No "I" in Team

I was going to liken pacing with Zinnia in the mid-late evening hours as my own personal Bataan Death March, but after a little research, I decided to compare my hyperbolic struggles as a father to this sordid epoch in human history would besmirch the memory of those men who lost their lives during the march. Let me say, instead, that when one returns home exhausted from the day and one's four month-old requires one to have some extra pep in the step, one begins to feel as if one is wearing leaden house slippers.

We weighed Z. today. She came in just shy of of 15 pounds, the same weight as three 5 pound sacks of sugar, 10 dozen eggs, two gallons of water, or a sperm whale's brain. It would not be un-apropos--that is, it would be extremely apropos--to compare Z. to the famed children's toy, the water wiggler ...

... only if said wiggler were two feet long, hated to be put down, and cried the moment it didn't get its way.

Irrationally, when swimming through the late night quicksand, I sometimes resent (albeit briefly) baby and mother alike. And I've noticed the more I pray for Zinnia to go to sleep, the more her body is infused with the caffeine of life. During these moments, I am decidedly not in my happy place. I look down at this baby who, as far as babies go, is actually quite easy and delightful, and feel a grim resolution to walk her into blessed slumber.* Not quite the picture of joie de vivre that a father hopes to strike.

I have been hitting the parenting wall in a number of ways of late. And the husbanding as well. And also the professional wall. I sometimes find myself sitting across from a client whom I aspire to inflame towards being more open-hearted while I myself am straining to keep my own personal feelings of asshole-ishness at bay:

"... so take a few breaths," I coach the client, "and notice what you're feeling in this moment."

I can't believe Jenn started to fucking clank the dishes around last night while I was trying to walk Zinnia to sleep.

"Good. Now, with your eyes closed , notice where you feel that in your body. Breathe into the heart of the emotion ..."

I mean, I'm trying to get our kid to go to sleep, and she's running the fucking garbage disposal? Then decides that that would be the perfect time to start a load of wash.

" ... no need to push away or change it somehow. Just breathe and feel."

I get that she 's doing most of the late night duties--alright, all of it--but still, my job is ... well, what am I, chopped liver? I'm already fucking exhausted and trying to calm Zinnia down and ... and... and...

" ... now what are you noticing? Calmer? Good, let yourself experience calmness, merely because that is what's going on in your body in this moment ..."

Shift. Need to shift. Zinnia is a sponge and absorbs my negative energy. Love, love, love ... Get present ... But how can Jenn not get that when Zinnia is going to sleep, I want our home to be a sensory deprivation tank.

"Your noticing some tension in your back?" I say leaning forward. "Wonderful. Now breathe into it, fully experience the tension. No need to judge or analyze. Just breathe and feel ... "

Still, I can't believe that ...

The esteem in which the reader no doubt holds the author aside, these are not my finest moments. Resenting my four month old daughter for not going to sleep is a sure recipe for Asshole pie a la mode, with a scoop of resentment toward my wife for not reading my mind. And yes, yes, I understand this is the overreaction of a new parent learning the ropes. Of late, however, my irritability has been more pronounced.

At a friends house last Friday, I snapped at Jenn--quietly, but pointedly--when she tried to put a blanket on our nearly-sleeping daughter. It was a very reasonable thing for a loving mother to do, but also in stark relief to my dictum: "Always let sleeping babies lie."

There's a Buddhist parable: If a dove were to fly over the highest mountain once every thousand years carrying in its beak a long, sheer silk scarf, the number of years it would take for that scarf to wear the mountain down to dust is the amount of lifetimes we have lived, as we reincarnate over and over and over again.

Here's what I want to know: How is it that Zinnia can sleep through the clanging of pots and pans, semi-trucks steaming by, the rattle of the dryer, and Duma setting off an industrial-sized air horns I carelessly left on the cat tree, but my lovely daughter will stir at the slightest rustle of silk-upon-silk when I pull back the covers in an attempt to work my way into bed?

If it were 11:59 p.m. on the 364th day of year 999, and that Buddhist dove decided for the first time in history--just for a change of pace--it would soar over Sandia Peak, well, if Zinnia were napping in that miraculous moment, I have little doubt her eyes would fly open from the racket, and she would rain bitter tears from the horrible, horrible disturbance.

Thus, when Jenn started to cover Zinnia with a blanket, as soon as she felt the fabric floating down upon her like a blessing, Z. shifted and stirred. I looked at Jenn and said with a quiet snip, "You can futz with her when you're holding her," and pushed the blanket aside.

Jenn put on a good face, but she looked as if she had been slapped. I felt terrible, but hid it beneath a soap box built of exhaustion and self-righteous indignation.

"Hey," Jenn said the next day from the kitchen. "We're on the same team here. I'm trying to do what's best for Zinnia just like you."*

True enough, and I felt a wave of gratitude (and a smattering of shame) for her honest confrontation.

I have very little memory of my parents ever working as a team. It seemed to me that, early on, they went from a kind of fragile truce to frequent skirmishes, to all out war; only it was war of attrition, where my mother, in her pain and fear, was always on the offensive until my father finally wore down to a passive-aggressive nub. It is quite possible that in my desire to not be a punching bag like my father, I have overcompensated in the other direction, invoking the spirit of--yikes!--my mother. I sometimes hear her harsh, judging voice broadcasting in my brain on radio KFUK and subtly play out some of the hard lessons I learned as a child.

Several weeks ago, I was holding Zinnia while she fussed about something or other, and I looked down at this baby, the picture of total innocence and trust, and repeated to her the paranoid mantra under whose banner I was raised: "You're just doing this to spite me!"

I uttered the phrase tongue firmly in cheek, but it was such and absurd thing to say to this beautiful little girl, that I laughed until I cried. I felt sense of release wash over me as this demon, my life long companion, shrunk to the size of a walnut.

*Note: The last two nights--not entirely successfully.

**A wonderful thing, to have a wife and friends who love me enough to call me on my shit. The trick is to find compassion for myself in the place where, as one friend said recently, one feels devastated and helpless about one's reactions to life. She actually said this in relation to the fertile and excruciating ground that hating someone can provide in ones life, but still applicable.

Six-and-a-Half Hours

When Jenn got home from her mama/baby's group with Zinnia, I was busy pedaling away on the stationary bike. We had recently moved it in from the garage and planted it by the front entryway so I could maintain my sanity with regular exercise. Frankly, I'm not sure how we ever got by without a recumbent bike in our living room. From a Feng Shui perspective, it sort of brought the whole room together.

"I don't mean to brag or anything ..."

Jenn waited patiently for me to complete my sentence. She had heard it before.

"... I mean, I wouldn't say we have THE cutest baby in the world, but I would say she's probably in the top three." Pause. "Maybe the top two. Tell me, are the other mothers in the group jealous of Zinnia's beauty and overall talent? If she's going to be the Savior of the World, she's going to have to get used to being the center of attention, maybe learn how to drool a little less as she gets older."

Jenn put down her Baby Bag--a canvas tote with a floral design stuffed with diapers, wipes, a change of clothes for both mother and child, a bottle of water as well as two or three bottles of formula, a fuzzy blanket, socks, a little knit hat, some energy bars, an apple, and some plastic toys for Zinnia to gum--and began to tell me about her group. The mama/babies meet every- other-week for support and to socialize, and so the babies have a chance to demonstrate their skill, talent, and overall beauty.

Zinnia was cradled in Jenn's arms as we spoke. When Jenn started to head toward the back to use the bathroom, Zinnia leaned toward me and reached her little arm out in my direction. The gesture surprised both of us. Zinnia had never so obviously indicated her desire to be transferred from one parent to the other before. I felt a little awe, and the shutters of my heart--as is so often the case these days--once again shot open.

Parenthood, of course, is one long litany of one first after the next. Indeed, last Sunday was my first full day alone with Zinnia. By myself. Me. Zinnia. Alone.

Jenn had gone off to peddle her wares at a craft show--a fundraiser for a birthing center--leaving me with the Herculean-task of spending six-and-a-half, unabated hours with our daughter. Gasp! the reader might well exclaim, but I swear it's true. And I don't mean to brag or anything ... but ... well, her is a retro-diary of the day:

11:00--Jenn prepares to leave while Zinnia sleeps in the rear bedroom. I speak to her in semi-hushed tone so as to honor my often cited credo: "Always let sleeping babies lie." Jenn is speaking in normal tones and telling me what she wants loaded up in the truck.

11:07--She leaves. A brave thing for a new mother to do--to "abandon" her baby daughter like this for the first real stretch of time. I imagine there is an primal, Oh-My-God-I-Hope-My Child-Is-Still-Alive-When-I-Get-Home anxiety that accompanies this first outing for many mothers.

(Jenn told me later that a wave of fathers-with-babies made their appearance at around the 2-3 hour mark. Whether this was at the request of the various mothers working the event or the men had simply hit their collective babysitting walls, we'll never know. When I heard this, I will own to having a feeling of smug pride at having survived the entire day with my own daughter. Alone. By myself. Me.)

11:23--It's Aliiivve! Zinnia stirs. I go back to the rear bedroom where my daughter is flailing and thrashing about in her blanket, as if to say, "Enough! It is time for me explore the mysteries of the universe. But first, slave, bring me a bottle, and change this soiled diaper! Chop, chop!"
Let it be written, let it be done.

11:35--With a full belly and loins freshly girded, we emerge to ... do what exactly? We decide to mill about for a bit.

"I know," I say, "lets go pet Duma the kitty .... Okay, now lets go say hi to Honey."

Elapsed time: One minute, thirty seconds.

11:37--I strap Zinnia into the Baby Ka'tan and check the football scores. The K'tan is a sling comprised of two loops of fabric bound together by a sturdy ring of cotton. One of the loops--well, lets find a picture online:

Looks like a sumo loincloth, doesn't it? When occupied by a baby, it looks like this:

Or this

It even comes in a camo design in case one happens to find oneself, you know, in the underbrush with one's baby while stalking a 12 point buck:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the K'tan is a lifesaver-and-a-half. It frees up a parents hands to do other things like ... like ...

11:43 I pace back-and-forth with Zinnia, Raffi blasting over quad Blaupunkts in the background. She stays calm for a good 35 minutes before she starts to get squirmy.

12:18: She gets a little squrmier.

12:19: Z. lips curl into a pout.

12:19.30: I remove Zinnia from the sling and put her in the bouncy chair. She squawks in protest.

"Papa, why are you placing me in this apparatus? Do you not understand by now how I like to be mobile? The intractable call of my soul dictates that I explore the world; I must saturate my senses, express my vocal range, use my physical body to become one with space and time while ... "

To the outside observer it sounds like this: "Waaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!

12:20 Z. settles down and sucks on her bottle. She polishes it off like an alcoholic at last-call.

12:22--I scoop her out of the chair and we head back to the bedroom where I prop her up on her own feet before letting her free fall into the down comforter. It evokes a giggle. Repeat.

12:30--Tummy time. Z. rolls over with regularity, but can't quite free her bottom arm which she often finds pinned under her body. Duma the Cat comes in to explore the ruckus. She looks at Zinnia and gives her foot a perfunctory sniff. Oh, it's you. Duma saunters out as quickly as she appeared.

12:40--Time to go for a walk. On these occasions, I ask myself, "How would mommy dress you?" then dial it back a layer. I change Zinnie's diaper, put on an extra pair of socks, her pink fuzzy bunny jacket, pack two bottles (formula and water), put her in the stroller, and off we go.

She cranes her neck over the small, brown comforter I've crammed around her legs and upper body so she can see over the blanket's puffiness. She looks for all intent and purpose as if she's going out for a one-horse open sleigh ride.*

We strike out for the outback (i.e. the bike trail behind our housing complex), and walk a loop that--best approximation--is roughly 1.66 miles. Zinnia likes movement--loves movement--and she starts to babble as we make the turn northward to head back to the house. Her babbling suddenly stops, and I peak inside the stroller. Z is snoring.

1:30--Back home. I roll Zinnia into the house, pull her out of the stroller, and place her on the bed. Big mistake. She wakes-up within minutes. Mental note to self: ALWAYS let Sleeping Babies lie.

1:31-2:15 A blur of time, noteworthy in that kick-off for the Packer game was at 2:15. I sing the praises of Aaron Rodgers to Zinnia who appears disturbingly neutral.

2:30--I put her back in the K'tan, and we dance around a bit. Zinnia is a little dancing queen.

2:45--Diaper change.

3:07--I look at the clock. Is it broken or what?

3:21--The Packers are up, but time has slowed to the consistency of molasses. I notice that babies are, well, quite dull to be around. I plug in a sports podcast.

3:30--Halftime. I give Jenn a call to see how things are going. She hasn't sold anything yet.

"So are you coming home early?" I say, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.

"Nope. I'm going to stay to the bitter end," she says cheerfully.

"Excellent." Me 50% meaning it.

3:35--We start cleaning house and tidying up. Zinnia is quite philosophical about this, and is happy with whatever, just so we stay in constant motion. I like the challenge of dusting with a baby strapped to my belly and consider whether I should clean the windows and sliding glass doors before deciding against it. The risk of a sudden breeze blowing Windex back into her face is simply not worth the risk. I give myself a mental pat on the back for making a sound fatherly decision. By myself. Me.

3:55--Time for another walk, This time Zinnia is squirmy and whinier then before. Her nose turns pale red, and I project she is confused and a little irritated: Wait--what? Didn't we just do this?

Yes, child. Yes we did.

4:20--Heading down the home stretch--a little over an hour to go. I don't care how cute and brilliant she is, I'm tired, hungry, and bored from hanging out with a four month-old all afternoon. I also feel a deep appreciation for the job that Jenn does on a daily basis. She loves spending time with Zinnia more than anything else. Being with a baby is the most concentrated mindfulness practice I have ever participated in.

4:45--Tick-tock, Tick-tock ...

5:10--Jenn calls to tell me she is at the grocery store--a five minute drive from our house.

"Do you want anything?" she asks.

Yeah, fucking come home as soon as possible. "Animal crackers," I say at last. (I like to crush them up and mix them with my yogurt.)

"You got it. Anything else?"

"No. See you soon."

5:25--Zinnia and I take a ride on the glider chair in our bedroom while I bounce her on the saddle of my knees and sing the Bonanza theme song. This always makes her smile.

5:35--I resist the urge to call Jenn. Where the hell is she? No, no, no--happy thoughts, happy thoughts. I re-focus on Zinnie. She sucks down a bottle like I've been starving her all afternoon. With any luck Z. will be in her happy place by the time mama comes home. I scoop her up and we go outside to greet Jenn. Nothing. Crickets. We go back inside.

5:45--At last! Headlights in the driveway, the garage door opening, an engine turned off, and silence. The front door opens, and mother and daughter have an ecstatic reunion. If our daughter had a tail, she would have thumped it with delight. Both Jenn and Zinnia are enraptured, completely enchanted to see each other again. Z. lets out a series of squeals and giggles while Jenn laughs and rains kisses down upon her head and holds her close.

With Jenn's little excursion, it feels like all of us crossed some sort of threshold. Jenn, now knows she can leave for a period of time and come back to a living, breathing baby. Her world has suddenly expanded, and as an added bonus her trust in her husband has increased as well.

For my part, I knew I would do okay with Zinnia, but didn't really know what to expect. "Doing okay" seems to have a wide range, from "Well, we survived" to "I want to be a stay at home dad for the rest of my life.

I needed to get that initial experience under my belt to feel fully confident as a father. I realized afterward that I had been subtly preparing myself for this very day, not just for the previous couple of weeks (which was certainly true), but for most of my adult life.

It was a good day.


*The comforter has a special meaning to me. It was my father's who, as he sat dying in his favorite recliner seven years ago, kept it on his lap pretty much night-and-day. I'm emotionally attached to very few material possessions in my life, but that blanket has some weight to it.

Same Question, Different Answer

Zinnia has a cold. As does Jenn. As do I. We are The Cold Family.

For her part, Zinnia has been having problems breathing since arriving on the planet, but she could sure use a break. Imagine the kind of cold that has you coughing and sneezing, and your nose is a running snot faucet; the kind of cold that every time you sneeze it rattles your brain and burns your sinuses; the kind of cold that feels worse in the middle of the night because your nose is so clogged that you wake-up with your mouth open like some slack-jawed yokel because you're struggling to breath.

That kind of cold.

And since Zinnia can't blow her nose (neither can her father*), she is dependent on her mama to wake-up periodically and squirt saline up both her little nostrils, followed by, if necessary, a suctioning out of the mucus. Poor thing.

Nevertheless, as undauntable as ever, Z. wakes up chipper and ready to carpe the heck out of the diem. Of late, this has been a 4:30-6:00 a.m. affair. With a brief squawk and some tossing and turning (ostensibly for a bottle or a diaper change), she is up after eight hours of slumber. If it's one of her early-to-rise days and Jenn and I catch it just right (a smooth diaper change, a timely feeding), Zinnia's eyes blink open for a only moment, but quickly close while her mouth goes into overdrive as soon as the proffered nipple hits her lips. On these blessed mornings, she goes back to sleep for an extra hour or two.

More often than not, however, Zinnia's internal clock is bidding her arise. On these mornings, our little biscuit gazes up lovingly at her parents awake and alert with what we refer to as "The Smile of Death." The SOD tells us, "You can kid yourselves all you want. There is no way I'm going back to sleep. And neither are you." Or so she thinks.

Every third day or so, I carry Zinnia out into the darkened living room and--ever the snake charmer--hold and sway with her for a bit until I feel her body melt into my arms. I take a seat on the Comfy Couch, wrap Zinnia in a Fuzzy Blanket, and hold her on my chest and belly as she burrows and shifts, nestles in, and blessedly falls back asleep. I live for these moments, and in the quiet early morning hours will sometimes just smell the top of her head and listen to her breathe.**

A number of entries ago, when I was in freak-out mode about being a new dad and kissing my old life goodbye. The long-time reader of Babies Crawl A Lot may remember that I was asked if I could even imagine what my life was like without my cute, high maintenance, wobble-headed, often wailing, jellyfish of a daughter. My answer at the time was an arched eyebrow, "Let me get back to you on that one." I resented the question and the assumption behind it that I would somehow be immediately in love with this pink blob that had thrust herself into my life.

Today, if queried with the same question, I would answer with a humble and unequivocal, "No, I cannot picture my life without Zinnia, nor would I want to try." Even her urping-up on my my favorite sweater (while I'm in it) is somehow special. She is a complete and utter delight.


*Nose blowing is one of those things that, as far as I can recall, I was never taught as a kid. Now these fifty years later when I blow my nose, no matter how I hold the tissue, it pretty much goes all over the place. Lets just say, it's not something I do willingly in public. Much more manly to block one nostril and do a Street Blow.

** At other times I cradle my daughter while listening to my favorite sports podcast. Good God--I'm only human!

Zinnia the Pasha

The Packers are 11-0, but they're record belies the fact that their defense is giving up points and yardage at an astronomical rate. If they didn't have the other-worldly Aaron Rogers as their quarterback, they would likely be 5-5 team rather than making a run at perfection.

Yesterday, the Green Bay Packers kicked the Detroit Lion's collective butts on Thanksgiving Day. The Lions--long the doormat of the NFL--have become respectable, so the game was a good litmus test and a sign that Pack may be peaking at just the right time. If a team is playing its "A Game" by, say, the third game of the season, this often means one of two things: 1) The team is frickin' good, and they are about to decimate the other clubs on their way to the Superbowl. (Think 1983 Bear, the 1994 San Fransisco 49's, 1993 Cowboys, and the 2003 Patriots).

The alternative is that the team gets off to a hot start, but it's more because--by fluke or skill--they have caught lightening in a bottle, even but briefly. But there's a crack in the glass, and it soon becomes apparent that the team has been playing over their own heads. Once the rest of the league figures this out, the team struggles to sustain their winning ways and often fade by week eight (this season's Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions, to name two). There's a reason why race horses and and marathon runners don't sprint out to the lead. They need to pace themselves for the final kick.

And if there is a reader who has made it past the previous three paragraphs un-glassy eyed and willing to bravely plod on, it is 6:30 A.M. Zinnia is propped up to my left between two pillows making the most adorable possessed baby sounds. This is part of our morning ritual: Mama gets an extra hour or two of sleep while papa and daughter go out to the living room where we open the drapes, feed the cats, and Zinnie grunts until her eyes water and her diaper is full.

As opposed to my last blog where I noted our baby starts to wail when even in the vicinity of a urine molecule, Zinnia seems to have a relative high tolerance for sitting in her own feces. It's probably the difference between warm and slippery versus cold and wet. She is now roughly the size and weight of the turkey we will be roasting today--about thirteen pounds. Lately, she has been chugging the formula like nobody's business.

It is gray and cool outside, and Jenn's mother and maternal grandparents are in town visiting for two days. I consider this quite the gift, the elders being able to meet their great grandchild. (And vice-versa.) The closest the author's mother, Barbara, has come to witnessing her new granddaughter was through a static-lined, computer screen during a Skype session two weeks ago. Jenn, Zinnia, and I will likely be going to Wisconsin sometime this early spring so that Brew City may behold the stunning charm, beauty, and wit of the Girl-Child, she whose name begins with the final letter of the alphabet--Zee/Zeta/Zipity-doo-da.

(11/30/11) Recently, Jenn and I went through a period where things felt strained between us, and her annoyance with me was palpable. Jenn's friend, M., told Jenn it took her a full year after giving birth for her spouse-a-cidal thoughts to abate. I can imagine the combination of exhaustion, hormones, and feelings of isolation take their toll. Once the postpartum moon has risen, the normal waxings-and-wanings of a relationship must, out of necessity, become exaggerated, while the all encompassing presence of the baby eclipses everything in its path. This can, to put it mildly, place a strain on a marriage. Odd to mill about one's house knowing that, at least for the moment, much of what one says is irritating one's spouse.

Prior to Zinnia's birth, I scoured over every birthing book I could get my hands on. (And by scour, I mean I voraciously plowed through several books written for new fathers. And by voraciously, I mean I read handful of pages, and by several I mean I paged through one book a friend loaned me. I'm generally not big on book learnin' when it comes to real life experiences.)

Anyhoo, in the daddy book I did peruse, the author proposed that one of the duties of a new father is--in essence--to serve as a punching bag for the exhausted, hormonal mother. I took this to mean that the new father should do his best not to take things personally while serving as a sounding board for his wife, to give her a place to vent ... even if it's directed at him. I feel I have done this to a degree, but it's a challenging energy to sit in the fire of, and sometime I withdraw or get snippy in return.

(12/5/11) It's blustery and cold today with an inch of snow on he ground. I walked Zinnie around for an hour-and-a-quarter this morning in the pre-sunrise dimness of our home . We smiled at each other in the bathroom mirror, watched Duma the Kitty drink from the dripping faucet (she likes running water), and I strapped Zinnia in the bouncy chaired for a while so I could read up on the fantastic, last second victory the Packers had over the Giants yesterday (putting them at 12-0 for the season). Then Zinnia interrupted my celebration with her patented possessed baby sounds, and Icarried her to the staging area on the living room floor to change her diaper.

I aspire to my daughter's self-esteem. Without any qualms or insecurities as to whether or not she deserves it, Zinnia asks for what she wants in every moment of the day. Sometimes Jenn and I will double-team her: I'll feed her a bottle of formula while Jenn dries her off after a shower or changes her diaper. Zinnia deigns to allow us to serve her like a Pasha lounging on a dais of silk pillows.

And we find Zinnie's curled lip cry so endearing, that it makes us laugh even as we scramble to figure out what she needs. I have wondered at times if our daughter will somehow interpret our laughter as derisive or mocking, and that with our mirth we will unintentionally scar her for life. Perhaps down the road, when Zinnia has become a mentally unstable 27 year-old picking people off from a bell tower, she will cite her parents mocking laughter when she was an infant as the precipitating event.

Yes, Jenn and I will scar Zinnia for life--that is for certain and the role of every parent, intended or unintended. Energetically, however, our laughter is infused with complete, adoring love, and Zinnia the Prescient is well aware that there is literally nothing either of her parents wouldn't do to catapult her into the world in the best possible way.