How Is He Still Alive!

See that little guy to the left, for those not in the know that is Logan and some how he is still doing OK one year after his birth. Last year at this time I was in a hospital room exhausted and trying to deal with being a father. Oddly enough today is pretty much the same, the exhaustion is more from working and the fatherhood thing is still freaking me out.

Somehow he is still in one piece, has not been taken away by the state, nor has he been take by a band of gypsies tricking me into taking a sack of beans. I love being a dad, but I never thought I could be one. I'm at times not the most responsible but somehow I am managing. Even with The Wife and I now working completely opposite schedules I do not see Logan as much and it sucks, but I have to keep telling myself he loves me still and will not forget who I am.

From what I've heard, we got off pretty easy this first year, not a lot of problems expect that at times he does not like this thing called sleep or wants to sleep in our bed. I'm wondering what the next year will bring, will we get revenge for the first year or will it be similar to the first? When will he start walking and when will Lucy start living in our bedroom to get away from the whirlwind known as Logan.

A Man's Guide to Babies

With King Tom and others having "youngins" and Logan about to hit the 6 month mark I thought I'd share what I have learned about this whole baby thing. Going into the new phase in life I had no real idea of what was going to happen. My whole goal was to follow the lead of The Wife and keep my head down and hope Logan made it through. You see no one told me the important things I needed to know about dealing with babies.

First go back and read this previous post and FREAKING DO IT! I'll sum it up in once sentence; If you are having a baby ween yourself off sleep.

After the little one is born and you are in the hospital look around the room and find things that you can take. I'm mostly talking about diapers and formula and anything that is not nailed down that the baby will use. The thing is they are billing you for everything and keeping track of it and if you have any kind of insurance, little things like diapers and formula are such a small part of the bill it's barely going to show up on the section you will have to pay. One set of friends ended up with 15 packages of diapers and 11 formula boxes. We didn't make out with that much, but as we are checking out I asked the nurse for a little extra and she loaded us up.

Here is why the diaper thing is so huge, tell family and friends to buy you stage 2 and 3 diapers. If you can make out like a bandit from the hospital you are set for infant diapers and that leaves you with stage 1 diapers. I still don't fully understand all the stages but the one thing I know Logan was out of infants within a month and was in stage 2 by around 3 month. He is now exiting stage 2 into 3. Baby don't stay in those early stages long so you can afford to buy that first stage. Stock up on the later ones as early as you can. It's not like they are fruit that go bad. We had two giant boxes of stage 3 diapers just sitting in a closet waiting for this day.

When you are using all your gifted diapers, use the ones that you do not have a gift recite first. Babies R Us are crazy about this, we had to jump through hoops to prove that the diapers came from their store so we could exchange them for a larger size. I understand that we live in a time where people are going to try and get away with murder but it gets a little crazy. I'd even say if you are given diapers as a present ask the person for the recipte. I know that might sound a little harsh but freaking diapers are not cheap.

Diapers are freaking expensive and Target brand diapers kick ass! Logan for some reason always pees through Huggies and Pampers, but put him those polka dotted Target brand diapers and he will stay dry. I think I bought 96 diapers for 13 bucks or something last week, now look at how much that would have been with a major brand. For 20 more it's 33.99 and that's on the cheap side. It's a total racked and they know it. It's like professional video cameras, the cameras do not really cost any where from $6,000-20,000 but they know it's niche market and people have to buy them. Diapers are the same, every baby needs them and they are going to make you pay.

Speaking of diapers lets go to what ends up in them... poop. I never changed a diaper till we had Logan and it's an experience. For a new dad here's the deal, it's black and looks like tar at first. It doesn't smell but looks like it came out of a tar pit and a miniature dinosaur bones are in there somewhere. Once the Labrea Tar Pit ends it's not that bad for a while, it's a little messy but still not a lot of smell. Once they start to use more formula then that's when it becomes bad. For some strange reason this smell does not effect women as much as men. She can muscle through when I get the gag reflex going. It must be a mother thing because that smell gets foul and I need to cover my nose. She wants to laugh at me, but hey I could turn into 50s dad and make her do them all so at least I am helping.

Back to the sleep thing, I love sleep and early on I was a creature of the night, now I go to bed early and here is why. Babies have an extra sense that science has not figured out yet. They know when everyone in the house is sleeping and they hate that. Starting out Logan would wake up ever two to three hours and want food. I said I'd take the late night feedings. I'd try and try to stay up until he woke up. Some nights it worked, most nights not so much. The second I'd lay down and start to get into that deep sleep he would scream his head off. It was like clock work and I think infants hate when more than two thirds of the house is asleep. This is where researchers need to be doing their work. My advice is go to sleep and just forget trying to time it out, sleep is your friend.

Another thing for new dads is remember babies are repulsed by testosterone, it's like Brut and any woman under 50, they don't go together. In the beginning if The Wife left for more than two hours I'd have a screaming baby on my hands. The Wife would return and the second I handed Logan to her the insanity would stop. As the months rolled on the time has increased and now I can go about 5 hours before bedlam is unleashed. Don't get frustrated, I've been told this happens to everyone and sometime after a year it changes and babies want their dads more. Just roll with the punches, buy really nice earphones and throw on some speed metal or something loud and wait for that change.

Finally, don't let the mother get all crazy and buy a billion outfits. Logan started out 16 inches
(don't quote me on that) and now he's about 25 inches. Babies grow fast and we have some outfits he has only worn once and a few he never got to wear. The big thing is find friends who have had babies 5 months earlier and someone who is having one after you and share all the clothes. We have two good friends, one with a one year old and another with a 9 month old. We have given them clothes and they have given us the ones they can't use anymore. It's going to save you a ton of money. It might also help to invest in those horse blinders or something to help keep the momma away from the baby clothes section. I may get a few nasty emails and comments from women in my family or passerbys but all I know is The Wife still comes home with new outfits all the time. Most are on clearance but it gets crazy and before you blink the kid is popping out of the outfit.

Some people will read this and think that I am crazy for not realizing all this stuff earlier, but hey for a lot of guys out there this will be new and they need to know this stuff. I'm probably forgetting a lot, if you have a tip add it in the comments or for those that know me email me and I'll try and do more of these. As men we need to stick together and have our own guide to this baby thing.

Sleep

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. ~Leo J. Burke

I've not posted over the last couple of month because of a couple of reasons; I've been in a "down" mood because of the lack of a job and has caused problems all over the board and most of the time I would want to write it was very negative and dark that I would probably get phone calls from family and friends wanting me to put down the knife (I was just making a peanut butter sandwich... seriously). Then the other reason, my mind has been turned into a kind of puree or slurry which does not allow any form of thought to flow easily. What is this thing that has my brain in constant zombie mode? Lack of sleep.

For months before Logan was born I was told that I needed to get all the sleep in that I could. To those people, I hate you, you gave me the wrong advice. I needed to do the opposite and ween myself off of sleep. I'm the kind of person that needs 8 hours straight or I just don't function properly, and since the arrival of Logan, I do not get that 8 hours any more.

Also this kid can sense when I am about to enter REM sleep, 20 minutes after I hit my pillow he starts screaming. We have a system setup for feedings, I do anything prior to 2am and some how I now have the post 5:30am as well. Once the crying starts I get up, start the bottle warmer, change a diaper and then it's bottle time. If I am lucky he will be out in 30 minutes. Then there are the nights that he's up for an hour, then 5 minutes after I lay him down he's back up. One night I tried to stay up until he was hungry and that turned disastrous. I was up till almost 1am and he started crying at 1:50am. I get him a sleep and the next thing I know The Wife is waking me up and it's after 5 and I have to feed him, I finally end up falling asleep on the couch while he is asleep in the swing.

Maybe it's a good thing that I am currently unemployed, I'd be a wreck at any kind of job and I still can't figure out how I get some of my "freelance" stuff done. Logan is getting closer to sleeping longer hours but I think we are a few months away from getting him to sleep from 10-6.

The Wife and Logan are leaving for a week to see family in Ohio and maybe I can get some sleep and get myself back to a some what normal life. Maybe I will get a call back or even an interview. Yeah right, I start with the sleep and hope that another position somewhere opens up.

Unexpected Suprise

So much for the baby beard. 90 percent of you know what I'm talking about, but for the people who randomly came to the site Logan came early.

For the last few weeks people have been telling The Wife that she looked like her belly had dropped and she started to complain about her pelvic area. I thought she could go a little early, but on Monday July 13th at 3:30AM I wake up to The Wife leaning over me. Obviously I am a sleep and I have no idea what's going on, I thought see was leaving for work. "My muscus plug came out and my water broke. For weeks The Wife kept thinking up senerios about when her water was going to break. According to our baby classes, only 12 percent of all births begin with the water breaking. We had numerous friend with water breaks so law of averages were against this line of thinking. She needed to plan to have contractions and then maybe after a few hours her water breaking. Stupid classes making me look like a fool!

I get out of bed and we start to get the last items needed for the trip to the hospital. I'm calm when talking to The Wife, but inside I am freaking out that our son is coming a month early. We get on the road and we are making great time. So great of time The Wife lets me stop for a donut and a coffee. Mmmm donuts.

We get to the hospital at 4:30 and go up to the waiting area. The next hour and a half go by like a blur. The Wife is now on a gurney with an IV and a gown on. Around 5:00 we are told that it could be a while till we are scheduled, then at 6:00 we have a 7:15 time. Time started to slow down and we couldn't do anything, she's on a gurney and I'm internally freaking out. We talk and try to pass the time, but when you finally have the finish line in front of you, it feels so far away.

As we are given information, they mention the cathater will be put in a little bit. The Wife looks at me and ask, "where are they going to put that?" I explain that it's so she doesn't have to worry about going to the bathroom. Her eyes get the size of saucers and asks if this is done after the spinal tap. As a good husband I laughed for a good five minutes. She is always laughing at me when I get hurt and for some reason, seeing her worry of the cathater and not the giant hole about to be cut into her made me laugh. That was my pay back moment.

We are next informed that they are takin her to the OR and I will be put in scrubs. Me being me I lean over and ask if she can call me JD or Turk from the TV show Scrubs. She gives me the wife look of death and then I get the ol' stink eye when I ask if she can call me The Todd. We are seperated for a few minutes as I scrub up. I walk into the OR and all I see is The Wife's head and a giant sheet. It is mentioned that I can look over if I want and as I mentioned in a previous blog I did not want to see that. After about 15 minutes of pushing and moving behind the curtain we hear, "there's the butt" followed by "I think he's sucking his toes?" Followed by a cry and I look over to The Wife and she is balling, I am tearing up as well and we see our son being taken past us to another room.

I'm allowed to follow and to be honest a new born baby is kind of discusting, they are slimey and covered in blood. I of course don't care and crack out the video camera and digital camera and shoot away. After a few minutes they have me put the camera down and I am now holding my son. It's strange yet awesome all rolled into one. I take him in to see The Wife and as I sit down I accidentally glanced past the curtain, all I saw was a giant hole and what appeared to be flesh. I duck down fast and shudder for a second. The Wife is crying even more now and she gets to see him for a few minutes.

Logan and I leave the OR and we go to the nursery for all the tests and everyone loves this kid. Look at that picture with all that blond hair. Watch out newborn girls, Logan is on the prowl. By this time, he has only cried once, when he first came out. He was vocal, but never did that typical cry you hear from babies. The other two newborns in the room are doing that, but Logan is quiet. He passes most of his test with flying colors and after 30 minutes I go back to see The Wife.

For having a giant hole cut into her, she is doing pretty well and it even surprised the nurses. She instantly saw Logan again and went into mother mode in .00000001 seconds. From that point on things have gone smoothly. I know I'm a week behind and I'll try and catch everyone up within the next few days

Baby Beard

We are in the last month of the pregnancy and I feel like this is the playoffs and we need something else... baby beard. Friday morning is the last time I will shave until Logan finally comes. I mean hockey players do it for the Stanley Cup and this is kind of as big as the Stanley Cup so I might as well try and get as much luck as I can. The longest I have gone without shaving is about two weeks and it was driving me crazy. Hopefully this will get The Wife a little help in the pain department, if she sees me struggling through the itchy part of full beard then maybe she will think that she can get through this. Who am I kidding, she will yell at me for complaining about an itchy beard while she as a small person inside her. At least this way I can save money on razors and shaving cream.

I'm taking a picture every day that I remember. I already forgot on day two, but you can't tell any difference between day two and three so that really doesn't matter.

Defiance In The Womb

The Wife and I went in for a baby appointment today and we found out that Logan is still breech. What does that mean for us? The Wife now gets to have a C section sometime around August 4th. My first thought was great, we paid for those child birth classes for nothing. The Wife's thought was great, now I can't tell out friends what a natural child birth is like.

They told us there is a 5% chance that he will turn around and with The Wife having gestational Diabetes, a placenta up front and this being our first child, they don't want to mess with trying to move him around. To be honest I'm fine with that, now we will know pretty much when he will be born and can prepare for it. The Mother-in-Law now can book a flight and we can get the house cleaned and ready to go.

Baby Class Update

My sister Julie wanted an update about how baby class is going and all I have to say is I have seen too many breasts and vaja jays for my comfort. I keep hearing about how beautiful the birth of a child is and I want to know if these are the same people who enjoy crime scene photos. With TV shows like Baby Day and whatever else TLC shows, they usually blur out the lower region and truthfully that's fine with me. The class on the other hand shows it all. There's screaming, yelling, and a blood covered body sliding out of another person. It's like Alien, but with less death and toxic spit.

Coming from the TV world I sit in this class thinking how did the production crews get permission from these people to be in there. I had trouble getting people to talk about gas prices and these guys have a camera two feet away from the action. I can't get a digital camera two feet near The Wife before she starts freaking out. Yet after watching the carnage in the video The Wife leans over EVERY time and says that she wants to have the baby now. My reaction is why isn't this the 50s, I get to sit in a waiting room with 5 other dads and then the nurse comes out and says it's a boy. I get all excited and hand out cigars. I'm guessing it's going to be different when it's my kid, but freaking a man, do they need two solid weeks of showing me the delivery?

There has be one conversation I did giggle at for a few moments... episiotomies. This is where the doctors snip the region below the birth canal and the rectum. For most people my age, that region is know as the taint. I don't know why this turns me into a 13 year old boy, but it does. The Wife hates when I bring up the episiotomy, because she does not want it done and I giggle like a school boy. There was one point in the class where the instructor talked about rubbing some ointment around this area. The Wife leans over and gives me the best movie reference she has in months. "Can I just spray a little Pam down there?" Look at the above movie clip and you laugh as much as I did in the class.

This past week we had practice with dolls on how to waddle them and how to take their temperature. On the temperature there are two ways to do this, under the arm in rectally. The under the arm one seems pretty easy. Then we learned how to do the other and a collective groan went through the room. The instructor said the baby probably won't enjoy this. Really? The baby doesn't want something shoved into that orifice? I'm glad I'm past that stage and can just do an oral thermometer.

Finally, I felt bad for one guy in the class. We had to answer some questions and his was about warming up a bottle. He started out with the easy answer of running it under the faucet. Then he gave a wrong answer and said microwave. I thought four women in the class were about to get up and club him like a baby seal. He tried to recover by saying he was testing everyone but the damage was done, he's "that father" the one who is going to screw up his kid. To be honest, I would have probably said the same thing and looking around the room there were at least two others that would have said microwave. I'm glad we had the easy question about introducing your pets to the newborn (thank you Shawn, Melissa and magazine article in the doctors waiting area).

Next week will be just as fun, breast feeding and rehearsal for delivery. At least we're done with things coming out of vaginas.

Baby Class

Last week we started out five week baby classes at the hospital and already I am learning way too much. First of all there are 12 pregnant ladies in one room, that can't be a good thing. That many hormones have to be some kind of health violation or fire code. Every thing started out OK till I heard the line "Husbands, you are going to learn somethings you may not wanted to know." Trust me, I did not need to hear most of them. Mostly the mucus plug and how it will come out and what it is, also what color it might be. This conversation took a good 20 minutes. At this time I sneak my cell phone out and text Shawn who has been covering a building explosion and wanted to know if he would trade. His answer was no. This is so bad that even though he has gone through this class he does not want to do it again and would rather deal with chaos or a police scene and a newsroom. I'm in trouble here.

We finally get away from that and go to breathing exercises, nothing bad here right? Wrong, I find out that men have kegels. I actually learned about them at an early age, from Night Court. There was an episode where Christine was taking a baby class and she went with everyone from court including Dan. The instructor mentioned kegels and that you need to do them and no one could tell you are doing them. "I'm doing them now... could anyone tell?" Dan raises his hand, looks at his watch and says "For about 20 minutes." Back to the class, we are lying on the floor breathing and the instructor starts at the head and works her way down the body. She gets to the kegels and I lean over and ask The Wife, do I have kegels? That's when I hear, OK guys even you have kegels, what do you think you use when you have a bowel movement. I'm done for the night. I keep thinking about the fact I have kegels.

This week was the one with the video. We watched as this head comes roaring out a small hole. Holy Crap that looks bad! The instructor keeps trying to convince everyone not to use an epidural. Hell, after watching that I want one. This class is suppose to be helpful, instead it driving me even further to the depths of crazy. I'm now terrified about the handling the baby class. Is it too late to return it?

Baby Training

I might need some more work on putting the baby in the car seat.

Some Assembly Required

This past Friday I was sitting at home enjoying the alone time. I started to walk from the office to the bedroom when I noticed the UPS man outside. We weren't expecting any packages and I started wondering what could it be. The UPS man emerged from the brown truck with a rather large box. Now I am really intrigued, what in the world is in that box? He finally struggled his way to the door and what do I see, a picture of a stroller on the box. Of course I am stunned and I want to head for the hills. This was the first present we have received and it had to be one of the largest ones. I am not faced with the fact that this kid is coming. I send a picture to The Wife and she is excited and now I have a project, putting this thing together.

We found out that my family bought the stroller and during that conversation that this will be my first of my test at my abilities to put things together. I must have had a mind meld with my dad because I started flashing back to my childhood, the bikes, Castle Grayskull, basketball hoops and other items from my childhood.

I waited till The Wife came home and she ripped open the box like it was Christmas and I finally get into the room to help take out the stroller. I decided against the traditional man thing and look at the directions. I kid you not the first eight pages were different languages telling me now to not use the stroller. I finally find the first page of the instructions and find the English portion.

The instructions are mostly pictures, and still I felt stupid trying to figure out what they mean. Then The Wife told me to turn the directions the other way. Within 15 minutes I finished putting the stroller together and now we have to figure out of if we actually did it right. Shawn and Melissa would let us use Nathan we had to find a substitute... George. George is going to be Logan's stuffed animal that he will always have. I was taught how to strap him in and how to put the car sit in the stroller. and we pushed George around in the stroller... it didn't collapse, WOO HOO!

It appears that I have passed my first test as a dad, I put something together and nothing bad happened. I wonder what will be the next big test.

The Wife Is Now Insane

This baby thing is starting to get out of control. The Wife comes home all excited about a gift she received from one of her clients. It's a book called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. She starts reading it and gets a look of pure happiness. The plot is pretty elaborate, the letter A starts to climb a tree and before anyone realizes it the rest of the letters climb up behind A. Spoiler Alert here, all the letters get into the tree and then fall.

Here is a direct quote as she finishes the book "This book is the most awesome book ever!" I guess we have to read this to Logan every night. Why, I have no idea, but I'm just along for the ride. Oh what a crazy ride it is.

Cravings

One of the things I have always heard about pregnancy is that the woman gets strange cravings like ice cream and pickles or just instant cravings. The Wife is in denial over the cravings, yet I know the truth and here is a list of the foods she has craved:

• Ice Cream- This has been the biggest one, I'm guessing at least 5 times.
• Fish Sticks- I kid you not, why? I don't know be she sees a Long John Silver commercial and she wants fish sticks.
• Buffalo Wings
• Mexican Food- I don't mind this at all.
• Jalapenos- Everything has to have them.
• McDonald's Pancake Breakfast-One Saturday morning 15 minutes before they stopped serving breakfast I had to run out and get the Deluxe breakfast.
• Pancakes- Totally different than the above, we had to stop at IHOP for pancakes today after the ultrasound.
• Salt and Vinegar Chips- She keeps getting a bag for me and before I can get a chip it's gone.
• Popsicles

There are a few that I can not remember, but she is reading this over my shoulder and the quote was "Mmmmmm Buffalo Wings!" Off to the closest BW3 in Knightdale a good 35 minutes away.

I am being forced to mention that most of these items are also things I crave. What can I say, Logan and I are in sync.

It's a Boy

We went this morning for the level two ultrasound and everything is looking good, the baby seems healthy and everything is good... oh yeah and we are having a boy. To be honest I would have been happy to have a girl, but this is awesome! The J Dog family name will live on for another generation. Then you have all the cool stuff I can do, play sports, teach him how to throw a knuckleball, spit, throw an elbow of the top ropes and all those other cool boy things.

Halloween will be a lot cooler. I'm now trying to find either a baby Wolverine outfit or how I can make my own Ash costume... chainsaw and all! The Wife is all happy as well, she now 100% feels like she is pregnant and is happy because we can go register at Baby's R Us and Target. I'm happy with that because I want to play with the scanner gun.

Naked Baby Photos

Well, technically the baby is naked because I don't think Baby Gap has figured a way to make and market unborn baby clothes. We went in today for another check up and this time the little guy (I'm using the make pronouns for no real reason... still too early to tell the sex) and with the ultrasound we got to see him go all nimbly bimbly kicking and swinging his arms and legs. It was a pretty cool sight to see. He's only an inch and a half long, but he's starting to look like a baby.

OK I promise the next few post will not be baby related.

Bad and Good Day

I woke up today feeling pretty good, then 20 minutes later I was rushing The Wife to the doctor. She started bleeding and all of the sudden large blood clots started to come along. She was fearing a miscarriage and I went into freaked out control mode, everything was slowing down, but inside I was freaking out. I calmly get her ready as I got dressed.

I flew down the highway towards Raleigh as The Wife makes an appointment. We are fearing the worst and I have never prayed so much in my life. I finally got to the point where I was ready to be a father.

Then I started to think about the last 30 days and I don't think I could handle any more bad news. I was feeling like Job and I don't think I could handle much more.

We get back to the ultrasound room and the doctor starts doing her thing and she is showing us the water sack... we can't see anything and The Wife starts to cry. She starts moving around in there and the next thing you see is this little blip on the screen. She makes it larger and we are still having a baby. We even saw the heart beat. We both cried with joy and relief. You can see The Baby in the picture and we are so excited.

There is one problem though, The Wife is now high risk for a miscarriage and has to take it easy. For the next three days she has to have her feet above her heart and can't do anything. I'm not even allowing her to get up to change the DVD. We have three more weeks until we hit the second trimester and even then things could go wrong. Hey, it wouldn't be us if it was easy. I'll take the hard way as long as the baby is fine.