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.