Lullabies

I sing to my little girl quite often in order to soothe and relax her as she fights sleep. The songs can be anything at all since, at this point, it's just the sound of my voice crooning to her that lulls her to sleep but I still tend to sing one or two very specific songs.

My go-to song is "Goodnight, Demon Slayer" by Voltaire:

I'm still learning the last few verses but the first three or four (plus the chorus) I've memorized and sing to her almost daily. And yes, I will be singing it to her when she can understand the words a bit better. No, that doesn't make me a horrible person.

The song I want to sing to her while she still can't understand words is this one, "Lullaby" by Tim Minchin:

This one I want to sing for her just when she's very, very young for the benefit of the people around me. And yes, this does make me a horrible person.

I'm absolutely okay with that.

Do you have any suggestions for other wonderful lullabies? I'd love to hear them!

Adrenaline At Max

I was making beer batter for some beer-battered onion rings we'll be enjoying later tonight and stopped to check on my little girl. I had put her in her little vibrating chair in the other room in order to help her relax a bit after feeding, hoping she might go to sleep so I could get some work done around the house. She had stopped making fussy noises a few minutes previously so I figured I'd come look at the cute sleeping baby.

So, I came out of the kitchen to a quiet baby staring out the window.

That doesn't quite capture the moment. Let me try again:

I came out of the kitchen to a quiet unmoving baby with half-lidded, unblinking eyes staring glazedly out the window into the light. A baby doing a perfect impression of "play dead."

She's done this before of course; all babies are great at scaring their parents and I've come up with a fool-proof test to prove to myself that she's absolutely fine without really disturbing her very much. I rushed up to her and put my pinkie finger into her open left hand expecting to be quickly reassured when her grip reflex kicked in.

It didn't. Her tiny hand lay limply around my finger.

Panic hit and it hit hard. With one hand I took her by the shoulder and I yelled her name. Immediately she started flailing and crying because daddy had scared her.

I've never been more happy to hear her cry.

Now, oblivious to the heart attack she gave her dear old dad, she's sound asleep again in her chair and I don't want to let her out of my sight. I have things to do around the house but they can wait while I stare at her to watch and make sure she's okay.

Accessorizing With The Baby

You and your baby are going to be inseparable beings for a while. Even if you're not actively holding the baby she/he will be nearby. As such, you may have some important fashion questions.

I'm here to help.

Q: When I'm holding my baby should I hold them on my good side to accentuate how cute we both are, or on my bad side so that nobody notices the bad side and sees only the baby?

A: It's a scientific fact that when you're holding your baby nobody will see your bad side no matter which side they're on. Blemishes? Acne? A large scar running from your forehead to your chin? Doesn't matter! Baby!

Q: What kind of papoose/baby wrap should I wear?

A: The most important thing is to wear a baby wrap that compliments both your skin tone and your baby's. Now, your baby will be dying of embarrassment because she or he will instinctively know that you look ridiculous wearing them around like that so most likely you'll want to compliment a skin tone that's a few shades redder than what you normally see. I suggest something neutral, like a gray to match your ashen skin tone from being up late nights getting absolutely no sleep because of a crying baby. It should also compliment your eyes, which will have gone dull by this point, again due to lack of sleep.

Q: What color clothing goes best with parenthood?

A: I refer you to my previous answer with the neutral colors due to encroaching soullessness.

Q: Is there an easy way to get spit-up out of my outfit?

A: No. Spit-up will never come out of anything it gets into. You should plan on wearing clothing that either makes you look like a hobo from all the stains, is white to hide the stains, or buying new clothing every week or so. Also, if you choose to either hide it or go with the hobo look proudly, expect to smell faintly of curdled cheese at all times.

On the other hand, one positive you can expect from all of this: Don't expect people to actually look much at you; you no longer matter because baby. You can rest easy knowing that your world-weary bags hanging heavily under your eyes, stained clothing, and bad smell won't matter to anybody; they'll be too busy cooing over the beautiful child who will be peacefully sleeping when they come to see you and they'll ask questions like "How do you get her to be so well behaved?"

They won't understand the hysterical laughter that comes burbling out of your lips at that question but you will. You will.

Oh, The Conversations We Have

Mom was working in the office yesterday when I wandered in, baby in hand and proceeded to tell her the following:

"You know, with you working all day and me sleeping all night it's like she only sees us in cycles. We both make her happy when we're around and can do amazing things (when compared to the abilities of an infant who is not yet even six weeks old). We're like her superheroes!"

I thought about it for a moment.

"Yeah! I am Daytime Dad and you are Midnight Mom" I struck a heroic pose. "Together, we fight cries."

The Ones I Love

****

Moving to Virginia to be with Laura and Lois was the best decision I've made in my life.

Sure, my sleep schedule is a little erratic at times due to a little girl waking me up, and maybe I don't get as much done during the day as I'd like to get done because someone is a fake fake faker baby but I can deal with a little sleep deprivation and can give up a few things here and there if it means I get to help raise such a wonderful little girl with an amazing woman.

Sure, sometimes this little girl makes crumple-face and cries for an hour straight for no discernible reason but the 5 minutes of quiet contemplation half an hour afterward where she appears to smile at me (but is actually poopin') and I get to sing her lullabies or whatever little ditty comes into my head makes it all absolutely worthwhile.

This is my daughter, and I am her dad. I never thought that was a title I'd have in my life but I've never been happier to be called something other than my name.

Life has led me somewhere good.

****(Please excuse the truthful sappiness: This post to be held in abeyance for a day that I somehow mess up and make Laura angry with me so that I can point/link to it and have her go "Awww." and completely forget whatever I did that made her upset in the first place. Thank you.)****

The Other Side

I promised in my last update that I would have a picture soon of my little girl that wasn't her sleeping peacefully or lovingly staring into the camera. I knew it wouldn't be difficult to get a picture like this one since she spends her awake time doing one of the three following things:

• Eating
• Pooping
• Crying

If she's awake and seems happy, but doesn't have a boob in her mouth, you can be sure that she's pooping.

So here is the promised picture that most parents don't want you to see because they want you to think that their perfect child is well-behaved at birth and never cries, never disturbs their sleep, never keeps them awake until 2, then waking them at 4 and 6 AM, and then falls asleep around noon for 4 hours. Here it is:

My perfect little girl.

 It's okay though! She quieted down shortly after this picture was taken.

I changed her just a few minutes later.

Fake Fake Faker Baby

All together now: Awww!

This is how we want you to picture our baby when we post pictures of her online: Sleeping, peaceful, serene. We want you to believe that it's all easy, that she's sleeping well through at least most of the night and that we're getting hours and hours of sleep. I mean, just look at her there, all quiet and reposed.

We want you to believe this because we don't want you to know the truth. The awful truth:

Our baby is a liar. A faker. A scam artist.

We will hold her, rock her, feed her, bop her around in a little dance all in an effort to get her to fall asleep so that the two of us might be able to savor a few minutes of time together. Our darling little girl will close her eyes and be lulled into what we are sure must be dreamland. We even wait an extra five to ten minutes sometimes to make sure it's real. Finally we're sure of it: She's asleep in our arms.

We put her down in a crib or her playpen.

Within moments her "Nobody Is Holding Me" Detection Device (patent pending) goes off full steam and she is flailing at the air, her little face screwed up in rage, turning a bright red while screaming at the top of her adorable lungs. (Picture to come later.)

We pick her up, assure her the world is okay, and try to get her to sleep, still wishing that maybe mom and I could even just cuddle for a few minutes. She takes a deep breath and her eyes close. She looks like maybe this time she's really sleeping.

Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Now please pardon me; I can hear her waking back up in the other room from where I placed her 3 minutes ago and I'd like to let mom sleep for a bit longer since she was up all night with a cluster-feeding child.