overtaken by years of school and soccer and neighborhood play and trauma and life changes and pre-adolescence. I do, however, still have total recall of lines from 70s movies, so I'm not sure why my child's development is a fading memory. The subtleties of the human brain aren't exactly my area of expertise.
What I do know is that my surviving memories of Jackson as a baby are a lot more uniformly positive than the memories I'll have of him as a pre-teen. Living with a pre-teen is like having a roommate--one who doesn't pay for anything, leaves lots of messes, and likes to insult me as many times as possible each day.
Eventually, the same will probably be true of Max, so for the time being, I'll just keep soaking up his joyful embracing of the world and try not to think about the snotty little roommate he'll eventually turn into. There will be plenty of time for that nonsense.
There is nothing quite so spirit-filling as seeing your baby's glowing face smile at your expanding attempts to entertain him or her. And let me tell ya, my spirit's been getting its fill these past couple of weeks as Max responds with growing enthusiasm to our raspberries, kisses, and increasingly aggressive manipulations of his little body. We've moved on to the stage of arm-waving, torso-tickling, and up-and-down bouncing.
All of which is making mornings quite the happy little scene in our bedroom. After Max nurses, Sarah and I spend what seems like an eternity lying in bed, propping max on our bellies and watching him laugh and smile and yelp with glee as we run through a combination of tried-and-true happiness inducers and new attempts to push his joy to new levels. Like this week, I introduced turning him upside down and gently flipping him. He's not sure he likes it, but he hasn't complained, so I have no intention of pulling back.
One thing that's making me highly focused on fully enjoying this ritual each day is the fact that when Sarah asks me if I remember this or that from Jackson's first months, my answer is almost always no. The memories are fleeting, having been overtaken by years of school and soccer and neighborhood play and trauma and life changes and pre-adolescence. I do, however, still have total recall of lines from 70s movies, so I'm not sure why my child's development is a fading memory. The subtleties of the human brain aren't exactly my area of expertise.
What I do know is that my surviving memories of Jackson as a baby are a lot more uniformly positive than the memories I'll have of him as a pre-teen. Living with a pre-teen is like having a roommate--one who doesn't pay for anything, leaves lots of messes, and likes to insult me as many times as possible each day.
Eventually, the same will probably be true of Max, so for the time being, I'll just keep soaking up his joyful embracing of the world and try not to think about the snotty little roommate he'll eventually turn into. There will be plenty of time for that nonsense.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Deja Vu All Over Again
With Sarah just 9 days from returning to work as an operating room nurse at UCSF Medical Center, I find myself facing my second go-round as a sometimes solo stay-at-home, self-employed dad. Starting April 5, I'll have 3 days a week holding down the fort myself, and in a way, I'm kinda looking forward to it.
Not that I want Sarah back at work--although the re-appearance of her income will be very welcome. But let's face it, dads are second class citizens at this stage so long as moms are around. When mom's not in the room, though, it's a different story. Suddenly, dad's antics are the focus of baby's attention. In other words, with no udders to distract Max, I figure he and I will bond as never before.
Sarah, conversely, is most definitely not looking forward to her return to the O.R. She and Max have been pretty much inseparable these first 3 months, and it will be no easy task for her to suddenly be away from him for 10-hour stretches (including commute times). I anticipate getting multiple calls each shift those first several weeks, as mom worries whether her baby is safe with dad.
A reasonable worry, as it turns out, as I've had two little accidents that have inflicted pain upon Max. The first was at a birthday party for a set of two-year-old twins, when I managed to scrape the top of Max's head against the door frame while walking out of the kitchen. After a stunned two seconds, Max let out a blood-curdling scream that made me the story of the party. Sarah was NOT a happy camper, but in my own defense, it really was just a mild scrape.
Then, a day or two ago while I was re-dressing Max after a diaper change, I somehow managed to close a snap on his shirt and catch a small piece of skin on his back, causing him to let loose with an even MORE blood-curdling scream. I did my best to soothe him, but let's face it--the damage was done. Now I'll know what's going on 20 years from now when he breaks into a sob whenever he hears me snap my pants.
So, as Sarah's return to work--and subsequent panic over letting the baby out of her sight--approaches, my strategy is to acknowledge that yes, I'm like most dads. There will be accidents--a scrape here, a cut there, a bruise every now and then--but I'll keep the damage to small stuff. I've been parenting and step-parenting for 18 years now, and no one's ever been seriously hurt or emotionally scarred on my watch. I'm sure that's gotta qualify me for some kind of fatherhood lifetime achievement award, no?
Not that I want Sarah back at work--although the re-appearance of her income will be very welcome. But let's face it, dads are second class citizens at this stage so long as moms are around. When mom's not in the room, though, it's a different story. Suddenly, dad's antics are the focus of baby's attention. In other words, with no udders to distract Max, I figure he and I will bond as never before.
Sarah, conversely, is most definitely not looking forward to her return to the O.R. She and Max have been pretty much inseparable these first 3 months, and it will be no easy task for her to suddenly be away from him for 10-hour stretches (including commute times). I anticipate getting multiple calls each shift those first several weeks, as mom worries whether her baby is safe with dad.
A reasonable worry, as it turns out, as I've had two little accidents that have inflicted pain upon Max. The first was at a birthday party for a set of two-year-old twins, when I managed to scrape the top of Max's head against the door frame while walking out of the kitchen. After a stunned two seconds, Max let out a blood-curdling scream that made me the story of the party. Sarah was NOT a happy camper, but in my own defense, it really was just a mild scrape.
Then, a day or two ago while I was re-dressing Max after a diaper change, I somehow managed to close a snap on his shirt and catch a small piece of skin on his back, causing him to let loose with an even MORE blood-curdling scream. I did my best to soothe him, but let's face it--the damage was done. Now I'll know what's going on 20 years from now when he breaks into a sob whenever he hears me snap my pants.
So, as Sarah's return to work--and subsequent panic over letting the baby out of her sight--approaches, my strategy is to acknowledge that yes, I'm like most dads. There will be accidents--a scrape here, a cut there, a bruise every now and then--but I'll keep the damage to small stuff. I've been parenting and step-parenting for 18 years now, and no one's ever been seriously hurt or emotionally scarred on my watch. I'm sure that's gotta qualify me for some kind of fatherhood lifetime achievement award, no?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
For Good or Bad, I've Only Got One Heart
Soon after Max was born, Sarah and I posted photos to our Facebook pages, and when we got to the part where you write captions, Sarah wrote something so beautiful it stunned me: "My heart that beats outside my body." With those seven words, Sarah punched me with a reality I can't begin to understand.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I can understand the extreme tie we have with our children that causes us to feel their pain, revel in their happiness, and innately know what buttons to push. (That is, until they're about 9 or 10--after that, best of luck.) What I'll never be able to comprehend is the physical and emotional cabling that exists between mother and baby.
I didn't notice this as much the first time, mostly because I was so ga-ga myself and Jackson was his mom's third child. But watching Sarah discover motherhood has been truly fascinating, as has witnessing the bond between mother and baby form. The two of them hinge on everything the other does. When Sarah walks through the room, Max's attention is immediately averted, and it almost seems like he casts a fetching look upon her bosoms. As soon as hunger strikes, anyone who doesn't possess one of those bosoms becomes immediately irrelevant.
Likewise, Sarah's every thought revolves around Max. When she walks in the door, whereas her greeting used to be, seriously, "Hello, my love," now it's "How's my baby?" And she ain't talking about me. In the middle of the night, Sarah can sleep right through my coming in to the bedroom from a late-night work stint, showering in our adjacent bathroom, brushing my teeth, opening and closing drawers, climbing into bed, forcefully fluffing my pillows and, ultimately, cuddling up to her. But a half-hour later, if Max lets out so much as a whimper from the next room, Sarah's boobs start oozing a puddle in the bed and she asks me to go get him.
And I haven't even gotten to my efforts at lovemaking being met not just by the prerequisite post-birth sexual malaise, but also by a torrent of breast milk squirting all over me. But I digress.
The point is--what was the point? Oh, yes, that thing about Max being Sarah's heart beating outside her body. It's a description only a mother could grasp, and is probably at the root of about 93% of later marital conflict.
"You always babied him."
"At least I HAVE a relationship with him."
"Well, he and I would be closer if you hadn't always been smothering him."
"I just wanted to make sure he didn't turn out to be an asshole like you."
I digress again...in any case, that oneness--the beating heart and all--will evolve into a constant state of fretting and worrying that will dwarf anything that I, as a dad, will ever feel. So today I consider myself both lucky and unlucky. Lucky in that I don't have to endure the emotional roller coaster of motherhood, and unlucky in that I don't get to.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I can understand the extreme tie we have with our children that causes us to feel their pain, revel in their happiness, and innately know what buttons to push. (That is, until they're about 9 or 10--after that, best of luck.) What I'll never be able to comprehend is the physical and emotional cabling that exists between mother and baby.
I didn't notice this as much the first time, mostly because I was so ga-ga myself and Jackson was his mom's third child. But watching Sarah discover motherhood has been truly fascinating, as has witnessing the bond between mother and baby form. The two of them hinge on everything the other does. When Sarah walks through the room, Max's attention is immediately averted, and it almost seems like he casts a fetching look upon her bosoms. As soon as hunger strikes, anyone who doesn't possess one of those bosoms becomes immediately irrelevant.
Likewise, Sarah's every thought revolves around Max. When she walks in the door, whereas her greeting used to be, seriously, "Hello, my love," now it's "How's my baby?" And she ain't talking about me. In the middle of the night, Sarah can sleep right through my coming in to the bedroom from a late-night work stint, showering in our adjacent bathroom, brushing my teeth, opening and closing drawers, climbing into bed, forcefully fluffing my pillows and, ultimately, cuddling up to her. But a half-hour later, if Max lets out so much as a whimper from the next room, Sarah's boobs start oozing a puddle in the bed and she asks me to go get him.
And I haven't even gotten to my efforts at lovemaking being met not just by the prerequisite post-birth sexual malaise, but also by a torrent of breast milk squirting all over me. But I digress.
The point is--what was the point? Oh, yes, that thing about Max being Sarah's heart beating outside her body. It's a description only a mother could grasp, and is probably at the root of about 93% of later marital conflict.
"You always babied him."
"At least I HAVE a relationship with him."
"Well, he and I would be closer if you hadn't always been smothering him."
"I just wanted to make sure he didn't turn out to be an asshole like you."
I digress again...in any case, that oneness--the beating heart and all--will evolve into a constant state of fretting and worrying that will dwarf anything that I, as a dad, will ever feel. So today I consider myself both lucky and unlucky. Lucky in that I don't have to endure the emotional roller coaster of motherhood, and unlucky in that I don't get to.
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