Those who can't do...

So, when we were pregnant with Ian, I was well aware of my skill deficiencies in all areas of infant care.  As a result of this consciousness, I pretty much jumped at the chance when I learned there were several “new parent” classes available at the midwife practice we were using.  One such class, called “Daddy Boot Camp”, was of particular interest to me, since as the name suggests, it’s just for dads and focuses on FAQ’s in a sort of crash-course manner.  It turned out to be a lot more of a group therapy thing than an informative thing, but I digress…  This past Saturday, I was invited back as their “Veteran Dad” so I could share my vast amount of acquired knowledge about babies with all the nervous soon-to-be’s.  Little did they know, right?  Anyway, I was perceived as a master of the newborn universe thanks greatly to Ian.  This class is 3 hours long and he was totally perfect the entire time, even without his mother being there.  He smiled at everyone, played on the floor quietly with some stuff I brought, showed everyone how he’s already got a tooth and he’s crawling and pulling himself to his feet, and then he even took like an hour nap.  I was pretty ashamed of myself for bringing my perfect little baby to show off to a bunch of guys who statistically aren’t going to have nearly that easy of a time, but then I realized that perhaps some, like me, who were the most scared of the sleepless nights and wailing babies could actually be relieved to see that not all the horror stories are true.  You’ll lose sleep, but not necessarily all of it.  They’ll cry, but not necessarily all the time.  They’ll blow creamy peanut butter out of their ass, but not necessarily all over your lap.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a new dad (and again I feel I’m pretty spoiled with Ian), it’s that no matter how bad you thought it was going to be, that little face will always make you remember how not bad it really is.

Do me a solid...

While Ian has apparently mastered the phases of liquids and gasses (yes, that's a fart joke), he is merely an amateur at the solids phase.  Ian has had about a week now of "real" food, adding all manner of fruits and vegetables to his previous rice-cereal repertoire.  He currently eats avocado, carrots, zucchini, apples, pears, bananas, and probably other things that I'm already forgetting.  He's even eating them in a high chair, thanks to his Abuela.  Along with his first foods, he has also recently had his first cold.  I suppose it could be said that we've been luckier than most on the infirmary front, having had over six months without so much as a sneeze, but it can still break your heart listening to him breathe through his mouth because his little nose is too plugged up.  His eyes are always red and watery, and he just can't get comfortable enough to sleep any longer than half an hour at a time.  It's been a while since I've felt as helpless as I do when I just can't seem to help him, or even explain to him what's wrong with him in a manner he'll understand just to soothe him a little.  After a day or two, he finally had his first unscheduled doctor trip, where we were assured that it was just a little cold, and we could only help by putting a humidifier in the room (which sounds completely ridiculous to a person who fled from Florida, by the way), and the occasional doling out of children's Tylenol.  He has since rebounded, and although he's still a little under the weather, he's definitely been showing signs of life again, and the return of his little smile is enough to mend your previously broken heart.

Man of the cloth...

Save the trees!.. Save the whales!.. Save the ozone!.. Save the planet!.. Whatever most people's reasoning is for doing cloth diapers, ours is more of a "Save the money!.."  After  the baby showers we had before Ian was born, we had quite a stockpile of disposable diapers, but now (almost 6 months to the day) we are finally running low on them, meaning it's time to start the somehow-more-disgusting task of wrapping Ian's little tushy in a beach towel.    My wife is all about the cloth diapers, but I've got to say I'm not totally convinced yet.  We've had a few dry runs with the cloth (no pun intended, especially since there was nothing "dry" about them) and I just find them to be a little more cumbersome than expected.  We've got several of the regular 2-piece kind, meaning the aforementioned beach towel which gets covered up by some rubber pants with several-thousand buttons on them.   You know what's fun?  Trying to wrap that beach towel around Ian's ass while he does triple-axles on his changing table, which now touches both the top of his head and the bottom of his feet simultaneously.  If you're lucky enough to get that Sham-wow into a position where there's only a slight chance of leakage, which is your best-case scenario, all you have to do figure out which of the several-thousand buttons match up to form the vague shape of a diaper, which is a bit like folding your leftover Chinese food up in an elegant foil swan, assuming your leftovers are flopping around like a headless cat.  We also have several all-in-ones, which are one piece as the name suggests and are therefore only half as difficult to get him into.  I suppose I'll have to figure it out eventually, or I could just sneak out like a closet-smoker at 3 am to buy disposables from the convenient store...